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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Nov 1925

Vol. 13 No. 10

DAIL IN COMMITTEE. - CIVIL SERVICE REGULATION (AMENDMENT) BILL, 1925.

With regard to the amendments tabled to this Bill, Amendment No. 1, by Deputy Magennis, and certain consequential amendments, are out of order because they contravene one of the principles of the Bill, the principle being the giving of authority to confine examinations to members of one sex. When the question is put: "That Section 2 stand part of the Bill," it is open to the Deputy to speak and to vote against it, but it is not open, when a Bill has been referred to Committee, to alter the principles of the Bill in Committee, and the effect of Deputy Magennis's amendment would be so to alter the Bill, that the Bill, if it was so passed, and sent back to the Dáil, would be a Bill different in principle from the Bill referred to the Committee. That applies to Amendments 1, 4, 5, and 8.

Question—"That Section 1 stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
SECTION 2.
1. Sub-section (2) of Section 4 of the Principal Act shall be construed and have effect and shall be deemed always to have had effect as if the word "sex" were inserted therein immediately after the words "qualifications as to."
(2) The said Section 4 of the Principal Act shall be construed and have effect and shall be deemed always to have had effect as if the following sub-section were inserted therein in lieu of the sub-section (3) now contained therein, that is to say:—
"(3) The Commissioners may with the consent of the Minister by special regulation confine any such competitive examination to such of the persons mentioned in the foregoing sub-section as belong to a specified class delimited in such manner or by reference to such matter as the Commissioners shall think proper, and where an examination is so confined only such of the persons aforesaid as belong to such specified class shall be admitted thereto."

I move:—

In Sub-section (1), line 20, to delete the word "word" and substitute "words" and in the same line after the word "sex" to insert the words "(except in examinations for Junior and Senior Administrative and Executive posts in the Civil Service)."

This amendment is intended to give statutory authority to a pledge given by the Minister on the Second Reading of this Bill. The Minister then said that it was not intended to close the higher grades of the Civil Service to women. This amendment, which is possibly faulty in drafting, is an attempt to give effect to that, because any pledge given by the Minister binds only Deputy Blythe. A future Minister may ignore or disregard it. When the Minister was asked what safeguard there was in the Bill against the wholesale closing of the Civil Service to one sex or another, he replied that "we must trust to the general trend of events in the outside world." That is the sort of safeguard that Ministers are very fond of offering to the Opposition, but which they never rely on themselves. The Minister said that this Bill was necessary because, inter alia, two men had applied to go in for an examination for shorthand-typists, which was intended to be only for women. If I told the Minister that this Bill is unnecessary because the general trend of events in the outside world renders it unlikely that many men will go in for an examination of that character, where the wage is a woman's wage and the work is women's work, he would not be satisfied. So I want something more specific, something more definite, than the mere suggestion that there is no present intention, and that no future Ministry will attempt to do it because of the general trend of events in the outside world.

This is a moderate amendment. It suggests that in the lower grades of the Civil Service, in minor posts in the Customs and Excise and in the Post Office the Civil Service Commissioners may make such regulations as the Minister desires. It confines itself to the higher administrative and executive posts and says that these should be open to both sexes. That is a natural consequence of the provisions in the Constitution and of the opening of Parliamentary franchise to women, and of admission of women to seats in the Dáil and Seanad. It is quite true that there may be posts for which a woman is less fitted than a man, but I would say that some of the higher posts in the Civil Service are equally suited to either sex. It may be better to have a man rather than a woman secretary to the Minister for Defence, but, on the other hand, I can imagine a woman being quite as good a secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health—particularly the Public Health Department—as a man. I do not wish, of course, to displace the present secretary. A woman may be a satisfactory secretary to the Minister for Education. I hope I carry Deputy O'Connell with me in that, since the teaching profession employs both men and women. Therefore, I think this is a most moderate amendment which goes no further than the expressed intention of the Minister and I hope he will accept it.

The amendment, as Deputy Cooper says, is certainly a moderate amendment. I would not see any point myself in, say, including the executive posts in such a provision, because, as a matter of fact, an examination has actually been held in which women competed for executive posts and were successful. There is not a bit more reason for including executive posts than there is in the case of clerical and other posts. On the other hand, if you confine it to the only remaining type, that is, junior administrative posts, there is no examination for posts higher than junior administrative. People go to higher posts by promotion. It seems to me that it would be incongruous in the Bill to insert a provision stating that the examinations may be confined to persons of one sex, except junior administrative examinations. In view of the expressions of, shall we say, doubt that have been heard, I would be prepared to do this much to meet the Deputy, and I think it would meet him satisfactorily. I would undertake to insert a sub-section providing that no examinations should be confined to persons of one sex except by special regulation which would be laid on the Table of both Houses at least one month before the examinations. It seems to me that would amply meet anything that might be required.

I regard the entire agitation and the cloud of suspicion that have been raised in connection with this matter as somewhat absurd. There is, despite whatever Deputy Cooper may say, a movement of events in the outside world, and in every sort of sphere women are entering and are being admitted. Recently in Dublin a woman was admitted for the first time as a member of the Stock Exchange. There was a good deal of agitation about it and members of the Stock Exchange opposed it. Members came privately to me and asked me whether I would refuse my certificate in the event of her name being passed by the majority of members. I said that I would not, but that immediately the name was passed in the ordinary course a certificate would be issued. That sort of struggle is not going to occur again. That is an outpost carried by the advancing army and there is not the slightest danger of a change. The same thing applies in the Civil Service. There is not, except in cases where some very definite and cogent reason can be put forward, the slightest chance that anybody can change what has happened within the past ten or twelve years, and people who have suspicions in this matter are people whose minds are still clouded by the atmosphere of struggle in 1912, 1913, and round about that period. Certain suspicions were cast on the motives and intentions of the Government because it was intended in the case of the first junior administrative examination to confine it to men. I explained on second reading of this Bill why that was being done. It was our first examination for the junior administrative grades which is a grade from which the great majority of the heads of departments must eventually come. It is a grade the members of which must not be treated, if we are to get value from them, as clerks. They must be given opportunities immediately they come in of dealing with administrative work. They must not be put into a cul-de-sac.

We are in a position where there are very few women in the higher Civil Service and where people coming in under these examinations would be controlling men of mature years. We felt that if, say, in the first examination for junior administrative officers, five women were to be appointed out of six vacancies the result of that in existing circumstances would be that the entrants to these offices probably would not have been given proper work and not given the opportunity and training that people of this grade should be given. The result would be that a wrong twist would be given to the whole question of training people for this grade, and it was felt that what was necessary in the first instance in order to give people proper opportunity and have them properly treated in the offices was that, at any rate, the big majority should be men. There was absolutely no intention at any time of suggesting that this grade should be confined to men as a permanent thing. It was simply because the whole position has altered very greatly in recent years, a matter of taking steps to see that the grade was given proper work and that the best was made of the people who were to come in.

Up to that time the British Civil Service in examinations for the corresponding grade did not admit women. Since then a Class 1 examination has been held, and it was open to women. There is absolutely no intention, and the Government could not, if they desired, exclude women from the higher grades of the Civil Service. As a matter of fact, there is practically ready for issue, as I understand it, a notice from the Civil Service Commissioners covering a period of years. It has been suggested that in order to get the best competition and examination a sort of programme of examination covering a period of years should be published, and that it should be stated that in such and such a month in each year for a number of years ahead, an examination for a certain number of vacancies in a certain grade will be held. That notice will be published, and, when it is completed, it will show that all these main service grades, clerical, executive and junior administrative, will be open to women. I think that that, coupled with the sub-section providing that an examination shall be confined to one sex only by special regulation, to be laid on the table of both Houses at least one month before the examination is to be held, should meet any reasonable doubt or suspicion which anybody may hold.

I think the Minister's offer might be accepted. With regard to the Minister's explanation, it would seem that the agitation, if I might call it so, was useful, for it has drawn from the Minister a definite decision and the statement that owing to special circumstances the examination was confined by the Civil Service Commission to the male sex. Those reasons may sound very excellent as coming from the Minister, but the fact is that had no representation been made in connection with this Bill the probability is the practice might have continued. At all events, we have an assurance from the Minister that regulations are being made with regard to the future, and I think a reasonable safeguard is being provided inasmuch that when any exceptions are being made to the general rule the regulation would be laid on the Table of the House, so that members should have an opportunity of criticism in the matter. So far as I am concerned, I think that covers most of the ground.

The Minister for Finance speaks this evening, as he did on recent occasions, as if agitation were something to be deprecated, in fact something to be strongly condemned. Does he forget how much has come about in the amelioration of the condition of the Irish people through long, steady and devoted agitation? Because women graduates of the two Universities, because women who have received expensive education in the secondary schools, feel that the avenues to occupations of emolument are being narrowed, and the doors are being closed against them, neither they nor their representatives are to protest, or to have the matter discussed here in the one great forum in which such matters can properly be discussed. What is the history of this? The Minister himself says that it is a false alarm that the higher positions are to be closed to women, but the explanation he gives for the irregular advertisement, which had to be withdrawn, is that it is desirable—rather he said the higher positions must be filled by men and, consequently, you must begin at the lower stage in order that they may receive the proper training. What is that but sex disqualification?

I am unaware I said that.

If the Minister repudiates the statement I withdraw my allegation, but I think when we read the official report it will be found I am correct and the Minister wrong.

I do not think I said that.

The word "must" was used.

No sir, it was not.

I think the acoustic properties so far as they affect the back benches in this Chamber are defective. An advertisement was issued by the Civil Service Commission reserving certain posts for competition amongst men. I protested against it at the time in my capacity as representing so many educated women who are University graduates. That advertisement was withdrawn. It was illegal and unconstitutional. What did it indicate? It indicated the desire of the Minister, the desire as expressed again, to reserve the majority of the higher posts for men. That is not free competition. Women according to the Constitution are equal before the law with men. They have equal right to equal opportunity, and the declaration here, by which sex is made like ability, character, or any of those meritorious things to be requirements, is unconstitutional. The Minister proposes a special regulation. How is he to introduce that into the Bill? When I proposed that it was ruled out of order.

What does the Deputy suggest is the connection between what was ruled out of order in his case and the Minister's suggestion? What regulation does he suggest?

A special declaration previous to the holding of the examination that so many posts in such a category should be filled by men and so many by women. That is the only way it can be done. The Minister has held out to Deputy Cooper a promise of some regulation which will meet the case. What form will that take except a form which is out of order?

In order to be quite clear as to what is out of order let me recall our procedure. A Bill is prepared, leave is given to introduce, the Bill is then circulated, and a motion is made that the Bill be now read a second time. Under that motion it is in order to discuss the principle or principles of the Bill. The Bill is then referred to the Committee. In Committee the Committee must remember that the House has assented to a certain principle. The Committee can alter the Bill if it so desires, but without altering the principle. Deputy Professor Magennis's amendment was to delete sub-section 1 of Section 2.

Pardon me, it is to amendment 4 that I was referring, but in any case I am not questioning your ruling.

I want to get the matter of what the ruling is, quite clear. The amendment to delete sub-section (1) of Section 2 is to take out of the Bill one of the principles which the Dáil has assented to, and amendment 4, to which I think Deputy Magennis now refers, introduces a new principle. The principle originally in the Bill was that authority shall exist to confine examinations to persons of one sex. The suggestion in amendment 4 is that after examination appointments should be confined to particular members of one sex. That is a different matter, and the result of passing that particular amendment here, if it were passed, would be that the House would receive from the Committee a different Bill from the Bill the House sent to the Committee. We must be clear on that as a matter of procedure. On the other hand, any vital section of a Bill can be rejected by the Committee on the motion that that particular section stand part of the Bill. Deputy Major Bryan Cooper in amendments 2, 6 and 7 is endeavouring to do something which is in order. Amendment 2 is endeavouring to restrict application of the principle of the Bill. That is in order. It would even be in order to move such restrictions of the principle as might, if adopted, make the Bill as amended useless to the promoters.

Amendments 6 and 7 seek to put conditions to the application of the principle. Again, in that case it would be in order to move such conditions as to put the person in charge of the Bill in the position that the Bill so amended would be of no use to him. These considerations are arguments against the amendments, and not questions of order. Amendment No. 4 proposes to do something different to what is in the Bill. It is out of order for the reasons which I have given.

I do not put any great faith in the disclaimer of the Minister that he does not intend to exercise certain powers if he takes those powers. We are making an Act of Parliament and, conceivably, there will be other Ministries and other Ministers, and it cannot be pleaded in the courts that such a thing was not the intention of the Legislature or that such a thing was the intention of the Legislature. The court will decide according to the enactment in the statute and not otherwise. I do say again, with Swift, that wherever one depends for one's rights upon the goodwill of another, he is a slave to that other. That is the very definition of slavery.

There are powers being taken here to introduce sex disqualifications. There is no limit to the extent to which these powers could be used, except the feeling that the Minister may have, as expressed here by the Minister for Finance, that public opinion would not stand it. How do we know what decadence may set in later on, by virtue of which the word of a Minister may go down with the mob that forms the majority? That is not democratic rule, and it certainly is not founding civil liberty.

It is applicable at present.

I realise the Minister has made a very considerable concession, and I am grateful for it. If I make one or two suggestions, I hope he will realise that they are not made in a hostile spirit. A month is not a long time for a person preparing for an examination. If the rules are laid on the Table a month before they become operative, you will have persons preparing for the examination uncertain as to whether they will be permitted to sit at the examination or not. I would rather extend the time. I would suggest that the Minister's proposal to issue a schedule over a number of years might be made statutory.

It might be possible in the later stages of this Bill that in the Dáil or Seanad the Minister would accept a schedule in the Bill setting out what examinations were open to men and what examinations were open to women, and what were open to both sexes. Such a schedule would have to be revised from time to time, and it might be operative over a period of three years. I suppose to revise it would require further legislation. I believe that would be a fair position in which to place the candidate for the Civil Service. I am only putting that forward as a suggestion. I am, of course, not convinced by the Minister's argument. I never am convinced by the Minister's arguments. He talks about the impossibility or the undesirability of women controlling men of mature years. I know very few men of mature years who are not controlled by women. They are controlled in the domestic hearth, perhaps. It might be conceivable, particularly if a woman got into the Civil Service in comparative youth, that she might control the men in her office.

I realise that the Minister has gone some way to meet my arguments. I do not suppose the Minister would have done it had he not known that the heavy artillery of Deputy Magennis was in reserve. I think we can come to no further decision on this matter until we see the amendment that the Minister proposes to put up on the Report Stage and therefore, with the leave of the Dáil, I am willing to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment No. 2, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment No. 3, which reads "in sub-section (2) of Section 2 to delete in line 22 the words ‘the said,'" goes with amendment No. 1?

Amendment No. 3 is not moved.

Question proposed—"That Section 2 stand part of the Bill."

I did not take part in the discussion on the last amendment, but I do not think that in securing the protection of persons who are proposing to enter for examination for junior and senior executive posts, it would be right to exclude from that protection other persons who are seeking to enter the Civil Service. I think that whatever is going to be said in regard to the higher offices must be said with equal emphasis in regard to the junior posts, the clerical grade, and the lower grade generally. I have not yet been convinced that there is any necessity for any regulation or for any enactment to make a sex distinction. As far as I understand the work of the Civil Service with regard to appointment after entrance, I should say the fitness generally will make the selection that is necessary, and we should not make provision in an enactment for disqualifying any person from entering the Civil Service or from receiving any appointment merely on the ground of sex. The post itself, and the qualifications for the post, are quite sufficient to make the differentiation. There is a selection, and the fitness for the work is presumed to determine the selection that is made.

I cannot see that there is any wisdom at all, or any necessity at all, for inserting the provision disqualifying a woman because she is a woman, or disqualifying a man because he is a man. If I may say so, I am concerned for the men on this side as well as for the women. I am not satisfied that even a case has been made for disqualifying a man from taking a post as a typist or shorthand clerk. It may turn out to be in the course of experiment—in many people's opinion it has been already proved—that men are much more efficient as typists and shorthand clerks than women, and I am not going to vote for any provision that is going to disqualify a man from a post as shorthand clerk or typist. They are likely to give better service and be more efficient for the job.

The Minister says that Departmental arrangements and the general plan of the service make such a possibility undesirable. Well, so much the worse for the plan; so much the worse for the regulations. I think the regulations should adjust themselves to the constitutional requirements rather than that the Constitution should be amended or that even legislation should be enacted so as to conform to what has hitherto been considered Departmental requirements, organisation in the offices and so on. We are not only dealing with the disqualification of women; we are dealing with the disqualification of men, and, as has been pointed out more than once, if the women in the country were to use their power by virtue of their franchise, it may be that they will turn the tables, and that the various regulations that are to be made under this Bill would disqualify men from many posts that they hitherto held.

On the whole, whether we are dealing from the point of view of men or from the point of view of women, it seems to me that we ought not to make any disqualification or allow any disqualification on the ground of sex alone to be made under the authority of an Act of the Oireachtas. I say that in the ordinary working out of the Civil Service, selection will go by virtue of fitness and that women will not be appointed to posts which they are physically incapable of filling.

I think one may fairly say that sex prejudice enters into this matter. Then, there is the question of custom, which takes a good deal of time to overcome, having regard to the conservative minds of officials. Officials and departments and Ministers, but particularly officials and departments, become habituated to a course of things, and that in itself is a very great obstacle to a change which the country outside probably has long accepted. I think the case that has been made by the Minister is not sufficient. It does not warrant us in agreeing to the insertion of this section which gives power to exclude women because they are women, or men because they are men, from entering the Civil Service or from taking any posts in the Civil Service. I think the process of selection on the basis of fitness is quite sufficient to prevent women being appointed to posts for which they are naturally unfitted.

I had not an opportunity of speaking during the Second Reading debate; it was impossible for me to be here. I do not intend to make a Second Reading speech on the present occasion, but I cannot let this opportunity pass without recording my opinion, and my very strong objection, to the introduction of the word sex in this section. I think there should be no difference whatsoever, as far as legislation is concerned. I think the matter will right itself very easily when the posts are declared vacant; women will not go up for posts for which they are physically unfitted, and men will not go for posts for which they are physically unfitted. For several years I have had a good deal to do in connection with the education of women in a certain direction. So long as we allow women to enter into the higher courses of education, they should receive the same chances and opportunities in every direction of improving themselves, as men do.

I think some Deputy remarked on Second Reading that this was a very retrograde movement; I do agree with that statement. I think it is a very serious mistake to introduce into legislation here any disqualification of sex. I know that there are many posts that women will occupy much better than men, just as there are posts that men will occupy much better than women. I say that quite frankly. I do not think there is any reason for introducing a sex distinction. I said to some ladies, some of them my own graduates: "Why do you not use your own powers and fight your own battles? It is your own fault if you have not more people representing you here and speaking for you in the Dáil." I do not think there is any doubt that, if the ladies used the franchise as they ought, they would have sufficient people here to put their case so that they would not be placed under any disability.

It is a serious thing, after we have allowed women to enter the higher branches of education, that they should have to go outside this country in order to seek their livelihood. The case has been put up to me in another direction that we are qualifying too many people and sending them out of the country, having spent our money upon them. We are educating women in the higher branches of education, and now we are going to introduce a rule that may at all events disqualify them from entering for posts for which they are quite fitted. There is nothing left to them but to go to other places where they will get employment. I was very pleased to hear the Minister suggest what he had done in the way of meeting Deputy Cooper. I suggest, if he is framing this amendment, he should at least extend the period for three months, so that anyone who is reading for the examination would not find that a month preceding the examination he would be cut out. I do not think there would be any difficulty on the Minister's part in extending this period.

I quite agree it would be most unjust and improper, after an examination were announced, that it would be confined to one sex. Advertisements should be issued months before and the particulars should be fully indicated in the advertisements. I will look into that point and see if that can be embodied. It is not reasonable to say that the question of fitness will decide the whole matter inside the Civil Service. We appoint our Civil Servants from lists resulting from an examination and you cannot say that you will exercise any discretion when the candidates who have passed come along. If there is work for which it is desirable to employ women, and you have only men on your successful list, then you must put the men to it and vice versa.

It is perfectly clear that you must, in the Civil Service, have some means of discriminating between the sexes. That arises in cases such as I have mentioned of Customs Officers and Customs Preventive Officers. You cannot send out a night patrol of women along the border to prevent smuggling. On the other hand, it might be that at the examination for Customs Preventive Officers only women would pass and you would have nobody else to send out. If you mean to have men, you must have power to limit the examination to men.

You have cases of sorters in the Post Office. It has been a custom in the Post Office not to employ women on night work and I think that it is, in all the circumstances, a good system. Sorters work at night and return home at 2 or 3 in the morning. On the whole, it is desirable that men only should be employed on night work. Certainly there would be objection to the other arrangement as long as the arrangement in regard to men has been recognised in the Post Office. Unless you are to have men doing all their years of service on night work, you must be able to keep such a proportion on the staff that they will get their turn of day as well as night work. There again is a case where you must be able to discriminate.

If you come to the question of shorthand typists and telephonists, there is no doubt that men could be employed the work. In the past in the Civil Service there were men shorthand typists and it was found that they were very much less satisfactory than the female staff. If you threw the typists' examinations open to men undoubtedly a considerable number would enter. In the recent examinations very few entered because they were not fully aware that they were open to men, and very few men had made any preparation that would give them a chance of passing. There is no doubt that a considerable number of men would enter. Most of these men would remain in the service. Some of them might leave because the pay might not be as high as in the clerical grade. A very considerable number would stay on. On the other hand, I suppose that a big majority of the present staff would marry and leave the service. The result would be, if you had only the same number of men and women passing the examinations, in fifteen or twenty years you would have that branch of the service consisting of a percentage of three women to each man. It is all very well to say that the pay is very low and that men would not enter. They would enter and marry and have families and they would be pleading on our doorsteps for married men's pay and allowances. They would get them, and would have to get them. You would have additional costs, and at the same time you would have, as in the past, a service not really very contented and definitely inefficient. That was the experience of Government offices in the past, that they had men typists who were not so satisfactory, and the grade was done away with.

Does the Minister mean that they were not so satisfactory as typists?

Would not the test be high enough to exclude the inefficient?

No. Competitive examinations show what a man or woman can do in certain respects, but it often happens in all grades that people who pass well are not of very much use in the offices. For instance, for Class 1 of the British Civil Service there are always a large number rejected during the year of probation. Even supposing that an officer will not be dismissed during the probationery year, it does not follow that he will be as satisfactory in actual work as another officer who is lower on the pass list. You cannot eliminate the inefficient solely by examination. Of course, you can prevent complete "duds" from entering, although people who have experience of the First Division Clerks say that cannot be always done.

The Minister for Finance has one great merit, a merit on account of which I steadily admire him—he states very frankly what is in his mind. One knows from what the Minister for Finance says what the Minister for Finance means. We have had from him a declaration just now that the Finance Department is all out for Chinese cheap labour. The secret is disclosed. If men go into the typists' and shorthand-typists' Department they would marry, rear families and demand a living wage, and they would have to get it. Therefore, this must be kept a special reserve for women whom we can force to take a lower wage; thus shall we be more economical in our administration. Although the Minister is remarkable for stating what is in his mind, his mind often confuses other intentions. He has confused two very different things. The speciousness of his argument lies in this, that he lays special stress on the obvious fact that women are not fit, nor men all fit, for the same occupations. Now by the Constitution men and women are equal before the law and consequently must be provided with equality of opportunity. We deny that they are identical. No one but the most frenzied feminist would allege that women and men are identical; that there is no distinction of nature in physical capacity and that therefore the functions allotted to one in the Civil Service must be equally divided, without the slightest detriment to the public service. I agree with the Minister for Finance that it is not desirable that a young woman employed in the Post Office should be in the night Department in an occupation that entails going home through the city at an early hour in the morning. I think every one will agree that neither will it be desirable to have a solitary soldier woman doing night patrol on the Border. Are we to agree that in order to make it possible to prevent some fool from undertaking a position of that type we should introduce into our law a restriction which is contrary to the Constitution, namely a sex disqualification? That is what we challenge here. It will be challenged later on, as the Minister knows well, in the Supreme Court, for this is contrary to the Constitution.

No one would in seriousness, unless for providing a paragraph in a comic paper, suggest that any man would apply for the position of matron in a woman's hospital or wardress in a woman's prison. There the circumstances are sufficient notification to a man not to apply. Mutatis mutandis, a woman is bound not to apply for an obviously unsuitable position. What we stand for under the Constitution is that an advertisement should state that such and such a position must be competed for as there are so many vacancies and that it shall not be in the power of a Department of State to say that no man in one case or no woman in another case is to apply. The selection and discrimination should be at a later stage. There is a process, Deputy Johnson has elaborated the point, of natural selection. Why should we empower a Minister to do what according to his own admission would be against the trend of development of public opinion?

I am not asking the power.

We contend that it is asked. It is a debatable matter of opinion. We had on the Order Paper for a great many days a motion: "That the Dáil approves of the policy of the Minister for Education." That occupied a lot of time. The Minister for Education and the Minister for Finance are both members of the Executive Council, and according to the Constitution they have collective responsibility, so that I take it that the Minister for Finance would have voted for approval of the policy of the Minister for Education. In effect this Bill negatives that. One of the important things in the Estimate for Education is a grant of public money for secondary teachers, for the secondary schools, and for the higher public schools and the universities. While in the name of our policy of education we encourage the development of women along the most modern lines, on the other hand the Department of Finance is taking away the very obvious element of inducement to women to embark upon these careers for which special education is a condition—the higher Civil Service is not to be a career for women. The Minister replies. "We are not shutting them out." No, that courageous action is not possible under the Constitution, but he will shut them out practically. That is what it amounts to. Here you have the Ministry with one voice advocating one policy of education and with another voice condemning it. That is not consistent.

I thoroughly agree with the observations of Deputy Magennis that the Minister for Finance has not made his case. That is patent. What he is doing in this matter is, he is setting up a domestic boundary question. Heaven knows we have had enough of that during the past week. In most matters of importance that come before the Dáil in which Deputy Sir James Craig intervenes we have the essence of commonsense, but in the present instance the Deputy must have come to the conclusion that he was on the side of the angels, as I hope he will be. That does not restrict the Minister for Finance. He raises the question that if ladies are employed in the Civil Service what are they to do in the new navy which we shall probably have in Donegal over this boundary question. Can you employ them on night patrols in Donegal; can you employ them in the Post Office up to the early hours of the morning, so that they will have to return home at an unusual hour? It was on the Post Office Department that he relied for the basis of his argument. I would like to hear from the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs what his opinion is. Are those ladies less efficient in the Post Office service, and is the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs less considerate in looking after the interests of those ladies?

The Revenue Commissioners under the Minister for Finance have to deal with one of the thorny questions at the present time. Within the last couple of years, when work in this Department was extraordinarily complicated, I am informed that the ladies employed in that Department have shown a higher capacity than male companions, even those who had a longer service. I do not know whether the Minister will controvert that, but I say he has made no case to this House for supporting the view he takes.

I am afraid I did not make myself heard to Deputy O'Doherty. There is not any use in bringing forward this talk about the effect of the Constitution which we heard from Deputy Magennis. If there is no power to discriminate between the sexes when there is cause for it in the Civil Service, then there is no power to discriminate in the Army under the Constitution. There would be no power to prevent a woman going forward for the examination for a military career.

The doctor would not pass her.

The doctor could not refuse to pass her if the health of the candidate were good.

That is the point; her health would not be good, being a woman.

Professor Magennis suggests that we should, without legislative authority, and contrary to the law, discriminate. His view is, we should discriminate by some underhand means without legislation.

I think the Minister, when he recovers his temper, will regret that he spoke of my advocating underhand means. It is the first time in my life that even a suggestion of that kind has been levelled against me. I am quite willing to be accused on any other point. I have suggested no underhand means. I have pointed out to Ministers before that they have a mania for legislation. They have got law-making on the brain. They cannot discriminate between commonsense administration and the taking of inordinate powers by law. I have called this already, burning down the house to roast the pig. It is quite obvious under the Constitution that Woman, though before the law there is sex equality, is not capable of becoming a soldier, and the exercise of common sense by women and by the recruiting officer, is quite enough protection for the State. We do not need law for this at all.

If the Minister's idea were carried out to its reasonable conclusion we should have Acts of Parliament regulating us with regard to all manner of things. This is the grandmotherly legislation ideal, as I have called it, of some of our friends on the Government benches. I had thought that in an Irish Parliament Irish ideas and Irish ideals were to prevail. I had thought when there was an agitation for the restoration of Irish that the spirit of Irish life also would prevail, that Irish thought would prevail, that the desire to revive it would be triumphant. But here you have the middle-class Manchester mind that worships machinery, the machinery of legislation for everything. Everything is sacrosanct that an Act of Parliament will produce. The good sense and right understanding of the public! These are not allowed to operate as sanction for actions, commission and omissions of acts. We have had a frank manifestation from the Minister of the Manchester middle-class type of mind.

I will leave the Gaelic traditions to the Professor.

I did not catch the witticism.

Question put.
The Dáil divided. Tá 39. Níl 31.

  • Earnán de Blaghd.
  • Séamus Breathnach.
  • Seoirse de Bhulbh.
  • Próinsias Bulfin.
  • Séamus de Burca.
  • Louis J. D'Alton.
  • Máighréad Ní Choileain Bean
  • Uí Dhrisceóíl.
  • Michael Egan.
  • Patrick J. Egan.
  • Desmond Fitzgerald.
  • John Hennigan.
  • Patrick Leonard.
  • Seosamh Mac a'Bhrighde.
  • Liam Mac Cosgair.
  • Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
  • Eoin Mac Néill.
  • Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
  • Liam Mac Sioghaird.
  • Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
  • John T. Nolan.
  • Seán O Bruadair.
  • Risteárd O Conaill.
  • Parthalán O Conchubhair.
  • Conchubhar O Conghaile.
  • Máirtín O Conalláin.
  • Séamus O Cruadhlaoich.
  • Séamus O Dóláin.
  • Peadar O Dubhghaill.
  • Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
  • Donnchadh O Guaire.
  • Aindriú O Láimhín.
  • Séamus O Leadáin.
  • Séamus O Murchadha.
  • Pádraig O hOgáin (Gaillimh).
  • Seán O Raghallaigh.
  • Máirtín O Rodaigh.
  • Seán O Súilleabháin.
  • Mícheál O tighearnaigh.
  • Caoimhghín O hUigín.

Níl

  • Pádraig Baxter.
  • Seán Buitléir.
  • John J. Cole.
  • John Conlan.
  • Sir James Craig.
  • Séamus Eabhróid.
  • John Good.
  • David Hall.
  • Thomas Hennessy.
  • Connor Hogan.
  • Séamus Mac Cosgair.
  • Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
  • Tomás Mac Eoin.
  • Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
  • Risteárd Mac Liam.
  • Liam Mag Aonghusa.
  • Patrick J. Mulvany.
  • Tomás de Nógla.
  • Ailfrid O Broin.
  • Tomás O Conaill.
  • Aodh O Cúlacháin.
  • Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
  • Eamon O Dubhghaill.
  • Mícheál O Dubhghaill.
  • Seán O Duinnín.
  • Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
  • Seán O Laidhin.
  • Domhnall O Mocháin.
  • Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
  • Tadhg O Murchadha.
  • Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
Tellers:—Tá: Séamus O Dóláin, Peadar O Dubhghaill. Níl: Risteárd Mac Fheorais, Micheál O hIfearnáin.
Motion declared carried.
SECTION 3.
The Principal Act shall be construed and have effect and shall be deemed always to have had effect as if the following section were inserted therein in lieu of the Section 6 now contained therein, that is to say:—
"6.—(1) Whenever the Minister in charge of a Government Department and, where such Department is not the Department of Finance, the Minister for Finance shall consider that any particular situation to which this Act applies in such Department requires knowledge or experience wholly or in part professional or otherwise peculiar and not ordinarily to be acquired in the Civil Service or that it is expedient that the person to be appointed on any particular occasion to any particular situation to which this Act applies in such Department should have such knowledge or experience as aforesaid, the Commissioners may by special regulation prescribe the method by which they will select the person to be appointed to such situation and may by such regulation confine the right to apply for such situation to persons who have paid the fee (if any) prescribed in that behalf by such regulation and also if they think fit to persons who belong to a specified class delimited in such manner or by reference to such matter as the Commissioners may think proper, and in any such case the Commissioners may grant their certificate of qualification for such situation on any evidence which is satisfactory to them that the person selected pursuant to such special regulation is qualified in respect of sex, age, health, character, knowledge, and ability for such situation.
(2) Whenever the Executive Council, on a recommendation made to them by the Minister in charge of a Government Department with (where such Department is not the Department of Finance) the concurrence of the Minister for Finance, shall consider that it would be in the public interest that a particular person should be appointed to a particular situation to which this Act applies in such Department, the Commissioners, if they think fit, may dispense on that occasion with compliance with the provisions of this Act and the regulations made thereunder in relation to examination or selection for and appointment to such situation and may grant their certificate of qualification of such person on any evidence that is satisfactory to them that such person is fully qualified as to age, sex, health, character, knowledge, and ability for that situation.
(3) Where a person in respect of whom a certificate of qualification shall have been issued by the Commissioners is appointed by transfer or promotion to a situation to which this Act applies and such person is not exempted by this Act from obtaining a new certificate of qualification in respect of such situation, the Commissioners may, if they think fit, dispense with the whole or any part of the examination for such situation and may issue a certificate of qualification therefore on any evidence which is satisfactory to them that such person is qualified as to age, sex, health, character, knowledge, and ability for such situation.

I move amendment 6:—

In line 8, page 3, after the words "if they think fit" to insert the words "and if authorised thereunto by a resolution of both Houses of the Oireachtas."

This amendment is intended to control the power, which I hold is an excessive power, of exempting persons from the competitive examination. I realise that, as it stands, it is not an amendment that the Government will accept, because, as the Minister for Finance said on Second Reading, there are a number of posts for which special or technical qualifications are required and which are not suitable subjects for examination such, for instance, as the post of State chemist. I put down the amendment in order to raise the question, and suggest to the Minister, that it might be combined in the Schedule to the Act giving a list of the posts that are to be filled without competitive examination. The Minister said on Second Reading that it would be impossible to draw up a complete Schedule. Very well. This amendment gives a way out of drawing up a Schedule as far as you can for those posts which are to be filled without examination and which require technical qualifications and certain individual qualities not to be ascertained by a competitive examination. Then if that Schedule proves incomplete, the Government can come to the Dáil and the Seanad for a Resolution authorising them to fill any other posts that may arise. There is no use disguising that there is a considerable amount of suspicion in this matter as to the power of exemption from examination. It was reflected, I think, in the division on Second Reading, and to a certain extent also I think in comment in the public Press.

I really think that the Ministry would be well advised to make it perfectly clear that the procedure of exemption from competitive examinations was an exceptional procedure only to be employed in exceptional cases where there was no possibility of getting a post filled by competitive examination. There are certain posts like, say, that of labour advisor to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce that could not be filled by competitive examination. That post, for instance, would be best filled by a man with real experience of Trades Union work. Posts like that must be filled outside the ordinary sphere of competitive examinations. I think if this amendment were combined in the Schedule that you would be making it evident to the world, to the public outside as well as to the public here, that there was a real discrimination in these matters and a real desire to prevent any jobs being perpetrated. I do not believe that it is the desire of the Government to perpetrate jobs and I have not put it down in that spirit, but I have put it down for the purpose of binding, not only the present Government but future governments, to limit their discretion in dispensing with examinations.

I would support the amendment with more zeal if the reservation of Deputy Cooper was not for the approval of the Oireachtas but merely for the approval of our own House, the Dáil.

The Seanad has certain constitutional rights. May I explain that I originally drafted this amendment for the approval of the Dáil, and then I reflected that no such amendment would get through the Seanad, and I wished to make its passage smooth.

I am glad to know that Deputy Cooper's mind was in agreement, at first, with mine at present. If it was laid upon the Table of the House that would be one advantage. I daresay the safeguard proposed by Deputy Cooper is much stronger. There is no doubt about it that anyone who reads this clause will see that although it is meant to meet a particular difficulty it confers a power which ought to be exercised in the interest of purity of administration very cautiously and only with the assent of parliamentary representatives. Otherwise it would leave room for jobbery. I am not going to discuss whether or not a particular Ministry will or will not desire to perpetrate jobs. The question does not arise whether there has or has not been jobbery. I deal with this matter in its broad features. The Minister on the Second Reading pointed out that in effect the whole section is an improvement upon the principal Act, because instead of patronage being exercised by a Minister the whole Executive Council is involved in the matter, but the important point is that that is not enough. It is a commonplace that it is not enough not to excite suspicion, but you must not go out of your way even to incur the suspicion, and the cleaner we can keep the hands of the Ministry the better. The best position in the case of corruption is, of course, not to be willing to be corrupted, and the second best is not to have any opportunity or facility for it. Now, if it were only for example, it would be advisable to adopt a qualification or some such qualification as that in the amendment. Then when one of those particular special appointments has to be made, when the public interest requires that someone who by his standing, his reputation and his known capacity, is above examination, who would not subject himself to examination, in order that the Ministry should be at liberty to select him and to dispense with these things, it should be well that the public should have the fullest assurances that the appointment had not been made in the dark, that it was open and that the design of the Ministry in making such selected appointment had been communicated to the parliamentary representatives and had received their sanction. I cannot conceive of a Parliament so unreasonable as to resist a case where it is possible for the Minister to make a case for appointment.

I think that no matter what may have been occasionally written in the Press the record of this Government from the matter of filling appointments can bear examination.

I said so.

I think there is no Government that can boast of cleaner hands than this Government, and I believe that there never was another Government in similar circumstances that exercised less power of patronage. I believe that if we erred at all in times of some disturbances we erred on the side of not exercising patronage. If we erred at all that was the direction in which we erred. I want to say at this moment that these suggestions that we hear from time to time are suggestions that are groundless and suggestions that are based sometimes on disappointment and jealousy. We have been most anxious to rid ourselves of the trouble that any form of patronage involves. I think that while a Minister may exercise patronage if that is the system prevailing in a country and he may exercise patronage widely no Minister in any country where a better system exists would desire to return to the system of patronage. Patronage does not make you friends. It makes you enemies. If the Minister has discretion in appointments he can only appoint one person and he can make a hundred enemies, and in appointing a friend that friend will think he has only got his due and will not be grateful for it. Although as the principal Act was drawn we could have used Ministerial discretion, in many appointments, we did not do so. In classes of appointment which in Great Britain at the present time the Minister makes the nomination we have refrained from making it. Our whole desire is to have it done through a system of machinery set up under this Act and for the Minister to have no discretion. We want that as the principle and practice. We do not take that stand because we are forced to do so. We are not lagging behind public opinion. We are not being forced on ahead against our will in this matter. We have deliberately decided on this as a system that will give a higher standard of purity and efficiency and a system which will in every respect be best in the interests of Ministers themselves.

We have gone far beyond the British Government in this matter. As a matter of fact, our whole system of selection boards, which we employ widely in cases of appointments where people are required who could not be tested by the ordinary written examination, is only being gradually adopted in the British service. But we do not think that we should introduce a rigidity which may prevent what is necessary in the public interest being done. We do not want to tie ourselves into such a knot that the right and necessary thing in certain circumstances cannot be accomplished. We take this power of putting up, in the public interest, the name of an individual to the Civil Service Commission as the emergency power that is necessary to cover cases which cannot be foreseen and cannot be provided for. In my own view that is a power which should and will be used very sparingly. In spite of the fact that there were people who had rights, you might almost say, arising out of the military struggle which we went through, there have been, since the setting up of the Civil Service Commission, only five public interest cases, cases of men who rendered military service and who had to be dealt with in this way. That is not even an average. That is more than there ought to be in normal times.

We will have to deal with one big batch of cases under this Bill as a special measure, the cases of the Congested Districts Board officials who were not civil servants, who were not paid out of the voted funds in the ordinary way, but who have been graded according to their merits as clerical and executive officers and who will have to be certified as such. Cases like that might arise. For instance, there is the case of the restoration to the civil service of some individual who had been dismissed, perhaps rightly dismissed, where it might be desirable to reverse in altered times the action that had been taken. There are these sorts of cases. There is the case of the man of special eminence and qualifications who may be required for some very special appointment and who would not apply, who would probably have to be approached. These are the sorts of cases for which you must have some such power as this.

I do not anticipate that there will ever be in office an Executive Council that is going to use this power for the purpose of jobbery. I have said this before, but I think it is absolutely apposite and true, that if we have not in power an Executive Council with some reasonable measure of honesty and integrity, there is no paper qualification that can be provided that will be effective. On the other hand, no matter how much you depend on the honesty of individuals, reasonable precautions should be taken. If you have a man handling money, his accounts must be checked from time to time and audited. He may be perfectly honest, but you do not want to trust him too much or to put a strain upon him. I believe there are objections to enabling a single Minister or a couple of Ministers to use a discretion such as is given here, and the discretion which was given to a single Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, in the principal Act, because whatever is to be done may be done privately there. Some one individual may be approached and he might decide on doing something that would not be really necessary or justifiable under this section, but as for getting the whole of the Executive Council— any Executive Council that may ever be in power—to concur, as they must concur under the principle regarding collective responsibility, in doing some job, is a matter that is not to be contemplated. I do not contemplate it and I do not think it necessary to contemplate it.

On the other hand, I think that a provision involving discussion of persons and appointments in the Dáil would not be good. I do not think that a question of the appointment of an individual should come before the Dáil. If that were done, you would have lobbying and canvassing and the Dáil would be reduced from the position of watcher to the position of participant. I believe that you would have worse results if these cases were brought before the Dáil than you can possibly have if they are not brought before the Dáil.

Assume that we want to appoint somebody as head of the whole Shannon electric scheme to manage it when completed. Suppose there were nobody in this country that we believed suitable to undertake such a big task and we proposed to appoint somebody from outside. We know very well that there would be fifty people who would be at any rate united in this, that they would try to keep that fellow out so that one of them might get it. You would have them round Dawson Street and Merrion Street approaching and canvassing Deputies, and you would have a situation that we ought not to bring about. It has to be remembered that all Civil Service appointments are at the will and pleasure of the Executive Council. Executive Councils will change, and if one Executive Council does a thing that is wrong, at any rate there will come in others who knew not Joseph, and perhaps Joseph's job will not be so easy, if anything wrong did happen.

There has been an attempt on the part of certain people outside to suggest that we have a jobbing Government, that they must be watched and restricted and hemmed in in this way and that. I think that that atmosphere is based upon a misapprehension and, to a certain extent, on libel and falsehood. I certainly feel that this Government can stand absolutely in the open in this whole matter and that it has nothing to fear from any investigations. We are not putting forward this measure as people who want to hold patronage or the power of jobbery in our hands, because our whole desire and policy has been to rid ourselves of it.

The greater part of the Minister's speech has been in favour of my amendment. I stated explicitly that I made no charge of jobbery against the Government. I reiterate that. I do not believe the Government has been guilty of jobbery——

Your supporter, Deputy Magennis, referred to this as a Bill for the facilitation of jobbery.

Certainly I did, and I repeated it to-night. I think I made my position very clear, that I object to legislation in a form which allows of that being done. The whole speech of the Minister just now is to this effect: "You must put perfect faith in an Executive Government while it is an Executive Government." Now let us shift our vision to 3,000 Anno Domini. There is an Executive Government then. According to the Minister, we are to put absolute faith in that Executive Government. If that be the case, then there is an end to Parliamentary Government altogether. That is Government by a Junta. Surely we are at liberty to try to hedge in the possibilities of corruption, so far as we can conceive of their being hedged in, without being accused of alleging underhand methods. I repudiate that.

I shall also have to make my position clear. I did not put down this amendment because I believed that the Government intended to use the powers in this measure to create jobs or to perpetrate jobs. I do not believe that they have been guilty of that in the past, and I agree with the Minister for Finance that probably their record of patronage would compare very favourably with that of any other Government in Europe or in the world. I desire to say fully and frankly that that was not my reason for putting down the amendment. My reason for putting down the amendment is that this is exceptional and abnormal procedure which should only be resorted to within certain limitations, whatever Government is in. The Minister said that a limitation such as specified in the amendment might prevent what is necessary in the public interest from happening. Has the Minister such a low opinion of the Dáil as that?

I did not intend to say that.

I took it down as the Minister said it—that a limitation of this section might prevent what is necessary in the public interest from being done. I think if the Minister came to the Dáil and made a case, as he could make a case, for any appointment under the procedure adumbrated in my amendment, he would be able to convince the Dáil. The Minister thinks it is undesirable that the Dáil should discuss the affairs of individuals, but the whole machinery of the Constitution contemplates it. We have to discuss individuals when we are appointing extern Ministers. We have to vote for individuals when we are forming a panel for the Seanad elections. We have been exposed to lobbying and we have come through it with comparative virtue. In a past Dáil, we actually had to nominate the members of the Seanad. It is not a new principle, it is not a revolutionary principle, that the appointment of individuals in exceptional cases should come before the Dáil. The Minister said that he realised that it was undesirable that these things should be done privately and that, therefore, this Bill provided that instead of the Minister for Finance alone, or another Minister with the sanction of the Minister for Finance, putting forward a name to the Civil Service Commission, the whole Executive Council would have to do it. But the doings of the Executive Council are as private as the doings of one Minister or of two Ministers. That is what I want—the safeguard of publicity. That can only be given by open discussion and open debate. Nobody can tell what has happened at meetings of the Executive Council except members of that Council. Nobody knows how many Ministers attend the meetings. We do not know if they have a quorum even at times. These things might be rushed through, not under the present Executive Council but at some future date without the safeguard of publicity that the Minister lays so much stress upon. The only safeguard, the only way of preventing things being done privately and of preventing unfair imputations of which the Minister has complained with justice, is to have absolutely frank and open discussion in either House or in both Houses of the Oireachtas. That is the only way you will prevent the slanderous tongues of the disappointed——

That is the way you will set them going.

You may set them going but you will provide very much less receptive soil for the poison they wish to sow. The Dáil is not an unfair assembly in these matters. If the Minister can convince, I will not say all parties, but two parties or three parties, that the course he proposes to adopt is a fair one, there will be very little public response to the slanderous tongues—except there is a real case and that the Minister cannot convince the majority of the House. But that is a case I am sure the Minister does not contemplate will arise. As an assertion of principle, as the Minister has met me in this way, I am afraid I must persist in this amendment.

I am not sure that I understand the position taken up by Deputy Cooper in this amendment. According to my understanding of it, some Deputies who have taken part in the discussion have quite a wrong view of the intentions of Deputy Cooper. The amendment may be read that in the case of a person to be appointed to a particular post, the appointment itself would have to be sanctioned by the Oireachtas. If that be the effect of the adoption of the amendment, I think the Minister's objections are good and valid. On the other hand, I think that if the appointment—that is the office which is to be filled—is to be taken out of the ordinary round of Civil Service appointments and advancements, that the office is one which the Ministry, on the advice of a Minister, think should be filled in this manner and that permission to do that should be sought from the Executive Council, it is, I think, a sound proposition. But even if that be the intention, I will vote for the amendment, because the proposition of the Minister, in its present form, would enable selections to be made even for ordinary posts in any Department of the Civil Service, thus taking the place of the ordinary method of advancement. If the Executive Council, having had representations made by a Minister, thinks that a particular person should be put into a particular place, to the detriment of other people equally fitted, with experience, perhaps, within the Department, then the sanction of the Civil Service Commission may be sought, and if it is obtained then that person may be appointed to that place. The safeguard that the Minister puts forward is, first, that the Executive Council has to be satisfied that the application of the Minister is a sound one and, having got that sanction, that the Civil Service Commission must be satisfied with the fitness and qualifications of the person in question. To make the latter a real safeguard, it would be necessary that the Civil Service Commission should be entirely independent of Departmental chiefs and Ministers. The very fact that the Civil Service Commission is, to the extent of two-thirds of its membership, composed of persons who are subject to the authority of one or other of the Ministers who is making this recommendation, destroys the validity, to some extent, at any rate—perhaps to a considerable extent—of this reference as a safeguard. I think it is unquestionable that some provision should be made, so that special appointments that are outside the ordinary course of Civil Service advancement should be made possible. This section does not confine itself to such positions. But on the assumption that it does and that that is the intention——

That is not the intention.

Then so much the worse for the section. It is not the intention to confine this preferment to special and abnormal posts. So that I think it is undoubtedly necessary that if, within the ordinary working of any Department of the Civil Service, a special provision of this kind should be allowed, then the facts of the case apart from the person who is proposed to be nominated should be made known to the Oireachtas and sanction given beforehand.

It is, perhaps, desireable to give an illustration. There is at the present moment a vacancy in the office of Clerk of the Seanad. The section in question says that the Executive Council on the nomination of the Minister—I do not know in this case who the Minister would be—may make a recommendation that a particular person should be appointed to the Clerkship of the Seanad. It is not an office the qualifications for which are necessarily very well known to the Civil Service Commissioners inasmuch as it has not been within the course of their particular experience and they are not able to bring any better information to bear on the matter than Ministers themselves. It seems to me that experience within the Civil Service, experience within the work of the Oireachtas, or at least experience that would qualify a man or woman to fill that post, should be quite clear, and that there should be a prohibition against putting any person who has, perhaps, no qualifications except military service into such a position. The Executive Council or a Minister may easily persuade a Civil Service Commission which is not directly concerned or, on the other hand, which is subject to the good will of the Ministers who are making the recommendation, that they should consent to such an appointment.

I think that the proposition Deputy Cooper put forward would safeguard any attempt at an appointment of that character. Notwithstanding the general agreement amongst those who have spoken that there has been a minimum amount of pitch-forking, there has been pitch-forking. I cannot say the dates. It may be that there has been no pitch-forking since the Civil Service Regulation Act of 1924 was passed, but I think Deputy Cooper's proposition would at least still further minimise the amount of pitch-forking that would be possible. I have given one illustration of the kind of posts that is outside the ordinary run of the Civil Service, at least what is considered the ordinary run of the Civil Service, which might be filled in a manner which is possibly objectionable. As to posts within the Civil Service, I think there should be a very special case made for any departure. When I say within the Civil Service I mean within the general run of departmental work in the Civil Service. There should be a very special case made before any departure is made from the process of appointment by experience, length of service and qualifications such as has been the habit in the past. I therefore support Deputy Cooper's amendment.

The Minister seems not to appreciate the very wide extent of the application that these words possess: "Whenever the Executive Council with the concurrence of the Minister for Finance shall consider that it would be in the public interest that a particular person should be appointed to a particular situation to which this Act applies, the Commissioners, if they think fit, may dispense on that occasion with compliance with the provisions of this Act and the regulations made thereunder, etc." On the Second Reading I alleged, and I see no reason to change my mind, that that amounts to empowering the Executive Council to do away with the Civil Service Commission altogether in regard to any particular appointment. That is an extraordinary power to give any Executive Council—"whenever the Executive Council considers that it would be in the public interest that a particular person should be appointed to a particular post." What they deem to be in the public interest surely should be reviewable and that at the very earliest possible moment by the Oireachtas, where it is so serious a matter as setting aside the operations of an Act of Parliament and the regulations made under it.

I would like to add my voice to the voices that have resounded through the chamber in condemnation of this sub-section. As far as Deputy Cooper's amendment is concerned as improving the position, in my judgment the best way to improve that clause is to eliminate it altogether. Perhaps that will not be accepted in sections of the House, but my reason for saying so is this: The Minister, in defence of this, instanced a case where he might want a director of the Shannon scheme, or something of that sort, and that he would have to go outside the Civil Service to get him. I would like to emphasise my judgment, that the operations of the Executive Council should be, as far as possible, confined to Civil Service activities, and that it is not desirable that the House should encourage the Executive Council in embarking into a form of activity outside the range of their own particular sphere. The Executive Council, with the authority of the House, have taken steps to enter into commercial activities, and one rather fears that in the course of time the Executive Council may be encouraged to extend their operations in that direction. From my point of view that would be undesirable. At all events, as far as the scope of the activities of the Executive Council is concerned, they ought not to require any powers for appointing any special persons, within the radius of the ordinary work of the Government, that the Civil Service could not amply supply. I, therefore, would support Deputy Cooper's amendment, which would bring under the notice of the House any appointments that might be made in connection with this clause, but, as I said before, I would prefer to go further and eliminate the clause altogether.

Deputy Johnson referred to the Seanad Clerkship as an instance. I think that that is not a position under the Civil Service of the Government of Saorstát Eireann. In any case the person that would have to be consulted there would be the Chairman of the Seanad. It is not a position to which this particular sub-section could apply. I said to Deputy Johnson that these powers would apply to ordinary posts. This provision really deals with individuals. The way in which it might apply to an ordinary post is this: Suppose we have an efficient temporary clerk, a man who is past the age for sitting for any examination, and suppose that that man, showing great intelligence and zeal, succeeded in saving the State a very large sum of money—an analogous thing did occur recently—it seems to me that it would be a very proper thing that he should, by means of this section, be made an established instead of a temporary civil servant, in spite of the fact that his age would preclude him from entering by the only gate through which he could enter, because if a temporary clerk is 40 years of age he cannot become an established officer except by some such provision as this.

It may be very desirable and proper that a man who had given some very signal service of the kind I have referred to should be established. Something would be done for that man in the commercial world, shall we say. Any certificate issued under this sub-section must be gazetted immediately it is issued. If the attention of any Deputy is directed to it the House can have the whole facts out if it wants them. I would repeat that I believe that if these questions of individual jobs are to be matters of canvassing and voting on in this House it will have the effect of tending to bring some of the atmosphere of the extinct rural district councils into the House.

In reply to Deputy Johnson I would like to say that the intention of my amendment was such as he stated. I possibly departed somewhat from it in following the Minister's argument, but I intended that it was the post, and not the individual who was to fill the post, that should be brought before the Oireachtas. As regards the Minister's illustration about an exceedingly deserving clerk, does he not think that he would be able to convince the Dáil in a case of that sort?

Does the Deputy think that this is a matter that ought to be brought before the Dáil or is worth bringing before the Dáil? I do not think so. I believe these things would never be suggested if another administration were here.

I assure the Minister that that is not the case. I would be even more vigilant if there was a Labour administration here.

So would we all.

What about a British administration?

Amendment put. The Committee divided: Tá, 29; Níl, 45.

Earnán Altún.Seán Buitléir.John J. Cole.Bryan R. Cooper.Sir James Craig.Séamus Eabhróid.John Good.David Hall.William Hewat.Connor Hogan.Séamus Mac Cosgair.Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.Tomás Mac Eoin.Risteárd Mac Fheorais.Liam Mag Aonghusa.

Patrick J. Mulvany.Tomás de Nógla.Ailfrid O Broin.Tomás O Conaill.Aodh O Cúlacháin.Eamon O Dubhghaill.Seán O Duinnín.Mícheál O hIfearnáin.Seán O Laidhin.Domhnall O Mocháin.Domhnall O Muirgheasa.Tadhg O Murchadha.Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).Liam Thrift.

Níl

Earnán de Blaghd.Séamus Breathnach.Seoirse de Bhulbh.Próinsias Bulfin.Séamus de Burca.Louis J. D'Alton.Máighréad Ní Choileain BeanUí Dhrisceóil.Patrick J. Egan.Desmond Fitzgerald.Thomas Hennessy.John Hennigan.Patrick Leonard.Seosamh Mac a' Bhrighde.Donnchadh Mac Con Uladh.Liam Mac Cosgair.Pádraig Mac Fadáin.Patrick McGilligan.Eoin Mac Néill.Seoirse Mac Niocaill.Liam Mac Sioghaird.Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.John T. Nolan.

Criostóir O Broin.Seán O Bruadair.Risteárd O Conaill.Parthalán O Conchubhair.Conchubhar O Conghaile.Máirtín O Conalláin.Eoghan O Dochartaigh.Séamus O Dóláin.Mícheál O Dubhghaill.Peadar O Dubhghaill.Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.Eamon O Dúgáin.Andriú O Láimhín.Séamus O Leadáin.Fionán O Loingsigh.James O'Mara.Séamus O Murchadha.Seán O Raghallaigh.Máirtín O Rodaigh.Seán O Súilleabháin.Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.Caoimhghín O hUigín.Patrick W. Shaw.

Tellers.—Tá: Deputies Cooper and Hewat. Níl: Deputies Dolan and P. Doyle.

Amendment declared lost.

I suggest that as there is only five minutes to go before private members' business is to be taken we should now take up the Bill to be introduced by Deputy Dr. Hennessy.

The next amendment is amendment No. 7 in the name of Deputy Bryan Cooper.

I am quite prepared to go on, though I think it would save time if the Minister would report progress. My amendment is as follows:—

"To add at end of section a new sub-section as follows:—

"(4) Whenever the Commissioners shall issue a certificate of qualification under this section, the fact of the issue of such certificate, together with the name of the person to whom it is granted and a brief statement of the reasons why it has been issued, shall be published in the Iris Oifigiúil within twenty-one days of the issue of such certificate.”

That amendment is intended to qualify the proposal contained in the section. Broadly speaking, the amendment is intended to give the fullest possible publicity to the issue of any such certificate as contemplated in the section. It provides that whenever it is found necessary by the Civil Service Commissioners at the invitation of the Executive Council, on the prompting of the Minister for Finance and one other Minister to issue a certificate of exemption from examination, the fact that a certificate has been issued, together with the name of the person to whom it has been issued, and the reasons why it has been issued should be published in the Iris Oifigiúil. I do not think that is an extravagant proposal. It is a development of the provisions contained in the principal Act, but I think it goes a little further inasmuch as it makes it necessary for the Civil Service Commissioners to state the reason why they dispensed with the examination. That is an important and essential point. It is important that the Oireachtas and country as a whole should be informed when a certificate of this kind is issued, and of the reasons prompting both the Executive Council and the Civil Service Commissioners issuing such certificate. The Minister in his argument on the previous amendment brought forward many cases where it was desirable that such a certificate should be issued. What I ask in the amendment is that these arguments which are produced to the Dáil as general arguments should be available as specific arguments in support of each case and made known to the world through the medium of our official gazette. That is a proposition which seems to safeguard public life. There are one or two instances which one might give to show how desirable that safeguard is. I have one in my mind, but I think I will not give it as I would like to make a little further investigation. As a general proposition, I feel safe in laying down the doctrine that it is desirable, whenever this exceptional and abnormal procedure is resorted to, it should be marked by a definite act and made public officially, and not, for instance, by a private statement to the Press, but by an official act of the Commissioners over their seal and signature.

Progress reported.
Committee to sit again on Thursday, 26th November.
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