The next Amendment on the paper in the name of Deputy Johnson to delete the word "twelve" in Article 51 ("shall consist of not more than 12 Ministers") and to substitute "seven nor less than five" must now read "to substitute the word `seven' because the words `not less than five' have been added."
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.
AN CEANN COMHAIRLE
Mr. THOMAS JOHNSON
It seems there was some wonderment as to my action in voting against the last Amendment, but I think it will be understood that I saw if the amendment had been defeated it would have been the obvious duty of every Member who did not want to see the possibility of a dictatorship of a President, or President plus one, or a President plus two set up under the original clause. If the amendment had been defeated, then my proposal would certainly have been carried.
AN CEANN COMHAIRLE
"Not less than five" would have been out of order.
Mr. THOMAS JOHNSON
It would not have been there. My proposal is, that "twelve" be deleted and that "seven" be substituted, and I think I could quote the argument of the President on the last occasion as strongly to reinforce this claim. The President insisted that it was a most undesirable thing to throw upon any one man the responsibility of choosing of his own choice so large a number as twelve Ministers to act as his Executive council. He suggested, what I think is obvious to everyone, that you cannot have a compact body of twelve men who are going to be unanimous and equally influential on the Council. With a council of twelve you are certain to have a minority, you are certain to have at least a smaller number who will be the real Cabinet, and the other few who will have the name of being the Executive Members of the Council, but who will not really be Executive Council Members. We have had that experience in recent years in this country. We have had that experience in England. I believe it is the common experience in every country that when a Cabinet or Executive Council consisting of numbers anything like 12, 13, 14, or even ten you are going to have a smaller number who are really the holders of office and wielders of power, while the others have the nominal responsibility but are not equally responsible in fact. They may have the responsibility without having real power, and that is an undesirable state of things. Besides it is not fair to put upon the President the option of saying whether his council shall be five or twelve. The Minister for Home Affairs in arguing upon the last amendment said it would be possible, as it will be, with this large flexibility, to have one President at the beginning of his Parliament saying, "I am going to have a Council of five," and a succeeding President saying, "I am going to have a Council of twelve." That does not make for continuity; it does not make for consistent policy; it will make for log-rolling; it will make for back stairs influence, and for all those things which are undesirable. It would be very much better to say the Executive Council must be a large number than to say it is to be at the option of the President whether it is to be a large number or a small number. If you leave it that way you are going to ask successive Presidents at the beginning of successive Parliaments to tell the Dáil whether they are in favour of a Council of five; you are going to ask him to say "I cannot choose twelve men out of this Dáil that I can rely upon to act collectively." You are throwing upon him the responsibility of telling his supporters that they are not good enough to form an executive Council or, alternatively, while he may think they are not good enough to compel him to bring them in. That is not an option that is desirable to give the President. It should be either one thing or another. He should be compelled to say the Council shall be twelve or the Council shall be seven or five, but to give the option of having a Council of from twelve to five, is entirely unwise because it is too great. The arguments used in favour of the last Amendment certainly seem to me very strongly against the proposition as it now stands. It is suggested that the discussion on the previous reading made a certain decision. But as Deputy Professor Magennis has pointed out, that decision was not made upon one specific point. Certain Members who formed the majority voted on the principle that they did not want persons from outside the Dáil to be brought into the Ministry, and consequently they voted in the majority. Others voted in the majority from another reason altogether, so that it cannot be said that this particular principle was voted upon on the last reading. The Minister for Home Affairs asked us to save something from the wreck. I do not think there was any wreck at all. I think certain doubtful cargo was thrown over-board, but the ship is still sound, and what is now being asked to be done is that undesirable cargo should be retained and I suggest that that part of the cargo should also be thrown over-board. I think it is desirable that we should point out, so that there can be no misapprehension, that the desire of Deputy Figgis has been fulfilled in this form of Executive. As the draft now stands, as the Bill now stands, it is not absolutely necessary that Members of the Ministry outside the Executive Council shall all be Members of the Chamber. The option still remains with the Chamber and we are now in conformity with what Deputy Figgis points out is the rule of other legislatures. There is nothing to prevent them bringing men in from outside, and my Motion will lead to this: that the Executive Council of the future will not be more than seven Members, with additional Ministers up to twelve. That would be the consequence of further amendments— which I believe will be carried—as any more Ministers above seven and up to twelve might be appointed by the Chamber, to be directly responsible to the Chamber, but I want the Dáil to vote in favour of the amendment, to restrict the Executive Council, because I believe that, throwing upon the President for the time being at the beginning of every new Parliament, the option of saying whether the Ministry he is going to gather round him—or, rather, the Executive Council he is going to gather round him—shall be seven or twelve, or any other number in between, is an option that he will not thank you for. It is not a good thing for the President—it is not a good thing for the Chamber—it is not a good thing for the Ministry itself. And it will be a bad thing for the country. I beg to move that the word "seven" be substituted for "twelve."
Mr. O'CONNELL
I second that.
Mr. E. BLYTHE
I think that the thing that would recommend this particular amendment most is that it would actually provide, I think, that there should be some Members individually responsible, because if the Executive Council is limited to seven there certainly would be some additional Ministers appointed, and that, to my mind, has a lot to recommend it. Personally I think that it provides for more rigidity than is desirable. If it were, for instance, not more than nine or less than five, I would be myself very well content with it. I think, however, as I say, that it is a little bit too rigid. It seems to me that this question of individually responsible Ministers, and collectively responsible Ministers who are members of the Executive Council will work out in this way: as long as there is a definite majority party in the Dáil, all Ministers, both in the Executive Council and outside it, will, save in very exceptional circumstances, belong to that majority party. The President who will appoint the Members of the Executive Council, who will be collectively responsible, will of necessity select that Executive Council entirely from the majority party, which he will represent. Now the extern Ministers will be chosen by a Committee proportionately or impartially representative of the entire Dáil; on that Committee there will be a majority—representing the majority party of the Dáil—and the nominees of that Committee, I take it, will in normal circumstances be all nominees of the party having the majority in the Dáil. And even if the Committee were to propose the names of members outside the majority party, then there would be the great probability that the Dáil itself and the majority party in the Dáil itself would reject the names of those representatives of other parties. That is how it is going to work in practice. That means that substantially there would be no great difference between members who are individually responsible and members who are collectively responsible. Because, being as they will normally be, and as they must in fact, because of one consideration be members of one party they will pretty well stand together and it will make no great difference at all. Now, what would happen in that case by tying the Dáil down to seven members at most on the Executive Council, would be this: that the President would have to choose, or might have to choose between two proposed Ministers, two people who are certain to get on to the Ministry, whether he would make one of them his nominee, and include him in the Executive Council, and leave the other who had, perhaps, an equal claim, outside the Executive Council to be selected by a Committee of the Dáil. That might put a difficulty up to the President which would be undesirable and there would be nothing much gained by it. There would be a certain disadvantage in having a President tied down very tightly, as this undoubtedly ties him to a very small range of discretion, and there would not be much to be gained by it. The Ministry would be made up in reality as at present of the Executive Council, until we come to the stage when there is not in the Dáil a definite majority party. If there is not a definite majority party in the Dáil the President will either be chosen for some special qualities of his own, or he will be chosen as the leader of the strongest party in the Dáil. Whether he is chosen as representative of one of the strongest parties in the Dáil, or leader of the strongest party, he will choose for his Executive Council pretty well the members of his own party; if his party is at all strong, although not a majority party definitely, he will certainly put on the Executive Council the members of his own party. Now he is not bound to put, if the clause were left as it stands with the last amendment adopted, he would not be bound by the Constitution to have any extern members on the Ministry. But if he was not the nominee of a party who had a majority in the Dáil he would be obliged to have outside Ministers. He would be obliged by the pressure of the Dáil to leave room for Ministers not members of the Executive Council and not members of the party of the President. So that I think that once we come to the stage in anticipation of which entirely new Executive proposals have been put forward—once we come to the stage at which there will not be a definite majority party in this Dáil, then I think that the pressure of the Dáil will leave the President no discretion, but to leave open to Parliament the maximum number of Ministers for nomination by a Committee of the Dáil. Now it seems to me that there is not a great deal between the two clauses—the clause as it now stands, having been amended by the acceptance of the proposal of the Minister for Home Affairs and the proposal of Deputy Johnson. I believe that in either case once we arrive at the stage when there will not be a definite majority party in the Dáil, we will have extern Ministers—Ministers not bound by collective responsibility. And although with a majority party we may have them, it will to a considerable extent be nominal only. If a clause were adopted which would tie down the President too closely, probably the only substantial effect of it might be to create difficulties of personality for him in chosing his Ministry, difficulties which he could avoid if he could add one or two more on to the Executive Council, men who might be equally entitled by their ability and by their influence on the Dáil to be on it with the original seven. As I say I would, in a sense, like to see an amendment which would make it certain that there would be some extern Ministers.
Mr. JOHNSON
Eight?
Mr. BLYTHE
Yes, or nine. I certainly would be very satisfied with nine.
Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS
Deputy Johnson addressed a certain part of his arguments towards myself, and it would be but courtesy if I were to deal with the points that he put across to me. He stated that most of the objections that I had originally given expression to in the draft, as it first appeared, had now disappeared. That is perfectly true, and so far as that goes I will be perfectly agreeable so far as I am personally concerned, to the substitution of the word "seven" in place of the word "twelve," but for the objection that I have already mentioned, and that is the question of financial responsibility. Now, I tried two or three times in this Dáil to get that particular clause dealing with financial responsibility somewhat changed, and I was not successful. I am dealing with that Article 37. It reads "Money shall not be appropriated by vote, resolution or law, unless the purpose of the appropriation has in the same session been recommended by a message from the Representative of the Crown acting on the advice of the Executive Council." I do not complain that any loosening of that bond was not accepted on the lines that I have suggested, but I do say that in as much as that was not accepted we are now obliged to try and get as many Ministers as possible into this united financial responsibility for expenditure. In other words, to put the same thought in another phrase, from the point of view of departmental responsibility that each one of the spending departments should be equally responsible for the allotment of the National finance through the various avenues that are possible to each. Each person in charge of a spending department should be equally within his rights, or her rights, in coming down to this Dáil, or to the body that decides what the expenditure is to be, and in saying I consider such and such a purpose of the very first import and I urge that the Nation's finances be charged with such and such moneys for such and such purposes, and I think when each of the Ministers are placed on an equal responsibility in respect of that matter you then get efficient administration. But as to the provisions now appearing, what happens? If you had an Executive Council of seven, you would have Ministers not Members of the Executive Council of five, and each of these would be requiring money for his expenditure, and would be prohibited from coming to this Dáil and asking for that money without having between himself and the Dáil an Executive Council of seven interposing and saying we cannot recommend that expenditure, and consequently each one of these five would be reduced to the position of not being Ministers to the Dáil, but Ministers to Ministers of the Dáil. For that reason I am opposed to the figure seven, and I would be opposed to the figure nine. Whereas if this Dáil had impartial power for the allotment of money for twelve Ministers whether of the Executive Council or not of the Executive Council, my objection to that would have been met and I would be able to vote for it. I am merely voting against it now, not because I am opposed to it on principle, but simply because an earlier Article that we have adopted in this Dáil would impair the collectiveness of these two different kinds of Ministers. It is because I think that all Ministers should hold equal responsibility that I am opposed to the reduction of this figure.
On a division, the amendment was declared carried by 24 votes to 22, the voting being as follows:—
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Pádraig Ó Gamhna.Micheál Ó hAonghusa.Tomás de Nógla.Riobárd Ó Deaghaidh.Liam de Róiste.Tomás Mac Eoin.Seoirse Ghabhain Uí Dhubhthaigh.Seán Ó Ruanaidh.Liam Ó Briain.Éarnán Altún.Sir Séamus Craig.Gearóid Mac Giobúin.Liam Thrift.Liam Mag Aonghusa.Tomás Ó Conaill.Aodh Ó Cúlacháin.Séamus Éabhróid.Risteárd Mac Liam.Liam Ó Daimhín.Caoimhghin Ó hUigín.Seán Ó Laidhin.Nioclás Ó Faoláin.Micheál Ó Dubhghaill.Domhnall Ó Ceallacháin. |
Seán Ó Lidheadha.Seán Mac Haol.Séamus Breathnach.Peadar Mac a' Bháird.Darghal Figes.Micheál de Duram.Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.Pádraic Ó Máille.Seosamh Ó Faoileacháin.Seoirse Mac Niocaill.Seamus Ó Cruadhlaoich.Criostóir Ó Broin.Tomás Mac Artúir.Aindriú Ó Laimhín.Proinsias Mag Aonghusa.Eamon Ó Dúgáin.Peadar Ó hAodha.Séamus Ó Murchadha.Seosamh Mac Giolla Bhríghde.Tomás Ó Domhnaill.Éarnan de Blaghd.Uinseann de Faoite. |