Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1946 > Committee on Procedure and Privileges > Additional Report - Wearing of a Gown by the Ceann Comhairle and Leas-Cheann Comhairle

SLIOCHT AS IMEACHTA AN CHOISTE.

EXTRACT FROM PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE.

Dé Céadaoin, 17ú Iúil, 1946.

Wednesday, 17th July, 1946.

1. The Committee met at 11.15 a.m. in Room 106.

2. The following members were present:—

The Ceann Comhairle (Chairman); Deputies Beegan, Breen, Briscoe, Dillon, Doyle and Hughes.

4. Wearing of Gowns by Ceann Comhairle and Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

A draft Report brought in by the Chairman was read as follows:—

1. Consideration of this matter was re-opened by the Committee in pursuance of the Order of the Dáil of 3rd instant referring back Paragraph 2 of the Committee’s Report (T. 116) re the wearing of a gown by the Ceann Comhairle. In that paragraph the Committee had recommended that no gown be worn by the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. The Committee construed the Order of the Dáil as being a direction to have regard to the arguments put forward in the course of the debate in the Dáil on the original Report and to make such further or other recommendation on that particular aspect as, in the light of those arguments, it saw fit.

2. The Committee agreed, by a majority decision, to rescind its previous recommendation relative to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and to recommend instead that a gown be worn by that Officer when occupying the Chair of the House. In arriving at this decision the members of the Committee supporting it were influenced by the fact that of the Deputies who took part in the debate in the Dáil, only one expressed himself as being opposed to the wearing of a gown by the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. The arguments for the latter point of view did not appear to a majority of the Committee to be of sufficient weight to offset what appeared to be the general outlook of the Dáil on the matter.

3. The Committee decided that the gown to be worn by the Leas-Cheann Comhairle should be of a design distinguishable from that to be worn by the Ceann Comhairle, thereby marking the relative status of the two Officers.

4. In consonance with the procedure followed in the case of the original Report, the Committee advises that a Resolution adopting this Report will suffice to give its recommendations the requisite authorisation.

Draft Report agreed to, Deputies Breen and Dillon dissenting.

Ordered: That the Report together with the relevant proceedings of the Committee be presented to the Dáil.