Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 23 Mar 1926

Vol. 14 No. 16

ESTIMATES—VOTE ON ACCOUNT.

The Dáil went into Committee on Finance:

MINISTER for FINANCE (Mr. Blythe)

I move:—

Go ndeontar i gcúntas suim nách mó ná £8,685,048 chun no le haghaidh íochta na muirearacha a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i ríth na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1927, i gcóir seirbhísí áirithe puiblí, eadhon:—	That a sum not exceeding £8,685,048 be granted on account for or towards defraying the charges that will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1927, for certain public services, namely:—
1 Teaghlachas an tSeanascail	£ 2,300	1 Governor-General's Establishment	£ 2,300
2 An t-Oireachtas	39,000	2 Oireachtas	39,000
3 Roinn Uachtarán na hArdComhairle	5,000	3 Department of the President of the Executive Council	5,000
4 An Stát-Chiste agus Iniúchoireacht	6,000	4 Exchequer and Audit 6,000
5 Oifig an Aire Airgid	20,000	5 Office of the Minister for Finance	20,000
6 An Roinn Ioncuim	232,000	6 Revenue Department	232,000
7 Pinsin tSean-Aoise	852,000	7 Old Age Pensions	852,000
8 Iasachtaí Aitiúla	400,000	8 Local Loans	400,000
9 Coimisiúin Shealadacha	8,800	9 Temporary Commissions	8,800
10 Oifig na nOibreacha Puiblí	38,000	10 Public Works Office	38,000
11 Oibreacha agus Foirgintí Puiblí	337,000	11 Public Works and Buildings	337,000
12 Saotharlann Stáit	2,328	12 State Laboratory	2,328
13 Coimisiún na Stát-Sheirbhíse	2,900	13 Civil Service Commission	2,900
14 Cúiteamh i gCailliúna Maoine	723,500	14 Property Losses Compensation	723,500
15 Cúiteamh i nDíobhála Pearsanta	1,600	15 Personal Injuries Compensation	1,600
16 Aois-Liúntaisí agus Líuntaisí Fágála	600,000	16 Superannuation and Retired Allowances	600,000
17 Rátaí ar Mhaoin an Rialtais	33,000	17 Rates on Government Property	33,000
18 An tSeirbhís Shicréideach	4,666	18 Secret Service	4,666
19 Scéimeanna Fóirithinte	50,000	19 Relief Schemes	50,000
20 Costaisí fén Representation of the People Act, fén Acht Timpeal Toghachán, agus fé Acht na gCoistí Dháréag (Leasú)	10,000	20 Expenses under the Representation of the People Act, the Electoral Act, and the Juries (Amendment) Act	10,000
21 Costaisí Ilghnéitheacha	3,102	21 Miscellaneous Expenses	3,102
22 Oifig an tSoláthair	51,775	22 Stationery Office	51,775
23 Measadóireacht agus Suirbhéireacht Teorann	11,673	23 Valuation and Boundary Survey	11,673
24 Suirbhéreacht an Ordonáis	15,317	24 Ordnance Survey	15,317
25 Deontas Breise Taimháíochta	300,000	25 Supplementary Agricultural Grant	300,000
26 Muirearacha Dlí	24,509	26 Law Charges	24,509
27 Longlann Inis Sionnach	5,000	27 Haulbowline Dockyard	5,000
28 Príomh-scoileanna agus Coláistí	75,000	28 Universities and Colleges	75,000
29 Congnamh Airgid do Bhiatas Siúicre	Nil	29 Beet Sugar Subsidy	Nil
30 Oifig an tSaor-Chíosa	1,375	30 Quit Rent Office	1,375
31 Oifig an Aire Dlí agus Cirt	10,200	31 Office of the Minister for Justice	10,200
32 Gárda Síochána	508,100	32 Gárda Síochána	508,100
33 Bórd Generálta an bPríosún	48,000	33 General Prisons Board	48,000
34 Cúirt Dúitche	16,900	34 District Court	16,900
35 Cúirt Uachtarach agus Ard-Chúirt an Bhreithiúnais	22,000	35 Supreme Court and High Court of Justice	22,000
36 Oifig Chlárathachta na Talmhan agus Oifig Chlárathachta na nDintiúirí	17,500	36 Land Registry and Registry of Deeds	17,500
37 Oifigigh Chúirte Cuarda	24,838	37 Circuit Court Officers	24,838
38 Oifig na nAnnálacha Puiblí	2,000	38 Public Record Office	2,000
39 Tabhartaisí agus Tiomanta Déirciúla	1,000	39 Charitable Donations and Bequests	1,000
40 Oifig an Aire Rialtais Aitiúla agus Sláinte Puiblí	187,200	40 Office of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health	187,200
41 Oifig an Ard-Chlárathóra	4,660	41 General Register Office	4,660
42 Gealtlann Dúndroma	6,500	42 Dundrum Asylum	6,500
43 An Coimisiún Arachais Sláinte Náisiúnta	91,525	43 National Health Insurance Commission	91,525
44 Oispidéil agus Déarcaisí	15,000	44 Hospitals and Charities	15,000
45 Oifig an Aire Oideachais	61,000	45 Office of the Minister for Education	61,000
46 Bun-Oideachas	1,275,000	46 Primary Education	1,275,000
47 Meadhon-Oideachas	90,000	47 Secondary Education	90,000
48 Ceárd-Oideachas	50,000	48 Technical Instruction	50,000
49 Eolaíocht agus Ealadhantacht	21,000	49 Science and Art	21,000
50 Scoileanna Ceartúcháin agus Saothair	36,000	50 Reformatory and Industrial Schools	36,000
51 An Gailerí Náisiúnta	2,000	51 National Gallery	2,000
52 Oifig an Aire Tailte agus Talmhaíochta	140,000	52 Office of the Minister for Lands and Agriculture	140,000
53 An Ciste Foraoiseachta (Deontas i gCabhair)	12,000	53 Forestry Fund (Grant in Aid)	12,000
54 Coimisiún na Talmhan	200,000	54 Land Commission	200,000
55 Roimh-íocanna le Cumainn Chreidiúna Thalmhaiochta	25,000	55 Advances to Agricultural Credit Societies	25,000
56 Oifig an Aire Tionnscail agus Tráchtála	100,000	56 Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce	100,000
57 Bóithre Iarainn	20,000	57 Railways	20,000
58 An Bínse Bóthair Iarainn	2,750	58 Railway Tribunal	2,750
59 Muir-Sheirbhísí	3,000	59 Marine Service	3,000
60 Oifig an Aire Iascaigh	18,000	60 Office of the Minister for Fisheries	18,000
61 Oifig an Phuist	800,000	61 Post Office	800,000
62 Fóirleatha Nea-shrangach	10,000	62 Wireless Broadcasting	10,000
63 An t-Arm	850,000	63 Army	850,000
64 Arm-Phinsin	140,000	64 Army Pensions	140,000
65 Oifig an Aire Gnóthaí Coigríche	15,500	65 Office of the Minister for External Affairs	15,500
66 Cumann na Náisiún	2,530	66 League of Nations	2,530
An t-Iomlán	£8,685,048	Total	£8,685,048

In moving this Vote in previous years I had to come to the Dáil without being able to put into the hands of Deputies the full Estimates, in advance of the Vote on Account. This year I had hoped to be able to present the Estimates about the first of March. But Deputies will recognise that the volume of the Estimates is a composite document and that a great deal of consultation, not only between the Departments that account for an estimate and the Department of Finance, but between other departments, has to take place, and that it is extremely difficult when a routine has not been fully established to get such documents out up to date. This year, at any rate, Deputies have had the volume in their hands for more than a week, and I hope that the improvement in time which has taken place will be maintained and that in subsequent years Deputies will have the volume of Estimates something like a month in advance of the time when the Vote on Account will be asked for.

In general the amount asked for on account is one-third of the Vote. The Estimates, under our Standing Orders, have to be passed before the 1st August. An amount is asked for, which will, if necessary, carry the services in a particular Department up to the time when the financial legislation of the coming year has been passed, so that the time of the Dáil will not be occupied in having a second Vote in respect of any particular Department. In the case of certain Departments rather more than one-third is asked for, because in those particular instances payments may fall to be made early in the year. In respect of Relief Schemes, for instance, we are asking for the full amount that appears in the Estimates. That amount is required for the purpose of carrying on works already sanctioned and which are in progress. As a matter of fact, probably the entire expenditure will be within a considerably shorter period than four months, which is the period normally intended to cover. In certain items like, for instance, sugar beet, the subsidy is not asked for. In the case of sugar beet the subsidy is not asked for, because the manufacture of sugar beet will not commence until long after the financial legislation of the next year has been passed.

Mr. CONNOR HOGAN

I should like, Sir, if you would let me put a question to the Minister in regard to relief works before he proceeds any further: Is the sum asked for now a re-vote of money voted already which, of course, lapses and returns to the Exchequer on the 31st March, or is it a fresh sum of £50,000 which you are voting now?

Mr. BLYTHE

I cannot tell. To some extent it is a re-vote, because all money which was voted last year will not be expended before the 31st March. But whether the amount unexpended will equal or exceed £50,000 I cannot say at the moment. Broadly speaking it is a re-vote, but some of it may turn out to be new money because the amount unexpended at the end of the year may not reach £50,000. There may be, for instance, only £30,000 or £40,000 of last year's money unexpended when the 31st March is reached. If that were the case £10,000 or £20,000 of this amount would then be new money.

In the case of the sugar beet subsidy no sum on account is being asked for at all. In certain instances some intermediate sum is being asked for. In the case of the supplementary Agricultural Grant more than one third—I think about half—is being asked for because I expect that a moiety of that grant would have to be paid before the 31st July and that Estimate may not have been reached in the ordinary way at that time.

If all the non-recurrent items were removed and the recurrent expenditure this year were compared with the recurrent expenditure of next year, a certain substantial reduction will be shown. That is a matter which I would propose to discuss more fully in connection with the Budget and the taxation proposals for the coming year. The Estimates, themselves, contain very large sums which do not represent normal or recurrent expenditure. They contain items which are clearly capital items. For instance, this year we have in the Estimates £500,000 as the amount in aid of the Local Loans Fund. That £500,000 will be required because of the drainage maintenance work which was carried out last summer, and which will be carried out in the corresponding scale this year, and a substantial sum will have to be advanced on loan to the various councils on whose behalf the work under the Drainage Maintenance Act will be carried on. Certain sums will have to be advanced this coming year under the Arterial Drainage Act of last year.

Considerable sums, running to £100,000, will be advanced for the improvement of lands and for work in connection with the improvement of lands. That was got fairly well into swing last year and it will be continued this year. Loans for that purpose, such as the thorough drainage of the land, the erection of farm buildings and so on will have to be advanced. We are also making provision in the Local Loans Fund for making advances to the local authorities for certain public health works, works such as sewerage schemes and water supply schemes. It is not intended at present, at any rate, to open the Local Loans Fund for the purpose of making housing loans. After this year it may be necessary to consider whether the policy of subsidies in respect of houses should not be modified, and whether we should not try to have, at any rate, our housing policy, in part, carried out by the local authorities being put in a position to obtain long term loans, say, 60 years or thereabouts. But, at any rate, for the purpose of making advances, we are asking for a vote in the present instance of £500,000.

There are other items, such as the Compensation Vote, which is rather abnormal this year, and which after the present year will disappear altogether. Very large sums are asked for, for the erection of public works and buildings. In the main, the sums asked for will be devoted to the restoration of buildings which were destroyed during the past few years. We think it is a good policy at the present time of unemployment and depression that where there exists work which ought to be done, work which of itself is good work of a capital nature, this work should be expedited rather than delayed. As the Deputies will see on examining the Estimates, in addition to the provision for the re-erection of public buildings in Dublin—the Custom House, the Four Courts and the Post Office— large sums are also provided for the reconstruction of military buildings which have been destroyed and for the reconstruction of stations for the Gárda Síochána where the old R.I.C. barracks had been destroyed.

There is a reduction this year in the Army charges, as was shown in the Estimates. We have not as yet been able to bring the Army down to the figure which I mentioned a year or two ago as the normal figure—that is, about £2,000,000. But I think that it can be confidently promised that next year the Army expenditure will come down to that figure—that is, that it will come down, say, approximately another half million pounds. The sum for Army pensions which is shown in the Estimates, is also an abnormal sum. Pensions are now being granted to men who have applied under the Military Services (Pensions) Act. These pensions accrue from a date two and half years back, and, consequently, in addition to current pension, the men whose claims are passed and finally dealt with will be receiving arrears of pension.

I do not know that I need at the present stage go in any detail into the question of the separation of non-recurrent and abnormal and capital charges from recurrent charges which ought and must be met out of taxation. That will require to be done with the greatest possible care in connection with the Budget. It will be necessary, however, in order that taxation be no higher than is absolutely necessary and in the interests of a sound financial policy, that the segregation be made. In many cases the segregation is really largely a matter of judgement and discretion. There are items which are clearly capital items, there are others which are clearly normal and recurrent items, and there are very many items of a border line character. In connection with the estimates, the position, I think, is no different from the position which existed when I spoke on the question of economy in the Budget statement last year. Economies in the Saorstát can be effected only in matters of detail, and economies of any very substantial character can only be effected slowly. If we wanted great economies they could be effected only in the elimination of important and, as I believe, valuable services. It would be possible for us to have almost any reduction we liked in expenditure provided we were prepared to give up the services. If we were prepared to go back to a social state such as existed say a hundred years ago, it would be extremely easy to reduce expenditure. A mere reduction of expenditure is by no means a real reduction of expenditure. If we sacrifice essential services for the purpose of getting that reduction of expenditure, it may be in the long run or even in the short run no advantage at all to the country.

We hear a great deal of talk about economy, but it seems to me that so far there has been very little thought about it. People have begun to talk, and there is just this advantage at any rate in the talk that if they keep on talking perhaps they will begin to think, and when they begin to think the Government perhaps will have help that it has not had hitherto in dealing with the whole question. You have people who think that it is a shocking business that anybody should be paid more than £500 a year. Probably if we had a certain economic system you could get on perfectly without anyone being paid more than £500 a year, but the position that exists is that we have to carry on service where the competitive element is not absent. I know, for instance, that in a certain grade of the staff of the Revenue Department where we have men having a salary something like that, we have had them taken away from us by outside firms and given double the salary. Last year, in a grade that is very difficult to recruit, a grade in which it takes a considerable time to train men—I refer to Inspectors of Taxes—we had a couple of Inspectors of Taxes given offers, in one case, of double the salary that we were paying, and in the other of a sum something like double the salary. Both men were taken away from us. Their leaving caused great inconvenience because of the shortage of staff in that particular grade, and also an actual loss of revenue. So that when we have people saying some of the things that we hear said we realise that they have not yet begun to think. If they realised that there was a question of economy they would not open their mouths or take up their pens to give utterance to sentiments which do not bear a trace of very deep or serious consideration.

As I said in connection with my Budget speech last year, if we wanted economy regardless of any other consideration and reductions in expenditure regardless of any other consideration we could cut off services and get it. We could cut off such a service, say, as education. Economists have actually put it to me that it saps the independence of a people to have their children educated at the public cost. I actually had a man who came to me in the interests of economy saying that this business of public expenditure for education was bad, that it destroyed the stalwart individualism of the old days and sapped the independence of the people. He thought, but would not go so far as to say, that we should eliminate free public education. He thought that we ought to look upon it with suspicion, and reduce it as far as possible.

There was a time here when there was no Department of Agriculture. There is no doubt that if we wanted economy we could simply wipe that Department off the map. I do not know whether it would be an advantage or not to do that. I think not myself, but there may be people who believe that the saving of, say, half a million pounds or so in that way would be a gain to the country. If they think that it would be well they should say so distinctly. Then you have old age pensions, and quite recently a development of health insurance which, after all and in spite of a great deal of prejudiced talk, is a very beneficent institution and one which, if we go no further with the matter, does save the local rates and does save and preserve the efficiency of the workers which might otherwise be considerably impaired. That is a new service. Unemployment insurance, in spite of the prevalence of unemployment, is also a new service which no doubt could be dropped if we were thinking of nothing but economy. But you do not do any good for the country by simply proposing to stop expenditure regardless of the consequences. If services are to be cut off they should be cut off after very careful consideration and with the deliberate knowledge of what is lost. We must remember here that we can never afford to ignore the facts of modern life. We cannot afford to ignore the growing complexity of life over the world, the growing helplessness of the individual facing up to the problems of life. We know ourselves that people may be willing to work at anything but can get no work. We know that you have all sorts of people dependent on a more complex social machine than existed in past times, and because of that complexity there is a tendency—I think it is a tendency all over the world, a certain tendency in most countries and in countries that are doing well and are progressing— for increased calls being made on the State organisation to do certain things in the public interest and to do things that individuals somehow or another cannot do for themselves. I believe that the need for these additional activities arises out of the increased and growing complexity of life. A country may run ahead on these things. If we have not a complexity of life and have not reached a state of development that requires a certain amount of governmental activity, and if we do undertake that governmental activity, we are probably imposing a charge that has a retarding effect and a depressing effect upon the country. A country like the Free State, with the stringency and comparative poverty that prevails in it, cannot afford to run into the governmental activities that other countries may take up.

Here, as elsewhere, there is that tendency. We find it very evident, not only in the Dáil, but all over the country, in all sorts of circles. We have all sorts of people who cry out for economy and less expenditure one day and who next day urge some new activity on the Government. People who say that expenditure must be reduced want more money spent on secondary schools, on education generally, on school buildings, on model farms all over the country so that farmers may have new methods brought almost to their doors and, moreover, ask for additional fishery cruisers and, in fact, for a fleet of such cruisers. Some of these things may be things which no Government could refuse to grant. While we must try in every way to get the best value for money spent on education, and while we must not pay more in salaries than we need, I believe that money properly administered on education is an investment and we cannot refuse to develop in that direction.

For myself, I believe that if we are going to have a lightening of the load of taxation. if we are to have a substantial reduction in rates, if we are going to have something more than would be got by a small percentage of reduction this year and a small reduction the next year, followed by a year in which new services will eat up money, it has got to be made a matter of general concern and general activity. The sort of economy campaign, for instance, that has been set afoot recently, carried to the pitch to which it has been carried, is only another way of throwing all responsibility on the Government. We have people saying that they want a reduction of nine or ten millions in expenditure and that that will let industry go ahead. Such a reduction, in my view, is not possible and is not within the region of practical politics. It will never happen. People who ask for it are just another group of the people who say that the Government should do everything. They are in the same position as those who ask the Government to undertake activities which are not undertaken in other countries, all sorts of new activities. If there is to be substantial reduction it has to be got by increased productive activity and by general cooperation for that purpose. There must be some change in the attitude of a great many people. You have people who meet and come together at congresses and all sorts of meetings and who pass resolutions about economy, but if an instructor from the Department of Agriculture advertised a meeting for the purpose of talking on the question of cow-testing and of forming a cow-testing association, you would probably get about two or three people turning up to it.

The whole question of reduction is that there must be some attempt to get a proper perspective about it, and the whole question of taxation is really a matter of increased production. There may be certain small reductions in expenditure but those reductions will really do very little for the country. Last year, for instance, we gave in our Budget substantial decreases of taxation. We relieved local rates to the extent of nearly £500,000. We gave a very substantial net reduction in taxation but that reduction did not put the country booming. Any reductions in expenditure or taxation that are possible will, of course, help to lighten the load and reduce whatever handicap people are under, but they will not win the race in themselves. They will not get anybody to the winning post. It is going to be a comparatively small factor in the question of the country's progress. A Deputy to-day asked a question about the setting up of a committee of experts for a certain purpose, and suggested that an official of an outside government should be brought in to investigate the organisation and working of our Government departments. He really raised a matter which has been raised several times here. I have always opposed the appointment of such a committee. We had not previously heard the suggestion that an outside official should be brought in. I also oppose that suggestion, because I think the whole matter is one that should be dealt with seriously. A committee of the sort suggested would simply be treating the public just as a child is treated by putting a soother in its mouth to keep it from howling. There has been talk about the Geddes' Committee. Those who talk about that Committee have not apparently looked at its report. Such a committee might in certain circumstances do good work, but such circumstances do not exist here. In England you had a very strong Treasury control before the war. During the war it was broken down and Treasury restrictions and protests were ignored.

A great fund of material was accumulated in the Treasury and, at a certain stage, it was decided that this sort of control should be rehabilitated and, at the same time, Departments were reluctant to do the things which they were urged by the Treasury to do. A committee of experts were brought in which operated in the closest connection with the Treasury and which really set its imprimatur upon various Treasury proposals. The conditions under which certain things were done by this government committee do not exist here. There may come a time when committees or outsiders can be used for certain purposes. The idea of sending a committee of outside business men into a Government Department to deal with the staffing and work of these departments is utterly fantastic. They could not do it. They could be fooled up to their eyes. The work would require more time than you could get people to spend on it. In any case, in the political and national circumstances that exist here, having regard to both recent and distant history, it would be practically impossible to get a committee which would be capable of doing the work and which would command a degree of confidence that such a committee would have to have if it were to be of any use. I believe that the Estimates which we present this year represent a reduction of recurring expenditure. They represent a great deal of work done by all departments of the Government in the interests of economy. In future years some further reductions can be got. The kind of reduction that can be got will depend on the kind of new activities undertaken by the Government. Certain reductions can be got, but whatever reductions are possible are not reductions which will leave the great decrease in the rates of taxation which so many people look for. If those rates are to be got they are to be got by facing the situation, by stock-taking which goes further than the statement that everybody over a certain sum should have his salary reduced by 50 per cent., that half the clerks in particular departments should be discharged, or that everybody knows that there are inflated and idle staffs in the headquarters of the departments. There will have to be some sort of realisation that people must be willing to do sober work to bring the country out of its difficulties. The psychology of some of those people who are doing the shouting is that there is no difference between shouting for a further reduction and further expenditure. They do one thing one day and the other the next day. We must, in short, see by what methods and by what cooperation of different forces of the nation greater efficiency can be brought about in national business and how greater productivity can be secured.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

Could the Minister give me any estimate as to what the non-recurrent expenditure of the coming year would be?

Mr. BLYTHE

I intend to give a detailed consideration of the whole matter later.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

What will the total Central Fund charges for the coming year be?

Mr. BLYTHE

They will be approximately the Central Fund charges of last year as set out. There cannot be wide differences.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

Speaking to item number 35 in the Vote on Account, I should like to deal, as briefly as is consistent with the importance of the matter, with a certain issue raised over the week-end in regard to the High Court and the Supreme Court of this State and the position of the Judges in those Courts in relation to the Executive. Deputies should ask themselves what is involved and what is implied by the bringing of certain votes before the Dáil at this time of the year. They should ask themselves why there appears on the estimates a sum of upwards of £140,000 in respect of salaries for the staff of the High Court, the Supreme Court and the Circuit Court. It would be very easy to save the time of the Dáil if the salaries of Court staffs were to be charged, like the salaries of Judges, on the Central Fund. For that matter it would be a simple thing to do and an economy of Parliamentary time to charge the salaries of all officials on the Central Fund rather than bring them annually before the Dáil to be voted on in the yearly Estimates. There is, of course, a reason for having the salaries of public officials voted yearly in the Estimates, just as there is a reason for not having the salaries of judges voted yearly in the Estimates. I should like Deputies to examine briefly the reasons why the salaries of Judges are charged on the Central Fund rather than set out here in the Estimates, and the reasons why the salaries of public officials are not so charged, because in examining those reasons we get to the root of the issue that has been raised both publicly and by correspondence in connection with the proper relation of the Executive to the Judiciary with particular reference to a Bill. The general principle has recently been approved by the Dáil.

The Constitution has certain articles bearing on the position of the Judiciary, Articles 64 to 69 inclusive. The substance of these articles is "the judicial power of the Irish Free State shall be exercised and justice administered in the different courts established by the Oireachtas by judges appointed in a manner hereinafter provided" (Article 64), and "all judges shall be independent in the exercise of their functions and subject only to the constitution and the law. A judge shall not be eligible to sit in the Oireachtas and shall not hold any other office or position of emolument (Article 69). The salaries of judges are charged on the Central Fund and the salary of any judge may not be reduced in his lifetime." The salaries of judges are charged on the Central Fund to emphasise and underline the fact that they are not subject to Parliamentary criticism and that there is no Ministerial responsibility in regard to them. But while they are appointed, it is true, by the Governor-General on the advice of the Executive Council, once appointed they occupy a position in relation to their judicial functions of independence. There cannot be questions asked or answered here in the Dáil with regard to the work of a judge. No Minister could answer or should attempt to answer them. A judge may be removed only by resolution of both Houses, and I do not know of any precedent, in fact or in practice, for such removal. So deep-rooted is the view that judges should be independent and feel independent, that even improprieties in office are not considered, even things that might be criticised amongst the public and so on, are not considered to warrant the grave step of putting down a resolution for removal of a judge.

I say all that to emphasise to Deputies the importance of the matter, to emphasise that it is fully appreciated by me and by members of the Executive Council that judges shall be independent and should be independent in the exercise of their judicial functions. But when I am asked to agree to the view that it is an implication of the statement in the Constitution, that judges shall be independent in the exercise of their functions, that £140,000 or £150,000 worth of court staff shall also, so far as the people and their representatives and their Ministers are concerned, be independent in the exercise of their functions, I must disagree. It is not a corollary to the independence of the Judiciary that the staffs in the public offices attached to the courts shall be lifted above the plane of Parliamentary criticism, shall be immune from comment or criticism in the Parliament of the people; that there shall be no Ministerial control and no responsibility to the electorate, through their representatives, in respect of that important branch of public administration.

That is the issue which has been raised, solemnly and seriously raised in a communication to myself from the Chief Justice, received by me on Thursday last. I mention the date of my receipt of that letter because I want to make the comment that that letter was under consideration, under review, under reply when the Chief Justice thought fit at a public banquet, or after a public banquet, to make certain references to the Court Officers Bill which had passed second reading here and to the people who were responsible for the framing and putting forward of that Bill. We were told that sweeping changes, prepared by people who knew nothing whatever of the matters with which they were dealing, had been placed before the public.

In that connection I want to say that the Bill was not lightly or hastily prepared; that it was brought forward after a two years' study of the court system here and after a brief but intensive study of the court system in England. Before the actual work of preparing that Bill was undertaken, I sent officials of my department to glean whatever they could glean of value and wisdom from a brief but very intensive study of the workings of the various offices of the courts on the other side. Through the High Commissioner there they were received by the heads of the Home Office, and I would like to acknowledge with gratitude the courtesy with which they were received. Every facility was given to them to study the working of the judicial system in England and the working of the court offices from top to bottom. It was after that kind of preparation, that kind of study of our own system and the judicial system and the working of the offices of the courts in England that this Bill, which Deputies approved in outline and in principle last week, was introduced.

It is, I think, questionable whether a judge ought in relation to any Bill, even in relation to a Bill which so nearly affects the Judiciary as this Bill, commit himself to a heated comment and criticism of the kind to which the Chief Justice treated his audience on Saturday night last. It is a little difficult to understand how subsequently the judge could deliver a calm, dispassionate judgment in connection with a statute which he had attacked so heatedly when in incubation, and I hope that we are not likely to have many post-prandial pronouncements of that kind by judges in connection with legislation which is in course of consideration in this House or in the Seanad.

The general principle of the Court Officers Bill is questioned by the Chief Justice on behalf of his colleagues of the Judiciary. I am told that the judges find that the underlying principles upon which the Bill is drawn are fundamentally at variance with the principles of the Constitution with reference to the exercise of the judicial authority and functions, that the scheme of the Bill and many of its details are not so devised as to lead to a proper administration of justice, and that the Bill creates a position of vital concern to the public interest. Having disclaimed—and it is right I should say it is disclaimed—any desire to continue the system of judicial patronage as to actual appointments, I am told that the abolition of a system of appointments liable to abuse is one thing and that the control of staffs when appointed is quite another.

Mr. JOHNSON

Is the Minister quoting from a communication received from the judges?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I am putting Deputies in possession of certain objections which have been urged on behalf of the Judiciary to the Court Officers Bill and, lest I should misrepresent in any way the views of the judges, I am refreshing my memory from the communication that I received from the Chief Justice.

Mr. JOHNSON

My reason for rising is that the Minister quoted or at least read or refreshed his memory to the extent of stating that it had been represented that the provisions of the Bill were in violation of the spirit of the Constitution—or the terms of the Constitution, I think he said. That is so important a pronouncement from anybody of authority, that I thought it necessary to draw special attention to it and ask for the authority.

Professor MAGENNIS

If the Minister is quoting from the public speech, which he spoke of as post-prandial, would it be possible to have that document circulated to Deputies? Otherwise we cannot be expected to consider it in its details, merely from having memories refreshed.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

It would be possible, but I am not of opinion that it would be desirable, and it would be a bad precedent. At the same time, it is right that Deputies should know the kind of objections that are entertained in regard to this Bill. I certainly have no desire to withhold from Deputies very full knowledge of that kind. I told Deputies that the principle of the Court Officers Bill is challenged.

Captain REDMOND

May I ask whether these are the views of the Chief Justice or the considered views of the judges?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

They are the views set out by the Chief Justice following on a consideration of the Bill by the Judiciary as a whole. I was saying, sir, that any desire to continue the system of patronage so far as actual appointments are concerned, is disclaimed. Then I am told that "the abolition of a system of appointments liable to abuse is one thing; the control of staffs when appointed is quite another and that it is here the whole Judiciary is profoundly affected by the Bill as it stands. The underlying principle of the Bill is to deprive the judges collectively and individually of the control of officers of the courts and of the immediate general control and regulation of the business of the courts and to transfer that control to Executive Ministers."

Five requirements are set out, and I am informed that "in the absence of all or any of these conditions the independence of the Judiciary is infringed. As to tenure, assuming that a retiring age of sixty-five years, or in certain cases seventy, is fixed, no court officer should be removable before such retiring age save by the joint action of the Chief Justice and the President of the High Court and then only for a cause of misconduct or incapacity stated by them in writing. As to promotions, all promotions in the staff to be made by the Chief Justice and the President of the High Court acting together. As to interchangeability of court officers, all movements of officers, changes from one office or section or kind of work to another, to be determined by the joint decision of the Chief Justice and the President of the High Court. As to the number of officers, the numbers of officers and others to be employed in the offices of the courts to be determined by the Chief Justice and the President of the High Court, with the sanction of the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Finance. As to control, the control, regulation, discipline and direction of officers, including distribution of work and the prescribing of hours, must in the case of the High Court rest with the President of that Court, and in the case of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice's Office, and the Court of Criminal Appeal with the Chief Justice." There, at any rate, is an issue knit with the underlying principle of the Court Officers Bill. The underlying principle of that Bill is, as I understand it, Ministerial control of court staffs and responsibility to Parliament of control in respect of court staffs.

It might be of interest to Deputies if I were to give the history of the Court Officers Bill, or, to put it in another way, to trace the pedigree of the Court Officers Bill. Taking first things first, let me quote you the report of the Judiciary Committee which sat under the chairmanship of Lord Glenavy in January of 1923. Turning to the top of page 25 of that very valuable document, I find:

"The official staff of the Supreme and the High Court should consist of two divisions, senior and junior. Admissions to the junior division to be decided by competitive examinations in such subjects and subject to such qualifications as to age as the Civil Servants Commission may prescribe, the staff to be members of the Civil Service and entitled to pensions and subject to retirement under its rules."

The staff to be members of the Civil Service! That document was signed by Charles O'Conor, Aodh O Cinneide (Hugh Kennedy), W. J. Johnston, Timothy Sullivan, Patrick J. Brady, James Creed Meredith, W. Hewat, John O'Byrne, Henry Murphy, Cahar Davitt, Louis J. Walsh, and Lord Glenavy, Chairman. It is signed by five members of the present Judiciary, and I am told in their report that the staffs are to be members of the Civil Service. Remember that the men who drafted and presented that report are what Deputy Magennis would call "Precisians" in the use of language. They use words in their exact sense and with advertence to their exact meaning. I am told that the courts staff are to be civil servants. What is a civil servant?

Mr. BAXTER

An overpaid official.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

A well paid official Deputy Baxter says. A civil servant, as I understand it, is not merely employed and paid by the State. I have always understood him to be paid and employed by the State, subject to Ministerial control, in respect of whom and in respect to whose activities there shall be responsibility to the electorate through Parliament.

Mr. JOHNSON

Is the Comptroller and Auditor-General, a civil servant?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I doubt it. I do not think so.

Mr. JOHNSON

That is the case.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

At any rate you have there the beginnings of the pedigree. The courts staffs are to be civil servants. Then there was passed a Courts of Justice Act. That Act constituted the Courts of Justice. It set up the courts and the judges. It made no mention of staff beyond certain transitory carrying-over provisions and it was understood that supplementary and complementary to that Courts of Justice Act; there would be introduced for the consideration of the Oireachtas, a Court Officers Bill dealing with the organisations of the courts staff from top to bottom, the Bill we had last week. Between the Courts of Justice Act and the Court Officers Bill there was another Act, the Ministers and Secretaries Act, No. 16 of 1924, a more important Act, a basic Act. It is an Act to which Ministers go, to seek a true outline and definition of their functions and their Parliamentary responsibilities. I have frequently had occasion to refer to it. I referred to it in connection with the Court Officers Bill and I find in paragraph 3 of Section 1 that amongst the Departments of State which are to be established, there is to be:—

The Department of Justice which shall comprise the administration and business generally of public services in connection with law, justice, public order and police, and all powers, duties and functions connected with the same (except such powers, duties and functions as are by law reserved to the Executive Council, and such powers, duties and functions as are by the Constitution or by law excepted from the authority of the Executive Council or of an Executive Minister) and shall include in particular the business, powers, duties and functions of the branches and officers of the public services specified in the second part of the schedule to this Act and of which Department the head shall be and shall be styled An t-Aire Dlí agus Cirt or (in English) the Minister for Justice.

Turning to the second part of the schedule, I find there set out the particular branches of administration assigned to the Department of Justice. First amongst these branches of administration I find:

"All courts of justice and the officers thereof, save in so far as the same are reserved to the Executive Council, or are excepted from the authority of the Executive Council, or of an Executive Minister."

Then follows other matters in regard to which I have Parliamentary responsibility: the police, the General Prisons Board for Ireland, the Registrar of District Court Clerks, the Public Record Office, the Registry of Deeds, the Land Registry, the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests for Ireland. First amongst the responsibilities assigned to me in this schedule of the Ministers and Secretaries Act are:

"All courts of justice and the offices thereof, save in so far as the same are reserved to the Executive Council, or are excepted from the authority of the Executive Council, or of an Executive Minister."

What meaning am I to attach to the words of this Act and the words of the schedule: "all courts of justice and the offices thereof"?

Clearly it is not the buildings in which the courts sit are referred to. They are under the supervision of the Commissioners of Public Works, and in that way become a Parliamentary responsibility of the Minister for Finance. Equally clearly, it is not the judges. By the Constitution they are declared to be independent in the exercise of their functions. When I ask myself what then it was I was made responsible for by this statute, I formed the view, which I still hold, that it was the officers and public officials attached to the courts. The Ministers and Secretaries Act was introduced in 1924. In that year the present Chief Justice was Attorney-General.

To come back to the question, as to why the salaries of court officers appear in the Estimates, clearly, the very fact of their appearing on the Estimates posits Ministerial responsibility, posits responsibility through the Dáil to the electorate, and to the taxpaying community in respect of these public officials. If not, their salaries should be side by side with the salaries of the judges themselves, and chargeable on the Central Fund.

A week-end paper attempted to limit the interest that the public were entitled to take in the officers of the Courts, and to limit and confine very strictly the extent to which there should be Ministerial responsibility in respect of these officers. We read in the "Irish Statesman" of March the 20th:

"The public is immediately interested in seeing that entrants to the service of the Courts, salaries, number of officers, and retirements are subject to Ministerial review, but we conceive that its interest ends there, and that in matters of internal control the Judiciary is the best master of its own affairs."

The public, then, may be mildly interested in the youth of twenty entering the service of the Courts; it may be interested in the man of sixty-five leaving the service of the Courts, but, for the forty-five years in between, and for the work done or left undone, for the satisfaction given or withheld, the public is not to be interested, and is solemnly warned by the "Irish Statesman" that it is not to be interested, and that if there is, let us suppose, in twenty years' time—it might be better to say fifty years—indolence and insolence from top to bottom of that important branch of the public service, the public, according to the "Irish Statesman," are not to be interested. Certainly, whether they are interested or not they are not to complain, because where would they complain and who would answer the complaint?

Now, the root of this trouble is that we have not here anything corresponding to the Lord Chancellor in the British Court system, and to the system which they ran here when in occupation and in administration of this country. The Lord Chancellor bridged the gap between the Judiciary and the Executive. He was that anomaly to which the British public have got accustomed, the political judge. He was at once a member of the Judiciary and a member of the Cabinet as well, and he was a living link between the two bodies. Here we have no Lord Chancellor, and here, under our Constitution, we, apparently, solemnly decided to have none, for we say: A judge shall not be eligible to sit in the Oireachtas and shall not hold any other office or position of emolument. The moment you decided to have no Lord Chancellor and to have nothing corresponding to the Lord Chancellor, you were faced, immediately and necessarily, with the alternatives of leaving the control of the Courts staffs in the hands of the judges, or of leaving Ministerial control and responsibility to Parliament, in respect of a branch of the public service which is unquestionably very important, and, unquestionably, very expensive. In this year's estimate you will be asked to vote in respect of the salaries of court officers a sum upwards of £140,000. If the Dáil were to agree with the contention that the Courts staff ought not to be subjected to Ministerial control, next year that amount would not be on the Estimates. It would be on the Central Fund, but it would have this result, that if Deputy Johnson or any other Deputy wanted to make any complaint with regard to, let us say, the degree of satisfaction given or withheld in any particular Court office, it would be, I suggest, the duty of the Speaker to rule him out of order.

There would be no Minister to answer any such complaints. I have been invited to envisage certain fantastic possibilities that we are asked to believe could ensue, or would ensue, from the adoption of the idea of ministerial control and responsibility in respect of the officers of the courts. I have been told that if this Bill becomes law no court or judge will have authority to require any official to take down a decision, or draw up an order of the court in accordance with the decision. That is a very terrible possibility. It is also, I submit, a very fantastic possibility. There is no human institution, no human device, which could not be demolished if that kind of argument is to be resorted to, and I remind Deputies that serious outrages and serious atrocities could be perpetrated quite apart from this Bill. Even as matters stand and before we pass this Bill, a prison governor might say in respect of a sentenced man, "I think that man should not have been sentenced at all, and we will not take him in. I think it is a great mistake and a great hardship with regard to that poor man: there were extenuating circumstances in his case, and I will not admit him." A policeman might look the other way in his beat when a wanted man passed by, though there was a warrant out for his arrest. If you are to posit a corrupt or inept Executive in one hundred or one thousand ways the Executive could defeat the determinations and judgments of the courts, and the Court Officers Bill is not necessary to that end. When you are asked to contemplate the horror of a court official refusing to take down the orders of the judge, I ask you to consider the horrors, which are no more fantastic, and which could occur in our own day and every day under the dispensation as it exists. If more solid and more substantial arguments than that kind of resort to extreme and fantastic possibilities cannot be urged against the Bill, then Deputies and Senators will do well to pass the Bill.

At any rate the Bill is legitimate. It is a true child of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, and to that extent the Chief Justice is challenging a grandchild of his brain. The Bill can only be said to be unconstitutional if we are to take it that it is an implication of the statement in the Constitution that all judges shall be independent in the exercise of their functions, and that so far as the electorate and their representatives and Ministers are concerned the court staffs shall also be independent in the exercise of their functions. That is a bold thing to claim.

When Deputies are beginning to consider their Estimates it is timely to draw their attention to the fact that on their Estimates they will find substantial sums in respect of the salaries of court officers; it is timely to inquire whether they would wish to have these items there next year, and whether they would wish to have the right to complain here in the Dáil of any lack of satisfaction or of any lack of expedition in the work of the public offices which are attached to the courts. If Deputies wish to relinquish that right, well and good. If Deputies wish to set up an imperium in imperio, and say with the "Irish Statesman" they are only interested in the court staffs as to the age at which they go in and out, well and good. The Deputies must remember if there are to be complaints with regard to the working of these offices, then there must be someone who can answer these complaints and can deal with them if they are well grounded. If, for instance, it were to take an abnormal length of time to take out probate, or to get through some of that official business which is transacted in the offices of the courts, would Deputies like to have the right of complaint here on behalf of their constituents in respect of such delay? If Deputies would, there must be some Minister to answer them and to deal with their complaints, if their complaints are well grounded.

I spent, as Deputy Johnson remarked, very little time on the Second Reading of the Court Officers Bill in discussing the principles of ministerial control of court staffs. I feel now that my apologies are due to Deputies. It never occurred to me that that issue could be raised, or would be raised. I was under the impression that we had settled that issue definitely and finally in the Ministers and Secretaries Act when we set up a Department of Justice and assigned to the political head of that Department responsibility for all courts and court officers with certain exceptions. But the issue is raised now, and Deputies must consider it. It is true that I have reluctance and hesitation, and I am sure the Executive Council would have hesitation, in setting the precedent of circulating to Deputies a document such as this, but I have withheld from Deputies no information vital to a proper consideration of this question. I have given the kernel of the objections urged on behalf of the Judiciary. They must decide now whether they will accept and subscribe to the view that ministerial control of court staffs is something which constitutes a violation of the independence of the Judiciary, and thereby a violation of the Constitution, or whether they would wish next year, as this year, to have on their Estimates the salaries of the court officials, and have a Minister to answer matters which might be raised thereon. As to this fantastic possibility, an official purporting to exercise an independent discretion as to whether or not he would draw up an order of the court, in my view you can demolish almost any institution along that line, but let me take the possibility, which many people would consider to be less fantastic, and apply it to the alternative course recommended, that is judicial control of the court staffs, and the consequent negation of responsibility for control to Parliament and the electorate.

Now, to avoid hurting anyone's feelings, let us take a period twenty or thirty years hence. Let us suppose that some less infallible Executive Council appoints less impeccable Judges and that thirty years hence the condition of the Court staffs and the conditions of Court offices is one of the most complete chaos. Let us suppose that indolence and insolence is the keynote from top to bottom of that very important phase of public administration. Is there any remedy? The Deputy Johnson of the future, attempting to raise that matter, would be ruled out of order by the Ceann Comhairle of the future; he could not raise that matter in the Dáil. The people, through their representatives, would have no redress, unless they were prepared to resort to the very last and final course, the only course they have against the Judiciary, that of passing a resolution for their removal. If the Court staffs are to be responsible to the Judges, and the Judges not responsible to the man in the street or the man in the field, then, so far as the man in the street and the man in the field are concerned, the Court staffs are independent in the exercise of their functions, independent of the people, independent of their representatives, independent of their Ministers, responsible only to the Judges themselves. The chain does not come on; the Judges are not responsible to the electorate, through their representatives, and there you meet the blind alley. There would be no redress for the people under the system of judicial control of Court staffs if there was any lack of efficiency, any lack of expedition, any lack of common courtesy to the public who resort to these offices for the transaction of their business. That is a possibility. It may be considered a far-fetched possibility. Is it as far-fetched as the possibility that is urged of the Court official refusing to do that for which he is paid, that which is his raison d'etre? And if and when a Court official took up any such attitude, what would happen to him, and if it did not happen to him, what would happen to the Minister, hesitating in such an eventuality to take the obvious course?

There must be poise, and balance, and commonsense in the consideration of questions such as this. They cannot be determined along the lines of drawing on fantastic possibilities, and we have to consider where the balance of gain lies, what is best in the common interest, because this is not a matter of this man's predilections or that man's prejudices. It is a matter of whether, taking it in the bulk and in the rough, it is better, in the interests of the State and in the interests of its people, that this money should be voted annually by Parliament, that there should be responsible Parliamentary control, or that there should be none, and that the court officers' salaries should appear side by side with the judges' in the Central Fund. Personally, I do not care. I can assure Deputies that I have quite enough work to do without taking on responsibility for the hundreds of public officials who serve in the offices of the courts, and if Deputies think that it is preferable to leave that responsibility to the Judiciary and to leave it to chance as to how it works out, I am satisfied. But they should know what they are doing. I make no apology to the Dáil for having brought forward a Bill the main principle of which is Ministerial control of court staffs. I deduced that principle, and I think I was entitled to deduce that principle, from the Judicial Committee's Report, signed by five members of the present Judiciary, and from the Ministers and Secretaries Acts, largely framed by the present Chief Justice.

Deputies now know the position. They can consider it. There will be opportunities of reverting to this matter. It is right that I should say, as I did, indeed, on Second Reading, that I expect that this is a Bill in regard to which there will be many official amendments. That is so. In the communication from the judges many matters of detail have been raised which it will be possible to meet and deal with by way of amendments to the Bill. Where I find myself unable to meet a specific request put forward I will, at any rate, be able to meet the point of view underlying the request. With regard to the general principle raised in that letter, the position is not like that. It is not proposed to recede from the general principle of the Court Officers Bill, and if it is to be held that the principle of Ministerial control of court staffs constitutes an infringement of the independence of the Judiciary and thereby a violation of the Constitution, that must be found and held in open court after the matter has been very fully argued.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

We have had a speech which was very largely concerned with the principle of a Bill which is not now before us. After the Minister, Deputies who desire to speak on the same lines are entitled so to do this evening, but I would suggest that the debate on the principle of the Bill should be postponed until we go into Committee on the Bill, and that the debate would be resumed on certain sections of the Bill which are the operative sections. The position is a peculiar one, because although the principle of the Bill has been agreed to, certain new circumstances have arisen, as the Minister has indicated, which make it necessary, perhaps, that the matter should be gone over again, and it can be gone over in Committee. But while I think the proper place to go over it is in Committee on the Bill rather than now, I am unable to bind Deputies in the circumstances. It is merely a suggestion.

Mr. JOHNSON

With respect to your suggestion, unfortunately the matter has been raised by the Minister in a way which seems to require some discussion, and while I would hope not to go too far into a discussion of matters which should properly be discussed in Committee on the Bill, I think it is impossible to let the occasion pass without some comments upon the Bill and upon the attitude adopted by the Minister.

Captain REDMOND

I must apologise to the Deputy for interrupting him, but might I ask you, sir, whether the fact of Deputy Johnson commenting, as he says he must, will preclude Deputies at a future stage of this Bill, say, on the Committee Stage, from going more fully into the matters referred to by the Minister for Justice?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

No. The matter will be quite open in Committee. As a matter of fact, owing to the statement made by the Minister to-day, and to other statements that have been made, I think considerable latitude will have to be allowed in the discussion of certain sections—operative sections— of the Bill. No statement made here this evening will preclude, either the Deputy making it or anybody else, from making a similar statement in Committee.

Mr. JOHNSON

I think it is unfortunate that the discussion ranging round this Bill should have been raised as the result of a speech delivered by the Chief Justice, as the Minister said, after dinner. The matters raised are of such immense importance that I think it would have been very desirable if the point at issue, the point of view of the judges, had been intimated in some other formal way. However, the matter has been raised, and I hope that it will not be a precedent for discussions between the Dáil and the judges in future. I think it would be very unfortunate, indeed, if ever we came to the stage that matters affecting legislation would be the subject of discussion by the judges, on the one hand, outside the Dáil, and by Deputies or Ministers, inside the Dáil.

Mr. BAXTER

Let them all go to the same dinner.

Mr. JOHNSON

I think, too, one might almost go out of one's way to say something similar in regard to another high official of state. When this matter was discussed on Second Reading, I, with a good deal of diffidence, ventured to express my doubts as to the wisdom of the principle underlying the Bill. But I did that diffidently, and cautiously, because I felt assured that the Bill was, as a matter of fact, the considered view, not only of the Department of Justice, but also of the Judiciary, and I assumed that it was part of an arrangement except in respect of certain forms of drafting or details. Because that proves not to have been the case we are faced now with the position of discussing a Bill in regard to court officers—those officers being the eyes, the ears, and the fingers of the judges—and in respect of a Bill of which they say, or appear to say, from certain statements made by the Minister, that it is probably a violation of the constitutional position. That, I think, throws upon the Dáil a greatly added responsibility.

I would ask the Dáil to consider, and I would ask the Minister to agree that in the circumstances we ought not be asked to proceed further with the Bill until the matter has been discussed in conjunction with the Judiciary by a joint Committee of the Dáil and the Seanad. I think we are not in a position to proceed now that the question of the independence of the judges is an issue, and is raised by the judges. And if they are convinced that the enactment now before us is aimed at or would have the effect of undermining the independence of the judges, not all at once, presumably, but, in the phrase of the Minister, by a method of erosion, then I think we ought not to agree to proceed with the Bill when the time comes unless we have had opportunities of discussion with those primarily interested.

The Minister has made a good deal of the point that in the report of the Judicial Committee it was advised that the officers of the courts were to be civil servants, and that the Bill is only embodying in legislation that recommendation, and that if that were not so, if they were not to be deemed civil servants their salaries would not come before the Dáil, and would not be subject to discussion on the estimates.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

Oh, no.

Mr. JOHNSON

Well that they would be placed upon the Central Fund. I think that was the statement of the Minister. But we have had reference to the estimates now before us and it has been pointed out that these officers' salaries are on these estimates as there are also on the estimates, I understand, similar officers in the British House of Commons. Nevertheless, the condition we are working under to-day is one which apparently by the Minister's own argument and by the Bill itself requires to be altered. Are the officers civil servants to-day or are they not? The very fact that they are on the estimates suggests to me that they are, and that under the existing law the judges have an authority over them which is now sought to be taken away.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

May I intervene? I put it to the Deputy that it is not a question of whether they are civil servants or are not civil servants which determines whether their vote appears upon the estimates. There are votes in the estimates for people other than civil servants. But if you say that they shall be civil servants I suggest that necessarily there shall be Ministerial responsibility in respect of them to the Dáil, and in respect of their activities.

Mr. JOHNSON

The Minister laid a good deal of stress upon the impossibility, under the conditions which he seeks to change, of discussing the conduct of those officers of State, civil servants or others, if their position in relation to the Judiciary, on the one hand, or the Minister on the other is not to be changed. But their salaries are detailed in the estimates to-day as they have been hitherto, and consequently, so far as control over the expenditure in relation to these people is concerned, no change is suggested by either side to this discussion. The Minister, also, laid stress upon the Ministers and Secretaries Act and read portions of the Act. He read that portion which refers to the authority of the Department of Justice: "The Department of Justice, which shall comprise the administration and business generally of public service, in connection with law, justice, public order and police, and all powers, duties and functions connected with the same (except such powers, duties, and functions as are by law reserved to the Executive Council and such powers, duties, and functions as are by the Constitution or by law excepted from the authority of the Executive Council or of an Executive Minister)." Now I presume that had reference to certain exceptions by law, not merely future exceptions but exceptions already embodied in the law.

I do not think that the Bill carries with it the implications which the Minister seeks to impose upon it, because there are clear exceptions referred to here, exceptions by law from the authority of the Executive Council or of the Executive Minister. I have not had an opportunity to refer to it, but I am informed that these exceptions are contained in the Judicature Acts, one of which I think is dated 1875. And it is under those Acts that the authority exercised now over the day by day conduct of the staffs is exercised. There is the exception by law referred to in the Ministers and Secretaries Act. Of course, there are certain other rights and privileges, perhaps, if one may so call them, attached to the staffs of the courts which are sought to be changed. If one is going to base the case the Minister has made upon the implications of the Ministers and Secretaries Act and say that the present proposition is the inevitable outcome of the Ministers and Secretaries Act, then we are bound, I think, to find out what was intended by those exceptions referred to. I think it will be found that the exceptions are such as would maintain the existing relationship between the staffs and the judges and that it will require a very great deal of argument—perhaps proof is impossible in such cases—to show that there is a good reason for dissolving that very old authority of the judges over their staffs. It is not a matter to tribe with. Perhaps the Minister has not intended to trifle, but it is not a matter to be dealt with lightly at all. To break the connection between the judges and those officers of the court who are essential to the carrying out of the work of the judges, and to take the authority from the judges and place it in the hands of the political Minister, should only be done after the very gravest consideration, not only by the political Department concerned, but by the judges also, and by the Dáil and Seanad having full knowledge that the new arrangement proposed is one of general convenience and satisfaction to both the elements in the conduct of the affairs of State.

I will not go into the matter any further, but I would urge that the matter is of such very great importance that we ought not to proceed with the Committee Stage of the Bill until there has been an opportunity given to confer with the judges or their representatives, so that the whole argument on their side may be understood. The Minister has given us glimpses of the case which has been made to him on behalf of the judges. It is a salutary rule that such statements as are made and quoted from, should be made known to the Deputies of the House in which the statements are made. It may be inconvenient. It may be that this matter is so technical that not much good would come of it in this case. If that cannot be done, that is an added reason why the Dáil should be placed in possession of all the arguments that can be stated for the case that the judges have made and to which the Minister himself has made reference. We do not want discussion from the Bench, the banqueting tables or elsewhere as between the Minister and the judges. I think we ought to provide a formal occasion where the Minister can meet the judges, and the judges can meet the Deputies and Senators. Therefore, I urge this proposition of a Joint Committee of the two Houses to invite representations on those matters before we proceed with the Committee Stage of the Bill.

Major COOPER

I agree entirely with Deputy Johnson's last words, but I want also, as we are using legal terminology to enter a caveat against the theory that the Courts of Justice Act and the Ministers and Secretaries Act are the laws of the Medes and Persians. They are statutes and like other statutes are capable of alteration and capable of amendment and, in my opinion, they need alteration and amendment. I also agree with Deputy Johnson that it is not desirable to have these weighty issues tossed about between post-prandial speeches of judges and ante-prandial speeches of Ministers, but that we should seek a more ordered and a more seemly method. I hope that the Minister does not intend to press the Committee Stage of the Court Officers Bill.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

Yes, I propose to have the Committee Stage on Thursday. There will be, almost certainly, a second Committee Stage. When the report comes, I will be bringing forward a good many amendments arising out of the views of the Judiciary with which I have been favoured by the Chief Justice.

Major COOPER

Well, if our amendment will be entitled to be considered at the Second Stage, I will not quarrel with that. But there have been two weighty utterances—I do not seek to balance the weight—that I think we ought to consider before we arrive at a definite conclusion of this Bill. However, I think the Bill is out of order. My own opinion is that the last two speeches are out of order. I want to come back to the Vote on Account again, if that is not also out of order.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

As we have been out of order, we may as well continue to be out of order in as orderly a manner as possible. Perhaps we might now conclude the question of the Court Officers Bill before we go on to the real question—the Vote on Account.

Professor MAGENNIS

I desire to speak on that. I was rather startled to find the principle of the Bill attacked and defended, and defended and attacked under the guise of a Vote on Account. The Minister for Justice professed to give us what he called the pedigree of his Bill—the Court Officers Bill. He set out the genesis of it very dexterously, first beginning with the report of the Judicial Committee, over which Lord Glenavy presided, and of which the present Chief Justice was a member. I will not say that he suggested, or that he tried to suggest, that the Chief Justice in some way contradicts to-day what he recommended then. Yet, I have no doubt that many careless readers, let me call them, would gather the impression from the very fact of the quotation being made, that in some way the Chief Justice was going back on a position which he had taken up earlier when it was a case of recommending a measure to the House. Now, undoubtedly, we all accepted that report in so far as it was given expression to in the legislation that has been made on its basis. That, in conjunction with the Ministers and Secretaries Act, has undoubtedly quite a considerable influence upon the present measure. The very fact that we reconstructed our courts of law, and yet did not deal with the officers who held office under the old régime, made it necessary to have this Bill. As an advocate of a national civil service, I agree with much that the Minister said with regard to having the staffs of the courts in such a position as to have their conduct, and the discharge of their duties, subjected to review on the occasion of these votes. But I think that the Minister managed, whether intentionally or not I leave to himself, to confuse a number of things in this regard which are quite distinct.

The Ministers and Secretaries Act set up a Department of Justice, and as the Minister quoted rightly, it declares that the Courts of Justice and the offices thereof are to be under his control. He is the political chief of the Department, and these offices, and the officers who hold them, are to be under his control with certain exceptions that Deputy Johnson dealt with. But what the Minister omitted to state was that under the present measure he is setting up offices, or to be more accurate, is giving a new character to certain offices and a new relation to certain officers, so that they thereby come under the control of the Minister. That is the issue: should certain of those court officers be under the control of a political chief of a Ministerial Department? I do not know, and I take it no other private member knows, what that mysterious document contains, partial glimpses of which were afforded us by the intermittent quotations on the part of the Minister. At any rate, we had enough of it to know that it alleges that in some respects this measure is unconstitutional.

Now whether it makes any difference or not to the case of the Chief Justice that I agree with it, may be put to one side, but I rely upon the Bill itself. In sub-section (3) of Section 3, the Master of the High Court and the Taxing Masters "shall be appointed by the Executive Council, and every other of the said principal officers"—these are set out in the previous section—"shall be appointed by the Minister, and the said principal officers, including the Master of the High Court and the Taxing Masters shall hold office at the pleasure of the Executive Council." Now the Taxing Masters are, to all intents and purposes, judges, and some of the registrars, who are included under the generic title of principal officers discharge judicial functions. Their offices, at any rate, are quasi-judicial. In the case of the Taxing Masters, there need be no epithet or limiting adjective applied to the statement that they discharge judicial functions. That being so, we have this extraordinary attack made upon the constitutional arrangements of a democratic State that those officers who are not less important in the State than the District Justices, for example, are not merely to be appointed by the Executive Council, but are to hold office at the pleasure of the Executive Council.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

Civil Service tenure.

Professor MAGENNIS

Yes. Furthermore, in Section 5 of the Bill this new officer, the Master of the High Court, shall, "subject to the general directions of the Minister, have the general superintendence and control of all offices established by this part of the Bill," so that the political chief of the Department has a control over the Master who himself has a control over all the offices and all the officers embraced in the schedule of reference— the Registrar to the Chief Justice, the Registrar to the Supreme Court, the Probate Officer and the Registrar in Bankruptcy. Let me take, for example, the Court of Bankruptcy. Instead of the Bankruptcy Judge having this officer—the Registrar in Bankruptcy— immediately in contact with him and under his direction, there is interposed between him, for certain purposes, no doubt; the Master of the High Court, and in the wings we have the Minister for Justice who can exercise general superintendence. What becomes of Articles 64 to 69 of the Constitution with regard to the independence of the Judiciary?

Now, the Minister very cleverly mixes all that up with the need for having criers, clerks and all the rest of the staff of the courts under control in the same way as civil servants are under control. Two very different things are therefore dealt with at once. This was the argument of the Minister, "All judges shall be independent in the discharge of their functions." So says the article of the Constitution. They are not to be subject to parliamentary criticism; no questions can be asked in this House, and no Minister dare answer if a question were asked. That, of course, is quite correct. There is no Ministerial responsibility in regard to them. But, argues the Minister, to ask the judges to be independent does not carry with it as a corollary that £150,000 of a court staff should be independent. Of course it does not No one has contended for that, and no one would dream of making such a proposition. The Minister simply sets up nine pins which he immediately knocks down and applauds himself for the skill with which he has done it. There are two different things concerned in this interference with the judges.

The other questions that arise in that connection, such as promotion, replacement and interchange, can, I think, be dealt with more appropriately in Committee. I am speaking now of the broad question that has been brought before us through the quotation by the Minister for Justice of the Chief Justice's speech and of the judges' document. It is certainly a very grave issue. We have on one side the encroachment of the bureaucracy, and on the other side we have the protests of the Judiciary. It is not a matter to be decided lightly in the course of a casual debate, because the whole liberty of the subject perishes if the judges are to be interfered with departmentally. No departmental interference with a judge, or anyone exercising judicial functions, can be tolerated. The moment that is proposed a shadow is cast on the liberties of the people. It is an easy transition from proposing to do it to carrying it through.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

That concludes the debate on the matter raised by the Minister for Justice.

Major COOPER

I want to get back to the Vote on Account and I want to compliment the Minister for Finance. I have complimented him in the past on many things, including his frankness and his courage, but I do not think that I ever complimented him on being topical. I never knew that he could be topical. I thought that his was a cloistered virtue, quite apart from the world, but when he talks of winning a race I find that he is more in touch with the world than I ever imagined, and I must get into consultation with him before next Friday with a view to getting a winner. Here we are discussing the Vote on Account under the shadow of Deputy O'Mara. It is true that that shadow is not obvious at the moment, but that is a state of affairs to which we are more or less accustomed. We also have the minor shadows of Deputy Heffernan and Deputy Egan. The one thing that Deputies loathe in this Dáil is repetition, and we must try and keep our minds clear from the danger of such a crime. There are one or two points raised by the Minister for Finance in his advocacy of this Vote that had better be dealt with now. I am one of those of whom he spoke who take up their tongues and their pen to advocate economy. I think, in extenuation for my belonging to such a motley company, I should say that during the last few weeks I took up both my tongue and my pen in that regard. It is a curious thing that when I took up my pen a few weeks ago I mentioned many things which the Minister has just stated. This afternoon, outside the Dáil, I took up my tongue and I may say that on the broad basis of expenditure I am in agreement with the Minister. There are one or two things which he naturally did not stress, but which need to be stressed. We were told about a year ago that an inter-departmental committee had been set up to try and secure economy. That was the Government's answer to a demand, steadily growing more insistent, for a committee to investigate the matter. We must recognise the fact that, judging by the Estimates that have been submitted, that inter-departmental committee has failed to secure any substantial economy. There has been a reduction of £1,700,000, more than £1,500,000 of which has been in Property Losses Compensation, which no inter-departmental committee could control. The balance is made up by the fall in the cost of living bonus from 95 to 90, resulting in an economy of £85,000, which was also automatic and outside the control of an inter-departmental committee.

Considerable savings have been made in some departments, particularly in that of Defence, but they have been swallowed up by increased demands in other departments. The Minister said many wise and many true things, but I do not think that he fully understands the psychology of the taxpayer. The taxpayer is not going to take those statements on the authority of the Minister alone. He requires to have them fortified by an outside authority, and in discussing the appointment of any committee which was suggested, I always held that it should not be an outside authority only, but that it should include, at least, one person with Civil Service experience. Unless supported by authority like that, the taxpayers are not prepared to take the Minister's words, and some further scrutiny of expenditure is needed if you are to satisfy the taxpayer that the taxes are being rightly and not extravagantly presented. It may be right to have a committee of the Dáil, but I think it would be better to have a small committee of experts who could go into the whole subject. Let us be under no delusion. Any such committee of that kind could only make a comparatively small saving. The utmost saving would be, in my opinion, about £50,000 in the Estimates for the year, which is equivalent to threepence off the income tax. As the Minister said with perfect truth, if you want to get greater saving you have got to change your policy. I hold that we shall have to change our policy as the taxpayers cannot endure the present load and the present standards. I doubt very much whether in this Vote on Account the amount of capital expenditure is not more than is expedient to incur at present. The Minister partly justified it. The extra £100,000 to the Land Commission, a considerable extra sum to local loans, and an increased vote for the Board of Works are put against capital expenditure.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

took the Chair.

Major COOPER

The Minister has not yet dissected his estimates to the extent that he can say what is capital and what is recurrent. While there is a justification for capital expenditure which will relieve unemployment—it is better to spend money on constructive work than unemployment insurance—I think we need some case to be made for the considerable increase in capital expenditure contemplated in those Estimates. The Minister told us that we must sacrifice valuable services if we want economy. I agree with him. We must cut our coat according to our cloth. The burden of taxation prevents the development of industry. If it prevents taxpayers who left the country from coming back it might be more advisable to sacrifice certain services for the time being. One of the suggestions of the Minister for Finance is the scrapping of the Department of Agriculture. I do not want to scrap the Department of Agriculture as a whole. I do not want to scrap their experimental side or their supervisory side or the side that deals with testing butter, eggs and with the live stock trade. All that is extremely valuable but I am in serious doubt as to whether the sums expended in agricultural education are giving any sort of return. There are £140,000 in the Estimates for agricultural education. There is the sum derived from the rates. That has been going on for more than thirty years and I do not see that improvement of farming and agriculture which I should like to see as a result of the expenditure. Parts of the country I am acquainted with may be exceptional, but I constantly hear of instructors in planting fruit trees, in bee-keeping, and so on, going round the country, evening after evening, doing most devoted work but having only three or four people to listen to them. The Minister talked of inspectors going down to form cow-testing associations and having a scanty audience, I think he said three or four. I do not grudge any money spent on education if it is producing results but if it is only being spent to pay salaries then it is a waste of expenditure.

I think another item that might be overhauled is that of the agricultural colleges. If they are of any use at all they are of use to teach farmers to farm on economic lines. At present they are run at a loss of 50 per cent. on their expenditure. You do not want colleges to teach farmers how to lose 50 per cent. They can do that without any instruction whatever. Some of the expenditure is abnormal in those colleges. So far as my calculation goes, the loss on those colleges, including the amount the Minister for Agriculture has dexterously imposed on the Board of Works for the upkeep of buildings and so on, is something like £29,000 a year. The salaries of the instructors amount to about £4,800 with bonuses. If you allow £9,000 for the salaries of instructors those colleges have been run at a loss of £20,000 a year. They have advantages not possessed by ordinary farmers. They pay no taxes and their rates are paid. They have pupils who do a certain amount of unpaid work and they have the fees of pupils. I think they ought to be run on economic lines and ought to pay for themselves. That is an instance. There are many others one could take where a change of policy would produce a reduction in expenditure. I have taken that as one illustration.

I think the Government ought to consider a change of policy and ought to try to reduce the expenditure of the State, not by the figures the Minister quoted of ten or twelve millions, but they ought to try to reduce the expenditure to £22,000,000. That would be in proportion to the expenditure of Denmark and other Continental countries. I have been working out a comparison with Denmark. Norway is more extravagant; Denmark is more economical. Part of the old age pension is paid out of the rates. Sweden and Holland, with double our population, spend less than double of that which we do. We ought to try to get down to £22,000,000. Till we do that, I hold our estimates are excessive.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I propose a reduction of £2,685,048 in this Vote on Account. To start with, the Minister, in his opening statement, has put down the whole question of economy, has dealt with the questions put forward, and in particular with the suggested Committee. In view of the statements he made I feel there is occasion for having this question put back to be discussed on Deputy Morrissey's motion and the amendments to that motion. I want to say that we, on those Benches, are trying to approach this matter in a broad-minded fashion with full knowledge of the difficulties the Minister and the Executive Council have had to contend with. We are not in any way acting in response to the popular clamour and, in proof of that statement, I can say that we were the first members of the Dáil to put forward motions dealing with economy. I can call the Minister's attention to the fact that in the first speech I made in this House on the 19th November, 1923, I asked that a committee of this kind now suggested by us, should be set up to consider the question of economy in Departmental expenditure. From our point of view the claim we are making is stronger now than it was at the time we made it, for this reason, that the economic conditions have changed for the worse. In particular, the economic conditions in the agricultural industry have changed since 1922 to the detriment of the farming community. Sometimes it strikes me when I come in contact with farmers and workers living on the land that the Ministers are not cognisant of the real conditions in the country and of the poverty which is manifesting itself in the rural districts. They are not fully aware of the difficulties the farming community have to contend with, and they are not, in my opinion, fully aware of the fact that the great majority of the farmers during the past year probably suffered a loss. That condition of affairs looks like continuing. There is no indication that it will cease unless there is an immediate change that will rectify the position. We do not maintain that national taxation is the main or only cause of that. We do not maintain that any action of the Dáil or any reductions made by the Ministry can completely rectify and save the situation. We do not believe that national economy is a panacea for all the evils which the agricultural industry is subject to. But we do believe that national taxation plays an important part in the high cost of living and the high cost of production, and that until the farmers get a reasonable chance of making ends meet by having a considerable reduction in the cost of production, it is almost worthless to call on the farmers to make ends meet by improving their methods of production and increasing the quantity of their products.

I consider in regard to this matter of economy that a good deal of harm has been actually done by ramps and stunts; that people get tired of reading day after day a cry for economy; that it becomes in the end a parrot-cry and people simply pay no attention to it. I think it would have been much better if attention had been called to the matter now and again in the Press, and that this continual ramp in favour of economy should not have been persisted in. That does not, however, do away with the fact that the necessity is there, and that it is the reason we are putting forward this demand.

We know there are certain indications of the depression in agriculture and it has been clearly indicated to everybody that on account of the depression in agriculture there is a resultant depressure in trade and commerce; that the lack of adequate returns from the agricultural industry is being felt throughout the whole business life of the country, and that everybody is now beginning to feel the effects of the existing depression. There are certain clear indications of this. One is the fall in the value of our agricultural exports during 1925, both in regard to quantity and price. There is also a clear indication from the bank returns that deposits are really being withdrawn, that farmers and others are beginning to live on capital. I am dealing with the farming point of view, with which I am most conversant. There are clear indications that capital is actually being withdrawn from the banks; that portion of the adverse balance of over seventeen millions consists of actual capital withdrawals, and that if the present trade conditions continue there will be a continual withdrawal of the deposits. I will leave to the Minister to say how long that can go on, and what the inevitable result will be if it continues. He might look for guidance on that matter to the Government benches. He might look to statements made by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in Cork. That Minister computes the sum withdrawn from the deposits of the country and lost as if it had been thrown into the sea at £12,000,000.

Mr. JOHNSON

Is the Minister for Finance to take all the advice he gives?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I do not think he will. I do not know if the Minister for Finance accepts these statements or if the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs consulted the Minister for Finance before he made statements of that kind. Neither do I know whether he consulted him with regard to his statements in respect to the policy of protection, when he says that he wants 100 per cent. protection. We are not running away from the question. We are not making statements in the country and making other statements in the Dáil. Any statements we make in the country we are prepared to support in the Dáil. We look at the demand for economy from two points of view: first, because of the necessity for reduction in taxation, and secondly, because of the necessity for giving a good example from the top. People in power and in command of the Government ought to set a good example. Doubtless, the Minister and the country are tired of hearing suggestions made that economies should be started at the top, that the cost of the Governor-General's establishment should be reduced and that the cost of Parliamentary Secretaries and higher officials of that kind should be reduced. I am aware, and I think Deputies of the Farmers' Party are aware, that no great economies can result from the enforcement of such suggestions. We know that if you wipe out the Governor-General's establishment altogether and reduce the Parliamentary Secretaries and other officials by 25 per cent., or any percentage you like, the ultimate effect on taxation would be negligible. But we are also aware of the necessity for beginning at the top and giving a good example to the local councils and others whom we are calling upon to enforce economy; that we cannot stand behind voting away money to the extent of £26,000 a year for the Governor-General and at the same time ask local councils to take three or four shillings per week off the road workers' wages.

The President in his statement the week before last made some rather slighting remarks with regard to members of local councils who were not facing up to the problem. If we in the Dáil face the problem as well as members of the local councils are now facing it, we would certainly achieve real economy and genuine results. They are facing up to the problem despite obstruction and despite the fact that they are not getting the encouragement from the department which controls local government which they ought to get.

I do not intend at this stage to make any very close examination into the figures given in the Estimates and the other papers presented to the Dáil from time to time. It is in connection with that very matter that I am advocating the appointment of a special committee, because I maintain that these figures are rather intricate and such as cannot be easily understood by Deputies who have other matters to attend to and have not the time to devote to the intimate examination of these figures. Nor have I ever been convinced that by means of criticism of the Estimates we can ever adequately suggest economies that will amount to anything in the end.

We are presented with a set of estimates this year and we are told that there is a reduction in these Estimates of £1,700,000 odd. When we begin to examine into those Estimates we find that that reduction is a very dubious one. We find, as Deputy Cooper said, that the greater portion of that consists of £1,519,000 of a reduction in property losses compensation, which is in no way due to efforts on the part of the Ministry to economise. Add to that the fact that there is an estimated reduction of £320,000 in relief schemes which is not in any way due to the economies of the Ministry. Most people believe that that Vote will have to be very considerably increased before the end of the financial year. There are other reductions such as the wiping out of the subsidy to the Wolfhill Collieries and the reduction in old age pensions. I made an effort to make a calculation as to the actual reductions that have taken place as a result of departmental economies, and the conclusion I have arrived at is, that practically no reduction has been made as a result of the departmental economies, and that the only reductions that have taken place are reductions which are, so to speak, automatic and which took place without any regard to economies from within.

Another point with regard to the Estimates is that, in my opinion, they are to a certain extent misleading owing to the fact that we are asked to contrast the estimate for this year, with the final estimate for last year. That is, we are faced with an estimate for this year which may easily and very likely will be increased owing to supplementary estimates being added to it. We are asked to contrast that with the final estimates of last year to which the supplementary estimates have been added. Then, on these comparisons we are shown a decrease of £1,700,000 in the estimates, whereas in reality, if you contrast the original estimate of last year, which was £26,183,156, with the actual estimates this year of £25,567,909, we only get an actual decrease of £615,247. To all intents and purposes there has been, as far as one can judge from the estimate placed before us, only a decrease to the extent of £615,247. I am giving these figures for what they are worth. It is very hard to get a proper analysis; still I think they will convey something to people who hear them read. We find that the actual issues for 1924-25 from the Central Fund and Supply Services was £27,480,134, whereas if we add the actual estimate this year to the approximate Central Fund charge, taking this year as being the same amount as last year, we get an expenditure for this year of £29,817,909, which actually shows an increase of £2,337,775. Taking these figures for what they are worth, we are faced this year with an estimate of £2,337,775 more than we actually paid to run our services in 1924-25.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Has the Deputy the figures of the estimate for 1924-25?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I have not. I am giving the actual figures of expenditure.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

And comparing that with the estimate? Surely the comparison should be between estimate and estimate.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I have shown that the comparison between estimate and estimate is very often false.

Mr. BAXTER

Does the Minister suggest that this estimate is not correct, that you do not mean to spend that?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

I suggest very definitely that the issues when they come to be counted up will not reach the original estimates. The estimates are always in advance of expenditure.

Mr. CONNOR HOGAN

What is the need of introducing an estimate to cover an expenditure which it is not proposed to incur?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The proposing of an expenditure and what is in fact expended, are two different matters.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

We hope that the actual issues will be less than the estimate. I am taking the Estimates for what they are worth. Another difficulty in trying to make a comparison between the Estimates is this. On the Budget statement last year the Minister was able to take a very considerable sum off the estimate that was non-recurrent and capital expenditure, over £6,000,000. I doubt very much if he can show a similar sum this year. I doubt if he can show £4,000,000 of capital expenditure this year and on that calculation I believe the Minister will be faced with the problem of raising taxation for an actually higher recurrent expenditure this year than he had to meet last year. We are perfectly well aware that we voted for and supported Bills which in themselves accounted for a good many of the increases in the Estimates. We are aware that one cannot support Bills and advocate policies which will result in expenditure and at the same time start to criticise the same expenditure when it is made later.

I have made an attempt to analyse and contrast what I regard as automatic decreases, and compare them with with the balance of automatic increases. By automatic decreases I mean decreases in regard to which I believe the Ministry had really no responsibility, such as the decreases in Property Losses Compensation and the relief schemes and matters of that kind—decreases which were not in any sense due to efforts to economise within the Department. I put down on one side amongst the automatic decreases, Property Losses Compensation £1,500,000, Relief Schemes £320,000 odd, Wolfhill Colliery £58,000 odd, and I add to that the Army reductions, which I believe are bound to take place without any regard to efforts on the part of the Ministry of Finance, and I get £2,525,279, in regard to automatic decreases. Now, in order to be fair to the Ministry I have attempted to balance that by the increases which were due to legislation, increases in regard to which I believe the Ministry could have no real control. I have taken local loans, public works, superannuation, university and colleges, sugar beet, lands and agriculture, the Land Commission, Army pensions, and I make the total £976,295. I take that from the automatic decreases, and I show a balance of £1,548,975 of decreases which took place without regard to any efforts on the part of the Ministry to economise. I contrast that with the estimated decrease of £1,703,645, and I show there is only an actual decrease of £155,670. I will not go further into these figures beyond dealing with them in broad outline and showing that, as far as the Estimates submitted this year are concerned, there has been no real effort on any side in the direction of economy. The Minister said that we should be prepared to scrap essential services in order to have any real economy. I say that it may be necessary to scrap essential services.

I want to draw the Minister's attention to the terms of reference given to the Geddes' Committee, which was set up in Great Britain in 1922, and I want to point out that that Committee had authority, not only to deal with the question of departmental economies, but to make recommendations in regard to policy. It is my idea that the Committee which might be set up by the Dáil would have practically the same terms of reference as the Geddes' Committee. The terms of reference of the Geddes' Committee were as follows:

To make recommendations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for effecting forthwith all possible reductions in the National expenditure on supply Services, having regard especially to the present and prospective position of the Revenue. In so far as questions of policy are involved in the expenditure under discussion these will remain for the exclusive consideration of the Cabinet but it will be open to the Committee to review the expenditure and to indicate the economies which might be effected if particular policies were either adopted, abandoned or modified."

These terms of reference gave the Geddes' Committee power to deal with question of policy. The Committee that I propose should be set up would have similar powers, not only to go into the question of departmental expenses and organisation but to deal with questions of economy and policy, such as those raised by Deputy Cooper, as to whether portion of the Department of Lands and Agriculture might not be scrapped, as well as portion of the Department for Industry and Commerce, and to see whether services which are regarded as essential might not be scrapped in the interests of economy. I have offered an alternative to the Minister. He said that the Geddes' Committee was set up under circumstances and conditions different from those existing in this country. I agree that the conditions are not quite the same but I do not agree that a Committee would not be, comparatively speaking, as effective as it was in England. Another alternative in connection with overhauling the services of the Departments has been taken by the Government of Northern Ireland, where a chief establishment officer of the British Government has been appointed to go into the departmental services and recommend economies.

Mr. HOGAN (Minister)

Including recommendations as to policy?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

Not of policy. In the course of a reply to the debate on the King's Speech, made in the Northern Parliament, it was stated that Sir Russell Scott, chief establishment officer of the British Government, had been appointed to overhaul thoroughly the whole administration and report on the staffing of the Departments. I have tried to indicate that there has been no real reduction in expenditure here, as indicated by the estimates recently placed in our hands. I have also tried to point out that the real taxpayers, upon whom eventually the taxes are pushed—the farming community—are at present unable to make ends meet. They are not able to balance their budget. It is for the Dáil to make special efforts and recognise that an unprecedented and extraordinary state of affairs has arisen, and that we may have to scrap services if the country is to be saved. If the agricultural industry is to be saved overhead expenditure must be reduced. National taxation is undoubtedly one of the most important factors in overhead expenditure so far as the farming community is concerned. We have been told by the Minister that he is depending on increased production, and that he sees no real prospect of economies of any consequence. By increased production he said that he hoped to place the country in a position to meet the taxation demanded from it. If that is the view of the Government, I believe it is a wrong one, and that it is a policy which will be disastrous to the State. The main producers—the farmers— must be given an incentive and must be shown that if they had a better quality of produce and in greater quantities, the profits will remain in their own hands, and will not be taken away by taxation, or indirectly by the high cost of living, which is largely due to the excessive taxation that prevails here.

I have asked the Minister to give serious consideration to the demand that is being put forward. That demand is not made for the purpose of gaining credit, but is in accordance with the policy that we have adopted since we entered the Dáil, the policy of economy. We believe that the expenditure and salaries, bonuses, as well as other expenses, are based largely on what prevails in England. When we make comparisons we should look to countries similarly situated, such as Denmark, Belgium, Holland and other small agricultural states. When making a comparison of the salaries drawn by higher civil servants, by Parliamentary secretaries, and by other officials of the State, we should look to countries similarly situated as regards conditions.

The PRESIDENT

Will the Deputy give us some specific instance or some particular salaries for comparison?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

The President knows quite well that the information is more easily available to him than to me.

The PRESIDENT

Having made the statement the Deputy has made, I submit if that statement is questioned, it is certainly due to the Dáil that we should get the information that the Deputy says is there. He compares certain salaries, roughly and generally, and I ask him to compare a half dozen of our higher civil servants with a half dozen in any other country.

Mr. O'MARA

Will the President take it from me?

The PRESIDENT

I take it that as far as Deputy Heffernan is concerned, he has no information on the subject.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I have information, but no figures.

Mr. O'MARA

The President asked for information.

The PRESIDENT

What I am anxious for is to get down to something definite. We read in the papers that there are colossal salaries, and that there is jobbery.

Mr. BAXTER

I did not say that.

Mr. CONNOR HOGAN

Who said that?

The PRESIDENT

I read it.

Mr. O'MARA

The President has challenged Deputy Heffernan for information as to salaries, and I have offered to give it to him. In the United States, in the Department of Commerce, the Secretary gets 5,000 dollars a year. The population there is 100,000,000.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

Does he deal with the hundred millions?

Mr. O'MARA

No. He is Secretary of the Department of Commerce.

Mr. O'CONNELL

What does the State Secretary get?

Mr. O'MARA

The Minister of Fisheries there, Henry O'Mally, gets 5,000 dollars, that is £1,000. Our Minister for Fisheries gets £1,700. If the President wants any more salaries, I can give them.

The PRESIDENT

The Deputy referred to the salaries of civil servants, and then went on to deal with Parliamentary Secretaries. With regard to the Civil Service, I understood him to say that we are running this State at a higher cost than other countries similarly situated, or compared with the way it was run when we got it over.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I did not say anything about the way this country was run before we got it over, but I say I am not prepared to give the actual figures now, but they are easily available if one wants to go to the trouble to find them out. The Minister, through his Department, should be in a position to get them.

The PRESIDENT

Has the Deputy seen the figures?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I ask that a comparison should be made between the salaries paid to the higher civil servants in Denmark and the salaries paid to our higher civil servants here, that the salaries paid to our Ministers should be compared with those paid in Denmark, and the same with regard to Parliamentary Secretaries, if there are Parliamentary Secretaries in Denmark.

The PRESIDENT

Has the Deputy seen the figures?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

If my statements are shown to be wrong I will withdraw them at any time. The President will find that the salaries paid here are higher, and the same thing will apply to many countries similarly situated, probably including Belgium and Holland. If I am not correct in that statement I will withdraw it, but I believe I am correct. The President does not expect that I have a department of finance behind me with officials who are prepared with the figures.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

Why make the statement?

The PRESIDENT

I understood the Deputy to be making a definite statement of facts within his possession, or that there was the possibility of his being able to get them. I understand now it is the Deputy's opinion that the salaries are higher here. If it is only his opinion I am satisfied.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

Will the President take steps to publish the comparative figures?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Get the Statesman's Year Book and get them yourself.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

Is the President afraid to publish them? If I am found to be incorrect I will withdraw, but I have not the least fear of having to withdraw the statements.

Mr. BLYTHE

The Deputy wants to be saved the trouble of any thought or inquiry on his own part.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I have attempted to show that I have devoted some thought and inquiry to the expenditure of the State. I have in a general way attempted to analyse the figures placed before us. We are convinced that economies can be effected. One of the best methods of effecting these economies is by the appointment of the committee we have suggested, and which the Minister has refused to appoint. We do not believe the statement made by the Minister that the Ministers themselves are in the best position to reorganise their departments to see that they are carried on as they ought to be, and that economies are effected. I have had a conversation with a man who has some knowledge of government departments, and he also has experience in business for a considerable number of years. He was a successful business man, and he said to me: "Give me a Government department with a staff of 50; let me reorganise that Government department; let me get rid of the red tape and old-fashioned system, and I will guarantee I will run that department as efficiently and economically with a staff of ten as it was run in the past with 50." I believe myself it is along these lines economy can be effected.

Mr. JOHNSON

Supposing his guarantee fails who is to pay the loss?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

We will give him the court officers.

Mr. BAXTER

You can go to the College of Surgeons.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

We can only give our opinions for what they are worth. Our opinions are that economies can be effected, and must be effected, and that the proper way of effecting these economies is by the appointment of the Committee for which we are asking.

Mr. BLYTHE

To save you the trouble of inquiry.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

If the Committee were convinced that they could not effect economies the Minister would be justified in his contention. As the Minister is refusing to accede to our request he seems to be afraid that this Committee would cause trouble, annoyance and excitement in his Department, and he will not face the position. We ask the Minister to consider the conditions existing in the country, and the necessity for economy which can be best effected by the appointment of this committee.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The Deputy has moved a reduction in the Vote on Account of £2,600,000 which would represent a reduction of from seven to eight millions on the total Vote. Could he give us any indication as to where one million of the eight millions is to be found, so that the proposed committee could have something to go on with?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

It is for the purpose of indicating where economies are to be effected that I am suggesting the appointment of the committee. If I were able to indicate absolutely where the economies could be effected, there would be no necessity for the appointment of the committee. Even if I could indicate possible economies I do not intend to do so, for the reason that I am calling for the appointment of a committee for that purpose.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

The Deputy, therefore, is moving to have a committee appointed to secure a reduction in the vote of £2,600,000, or a reduction in the entire estimate of £8,000,000, without being able to indicate to that committee one item upon which a saving might be effected. He is going to give this committee a discretion as to policy. Does he propose to scrap the Dáil?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

A discretion as to recommendations. I have read the terms of reference to the Geddes' Committee, and I am sure the Minister is quite alert enough to understand what they mean. The terms do not mean that the Committee was to control policy, but it had power to make recommendations.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

And the Deputy cannot make any.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I can.

Mr. CONNOR HOGAN

How does the Minister draw the inference that because Deputy Heffernan moves a reduction in the Vote on Account of £2,600,000 that he wants to make economies on the whole estimates of from £7,000,000 to £8,000,000?

Mr. McGILLIGAN

It is a matter of proportion, that is all.

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE

Might I make a suggestion to Deputy Heffernan? Deputy Cooper made a few specific suggestions, and they were welcome for that reason. I would be rather interested to hear what Deputy Heffernan would have to say about these suggestions, because they would make a difference of about £120,000 a year on a few items of one Estimate alone—agriculture.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

Is this a court of cross-examination?

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE

No. I am not trying to catch the Deputy out. I suggest that as a Farmer Deputy he might possibly think it well to make some comments on the suggestion of Deputy Cooper that certain services of the Department of Agriculture which cost over £120,000 a year should be scrapped. I would like to get some leading on that.

Mr. BAXTER

Is the Minister prepared to take action accordingly?

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE

I am prepared to discuss it very fully.

Mr. BAXTER

And to consider it?

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE

Yes.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

The Minister speaks of possible reduction in the Estimates of £120,000 per year, but we are really faced with the question of a reduction of millions.

Mr. P.J. EGAN

Make a start.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

The Committee which I refer to would be there to make suggestions.

The PRESIDENT

That is it. The baby is passed on.

Mr. O'MARA

Economy is not very popular in the House, and especially with the Labour representatives.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

Not that kind of economy; not your brand.

Mr. GOOD

Might I suggest to the House that the same courtesy should be extended to critics as I hope will be extended to Ministers, in connection with this debate?

Mr. BAXTER

You cannot expect that.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

You will get it.

Mr. O'MARA

I do not intend to be put out by interruptions in the course of the few words I have to say. I think the best way to introduce my subject would be to point out that the Free State is in existence for five years, three of which have been years of peace, and that notwithstanding two bad harvests, the harvest last year was one of the most excellent within living memory. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture issued a paper the other day showing the yields per acre and the total produce of the harvest in tons. I take one item from it—potatoes. Potatoes were 2,100,000 tons, against 1,400,000 tons the previous year, so that as far as the harvest goes we could not wish for anything better.

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE

The potato harvest.

Mr. O'MARA

Yes, the potato crop. Notwithstanding that, we have a steady general depression in agriculture. Every time you come to the House you hear Deputies on the Farmers' Benches talk about the difficulty of obtaining credit. In the city a bank manager explained to me what the difficulty was. He said: "We are quite willing to lend money to farmers on the stock they carry on the land. There was a particular instance the other day of a friend of my own to whom we were anxious to lend money, but there were writs out for his income tax and for his rates, and if we lent money to him the stock would be driven off the land. How can we lend money in these cases?" This is the condition after five years of our own Government, and, I might say, five years of increasing expenditure, because although the nominal amount of taxation has fallen from £29,000,000 in 1918, we must remember that in 1918 the £ was not of the same value that it is now, and that £8,000,000 of that was raised from E.P.D. How depressed agriculture is will be seen from another paper issued by the Ministry. The paper is not very up-to-date, being based on figures that were collected in June of last year, and not issued until February of this year. I do not know whether or not it took the officials in the Ministry of Agriculture all that time to add up the few figures they received from the country. It gives figures showing a decrease of four per cent. in the case of corn crops, a decrease of three per cent. in green crops, three per cent. in the fruit crop, and one per cent. in the hay crop, and the general area under crops is down by 105,000 acres. Milch cows are down six per cent., heifers in calf are down twenty-one per cent., sheep are down, horses are down, and even, what you would not expect in the Free State, asses are down.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

I doubt that.

Mr. O'MARA

I will give the Deputy the figures.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

You could not do it.

Mr. O'MARA

There were 196,000 asses in the year 1925, and 209,000 in the year 1924, a decrease of seven per cent.

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE

Would the Deputy mind giving the figures for sheep?

Mr. O'MARA

They were 1,223,000 and 1,235,000.

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE

Which is which?

Mr. O'MARA

In 1925, 1,223,000 and 1924, 1,235,000. I hope that the Minister is satisfied with the figures issued by his own Department and that in future he will not cross-examine me more than is necessary in the course of a speech. In addition to agriculture, trade is depressed; the figures of our exports and of our imports show decreases. Trade being depressed, credit is curtailed. It is common knowledge among those who are in trade that accounts were never more difficult to collect, because the farmers have not got the money to pay. As well as that, emigration has increased. There is no difficulty in filling the quota allowed by America. Uneconomic holdings show no reduction, and we are all, unfortunately, too well acquainted with the processions of unemployed that daily parade our streets, which certainly did not happen under the old régime. Emigration we had, but the general depression in trade has been unequalled since we got our own Government. I am not unfriendly towards an Irish Government. I have made considerable sacrifices in my time to place the Irish Government where it is, and I, as well as the country, welcomed the advent of the Government. We still hope it will justify the actions of those of us who used our best endeavours to establish it. But as far as we have gone the country has been somewhat disillusioned, and it is in danger of falling back. It is for us to inquire why, in face of five years of peace, in face of a good harvest, in face of the fact that there were no serious differences between Labour and Capital during the time, in face of the fact that even the Irregulars had ceased from troubling, Ireland is in the condition which notoriously she is in to-day.

The President spoke of the motion I had on the Paper the other day and said it was a "ramp"; he said motions on economy were ramps. Is it a ramp that these hungry men are on the streets? There were 800 of them in the Dublin Union the other day. Is it a ramp that our industries are closed down? Is it a ramp that the flour mills throughout the country are closed down? Is it a ramp that the woollen mills are suffering? Is it a ramp that the engineering works in the country are not employing half the number of men they were wont to? Deputy Corish said he had no interest in my motion. Deputy Corish apparently has no interest in the Vote on Account; he is not in his place.

Mr. O'CONNELL

He was often here when other Deputies were not in their places.

Mr. O'MARA

Deputy Corish has no interest in the Vote on Account, but Deputy Corish represents Wexford. In 1918 he became Mayor of Wexford, and in 1918 there were three engineering firms in the town of Wexford. Pierce's engineering firm, dealing with agricultural implements, employed 1,200 men. The Star Engineering Works employed 600 men, and Doyle's employed 200 men. What is the condition to-day? Deputy Corish is not interested in my motion. Maybe he is interested in the town of Wexford. The condition in the town of Wexford to-day is that Pierce's employ about 120 men instead of 1,200, not 10 per cent.; the Star employs the same, and Doyle's is practically closed up. That is in the town of Wexford, and Deputy Corish can shelter behind the hunger line, instead of the Hindenburg line, in Wexford. The harbour of Wexford used to be full of shipping. There were 100 schooners coming and going, but the harbour of Wexford, since Deputy Corish became Mayor, has withered like a grave.

The PRESIDENT

Was there not a war on in 1918?

Mr. DAVIN

When did the 100 vessels come in?

Mr. O'MARA

Does the Deputy deny that the condition of Wexford is as I describe it; that the town is full of unemployed men, and that industry is at a standstill there? If he does, he had better go down to Wexford and find out what the conditions are for himself.

Mr. E. DOYLE

How does Deputy O'Mara link up Deputy Corish with responsibility for the conditions there?

Mr. O'MARA

One has got to seek for the reason for this condition of things. By our own Government, trade has been depressed, agricultural credit has come to an end, and generally, everything is about as bad as it could be. I will give the Minister one answer. It may be due to the demonitisation of the pound to some extent. Some part of the agricultural depression is due to that. It may be due to the fact that owing to the settling down after the war a reaction from high prices was bound to come. But it is not altogether due to that, because one has got to remember that even now agricultural produce is something more valuable than it was in pre-war days, and that the farmer has less to pay in the way of rents. One has to look further afield, and in going further afield one has to come down to the fundamental point to see if one can arrive at any estimate as to what the actual income of the Irish people is, and what their expenditure might likely be. In doing that one is met with the difficulty that owing to the disturbed state of the country statistics are not at hand from which one can reckon these things. In the old days, with a good deal less income at their disposal, the British Government published a good deal more information as to the condition of the country than we get at present.

During the inquiry into the financial relations many years ago a reckoning was made by Dr. Grimshaw of the average value of the total output of the agricultural portion of the population and he put it at £40,000,000. The non-agricultural portions he put at £23,000,000, and by other means and on other grounds, such as the assessment of income tax and the nett and the gross consumption of dutiable and other articles, it was reckoned the income of Ireland in these days was about £76,000,000.

That was the gross income. From the gross income, in order to arrive at the taxable capacity of the country, Sir Robert Giffen, then Controller-General of the Board of Trade, took £12 per head of the population as the subsistence allowance. Now, nobody will say that £12 per head as an allowance for mere subsistence is sufficient at the present time. But when he had taken £12 per head of the population he found that the nett income of the population, agricultural and non-agricultural, was £22,000,000. We have not the later figures, but suppose we assume that the full agricultural produce is the same as it was then——

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE

As we have not the figures!

Mr. O'MARA

Suppose we assume that the value of the non-agricultural production is the same as it was then. and I presume it is something more, with advancing knowledge on the part of our people, then we must make some allowances for the higher standard of living that prevails to-day. I would be glad to be able to make even a remote guess at what the net taxable income of the people is, but I should say it would not exceed £25,000,000. I should say this is a matter and this is an inquiry which should engage the attention of the Government as soon as it is possible for the Government to spare the time. I should think that before putting further taxation on the people or even before reducing the taxation an inquiry on the lines I suggest should be held. I have said before reducing the taxation, because there are many excellent functions that the Government performs that we could ill do without. The inquiry I suggest would be an inquiry to ascertain the total available income of the people of the country, and deducting from that the total amount that should be allowed to the people of the country for mere subsistence, the balance that remains would constitute the savings of the people, the savings of the nation. The Government should make up its mind how much of these savings it is entitled, in the interest of good government, to take. I believe that the Government are taking the whole of our savings.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

What are they doing with it?

Mr. O'MARA

I am sure that the Minister will ask me how do I arrive at those figures. I will tell him one indication by which I arrive at those figures. The Irish people, and in particular the Irish farmers, leave a good deal of their money on deposit in the banks.

Mr. BAXTER

The farmer used to, but not now.

Mr. O'MARA

The Deputy will be surprised at how much there is now on deposit in the banks. On deposit and current accounts in the Bank of Ireland there are £32,000,000; in the Munster and Leinster Bank, £26,000,000. I have forgotten the figures for 1924 and 1925. Now a good deal of the money—indeed, I have no doubt that a great proportion of the money— in Ireland is left on deposit in the banks because we have not the habit of investing. When people save money, and, in particular, when the farmers save money, they bring that money into the bank. On December 31st. 1925. the Munster and Leinster Bank was down in the matter of deposits by nearly £1,000,000; the National Bank was down by £3,100,000; the Hibernian was down by £800,000; the Provincial Bank was down by £900,000, and the Royal Bank of Ireland was down by £500,000. The National Land Bank owing to the operations of the Minister for Finance, was up by £200,000. The banks trading in the South of Ireland are down by £6,500,000. That is to say that these £6,500,000 have been withdrawn by the people and they have gone somewhere. I suggest that these £6,500,000 have gone in taxation—they have gone in expenditure. They have not gone in the re-stocking of the farms The farms are not any better stocked than they were twelve months ago. They are not better equipped with implements. There have been no great improvements in buildings. There has been nothing to account for the balances being down six and a half millions in a year following a good harvest except the fact that the people are poorer than they were a year previously.

Mr. DAVIN

Does the Deputy contend that all the money on deposit in the banks referred to is owned by the farmer? How much of it is owned by the shopkeepers?

Mr. O'MARA

I contend that the balances in the banks are a fair indication of the wealth of the country.

Mr. DAVIN

A fair indication of the wealth of the profiteers.

Mr. O'MARA

I contend that the Banks Clearing House, which shows the decrease week by week, is another indication that the condition of the country is not good. It was possible to govern Ireland in the old days with very much less money than the Government is asking now. The taxation of the country when the war broke out was £12,000,000 annually. It had increased by 1916 to £18,000,000.

The PRESIDENT

Will the Deputy please give us these figures again.

Mr. O'MARA

£12,000,000 in 1914, and £18,000,000 in 1916. Ireland was once taxed to less than a million pounds.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

And at one time there were no taxes at all.

Mr. GOOD

We hope history will repeat itself.

Mr. O'MARA

In the year 1760 Ireland was governed at a cost of £700,000, and in the year 1850 Ireland was taxed to less than £6,500,000.

Major COOPER

May I ask if the Deputy is speaking of his own personal knowledge?

Mr. O'MARA

No. At one time the taxation was less than 15/- a head— that was in 1850.

The PRESIDENT

A little more.

Mr. O'MARA

I could not make it any more. From the year 1890 the taxation was about ten or twelve millions a year. I know that in those days we were denouncing the British Government for over-taxation. We attributed the poverty of the country to over-taxation. Now, sir, the Government comes round and says, "We cannot govern the country for less than £26,000,000." And when a Deputy proposes a reduction of two millions they stand up here and ask him in what direction.

Mr. BAXTER

Ten per cent. all round.

Mr. O'MARA

That would be a beginning. I do not represent any party in the House——

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

When was the Deputy fired?

Mr. HEWAT

The Deputy had better come down to our seats.

MINISTER for EDUCATION (Professor O'Sullivan)

Perhaps the Deputy could give us what the taxation was in 1847?

Mr. O'MARA

I think that if the Minister would look up the Blue Books he would find that it was about £5,000,000. If £5,000,000 made a famine —and it did make it—what will £26,000,000 make in the course of the next year?

The PRESIDENT

There is no sign of a famine.

Mr. O'MARA

The President asked me what salaries were paid in other countries. I will take America. There they have a President, Vice-President and about eight Ministers. I do not want to quote Ministers' salaries, because I think a good Minister is worth good money, and that several of the Ministers on our front bench are cheap at the money they are receiving. But there are officials assisting our Ministers who are actually drawing more in salaries for the positions they occupy than similar officials are drawing in the United States of America. Our population is only three millions, while that of the United States is 120,000,000. On that basis the United States could afford to pay forty times what we are paying.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

But in the United States they have forty-nine Governments.

Mr. O'MARA

The Department of Fisheries is costing £30,000 a year. It was costing £90,000 a year or two ago. The Minister has never exceeded the amount voted to him in this House. I notice that Deputy O'Connell is laughing. I would like to remind him that in 1914, the last normal year we had before the war, the salaries paid to teachers in the primary schools in this country were, on the English votes, estimated at £1,400,000. They are now over £3,000,000. Would Deputy O'Connell tell me has the quality of the education in this country increased in the same proportion as the salaries paid to the teachers have? We are now paying for primary education in this country £1,600,000 more than was paid for it in 1914.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

You can save the £3,000,000 by doing away with education altogether, if you like.

MINISTER for FISHERIES (Mr. Lynch)

I would ask the Deputy to explain his reference to the Department of Fisheries.

Mr. O'MARA

There is one Department of the Government that is more costly than any other. That is the Department of Industry and Commerce, which should be fostering our native industries. What is the condition of our native industries at the present time? Does anyone at the present day ever remember when all the flour mills of the country were closed down as they are to-day, or when the woollen industry was in such a condition as it is at present? No one, as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs writes, ever remembers when the linen and all the other Cork industries were in such a condition as they are to-day. These are the results that we have had since we got our own Department of Industry and Commerce.

Mr. LYNCH

I am still awaiting an explanation from the Deputy in connection with his reference to the Department of Fisheries.

Mr. O'MARA

The Department of Industry and Commerce was responsible for two very remarkable projects, which, as far as I could see, it has forced upon the country. It forced the Shannon scheme and the sugar beet scheme on the country.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

Were you here to vote against them?

Mr. O'MARA

These two schemes may be good or they may be bad. Not much information, however, was vouchsafed to the House about either of them. There is one thing about them and it is this, that they are two mighty expensive schemes for a poor country like this. The Shannon scheme is estimated to cost £5,200,000, and the Minister for Finance estimates that the sugar beet industry will cost £1,900,000. The two schemes between them will cost £7,000,000. It is a gamble as to whether any of that money will ever come back to us.

Mr. DAVIN

It will not come back from Germany, anyway.

Mr. O'MARA

I am glad the Deputy agrees with me on something that I say. The money may come back, or it may not. As far as the general taxpayer is concerned, it may take years before there will be any return from either of these projects. It will take years to develop these industries. It would take years, too, to develop industries to utilise the power produced by the Shannon scheme. In the mean time, this burden of £7,000,000 will be placed on the backs of the taxpayers. These two schemes of the Minister will mean a heavier impost on the people than the damage caused by Professor de Valera's civil war. I have not much hope that the ultimate results will justify all this expenditure. It is not much consolation to the taxpayers that we have been passing all sorts of Bills, Land Bills, Trade Facilities Bills, Geneva Conferences and all the rest. We have had a regular plethora of Bills, each of which has brought with it heavier expense and greater burdens to be borne by the people. I am not sure that the Executive Council are all to be blamed for the result that we find ourselves in to-day. I think that the Minister for Finance and many of the other Ministers have made a genuine and a sincere effort to keep expenses down, but I do not think that they have always been helped by Deputies. Deputies from all sides of the House go to them and ask for various services to be carried on. This is the only House under our Constitution that can criticise and control expenditure, but you have different classes pushing for more doles, grants and tariffs. You have different interests, trade interests as well as other interests, pushing to get facilities that will cost the public money. I think it requires a strong Minister to resist them.

There is another difficulty in which a Minister finds himself. I can visualise a Minister going back to his office in Merrion Street and officials coming in. The Minister is new to his work. All Ministers have not been trained in administrative work, and officials keep pushing this and that advance upon them. I think there is somewhat a danger that, instead of the officials being made for Ireland, the officials are beginning to think that Ireland was made for them. Any Minister who tries either to stop a new service from being established or to limit an old service for reasons of economy, is faced with a very difficult task. I sympathise with Ministers and Deputies who, because of political or other reasons, have to push the claims of individuals outside the House, particularly for class legislation and class claims. I think it is necessary to have an inquiry into the fundamental facts of the situation, as to how far the productive power of the people, having deducted their cost of living out of it, will bear the present taxation imposed upon it. and how far it does not bear it. Having ascertained how much can be taken in taxation without impoverishing the people, the Ministry will then have to cut their coat according to their cloth. The people have to put by so much for savings and so much for capital enterprise. When the Government have taken the whole savings of the people we will have reached the stage in which the Government will be in control of all the enterprises in the country, and private enterprise will then come to an end. I hope, however, that that day is a long way distant. I hope that the Government will make this inquiry, find out what we have got. find out what they can take, and find out what is the deficiency, or surplus, in our income.

Dr. MYLES KEOGH

As regards the remarks of Deputy O'Mara respecting the removal of bank deposits, perhaps the Minister for Industry and Commerce could tell us how many millions of money have been withdrawn in that way and invested in motor cars. My friends who take money on deposit out of the bank tell me that they buy motor cars with it.

Mr. JOHNSON

I listened with interest to the speech of Deputy O'Mara because I was curious to hear him expound this case for his motion, a motion which is not before the House. It was, nevertheless, a pleasure to hear him make his case and to hear the arguments which he attempted to indicate in his motion. His motion was one for the reduction of national expenditure, and it stated that present taxation is absorbing the whole surplus income of the people above the mere subsistence level, depressing agriculture, diminishing trade and increasing unemployment. I was hoping to hear the case made on behalf of that motion, but instead of that, Deputy O'Mara made a plea for an inquiry into the causes of the present depression. The two things are quite different, and I agree with him that it would be very desirable, if it could be managed, that competent people should be able to make exhaustive inquiries into the causes of the present depression in agriculture and in industry. I do not think, however, that that is going to affect this year's estimates. I think it is quite impossible to affect this year's estimates. and I do not think that it is consistent with the assertion that the whole surplus income of the people above mere subsistence level is absorbed in taxation, and that by that fact we have a depression in agriculture, diminution of trade, and increase of unemployment. I am anxious to hear a case stated and proof adduced to show how this heavy taxation depresses agriculture and diminishes trade. I hope we shall have a full exposition of that proposition before this discussion concludes, because I have my own ideas as to what is at the back of that, though I am not quite convinced of it. It has never been explained how taxation, say, of £26,000,000 or £27,000,000, causes depression in agriculture. I would like to have that made clear. Deputy Heffernan insisted on this right through his speech. I took the trouble to look into certain figures that had been adduced, and I ask Deputy Heffernan and others to explain how it is that the small farmer, say, of twenty acres, who constitute the great majority of the holders of land and produce the great bulk of the produce of the country, is going to be benefited in his production by a reduction in taxation. I find, for instance, from certain very minute inquiries as to the costings of ordinary farming, taking eighteen farms, comprising 5,000 acres, that in 1920, the year of highest prices, the cost of the particular class of commodities which could be affected by any change in the incidence of taxation or any reduction in the amount of taxation, was 16.8 of the total expenditure. That means that out of every £100 spent on commodities which are not agricultural, such as implements, manures, stores, rates, and miscellaneous expenditure, the total amount spent on that class of goods which might conceivably be affected in price by taxation, was £16.8 per cent. If Deputy Heffernan, or anybody else, will prove to me that any conceivable reduction in the total expenditure by the State is going to make a difference between the present depression and prosperity, I shall be delighted to have the explanation.

I do not want to be taken, when making that inquiry, as opposing either an inquiry into the causes of the depression in agriculture, industry, trade or commerce, or as being against a reduction in the gross expenditure provided that that reduction can be attained with due regard to economy and the national need. I am not going to be convinced, without very much more evidence, that a mere cutting of expenditure is economy or that the expenditure by the State of money, collected through taxation, is any greater burden upon the people, if it is spent wisely, than expenditure by individuals out of their profits, rents, interests, investments and the like. I mean to say that the expenditure of tolls levied upon the people by private individuals may impose a much greater burden upon the people than the expenditure by the State of moneys levied by taxation. Deputy O'Mara has touched upon banking accounts. I find, from an inquiry, that the loans from the banks in Ireland for the year 1925 amounted to something like £101,000,000. Assuming six per cent. as the charge the interest is £6,000,000. I am asking if six million pounds, levied on the people in the form of interest on loans, is a better service than six million pounds levied on the people in the form of taxation and spent, let us say, in educational services, old age pensions or both. The toll placed upon industry and agriculture in the form of bank interest is just as grievous as six million pounds levied by taxation upon agriculture and industry, and one has to ask oneself what is the value the community is receiving for the two services. In the case of the £6,000,000 levied in the form of interest, you tell us we are not entitled to ask how that is expended by the recipients. Perhaps that is so but it is, no less, a toll upon the people. Then you have another three million pounds of land purchase annuities. That is a tax upon the people but it is not levied and spent by the State on public services. It is a toll imposed and spent by individuals, for no service whatever, and one could run on through a whole list of levies on the people, imposed by private individuals and corporations, not by the State through taxation. I should like the Dáil to recognise that the problem we are really facing is not only the problem of the amount of taxation drawn from the people and spent in the public service, through State institutions, but the equally great problem of the amount that is taken from the people in the form of interest, profits, rents and such like burdens, which are really problematical as services, and over the spending of which we have no control whatever. We must really ask ourselves what services we are receiving for the money drawn by way of taxation and I should like Deputies, who are dealing with this matter, to indicate, as Deputy Wilson asked a little time ago, through the newspapers, what services they would desire to be abolished, decreased or cut. Is it old age pensions? Is it local loans, is it property losses compensation? I ask Deputy O'Mara is it property losses compensation? Is he going to vote for an increase of ten per cent? Is any other Deputy interested in the question of economy going to vote for an increase of ten per cent. in property losses compensation? Is it superannuation and retired allowances? Are we recognising the Treaty obligation or do we desire to obliterate it? Is it the Supplementary Agricultural Grant or the Gárda Síochána?

Mr. O'MARA

I think we ought to honour our Treaty obligations. I always thought so.

Mr. JOHNSON

Then you have the Army, the Army Pensions, and the Unemployment Insurance Fund. That list, I read, absorbs fully half—thirteen and a half millions—of the sums that are called for, and a considerable portion of that list is Treaty obligation. We may abolish the Gárda Síochána and the Army. If that is done we shall have a very big addition to the unemployment in the country. But it may be said that the intention is not to abolish but to reduce the pay. That is a point I should like an answer to. Is that the intention of the Deputies who are asking for this particular kind of economy? Is it the intention to reduce the pay of the larger numbers, not merely the high officials, of the Gárda Síochána, the Army, the Post Office? These are services which absorb a big proportion of the total and we have no indication of the lines on which the Deputies are anxious to make the economy.

It is possible that certain officials could be profitably pensioned or given more useful work to do than they are doing. I do not imagine from my observation and inquiry that it would come to more than a dozen or twenty. I am a little bit afraid that talk about red-tape and about the business man referred to by Deputy Heffernan, who would guarantee making a great improvement in so many months, is very empty and very loose. Some of us have had a little experience of the cost to the State of the absence of red-tape. Some of us have seen that at the period when red tape did not exercise its binding influence public moneys were rather riotously expended. I am rather slow to believe that the time has come for radical changes in the method of administration. I think that the checks upon expenditure, the checks within the administration that at present exist, are certainly required, even though those checks mean considerable expenditure in salaries. After all, the Government of the country cannot be compared with a private concern, and it is no use trying to think of it in terms of the private business concern. I think that is quite impossible, and my observation proves to me that if you attempted to run the business of the country as you would run, say, Messrs. Clery's, you would find that you would pay your higher officials two or three times what you are paying to the higher officials to-day, and your control of expenditure would be possibly not as effective.

Deputy O'Mara wrote a letter to the papers and it was the reading of that letter that excited in me the curiosity to hear his arguments—the arguments of a business man—because I felt that they must be of surpassing ingenuity, considering that the case he was making was based upon the assumption that substantially there was the same acreage under tillage, the same number of live stock, the same productivity per head of the non-agricultural population, the same prices, since deflation has reduced prices to nearly pre-war level, and that the total annual average production is substantially the same. These are the assumptions upon which his argument is based and every single one of such assumptions can easily be proved to be fallacious. In the case that the Deputy made here to-day regarding the national income he quoted, as he did in the newspaper, certain estimates of production. There was an agricultural census taken in 1908 and the estimate of agricultural production for that year for the whole of Ireland was £40,500,000. The prices of 1925, as compared with 1908, show an increase, taking agricultural produce of all kinds, of 75 per cent., so that we have, on the assumption of an equivalent of the 1908 output with today's prices, £70,000,000 worth of produce.

Mr. O'MARA

Where does the Deputy get the seventy-five?

Mr. JOHNSON

That is the weighted index figure of the price of agricultural produce in 1925 compared with the weighted figure of 1908, taking 1900 as the standard year with an index of 100.

The PRESIDENT

I do not think the Deputy made that point quite clear.

Mr. JOHNSON

The year 1900 was taken as the standard year and the price in that year of agricultural produce of all kinds, weighted in accordance with their importance in the agricultural economy, was taken as 100.

Mr. O'MARA

Are those Irish figures?

Mr. JOHNSON

Yes. In 1908 the wholesale figure of agricultural produce for the whole of Ireland was 107. That is seven points above 1900. The equivalent figure for 1925 is 186—that is to say, 86 points above the year 1900, and if I took 1908 as one hundred, then 1925 is 75 points above 1908.

Mr. O'MARA

Any farmer will tell you that cattle and potatoes are not 75 points over 1908.

Mr. JOHNSON

If the Deputy is sufficiently interested in statistics, as he has shown himself to be, he will realise that we are not dealing with one particular commodity, but the whole range of commodities, including pork and eggs. As a matter of information which will show that Deputy O'Mara's assumption that the prices of agricultural produce were near to pre-war— perhaps Deputies on the Farmers' Benches will take note also—I may say that, taking the whole year, the average price in all markets all over Ireage price in all markets for 1925 all over Ireland, assuming the same importance of the various commodities for 1925 as existed in 1900, shows 55 points above 1914. All that is merely to show that Deputy O'Mara's bases and assumptions were fallacious, and, therefore, the conclusions he built upon these assumptions cannot be relied upon.

I should like to know whether Deputy O'Mara is prepared, where it will be shown in the case of individuals that the surplus income over subsistence level is above what he would deem to be necessary for the ordinary well-being of a citizen, to tax that excess so as to meet the calls for fostering those other industries which he thinks ought to be fostered. The Deputy has suggested to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that various industries, which he names, such as the woollen industry and one or two others, should be fostered by the Department of Industry and Commerce.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

resumed the Chair.

Mr. O'MARA

Flour.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

Linen.

Mr. JOHNSON

He said that that was the function of the Department of Industry and Commerce, to foster native industries. He did not tell us how they were to be fostered. He left us with a curious feeling of ineffectiveness when we remembered that he is a strenuous opponent of tariffs. How are they to be fostered? Bounties? Bounties involve the raising of taxation. How else are they to be fostered? By remissions of taxation——

Mr. O'MARA

Hear, hear.

Mr. JOHNSON

To these industries as compared with others? We gather from the gesture that the fostering of these industries must be by means of the remission of taxation in general. Perhaps Deputy O'Mara will, as I said earlier, help by prompting somebody else, to show how these particular industries are going to be fostered by reductions of taxation. Is it to reduce the wages of the consumers of flour or wearers of woollen goods and so reduce their ability to purchase woollen goods or flour?

Mr. O'MARA

The answer is no. I make the Deputy a present of the fact that wages are the last thing I would touch in the reduction.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

There is hope for the Deputy yet.

Mr. HOGAN (Minister for Agriculture)

He has now given a concession to nearly everybody but ourselves.

Mr. JOHNSON

I am quite sure that Deputy O'Mara's thoughts did not run in the first instance upon a reduction of wages and therefore we will say the masses of the people who are going to consume flour and wear woollen goods are not going to be deprived of some of their purchasing power by reduction of wages. But then we are still waiting to know by what means these particular industries are to be fostered in view of the refusal to give bounties or to put tariffs upon competing imports. There must not be class legislation. That wipes out any suggestion about reducing income tax! So that we are probably forced to the conclusion that Deputy O'Mara desires to reduce taxation upon luxuries—that is to say, the £10,000,000 which are at present spent upon luxuries which can be foregone by the consumers. I refer to whiskey, beer and tobacco. Let us say that the burden upon the consumers of these commodities is to be lifted somewhat so that the industries in question should be fostered. I am afraid I am very far from understanding the course of the Deputy's thoughts in this matter.

My complaint regarding the Estimates lies in the fact that they do not seem to contemplate the necessity for making a much larger effort than has yet been made to meet the needs of those unemployed men whom Deputy O'Mara speaks of. I think that is the fault of the Estimates very much more than the extent of the payment for salaries of officials in the various offices. That, of course, would mean a great increase in the fund that has to be raised somehow. I believe, as a matter of fact, there will need to be a big increase in the fund to be raised, whether by taxation or loan, to meet the needs of the unemployed in the cities and in the towns and countryside, too, because all the Deputy has said in regard to the continued depression is felt by those people very much more sorely than it is felt by those who are looking at their business declining and who are not able to recover its prosperity. I agree with the Minister that the remedy is not to be found in the direction of reducing the total sum to be collected from the people but in the increase in productivity, so that the sum that will remain with the people will be greater. I am not convinced at all that the Ministry is dealing with these matters as they would if they appreciated the emergency and the danger to the State that the long-continued existence of this large number of unemployed men involves.

Deputy O'Mara pointed to the decline in cultivation in the quantities of the various crops of last year. I would draw the attention of Deputies to the fact that this decline is not something arising out of recent and temporary causes, whatever those causes may be. If we go back for 30 or 40 years prior to the war, we find that there was a steady and continuous decline in the tillage area, that the decline was only arrested after the outbreak of the war, and that since 1918, when the tillage area was at its maximum, there has been a steady decline until last year, when it was lower than ever in the history of the country.

I move to report progress.

The Dáil went out of Committee.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again to-morrow.

The Dáil adjourned at 8.30.