I move:—
"That the Report of the Committee of Public Accounts, dated 29th February, 1928, which has been printed and circulated, be now considered."
In presenting this Report to the House for its consideration, I take the liberty of pointing out that the work which had to be carried out for the year under review had to be carried out by three separate committees, appointed in the first case by the Fourth Dáil, in the second place by the Fifth Dáil, and also by the Sixth Dáil. Many members of the Committee who will be held responsible for the Report now presented were not members of either of the committees appointed by the Fourth or the Fifth Dáil. I was not a member of the Committee set up by the Fourth Dáil, but I was a member of the Committee appointed by the Fifth Dáil, but was not constantly in attendance at the meetings. Eventually I found myself in the peculiar position of being Chairman of the Committee which had to take responsibility for drawing up the Report now before the House. I want to take advantage of this opportunity of saying on behalf of the Public Accounts Committee, and if I might say also on behalf of the House, that we deeply appreciate the conscientious and painstaking manner in which the Comptroller and Auditor-General and his staff performed the duties which fell to them in connection with this important aspect of Governmental work. The Comptroller and Auditor-General is, of course, an officer of this House, appointed by the House for the purpose of seeing that its intentions when voting money are faithfully carried out in the spending of that money. If I may do so at this stage, I want to emphasise the fact that the work of the Public Accounts Committee should be looked upon as a work of a purely non-party character. It would be a very serious matter in the opinion of some of the Committee, and I hope in this matter members of the House will agree, if the Report or recommendations of the Committee were to be looked upon and dealt with from the party point of view. The Committee consists of members of all parties, but so far as my experience goes, the work done by members of all parties on the Committee was performed in a manner which had no relationship whatever to the views of the parties, if they had any views on the particular matters that came before the Committee from time to time.
The Committee conducts its business in the presence of the accounting officers of the Departments concerned, representatives of the Department of Finance and the Comptroller and Auditor-General. The Committee can, any time it thinks fit, examine official files so as to clucidate any particular matter that it may not be clear upon. The procedure is defined so as to safeguard the taxpayer from official error in the spending of public funds, and to ensure faithful financial administration. I want to emphasise the fact also to members of the House who may be new to the work of the Public Accounts Committee that it is not the Ministers who are called before the Committee to answer for any matters that the Comptroller and Auditor-General may deem fit to report upon. It is the accounting officers of the Departments concerned. Cases have arisen, and perhaps will arise again, where Ministerial policy may cut across the Departmental decisions, and where such matters are reported to the Committee by the Comptroller and Auditor-General the Committee in due course reports to the House, and the Minister or Ministers responsible will have to answer to this House. Any departure from the directions and intentions of those voting the money in this House means a query from the Comptroller and Auditor-General, an examination by the Public Accounts Committee, a report in turn to this House, and disallowance or a supplementary application to the Dáil, as the case may be.
The system of public accountancy or the work and procedure of the Public Accounts Committee has been in existence in Great Britain for a period of, I think, 60 years. We had in this country to erect under very difficult circumstances a Governmental machine. It is only natural to expect that in the earliest stages of the work of a new Government, set up in such peculiar circumstances, that matters would crop up that would not arise under normal conditions. Speaking from a slight examination of the work of the Public Accounts Committee in Great Britain. and of the matters which have come before that Committee. I can truthfully and honestly state that the work performed by the people who are responsible for administration in this country is now as good as if not better than the work performed in Great Britain under the same circumstances. There is nothing of an unusual nature in the Report which I now present to the House which would make one feel that there is any reason for apprehension. Many matters appear in the Report of the Public Accounts Committee in Great Britain which do not now arise in this country, and I say that we can boast of a Governmental machine as good as if not better than that which exists in Great Britain, where you have an old-established Government, and where the machinery, the working and the procedure of the Public Accounts Committee have been in existence for a period of over sixty years.
I have to take the responsibility of presenting the Report to the House under a certain disadvantage. I take it that in the usual way the Report of the Public Accounts Committee would not be considered unless and until the Committee had received from the Minister for Finance minutes with regard to the different matters raised in the Report. The Report was signed on the 29th February, 1928, and in the usual way found its way to the Department of Finance. But as far as I am aware, we have no report or no minute of any kind to give us any indication whatever as to the views of the Minister for Finance on any important matter raised in the Report. I take it that matters which will be referred to by Deputies will be replied to by the Minister to-day. At this stage I intend to refer only to two or three matters raised in the Report. I feel, and I am sure that the members of the Committee also feel, that any discussion and criticism that may arise from the presentation of this Report should, at any rate in the earlier stages of this debate, be left as far as possible to Deputies who are not and have not been members of the Committee. If any Deputy refers to a matter which calls for explanation the members of the Committee, and I myself if necessary, will take responsibility for answering them for anything in the Report that may not appear clear.
I want to refer, in the first place, to paragraph 17 of the Report. I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance is not now in the House. Of course we have already been informed that he is Chairman of the Economy Committee, and I would like to direct his attention to the matter raised in that paragraph so that he might, in consultation with his colleagues on the Economy Committee, see what could be done—and we believe that something could be done in this case—to bring about savings in expenses under this head. Ministers, and the Government as a whole, are of course responsible for the administration of Acts, such as the Old Age Pensions Act, and they are very careful not to give away a shilling in the case of an old age pension where a shilling can be saved, under the very strict regulations governing the administration of the Act. Here is a case where we believe—and in this we are supported by the accounting officer responsible—that considerable savings could be effected, and I merely direct the attention of the Chairman of the Economy Committee to this particular paragraph so that he may go into it with a view to bringing about savings.
In paragraph 26 a very important point is raised, a point where the Department of Posts and Telegraphs joins issue with the Minister for Finance on the question of discipline within the service. Those of us who were present in the House a couple of weeks ago, and who listened to the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs will remember that he made a boast, probably to a certain extent correct, about the discipline of the Department for which he was responsible. Now here is a case where his own Department on a question of discipline is joining issue with the Minister for Finance, who is nominally if not actually the head of the Civil Service. I will read the Report as far as I may have to refer to it:
Sums amounting to £69 10s. 4d. were charged to this account under the sub-head for losses. To this the Department of Finance refused sanction. The losses occurred through defalcations on the part of the officers in charge of two branch offices, and it transpired that the supervision on the part of the Department was defective. As a result of an application for authority to write off this amount, the Department of Finance requested that prosecutions be undertaken in both cases. The Solicitor to the Post Office gave it as his opinion that there was sufficient evidence to sustain prosecutions.
This is not the important point:
The Department for Posts and Telegraphs, nevertheless, refused to proceed on the grounds that it was not in the public interest, and also that the decision as to whether prosecutions should be instituted in this type of case was one for them and not for the Department of Finance.
Now that raises a very serious issue, and I hope that the Deputies of this House will support the members of the Public Accounts Committee in insisting that on matters of this kind the view point of the Department of Finance must be carried out and adhered to, if there is to be discipline in the Civil Service. I would like to hear from the Minister, when he is replying, what he has to say in regard to that particular aspect of the report.
Now I come to paragraph 31 in connection with Trade Loan Guarantees. The Deputies will recognise that a special provision of this Act was that no guarantee was to be given if any part of the proceeds was to be used as working capital. In one case which has already come under the notice of the House in the discussions which took place here last year, and where the Loan was guaranteed, it was found that the State security must stand as a second mortgage in order to allow a first mortgage on the assets for cash advanced by the bank as working capital. I believe it is generally admitted, I am not sure if the Minister is now prepared to admit it, that that certainly was not in accordance with the intentions of the Act. The Act of the 17th July, 1926, made no amendment such as was suggested in the interim report of the Public Accounts Committee dated 15th June, 1926. In another case it was brought to the notice of the Public Accounts Committee that the State security has been reduced by about £20,000 since the loan was guaranteed by the Department of Industry and Commerce. This makes me feel that the Comptroller and Auditor-General, in commenting on these cases, is entitled to deal with them as matters of account and not as matters of law. The Dáil, in granting money for any purpose, looks to the Comptroller and Auditor-General to see that its intention in granting the money is carried out. When a liability on the Exchequer is created, the Comptroller and Auditor-General is bound to bring any matter to the notice of the Dáil, any matter which he thinks should be brought forward. In my opinion the Act should be amended so as to remove all doubt regarding the conditions under which a loan may be guaranteed. The Minister, in speaking on his own Vote the other day, gave the House to understand that in amending the Act, as he anticipated that amendments would be necessary, he would be guided in bringing forward such amendments as a result of the discussion that would take place in the House on this Report.
I want to come to another, the last matter in connection with this Report. It is the matter dealt with in paragraph 42 under the head of Army Pensions. I want to say here and now that the question raised by the Committee under this paragraph has nothing whatever to do with the desirability of granting pensions to able-bodied men. This House has, by the Military Service Pensions Act, made provision for granting pensions to individuals who can prove active service in pre-Truce days, and who could also prove that they had subsequent service in the National Army. The Act which made it possible to pay pensions to such individuals made it also possible to set up what is called a Board of Assessors. And that Board under the Act was charged with the responsibility of going into all applications and making recommendations as to whether certificates could be issued which would enable individual applicants to obtain whatever pensions they were entitled to under the terms of the Act. The Comptroller and Auditor-General, as far as I am aware, is entitled in all cases where moneys are advanced under any Act passed by this House to have access to every document which would enable him to satisfy himself on behalf of this House that the moneys payable under certain sections of the Act would be properly chargeable to the Vote and within the meaning of the Act which gives authority for the granting of pensions or other payments. A definite conflict arose subsequent to the establishment of the Board of Assessors in connection with the administration of this particular Act. If I am wrong, I would like the Minister to point out to me where I am wrong. I hold that the powers of the Comptroller and Auditor-General were not in any way limited under the terms of any section of this Act. If they were, and if there was any such intention in the minds of those who were responsible for presenting the Bill to the House at the time, these things should have been mentioned at the time. When the moneys came to be voted for the Estimates in the ordinary way, the Minister, when subsequently moving for several Votes since the first Vote was presented to the House, did not inform the House that the moneys payable to the persons who were considered as entitled to pensions should be subjected to a limited examination. It was only when the Auditor-General came to review the payments made in a certain year that the Board of Assessors declined to give him the papers which he thought he was entitled to under the terms of his appointment under the Comptroller and Auditor-General Act. The point I want to make is this, and I do not want to stress it too much—that the refusal to give to the Comptroller and Auditor-General the papers to which he thinks he is entitled, and to which I think he is entitled under the terms of the Act as it stands, is, I understand, a ministerial decision. Evidence was given before the Public Accounts Committee which makes that quite clear to any person who has read the minutes of evidence. Mr. Brennan, who was then the accounting officer for the Department of Finance, gave evidence before the Committee on the 13th January, 1927. In paragraph 2216 of the printed evidence I find:—
Chairman:—In the Superannuation and Pensions Act, 1923, I find provision is made in respect to the payment of pensions to a variety of classes, including civil servants. Dublin Metropolitan Police, Criminal Investigation Department, Army pensions, resigned and dismissed R.I.C., teachers and others. I find that in the Superannuation and Pensions Act. Section 9, it is provided that the decision of the Minister for Finance on any question which may arise as to the application of any section of this Act to any person or as to the amount of any allowance or gratuity under this Act or as to the reckoning of any service for such allowance or gratuity shall be final. I find this Act is to be cited together with the previous Superannuation Acts from 1834 to 1923. I desire to ask you as to the practice of the Minister for Finance in respect to the audit of pensions awards whether it is usual to submit any documents that may be called for by the Comptroller and Auditor-General which he may require in the course of his audit?
The reply was:
That is the practice in all these cases—that any paper relevant to the award of pensions is sent to the Comptroller and Auditor-General on his request.