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Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 8 Jun 1923

Vol. 3 No. 24

PUBLIC CHARITABLE HOSPITALS BILL. - THE ADJOURNMENT—CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION.

I move the adjournment until Tuesday at 3 o'clock. On Wednesday last I announced the intention of the Government in regard to setting up a Civil Service Commission, and I should like, with the permission of the Dáil, to make a fuller statement in the matter. We have considered very carefully the functions which our Civil Service Commission should have, and we have looked at the functions of Civil Service Commissions in other countries. There is the model of the British Civil Service Commission, the first to be looked at, inasmuch as it was the Civil Service Commission functioning here before the change of Government. The functions of that Commission extend to the recruitment of all officers of the Public Service with the exception of certain special posts with which we are not immediately concerned. The British Civil Service Commissioners have to issue Certificates of Qualification for all officers before they can be appointed to the Public Service; they make regulations, subject to the approval of the Treasury, as to the manner in which persons are to be admitted to the Public Service, and these powers of making regulations extend to temporary posts and to professional and technical posts. The British Civil Service Commissioners are not concerned with promotions occurring in the customary course in the Public Service. In the United States and in some of the Dominions the Public Service Commissioners have power of control of the Public Service extending beyond recruitment into the sphere of promotion, organisation, and even remuneration. In the case of the United States it has to be borne in mind that the system of Government is on a totally different basis from that of the Saorstát. The Ministers there are not responsible to the legislature, and are not dependent on the approval of the legislature for the conduct of policy. The position, therefore, is radically different from what it is in the Saorstát, where Ministers are members of the Dáil, and are answerable to the Dáil for their procedure. It is true that in one or two of the Dominions where Ministers are answerable to Parliament, the Public Service or Civil Service Commission has functions extending beyond recruitment, but, after careful consideration, we have come to the conclusion that a wider extension of powers than those covering the whole field of recruitment would be unsound in principle. The determination of numbers and scales of salary of the Civil Service is essentially the determination of public expenditure, and as such the Minister for Finance, who is responsible to the Dáil for expenditure, must bear the whole responsibility of sanctioning the numbers of Civil Servants and their scales of salary. It is quite obvious that it will be impossible for the Minister for Finance, who is responsible for the National Budget, and who has to propose measures to the Dáil, to make ends meet, to carry out the duties of his Ministry in this respect if his powers of control of, perhaps, the largest item of Government expenditure were put into Commission in the hands of a body not responsible to him.

There is also the question of promotion and of discipline. The power to promote and the power to take disciplinary measures are, perhaps, two of the most important marks of executive authority. If a Minister is to be responsible for a Department, he must have full executive authority over that Department, and he cannot be held answerable to this House for the doings of that Department, unless this House will give him authority for the administration of that Department. Further, as regards promotion, it has to be pointed out that only the Minister and his responsible advisers are in a position to appraise the merits of the staff working in the Department with a view to the selection of the best men for promotion, and it would be impossible for an outside authority having no actual experience of the working of the Department, of the actual merits as displayed on work of individual officers to attempt the task of saying which officer is the best fitted for promotion. We have, therefore, come to the conclusion that our Civil Service Commission should, as in the case of the British Civil Service Commission, be confined to recruitment, and should extend to the whole body of clerkships, etc., in the Public Service. The British Civil Service Commission is not a body created by Statute. If it were a statutory body the Executive Council could, by an Order under the Adaptation of Enactments Act, create a body of Commissioners to carry out the functions of the old Civil Service Commission in the Saorstát. The British Civil Service Commission was created by Order in Council, and its powers and duties as they at present stand, are derived from Orders in Council. It is, I think, desirable that the Civil Service Commission of the Saorstát should be created by Statute, and I propose to have a Bill drafted providing for the establishment of a Civil Service Commission on the lines proposed. I hope to be able to ask leave to introduce such a Bill in about a fortnight. At the moment we must have somebody to arrange for the forthcoming examination, confined to officers and men of the Army, for posts in the Customs and Excise, and as a provisional arrangement we propose to constitute a Commission as explained in my statement on last Wednesday. It shall consist of the Ceann Comhairle, Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, and the Secretary of the Ministry of Education.

Would it meet the convenience of Deputies if the question of the powers and functions of a Civil Service Commission was first discussed, and subsequently the matter of personnel?

Agreed.

I shall confine myself to the first point mentioned by the Ceann Comhairle, that is the powers and functions of a Civil Service Commission. First, I would say that I think all parties were pleased to hear that the Government had made up its mind to appoint a Civil Service Commission which would control the entrance of people to the service of the Government. It will regularise matters which have been the cause of some complaint, justifiable or otherwise, during the past twelve months. The President has stated it is the intention of the Government to confine the functions of the Civil Service Commission to the matter of recruitment, pure and simple. In this, I think, so far as the functions of the Commission are concerned, it is modelled rather on the style of the British Civil Service Commission. They, too, I believe, confined their functions merely to recruitment and other things mentioned in a paragraph of the President's reply on the last occasion when he answered Deputy Johnson. I would urge that consideration should be given to whether it would be possible to enlarge the functions of that Commission. I notice that the President stated that inquiries were made, and they found that it was unsound in principle to have any other questions discussed than those of recruitment alone, and he mentioned that as the Minister for Finance is responsible for the salaries of those officials that it would be necessary they should keep full control of that in their own hands. While admitting that the salary should be under the control of the Minister for Finance, there are many other matters connected with the Civil Service which should and would come properly within the scope of a Civil Service Commission. It is not sufficient, merely, to provide the people who form the machinery. It would be advisable that the working of the machine, apart from the actual paying of the money which it costs, should be controlled by a body such as the Civil Service Commission should be. There are questions, not altogether of promotion, but questions of the reorganising of staffs, transference of staffs from one Department to another, and reconstitution of the service, which might be very well under the control of an independent Commission of this kind. I do not think the Minister, in mentioning the countries which were looked to as models for a Civil Service Commission, mentioned Canada. My recollection is that they have a Civil Service Commission in Canada of men who were appointed much on the same tenure of service as that of the judges in this country, whose functions do extend much further than the question of recruiting. Further, a rather interesting thing, I understand, is that South Africa, shortly after it was set up as an independent Dominion or Commonwealth or Free Nation, did model its service for some time on the British. Then it tried a combination of the British and Canadian models, and finally it adopted the Canadian system, which has worked very satisfactorily. I should like to know whether the Government, before coming to their conclusion, made close inquiries into the systems worked in those Dominions I have mentioned, and if so, I should be glad to know what the result of those inquiries are.

The matter raised in the communication made by the Minister for Finance, the President of the Executive Council, does really arise a question of far greater importance than one of any appointments that have been made or of any personnel of the Commission itself. The status and powers of the Commission obviously raise a question that is of fundamental importance, and not merely of fundamental importance in this country, but has been so judged to be of importance in all other countries and has received very careful attention. The real essential difference lies between a Civil Service that shall be very largely, under the terms of their service, subject to the parties of the day that may happen to form the Government of the day, or shall be able to look to some body that shall stand outside of such parties and be directly responsible to the legislature as a whole. That is a question that will always, I take it, range different people on different sides. The English practice has been of the first kind and later practices in several of the Dominions where there has been responsible Government has been of the second kind. It has been indicated by Deputy O'Connell and is a fact that the Dominion of Canada, having tried the English system of letting the Civil Service Commission be only responsible for deciding what class of person shall enter the service, but to leave the service thereafter at the control of the Ministry of the day, decided then to change that principle and to create a statutory body that held the same relation to the legislature as the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and my own very emphatic conviction is that the second principle is the wiser principle. To it the President charges, with a great deal of weight, that by that method the Ministry of Finance loses control in respect of matters of Finance for which it is responsible to the legislature. I think a little closer investigation will show that that objection is not sound. Ultimately the Minister for Finance, under either of the two schemes, has that control. He cannot help but have that control. But, whereas in the one case, under the English system, he only has that control through his Department, in the second case the control is exercised directly in such recommendations as he may make to the legislature. What happens in what I may call the Canadian system, what I may call the External Commission system, is that the Commission makes recommendations in respect of salaries, in respect of terms of service, in respect of all matters concerning the Civil Service and the working of the Civil Service, to Parliament as a whole, and if it should happen that the Commission, in a particular matter, recommended that a new grade, for example, should be created and that the grade should carry a certain rank and salary between certain limits of deviation, such an order should not be of effect until it had lain on the Tables of both Houses of Parliament and had received the recommendation of Parliament. What, then, would happen in that case? Inasmuch as the Minister for Finance in any responsible Parliament is the only person who can make a money recommendation, ultimately that order would come of no effect until the Minister for Finance had moved a resolution enabling the Dáil to bring it to effect. Before he did so, the Minister for Finance of that day would bring before the Dáil, and the Dáil would be entitled to know, and the public would be entitled to know, the full reasons why he considers it was his duty to recommend that that be not adopted and that it be returned to the Commission, rebutting such arguments as the Commission may have put up. The result is a very considerable one. By getting an independent body of the kind that I am suggesting now you get a body that the entire service has a measure of confidence in. This is exactly so, I understand, to have been the experience in Canada, and I further understand, to have been the particular part of the Canadian experience that commended it to South African adoption. The Civil Service, as a whole, has that confidence, that all parts of it might not have in the Government of the day. Governments of the day are created by a majority that sways to and fro and inevitably, no matter how cleanly they desire to handle things, and no matter how cleanly they do handle things, are subjected to suggestion that a Commission of this kind stands free of, and the result is greater efficiency in the service.

On a point of order, do I understand this is a temporary measure and that a Bill, which will raise all this, is to be introduced in a fortnight's time? If we are going to discuss Civil Service, the Civil Service of the future, on a motion of this kind, and we are going to discuss it all over again in a fortnight's time, I think we are wasting our time now. I really do.

Well, the President made a certain answer to a question on Wednesday, and it was agreed that his answer could be discussed to-day at this particular time. The President made a further statement to-day in which he said that he proposed bringing in a Bill. He did not give that information on Wednesday on the motion for the adjournment, but the matter arises, I think, on the statement of the President with regard to the functions of a Civil Service Commission, as conceived by the Government. It is a matter for the discretion of the Dáil generally, and for the Deputies, whether they choose to discuss it now or wait until the Bill is brought in, but it is not out of order.

May I put this representation before you? When it was agreed to take up this matter on the motion for the adjournment to-day; we were not aware of what we are now made aware by the President, that a Bill was to be introduced. Now, some of us have been briefed with the same brief, and I would suggest that the discussion should be adjourned until the Bill has been brought in. It would be very much better. We would know exactly what is proposed, because, after all, the President's scheme is not now being discussed, and we do not know what it is. For example, if I might urge this one consideration, the President spoke in general, broad terms of the British scheme, but he said nothing about the Whitley Councils nor have any of the other speakers so far, and the whole Civil Service Commission and its working, as at present operating in England, has undergone a most radical alteration during the years of the war. The President did not allude to that, not, I am sure, because he was not aware of it, but because he did not want to go into the details. All these details, how far the British model is being varied and in what respect it is being departed from, we will be in a position to discuss specifically when the Bill comes in. To do it now, really I do hold with Deputy Hughes, is merely going to have the thing encored and perhaps prejudiced.

The Deputy, I am sure, will admit that I am not as generous in showing my form as Deputy Figgis is.

There is another aspect to this, and I take it that the intention in bringing this matter before the Dáil was to get the sanction or approval of the Dáil to the second part of this motion.

To get the approval of the Dáil to the second part of the proposal, and that of course is somewhat important to the basis of the temporary arrangement, at any rate, quite apart from the question of the Bill that is to be brought in. As a matter of fact, the approval or disapproval of the Dáil to such a proposal might prejudice the whole case.

All the Dáil is committed to in this case is that the three persons I have named would be appointed as a temporary Civil Service Commission, and would hold these examinations, and the rest of the matter would be dealt with in the Bill.

There are two distinct matters. The President has introduced this matter in a slightly different light this evening. There is the question of the Bill which is to determine the functions and powers of a Civil Service Commission. Upon that a very wide discussion will arise in the ordinary way, because it will have to be submitted to the ordinary procedure for Bills. I think we ought to decide first does the Dáil now wish to discuss that.

I was discussing that matter at the time. May I be permitted to say I feel, and earlier felt, the very point Deputy Hughes has made, and I feel that in this matter that we might have been led somewhat otherwise than the Minister for Finance has led us, for he suggested the matter would probably not arise on the Bill, and now he says it will arise on the Bill. Whether these suggestions are now being put before us with a view of discussion so as to give the Bill final shape or not is a matter that the Dáil has not been informed on. If the matter is to arise on the Bill, I agree that we ought to wait until we get the Bill.

Are we to understand that the personnel of the Commission that is now to be appointed——

I was intending to get a decision as to whether we are going away from general discussion, and then there is a particular arrangement, that the President mentioned as a temporary arrangement, and that would arise immediately after if we had decided that.

I quite agree on the general point.

In connection with the other matter, there is a general question of urgency which the President has raised, and there is the particular question that concerns the personnel of the proposed Commission. When I was asked to undertake this particular duty I understood, and Deputies will not need very much convincing about it, I am sure, that the matter was one that purely concerned the holding of examinations for recruitment, and having been pressed on the matter I decided that I might act if the approval of the Dáil for my so acting could be obtained. This is the exact position on that particular matter.

Does not one matter rather hinge upon the other? I mean to say the question that we have postponed, does it not in a very great measure govern the subsequent decision, because if the Commission were to be of the sort, if it were decided that it were to be of the sort outlined in the President's proposal, and later given more definite shape to in a Bill, in that case one might be inclined to approve entirely that the personnel be as it is, but if the Commission be of another sort, such as I was outlining, then the personnel would have to be changed accordingly?

The only question now before us is the personnel of the temporary Commission.

To carry out a specific set of examinations, as I gather from the President's reply.

On the question of procedure we cannot, at this stage, give our approval or express disapproval of this proposal. We are merely discussing the matter on the motion for the adjournment, and no vote can be taken.

I take it that the trend of the debate has been there has been no disapproval on this matter. This is a temporary Commission to hold these examinations. We are only agreeing to that. You have got information about that. No better method has been suggested, and I take it there has not been disapproval.

A new factor is brought into the discussion. A new Bill is to be introduced and powers will be given to this Civil Service Commission in regard to its duties in that Bill. The Dáil may decide to enlarge these powers, and "The Government has decided to set up a Civil Service Commission to control recruitment to the public services subject to the approval of the Dáil in regard to the chairmanship. We propose that the Civil Service Commission should be constituted of the present Ceann Comhairle as Chairman."

I hope the President will forgive me if I am quite frank. I think the President has mended his hand on this matter. He stated this evening that that is so. It is now suggested that exactly all that he requires is a body to conduct an examination for Customs and Excise Officers, the candidates for the examination to be confined to members of the Army. Is that correct?

That is all I am doing this evening. I am going to introduce a Bill dealing with the Civil Service Commission later on.

All I desire to repeat is, what I think I said the other night, that this Commission that is now before us is quite a temporary matter to deal with immediate needs. I think, if that is known, and it does not carry us beyond that, we can agree.

That is right.

That is not what was outlined in this answer.

That is quite so. The British were able to set up their Civil Service Commission, owing to their circumstances, without a Statute. We possibly could do it, but it has been decided now finally that it is better have a Statute.

What I wanted to find out was this, from my point of view my appointment as Ceann Comhairle makes me a representative of the whole Dáil, and makes me an officer of the Dáil, what I want to know is if anybody in the Dáil dissents from my taking up this additional duty? That is a matter that concerns me closely, and I would like to hear the views of the Dáil about it.

Is that the temporary one?

If it is the temporary duties confined to this Commission, so far as we are concerned there is no dissent.

If so no one could do it more worthily.

Very well; this matter is closed.

The Dáil adjourned at 1 p.m. till 3 p.m. on Tuesday, June 12th.

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