As an amendment I move that paragraph (b) be deleted. I stated yesterday what I felt with regard to the Bill in general. Deputy Johnson is moving an amendment later, to which I will just briefly refer, inasmuch as it has been accepted by the President. It is to the effect that this Act shall continue in force for six calendar months after the passing thereof, and shall then expire. After those six months the whole question of the Civil Service Commission may be again gone into. Even for this short period I think that paragraph (b) is undesirable. Daniel O'Connell once said that a coach and four could be driven through any Act of Parliament; a coach and forty could be driven through this. This paragraph that I ask you to delete is not very essential; not very much service of it could be made in the meantime, and I urge the President to accept my amendment.
DAIL IN COMMITTEE. - CIVIL SERVICE REGULATION BILL, 1923—THIRD STAGE.
I am at some loss to know the reason why the Deputy is putting forward this amendment. We know that within the last two or three months considerable case has been made by Deputy Figgis on behalf of certain officers of the Government, who have not come in through what is called the Civil Service door. These officers belong to the C.D. Board, if my recollection is correct, and the Deputy was particularly interested in their welfare, and in the desirability of affording them certain privileges that we do not admit as a class they were entitled to. Since the Land Bill has been introduced and since necessary changes have taken place with regard to the working of one or two Departments which functioned under the late administration here, and which now have altered to some extent, the cases of those officers have come before us for consideration, by reason of the fact, if for nothing else, of the Deputy's very able and capable advocacy on their behalf, and also by reason of the fact that we naturally required some sort of facility for absorbing those protegés of Deputy Figgis into the Service. Now we find that the very machinery we provided for the purpose is blasted and destroyed, or attempted to be blasted and destroyed, by the Deputy.
May I intervene to ask if the President said protegés or prodigies?
The Deputy can have it any way he likes, because it is both one and the other. I do not know whether the Deputy desires to add to the many perplexities and problems that confront the Executive Council. From some statements that he made this evening, I know that he has modified his aversion—I will not say contempt—to that very estimable institution, the Executive Council. Having provided the facility I have referred to, the Deputy now wants to tax our ingenuity in connection with the particular officers mentioned. I may tell him that it is a dangerous thing to do.
I may congratulate the President upon the pretty debating point he has made. When I raised the case that he has touched upon I desired that those officers might be handled in a legislative way, and that legislation should be made in an Act which was then before the Dáil, and not that it should be done irrespective of legislation. That is the distinction. I do not want to press this to a division, but I do urge the President might accept it even though the Bill continues for only six months. The debating point he made is not valid.
If it is not valid, we ought to know where it is invalid. What are its infirmities, and how is it it does not appeal to the Deputy? He need not tell me that his understanding is as dense as my own. It sometimes takes a considerable amount of explanation to make a point clear to my mind, but I have never known that to be the case with the Deputy.
We are getting on.
The Deputy wants us to legislate, to transfer en bloc the whole organisation into the Civil Service. If that were to be done, where is the necessity for Civil Service Commissioners, or what would their operations be? The process we intended to go through was one of discrimination with regard to those who would pass through this door. We provided for it by means of this particular Sub-section. I think it is the Deputy's modesty prevents him seeing the mess he is getting himself into.
I have yet to learn from the Minister, after he has finished with his eloquence, whether he is going to accept the amendment or not.
The President has, perhaps, not forgotten the fable of the astronomer observing the moon with such intent and eager gaze that he fell into a pit. Deputy Figgis has his eyes so fixed upon the coming election that his vision is not divertible elsewhere.
I do not see exactly how the election figures in this respect——
This is the Deputy's fourth speech.
On a point of explanation. I do not see what the election has to do with the amendment. I have yet to see the electoral value of it. Is the amendment going to be accepted or not? I urge its acceptance, because the Bill as it stands is liable to subsequent abuse.
Amendment put and negatived.
Motion made and question put:—"That Section 6 stand part of the Bill."
Agreed.
I desire to move as an amendment that Sub-section (2) be deleted. I think it is also liable to abuse.
That is true. Many things are liable to abuse in the administration of an unscrupulous and unprincipled Executive Council. I am sure the Deputy will not make that charge against the present Executive Council, or their successors, having regard to the fact that he and others will make in a very short time an appeal to the honesty and sensibility of the electorate. I expect the result will be that the best interests in the country will be served by the return of the most honest representatives. I am sure the Deputy will agree with me in that. In the case of the British Civil Service there is a very extended Schedule; quite a number of pages are absorbed.
There are various offices not included in the Civil Service. The list is a fairly exhaustive one. I will not weary the Dáil by reading it. It is one of those cases where it is almost impossible to exhaust the list. One can never tell whether any new appointment or any particular persons should be added to the list. It is for that purpose that it is left vague. It will be open to the Dáil at any moment if an exclusion or an inclusion in that particular list be made, which would not be to the satisfaction of the Oireachtas, to direct public attention of it; it would be open to the Oireachtas to voice the objection that the Deputies or Senators might have in regard to any unfavourable inclusions or exclusions that might be made. But it is necessary to have the provision there. It is a sort of enabling Clause and if the Deputy were in the position of a Member of the Executive Council he would admit that himself. We regard it as necessary. I cannot accept the amendment.
I will not press it.
I beg to move a new Sub-Section. It is "That this Act shall continue in force for six calendar months after the passing thereof and shall then expire."
I accept that.
New Sub-Section put and agreed to.
Motion made and question put: "That Section 12 as amended stand part of the Bill."
Agreed.