Question No. 13 in my name was dealt with by the Minister in conjunction with a Priority Question and as we have now moved into time for ordinary questions. I should like to put a supplementary to the Minister.

The House has dealt with Priority Questions. The Deputy will appreciate that supplementary questions during priority time are confined to Members who tabled them.

The Chair allowed 20 minutes for Priority Questions again today. That is a totally unfair way to apply the rules.

We have reached the time for ordinary questions and my Question, No. 13, is an ordinary question.

I cannot facilitate the Deputy.

But the Chair can apply the rules.

We are now outside of the time allotted for Priority Questions.

That may be so but having disposed of Priority Questions I am proceeding to deal with other questions. I am calling Question No. 6 in the name of Deputy Spring.

The Minister took my Question No. 13 in conjunction with a Priority Question——

I must ask the Deputy to resume his seat.

This is not the way we operated before.

The Chair is conforming to the rules governing Priority Questions and the Deputy must appreciate that fact.

The Chair should check the rules again. We are more than five minutes into the time allotted for ordinary questions. I allowed the Minister to proceed to answer my question with a Priority Question on the basis that as we were five minutes into the time allotted for ordinary questions I would be allowed put a supplementary question to the Minister. The Chair took five minutes from the time allotted for ordinary questions and that broke all the rules.

I did not take five minutes beyond the time.

On a point of order, I have been monitoring the amount of time being allowed by the Chair for Priority Questions in the last five or six sessions and it has varied from 20 minutes to 22 minutes. That is totally unfair to Members who have ordinary questions on the Order Paper.

The Chair does his best in regard to these matters.

The Chair should apply the rules fairly.

When I need Deputy Allen's advice as to how to govern the proceedings of the House I will ask for it. In the meantime, the Chair does his best in regard to Priority Questions and admonishes Deputies to facilitate him in dealing with them within the prescribed time. On occasions we may slip over the time but no matter what the Chair does he is faulted.

It does not work the other way.