The Stationery Office Vote is £234,000. I move that.
ESTIMATES. - STATIONERY OFFICE VOTE.
I would just like to ask a question. There are no details given, and in all the previous estimate papers we have had paragraph 3 giving certain details. It seems to require some explanation as to why the same procedure is not followed when we come to, I think, subjects that are more directly under the control of the Provisional Government. In the previous paper you have a statement of the salaries paid and of the way expenses are arrived at; but in this particular Vote, and in later Votes, we simply have a bald statement with regard to salaries, wages and allowances, and also with regard to carriage and transit, but there are no details. Therefore, we really are not in a position to discuss these estimates.
I had intended to ask the same question. Hitherto we have had Estimates; now we are merely receiving Votes. There is an important distinction between a Vote and an Estimate. The paper headed "Stationery Office" is strictly not an Estimate.
The difference really amounts to this: where new bodies have had to be fixed up the details are not furnished for many reasons. The Departments were formerly administered from London. They were not what one might describe as self-contained Departments. They have only been fixed up, and it would be almost an impossibility to give the details with any degree of exactitude, or in the same way as in connection with Departments which were self-contained, and Institutions which were, we might almost say, self-supporting as far as they themselves are concerned. That is, if all the other establishments went wrong, or for that matter if one of the establishments went wrong, it would not affect the remainder of them. Those are different. The Stationery Office was formerly a branch office of some place in London; it has now got to be fixed up and the estimates can be only problematical. We have gone as near to them as we possibly could, and we are giving the information as far as it is available to ourselves, but the Estimates are different to the others where you have all the particulars.
Those are really dummy figures which have been estimated by the Minister as sufficient to cover the expenditure involved in the Vote up to the end of the current financial year——.
With the advice that we have been able to get.
They may have under-estimated the amount and they may find it necessary to bring in a supplementary estimate at the end of the current financial year. If these amounts are not in fact expended they will be recouped, or the surplus, at any rate, will be restored at the close of the current financial year.
Yes, certainly. Of course I do not want the Dáil to be under any misapprehension with regard to the word "problematical." The Estimates are as near as we could get in the circumstances, considering the disturbances of the times and the peculiarity of having a new establishment set up which you might be quite satisfied one day is sufficient to deal with the business, and another day you might think would require improvement. The Departments concerned were not in existence before; they were simply a sort of branch office.
The explanation is not at all clear or satisfactory. Reference was made to the Stationery Office as an example. The same complaint arises in connection with other Departments, and if I take the Valuation and Boundary Survey, which we have passed, there are estimated expenses in regard to travel, and estimates in regard to incidental fees, to referees, and so on. We are not expecting that you are able to tell us precisely what the amounts will be under those heads, but it is quite within the realms of possibility to say how the amount for salaries, wages and allowances is made up, if you can make an estimate at all, because you must be making an estimate on something fixed as far as rates go. In the other cases we have something like detailed particulars of the number of persons employed and the amount paid in cash, but in none of these later cases have we any such particulars. We are not, therefore, in a position to say whether we are doing our duty to our employees, or whether we are getting value from the employees for the money. We are not in a position to criticise the Estimates, and that ought not to be sufficient for the Dáil. We ought to know what we are paying for and the rate at which we are paying for it.
As regards the items dealing with printing, paper, and binding, I would like to know if that particular work is open to competition or is it confined to one or two firms?
I have seen a list of the contracts that have been given out by the Stationery Office and they are all open to public tender by certain reputable Dublin firms. Firms are asked to tender and the lowest tender is, I am informed, accepted. An inquiry was made into the matter by the Ministry, and they were satisfied with the report received. The work of the Stationery Office, in so far as tenders and contracts are concerned, is all right.
I understand the work is confined to Dublin.
No; I do not think the work would be confined to Dublin, but the particular tenders I saw were from Dublin firms.
I would like to ask the President, in view of the fact that this Estimate comes before us in this form, if he would tell me exactly what the financial procedure is in a matter of this kind. I understand the Controller has no right to transfer any unexpended balance from this paper to any other paper. That is quite in order, but supposing that the £23,000 allotted to salaries, wages, and allowances remains unexpended, has the Treasury Official with the Stationery Office any right to permit the transfer of any unexpended balance from item (A) to items (B), (C) or (D), or is each a water-tight compartment?
Obviously if he had not enough money for, let us say, Dáil Debates, and if he had a balance from salaries, wages and allowances, while each one of these is accounted for by itself, he could not say "I have no money for Dáil Debates; I have something over from salaries, etc., but could not pay that." Obviously he must discharge his liabilities. As far as the Exchequer is concerned, any unexpended monies must flow into the Exchequer. If it be in the mind of anybody that if we ask for £234,000, and spend £230,000, the Accountant can put £4,000 in his pocket, that is the wrong interpretation.
The President has misunderstood me, or else he has made an inaccurate answer. If there is under item (A) an unexpended balance, can a transfer of it be made? That is not the practice that prevails in other countries.
I should like to know whether under the various sub-heads in this Vote an amount could be available for transfer from one particular sub-head to another. On this question I would like also to raise a complaint in regard to the purchase by the Stationery Office of non-Irish made paper for its office use. It may be said that this was an old stock. I do not know. I hope it will be said with truth that it was old stock, but I hope there will be a very definite instruction in future that when paper is obtained it must be Irish paper. I can tell the Minister with absolute knowledge that non-Irish made paper has been used in the office in connection with this Vote. I will not go into more details now, but I can say with absolute certainty that that is so.
Be fore the President replies he might consider this. We are asked to vote £25,000 for salaries and wages and allowances under a total of £240,000. Surely it could not be suggested by the Stationery Office that if they have out of that £240,000 any sum unexpended that they could place that to another sub-head and reconstruct the entire of the details in which we are asked to vote and then say they have not exceeded the £240,000. Supposing for instance the printing and paper exceeded £20,000, but that there was a corresponding saving upon the Official Gazette, the proper course would be to come here with a Supplementary Estimate for the excess printing of Dáil papers and say "We will ask you to transfer the surplus we hold on other items to meet that extra expenditure, and if that is not sufficient to give us an additional Vote to cover the balance." But it would be a very dangerous innovation to allow it to be said that after we passed certain heads but have not expended the money under them that they could be recast by the Stationery Office and that they could claim that that was in order simply because the Minister proved they had not exceeded the amount of the whole Vote.
The Minister for Finance must sanction transfers, but he has to exercise very careful discretion. Otherwise it would mean that one would have to bring in a Supplementary Estimate for every particular point. It is very advisable in a case like this where these sums are problematical that this sum should not be objected to if you are to have the business of the Dáil carried on at all. If you had these things fully established in such a way that you would know exactly what amounts you required there would then be some reason for objection, but here you are fixing up a new establishment. To ask for Votes upon A, B, C and D., if further sums are required or readjustments necessary, would, I think, be unreasonable. The Stationery Officers cannot transfer of themselves from one to another, but the Minister for Finance has the discretion.
But the Minister for Finance confers that discretion upon himself, and if he does, of course, he has that discretion. But I understand we have taken over, under the Constitution, a series of Statutes applicable in this country, and these include the Exchequer Act, and I do not believe that under the Exchequer Act any such principle is allowed.
I would like to make a few remarks with regard to the register. Our experience in Cork is that when the registers are sent out to the rate collectors and others dealing with the register of voters, the local additions inserted by local printers are nearly as costly as if these men had to print the whole matter locally. Some of the papers sent to Cork have been printed in Athlone, and I should like to know if the local contractors have been given an opportunity of contracting for these lists. I think, having regard to the fact that the local printers are large ratepayers, they ought to be given an opportunity of contracting for these things, and if they have not got such an opportunity I would like to know why they have not been given it.
That is a matter, I think, on which a question might be put down. With regard to Irish paper there is a certain percentage or allowance for Irish manufactured goods. It is a fair percentage and any addition to that, except with the special permission of the Minister for Finance, should not be incurred. I do not think it wise to increase that percentage. It is fair and within the ambit of it Irish manufacturers should be able to compete with others. I have not heard, nor has it been reported that the Stationery Office bought foreign paper. There were stocks of it on hand. Some of them were used; some of them were kept back for a while, and will be occasionally used, and some of these stocks may be non-Irish manufactured paper.
I would like to go back to this question of the details and to ask the Minister whether we are to take it that this present form is temporary in view of the present emergency, or whether it is the intention to adopt this form in the future. Perhaps the Minister would say he cannot control that, but it is important to know whether it is the mind of the Minister that the form in the old shape is obsolete and should not be persisted in, or whether it is the emergency which prevents furnishing of all details on this occasion.
I cannot answer that, but I am Minister for Finance and I will endeavour to provide one in the form in which the original ones were.
Motion made and question put: "That the Dáil in Committee having considered the Estimates for Stationery Office in 1922-23 and having passed a Vote on Account of £159,000 for the period to the 6th December, 1922, recommend that the full Estimate of £234,000 for the Financial Year, 1922-23, be adopted in due course by the Oireachtas."
Agreed.