I presume I am entitled to answer the Deputy. When the Deputy gets older and gets more experience he will approach matters with less prejudice and will learn to sit quietly in his place while getting an answer. If the Minister for External Affairs, Deputy Fitzgerald, who, I regret to say, is very ill at the moment, were incompetent to discharge the duties of Minister for External Affairs, I would hesitate to nominate him to the Ministry of Defence. I thought that that would have been obvious to the Deputy, and I am sure that in a short time he will appreciate the point. The Minister for External Affairs was a most competent Minister, and in the negotiations which took place both at Geneva and the Imperial Conference gave evidence of his ability, capacity and patriotism, and that tribute was paid to him by others as by me, by people of other countries, and I would be very sorry that it would go out from this House that there should be any question of the competence of the Minister in a matter of that kind.
It is unnecessary to introduce legislation to effect the discharge of the duties of both of these Ministries by one Deputy. I do not know whether it is quite appreciated in the House, or outside, that for a considerable portion of the last five years Ministers of this State have worked harder and for longer hours than Ministers in any other State. The strain has told on some of them. It so happens that it was not my intention to have amalgamated these two Ministries, but the Vice-President, who has been one of the most hardworked of all the Ministers, told me within the last week that as his work had lessened in his Department he thought he would be able to take on the work of the Ministry of External Affairs. That is one more tribute, if tribute were necessary, to his anxiety to discharge the duties of his office, or any office of State, regardless of any personal inconvenience. This morning he went to bed at 2 o'clock. That is another evidence of the fact that Ministers do not spare themselves in their work.
It is unnecessary to amalgamate these two Ministries so far as law is concerned. I do not anticipate any other amalgamation of offices. I am not now asking for approval of that proposal. I am asking for the approval of the appointment of nine Ministers other than myself. The House has already acquiesced in my appointment. I may say that from the point of view of the Constitution they are entitled to the same support as I was. Their policy is the same as mine. There is no difference. There is agreement between us. There is no intention to have an inner and outer Ministry. We have not had it at all events since I have had responsibility for the administration. There were occasions, even while the Executive Council consisted only of seven members, when we had the benefit in council of some Extern Ministers. From our experience during the last four years we have found that the Extern Ministry proposal was not a workable one. I think that a close examination by any person interested in proportional representation will convince him at once that, as regards the idea underlying the Extern Ministry proposal, a Coalition Government in power could not expect support through the appointment of Extern Ministers. That would not be the way to do it. If there be coalition it should be in the Executive Council and not by the appointment of Extern Ministers.
I thought that in connection with Government policy a little more attention was paid to addresses given by the President of the Executive Council in various parts of the country, but as I find I have been wrong I will have to reiterate now what I said on many platforms. One peculiarity of the present situation is that I am attacked from the extreme right for not adopting a certain policy and, at the same time, threatened by the left that if I adopt that policy I am going to hear more about it. I read with infinite care the Report of the Gaelteacht Commission. The principal recommendation in connection with that report was that a special commission should be established with a paid chairman to watch administration in the Gaelteacht area. I am stating it rather briefly and, perhaps, crudely, but that is the kernel of the proposal. That did not commend itself to the Executive Council. The Executive Council considered this report, and has had it examined in every department of the State, as I explained on the hustings. Unlike others, I do not say one thing on the hustings and another thing here. I explained on the hustings that our proposal was to set up a special Ministry.
What is this Ministry to do? Mention has been made of fisheries. The question of fisheries is to a very large extent the problem of the Gaelteacht. I admit that there are promising fisheries in Arklow and Howth, but the main fishery activity of the country is along the seaboard in the Gaelteacht area, and it is obvious, if you are to have a Ministry dealing with Gaelteacht problems, that fishing is one of the most important industries in connection with the Gaelteacht. Deputies who read the Gaelteacht Commission's report will recollect that the Land Commission, reclamation, drainage, and so on, were dealt with at great length in that report. I do not know whether Deputy O'Connell has disclosed to other members of his party the proposal in that report regarding the distribution of land in the Gaeltacht. It occurred to the Executive Council that a division in the administration of the Land Commission was not desirable and that one person should have charge of it. I may say, in answer to one of the remarks of Deputy Baxter, that for a long time the Minister for Lands and Agriculture has reported to me and other members of the Executive Council that the work of that Ministry was far too much for him. I think that Deputy Baxter and other Deputies will agree that a more hardworking Minister than the Minister for Lands and Agriculture would be impossible to find. Even this new Ministry with Land Commission and Fisheries, and such other services as are to be dealt with in the Gaelteacht, will be too much for the Minister. It will be necessary for him to ask for a Parliamentary Secretary in that connection. I should have mentioned that before. The work of the Gaelteacht, as anybody knows who made a study of it, is a great work in itself, requiring not alone great administrative skill and continued attention, but it will have in its train, and we had better realise it now, disappointment and dissatisfaction, and occasionally a lack of patience in connection with its treatment.
I do not anticipate, and I have said so on platforms outside, that it is going to be solved within the next five or ten years. My own view. as I explained five years ago at the Fountain in James's Street, is that its solution would cause disappointment even to the second generation after ours. I presume I have made those two points clear as regards the Ministry for External Affairs and the new Ministry.