I move for a return showing the number of the staff (other than clerical staff) employed at Green Street Courthouse, the duties they perform and the salaries (including all allowances) they receive.
From what the President said when a similar motion was moved about a fortnight ago, I should like to lay it down as my view, that so long as Ministers choose to be responsible only to the Dáil for financial expenditure, and so long as there is no Estimates Committee, and no Committee to review the expenditure of public departments, it will be not only the right but the duty of Deputies to move for returns of this nature when they think there may be a possibility of making economies. The motion is not put down in hostility to the Government. I realise that these returns cost a certain amount of money and take a certain amount of time to prepare. I think that if any Deputy has reason to believe that economies can be made in any department he has a right to ask for information on that point without being accused of hostile propaganda.
