I move:—
Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £39,984 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1927, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Airgid, maraon le hOifig an Phághmháistir Ghenerálta.
That a sum not exceeding £39,984 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1927, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Finance, including the Paymaster-General's Office.
I do not think it is necessary for me, in moving this Vote, to speak at great length. Many of the matters which I might, perhaps, have dealt with in moving the Vote were dealt with in very considerable detail last March when the Vote on Account was being moved. Except some fresh points are raised in regard to them, it is unnecessary to repeat them at the present moment. The Deputies will notice that there is not any great change in the Vote this year. The reduction which appears is mainly due to the reduced amount required for temporary clerical assistance. The amount under that heading is £5,081 this year, as compared with £11,458 last year. This reduction in the amount of clerical assistance required practically represents the decrease which has occurred in connection with compensation work. Work, which was of very considerable volume, in connection with personal injuries compensation is practically at an end. Work in connection with pre-Truce damage is very largely decreased. The Wood-Renton Commission is wound up and, while a certain amount of clearance of ordinary awards has to be made, what remains, in the main, to be done is the distribution of moneys to which reinstatement conditions were attached.
The work of the Department of Finance in the Saorstát was started under very considerable difficulties. There was nothing corresponding to the Department in existence here. The work of financial control had been done in London. Our staff had to be brought together from various branches of the Civil Service and set to the work of what I might call Treasury control. While this Department had to be improvised, many new Departments of State had been established and existing Departments of State had to adapt themselves to new conditions. The work of the Department of Finance was, therefore, done under very great difficulties and under very great pressure. It would have been difficult enough to deal adequately with the ordinary work of financial supervision and control which would have arisen in connection with the Departments in the ordinary way.
In addition to that, we had a great volume of work arising out of the disturbed condition of the country. A great deal of difficult work arose from the military operations and from the building up and demobilisation of a large army. There was also much work in dealing with the various classes of claims for damage that arose from military operations. Much work was done under the same heading, in a way, in dealing with the claims under the Damage to Property (Compensation) Act. The emergency work, which arose in the beginning, has very largely passed away. After this year, there will probably be very little to do other than the normal work of the Department of Finance.
In other respects, we have made great changes. There has been a very considerable output of legislation. New services of various sorts have been undertaken. Some of these services should have been undertaken a considerable time ago. They have imposed a heavy strain and will continue to impose a great strain on the Department. The civil servants who came on to the staff of the Department of Finance were, perhaps, in the beginning, largely occupied in getting an adequate knowledge of the ramifications of Government work. That knowledge, I think, has been very satisfactorily acquired. We are now in the position, I think, that we can claim that proposals involving expenditure are adequately considered and adequately criticised in advance and that the administration of services which have been undertaken is scrutinised and checked in an extremely satisfactory manner. On the other hand, we have done as much as the most exacting could expect in the way of seeing that public money was not spent wastefully but that full value was got for it in every possible respect. I dealt, as I said, with that aspect of the matter at very considerable length last year, and I do not think it is necessary that I should detain the Dáil by any prolonged reiteration of what I explained then at the present stage.