I move:—
7. In page 8, Section 6, to delete sub-section (2), lines 9 to 12, and substitute therefor the words: "The accounts of the Board shall be audited by an auditor appointed by a resolution of Dáil Eireann, who shall act on behalf of Saorstát Eireann. The cost of such audit shall be paid by the Board."
This amendment is intended to provide the second best alternative to the audit by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. The proposal of Deputy Cooper on the last consideration of this question was that the Auditor-General should have the responsibility and authority to audit the accounts. That was defeated. I would much prefer that that should be inserted in the Bill before it passes into law, and I am moving this amendment as something second best to the Auditor-General. It is a great improvement on the proposition in the Bill as it stands. I say second best, but I think that the position we are being faced with, if this Bill passes either in its present form or even as amended by my proposal, would still leave the question of the Comptroller and Auditor-General a little difficult. The spirit of the Comptroller and Auditor-General Act and of the Constitution in my opinion requires that the Comptroller and Auditor-General should audit the accounts of this particular undertaking inasmuch as the money has been provided by the State and it is run under the authority of the State. That is a matter on which there may be differences of opinion.
I draw the attention of the House to this important fact that, the Comptroller and Auditor-General Act, Section 7, sub-section (2), provides that by resolution of Dáil Eireann at any time the accounts of this undertaking may be audited by that official, and notwithstanding that the Oireachtas may decide to remove them from the purview of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, any future Dáil, by simple resolution, may require that the accounts shall be reported upon by that official. Therefore we may be laying up for ourselves unnecessary difficulties. We may be providing what the Minister thinks is desirable, that the finances of this particular undertaking shall not be brought under public criticism, and yet a resolution of the Dáil at any time may still bring the accounts and those finances under the Comptroller and Auditor-General. Therefore there will be two audits, and he will be required to report, not in the normal way, but as additional and abnormal procedure. I think the fact that that is possible by such a simple process makes the proposals of the Minister unwise because it is requiring a kind of super-auditor over the auditor that the Minister himself proposes to appoint. It would be much simpler to have the normal process that these accounts would be audited by the auditor who acts on behalf of Saorstát Eireann.
However, I am dealing now with the second best proposition, as far as I can see, that is, that the auditor who is to be appointed to audit the accounts shall be one "appointed by a resolution of Dáil Eireann who shall act on behalf of Saorstát Eireann." That is the phrasing of the Comptroller and Auditor-General Act. I think the line taken by the Minister in regard to this proposition is misdirected and mainly based upon either a misapprehension as to the position of the Comptroller and Auditor-General or a very serious fault in his mentality regarding the public finances. The case made by the Minister seems to have been that it is undesirable that a public auditor acting on behalf of the State should have any say in the control or the check of the expenditure of this particular board, and his reason is that he does not want to drag the affairs of this particular undertaking into the public gaze. I can understand quite well a case made that one does not want to interfere with the details of administration by discussion in this or any other public assembly before the act or immediately after the act of administration, but the work of the auditor is the work of looking over the financial affairs a considerable time after the event. It is no interference with the administrative activities of the Board. His business is to make sure that the finances of the undertaking have been carefully looked after and that spending has been according to order and regulation. I think that the people who are to provide the money are the people to make the appointment.
Some references were made to public companies. It is the shareholders at the annual meeting of an ordinary public company who appoint the auditor, and it is to the shareholders the auditor reports. The proposal in the measure is that the Minister, who is the spending authority under our constitutional arrangement, shall appoint the auditor, and that the auditor shall report to him—entirely wrong from a financial point of view. The people who provide the money are to have no say in the matter. The auditors may report on the proceedings. They may put in their report exactly what they like and omit what they like. They are not reporting on the finances. They are making a report to the Minister, the spending Department, and the people who provide the money are to have no say in that most important of all affairs. The Bill provides for the keeping of accounts according to an arrangement which shall be made by the Minister after consultation with the Minister for Finance. He will consult with the Minister for Finance and then proceed to make his own arrangements as to the form of accounts, but I think more than that is required in regard to any financial administration. There is something more required than the mere audit of the accounts and the presenting of the annual report. "The accounts of the Board shall be audited annually." I believe in this matter, as in all public expenditure, it is desirable that there should be a running audit and that that audit should be conducted by a public official.
Let us consider for a moment what power is given to this Board. They are to be handed over five and a half million pounds' worth of supplies, power and material for producing power, plus two and a half millions of money that is now being embodied in this Bill, plus another one or two millions which they may take over from the municipal authorities, plus anything else that may accrue in the course of time. It is a trust the money for which is being provided by the State, and the Board has absolute power in respect of administration. It may spend as it likes. Its only responsibility, as far as I can see, is to ensure that the expenditure and the income will be more or less balanced and that the scheme shall eventually pay for itself, but the manner of expenditure the Board itself has to determine. We have the right to assume that they will be men of the highest integrity and capacity, with the utmost wisdom in regard to accounting, but they are going to hand over their powers to officers. These officers, too, might be assumed to be men of the highest integrity and capacity, but they will be largely dependent on the action of subordinates, and we know that subordinates can very often spend wrongfully, waste public money.
It is necessary that we, at least, should have some say in the checking of this scheme and the system, so that, as far as we can bring it about, opportunities for mis-spending those public moneys should be reduced to a minimum. That is not provided for by the scheme in the Bill. The Minister intends that should be provided for by the appointment of an auditor who shall be qualified, and it is proposed that these accounts should be audited annually. That may mean anything. You may have an internal audit which has to be ultimately overlooked by the annual audit, a continuous internal audit which has to be overlooked by the outside auditor. We are getting no assurance whatever that the public side of this expenditure is going to be safeguarded. The Minister resents what he calls the interference of the auditor, but I think that is a very dangerous state of mind for the Minister to be in. He resents the interference in financial matters of the Auditor-General. He expressed the determination that, so far as he could ensure it, the accounts of this Board would not be brought into discussion in the Dáil. On the second part of Deputy Cooper's amendment, the Minister objected to "bringing back the whole of the accounts of the Board from year to year for discussion in the Dáil, in view of the political reactions that were bound to follow from that"; he was "not prepared to have every action of the Board criticised from the political point of view in the House"; he was "not prepared to have every account of the Board dragged back again into this House through the supervision of the Comptroller and Auditor-General." I say it is a deplorable and lamentable state of mind for a Minister to be in when he can give expression to such views as that about public expenditure.
There are a number of members of this House who have been, during the last four years, from time to time, members of the Public Accounts Committee. I have the names marked on a division list of Deputy Wolfe, Deputy Patrick J. Egan, Deputy Wilson, Deputy Michael Hennessy and Deputy Martin Roddy as Deputies who voted against the proposal that the accounts should be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. They, no doubt, heard the statement of the Minister in regard to bringing before this House the report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, the "dragging into this House" of the accounts as audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General as representing the Saorstát and discussing them from a political point of view. I challenge any of these members to say whether, at any time, in the Public Accounts Committee, there has been any discussion of the accounts from a political point of view. Has there ever been any discussion in this House of these accounts from a political point of view?
I say this, and I am loth to say it, that if there had been any desire to discuss these accounts from a political point of view we might have made much party capital out of it. We have not done so, and I think it is a reflection upon the Public Accounts Committee and upon the majority of that Public Accounts Committee which always comes from the Government side of the House, to say that these accounts have been discussed from a political point of view or that it is possible to drag them into this House and discuss them there from that point of view. If that is the attitude of mind of the Minister in regard to the Auditor-General and Public Accounts Committee then this State, under its present Government, is in a deplorable condition. It is a very delicate matter to have at the early stages of this new institution Ministers resenting a public audit by a public accountant nominated and appointed by the House following an implicit direction in the Constitution, and resenting the examination of these accounts by the Comptroller and Auditor-General and an examination of his report by Deputies belonging to this House. I say that is a deplorable state of mind to have expressed from the Ministerial Benches.
I think the House would be very wise to pass this amendment, which will at least ensure that the auditor will act for the House and the public, and not for the Minister, who is the spending authority. The Minister seems to suggest that he, in making the appointment, will be acting, for the public. But let us realise our relative positions under our constitutional scheme in regard to finance and administration generally. Ministers come to the House and ask for money. It is the House that provides that money— allows the Ministers to direct the spending of it under very strict check. It is not as representatives of the money-providing authority that Ministers are acting when they are dealing with the spending of public money. They are the people who have to be checked, and quite rightly. I am sure that every Minister who appreciates the position welcomes that particular kind of check. It is not a correct representation of the position for the Minister to say that he can act on behalf of Saorstát Eireann in making an appointment of the auditor who is to audit the accounts on behalf of the people who provide the money.
There has been an attempt to make, throughout this Bill, an analogy with an independent public company—independent of the petty and detailed criticism of an elected body. We can discuss the implications of that at another time, but let us accept that analogy. If we accept that analogy we are bound to follow it a little further, and to say that it is the people who provide the money—that is, the public—who should appoint the auditor. As I said at the beginning, I would much prefer that the question should be discussed as a proposition to give the Auditor-General power, but I am precluded from that by the rules of order, and, as I said, I am moving this amendment as second best. I hope, before the Bill becomes law, that if this amendment is passed it, also, will be eliminated, and that a provision for the Comptroller and Auditor-General will be put in its place. I want the House to remember that the possibilities are that the Dublin Corporation Accounts will be audited by the Auditor appointed under this Section; that is, the Dublin Corporation accounts in respect of their expenditure on electrical supply. At present they are audited by a public official following an internal audit. I think this proposition is lessening even the check on these accounts as compared with the check of the present audit. Surely when we are enlarging the powers of a Board, we ought not, concurrently with that, to be weakening the financial check. There is imperative need, I think, that we should be rigorous and stiff in ensuring that the public side of the financial part of this scheme should be absolutely water-tight, so far as we can make it so. It is not so in this section, and no matter what forms may be devised by the Minister, after consultation with the Minister for Finance, no matter what finished accounts he may be presented with by the auditor, that is not going to be as valuable an audit, from the public point of view, as an audit of the kind that the Comptroller and Auditor-General would give us, or that an auditor appointed by this House would give us. I ask the House to give very serious and earnest consideration to the proposition in the Bill and to the proposed amendment. I, for my part, will do my best to defeat this Bill—notwithstanding that there is much in it of which I approve—unless a very great change takes place in respect to the audit and in respect to the powers of the Board.