What is the precise value of that particular provision? The personnel of the two Commissions has two out of three members in common. The machinery is the same. They have the same set of officials working for the two Commissions. The mode of procedure in the case of the Civil Service Commission, and in the case of the Local Appointments Commission, is the same. Why then this extraordinary belief apparently in the Civil Service Commission, and why the unbelief and so-called unpopularity of the Local Appointments Commission? If Deputies think for a moment they will see the answer quite clearly—namely, that it is the business of the Civil Service Commission to appoint officials at headquarters. So far as patronage was taken away from anybody, it was taken away from the Executive Council, and that was highly popular. So far as the Local Appointments Commission goes, any patronage interfered with was the patronage of the local bodies, hence the unpopularity. That is the explanation of the comparative freedom from criticism that the Civil Service Commission enjoys, and of the amount of criticism that the Local Appointments Commissioners come in for.
I suggest that the position before this Act which it is now proposed to amend, so far as mere words are concerned, but in reality which it is proposed to destroy, was a case in which you had patronage in public boards. And many of the arguments put forward for the retention of that particular patronage might as well have been put forward for the retention of patronage by the central authority. The analogy of the Dáil, as everyone will remember who listened to those debates, has been quoted again and again. Why trust the Dáil and not the local authorities; but surely, as Deputy Anthony pointed out, a moment's consideration will show that there is no analogy between the two things. The Dáil makes no appointments, even so far as selection is concerned. Ministers make no appointments in the Civil Service. The analogy of the patronage exercised by local authorities, if you are to have a similar thing here at headquarters, would be as follows:—That in case of a number of vacancies in the Civil Service the Civil Service Commissioners would send down to the Dáil three times the number of candidates that there are vacancies for, and then the Dáil would proceed to allocate which of the candidates would fill the vacancy. That is the analogy when you compare the central body and the local bodies.
I am not so sure that that particular method of procedure would shock every Deputy because, as one of the members of the Labour Party has already called attention to, Deputy O'Kelly naively put forward, apparently as a particular objection to the Appointments Commissioners, that their Party had no nominee upon it. If their Party had a nominee upon it then they would have to be satisfied with the position of that body. That is the conception underlying a great deal of what is in this Bill.
Now certain charges have been made in course of the debate in connection with the activities of the Local Appointments Commissioners. I am not going to waste any time in trying to elucidate whether or not charges of that kind were foreshadowed by the leader of the Opposition. I suppose we will leave that rather vexed question of exegesis aside and turn to the actual course of the debate. There were various interruptions, so vigorous that we on this side happened to miss the exact terms of the interruptions when the Minister for Agriculture was speaking. He thought that Deputy O'Kelly said "We will bring forward charges," but what Deputy O'Kelly said was "We did." Therefore, the suggestion is that the charges had been brought forward and apparently substantiated in connection with the activities of the Local Appointments Commission. Now, one thing is that nothing is easier than to get up here or in any other assembly or place to deal with any appointment and take one candidate, mention his qualifications, set out how brilliant he was, not perhaps all round but in certain respects, and then say: "This man was passed over. Could he have been passed over if the body was animated with the spirit that they should have been?" Nothing is easier than that. Where the facts are not before the assembly, and where the qualifications of the different candidates are not before the assembly, it is easy to make a plausible case for any one candidate. I think that is admitted. Consequently everybody will realise that the claim cannot be made by which a decision of this body or any other body would give universal satisfaction.
We must realise that these men animated with the best disposition will reach a different opinion as to the qualifications and merits of the different candidates. That happens every day in every walk of life. Even divinely instituted bodies find it is extremely difficult to give universal satisfaction, and certainly any human body of this kind is liable to err. But because another person would give a different verdict on the evidence before him is that a suggestion that there was anything in the nature of unfair dealing on the part of the Appointments Commissioners? Then, as I say, people with only very partial knowledge, having heard only one side of a case in which there are possibly ten sides, if there are ten candidates, it is very easy for a person of that kind to come to a decision that a little consideration would show is entirely unjust and entirely wrong. The Appointments Commissioners are a statutory body; they are under statutory obligations and on them in the last run must rest responsibility for whatever recommendation they make as to the suitability of the candidate. The functions of the men who have been functioning on the Selection Boards is to test the professional and relative technical qualifications of the different candidates. As I say, in the last instance it is the Commissioners who must take the responsibility for the recommendation that the Selection Boards make. That is a statutory obligation and they cannot rid themselves of it. They must reserve to themselves always the right to say that in every case as far as they are able to see it there is no case of injustice, either inadvertent injustice or otherwise. So far as the action of the Commissioners is concerned it has in fact been the invariable practice to adopt the reports of the Selection Boards on the technical and professional qualifications, if they are satisfied that there has been no miscarriage of justice and that there has been no oversight. In one case there was a wrong age stated by one of the candidates. That was afterwards discovered. In the course of the operation of the Act no case has yet occurred where the Commissioners have not adopted the views of the Selection Board on the technical and professional recommendation of the candidates. The order of merit in which the candidates are placed by the Selection Board may be disturbed by three considerations, and the principle that they are to be disturbed by those considerations has been acknowledged from every quarter of the House. A preference may be given for a knowledge of Irish, and a preference to a very small degree indeed for local connection. That is if a couple of candidates are practically equal, then if one is a local man preference is given in that direction. I think Deputy de Valera made a demand of that kind. That has been the practice of the Appointments Commissioners. The third thing that may disturb the order of merit as put by the Selection Board is an inquiry into the health and general moral character, age and so on of the different candidates. These are the only cases in which a candidate placed No. 1 on the list by the Selection Board has not been automatically submitted by the Appointments Commissioners.
In every case, including those that have been mentioned in this House, the candidate that was placed first by the Selection Board was recommended, unless the considerations that I have just referred to operated. These considerations have been approved of, I think, by every Party in this House. As I say, that has been the position. There have been cases mentioned. One was mentioned by Deputy Little. He quoted a certain Waterford paper. In quoting it he managed to leave, perhaps unwillingly or unwittingly, certain impressions on the minds of the House. Certain of these impressions were afterwards corrected by the Minister for Agriculture. But as he was quoting from that paper I think it was a pity that there were just two sentences that Deputy Little did not quote in fairness to the Commissioners, whom he said he did not want to criticise because they were unable to answer. He might have quoted a sentence, which would not have taken him long, and it would certainly have conveyed information to the House. He might have quoted the following sentence from the charge of the Judge:—"It was a source of great gratification that the appointment made by the Commissioners was the candidate placed first on the list by the Board of Examiners." He might also have quoted from the defendant himself in this action, the man in whose paper the charge appeared which was the cause of the action. He might have quoted from the leader in the paper of that same date. It was as follows: "There were six names in this document, and the total marks credited to each candidate were recorded. We are very pleased to be able to inform the citizens of Waterford that the candidate recommended by the Local Appointments Commissioners, David Sheehy, was placed first on the list and undoubtedly received the appointment on merit alone." It was a pity as Deputy Little was quoting from that paper that he quite unwittingly managed to give a rather misleading impression of the trial—that he did not quote these two relevant statements in connection with that particular case. There was a case mentioned by Deputy Ryan. He did not give the name of the particular man. The man he referred to had, he said, very excellent academic qualifications. He had excellent academic qualifications. Deputy Ryan went on to say he had also experience. If so it is a pity that he concealed that information from the Appointments Commissioners. The candidate did not lay claim to the two very important things that count in an appointment of that kind, general experience or special experience. If he had that experience that Deputy Ryan says he has, or had, it is a pity that he did not acquaint the Commissioners of that. It is a pity he kept that in the dark. But how were the Commissioners to know that he had that experience that he apparently had, if Deputy Ryan is correct, when he did not acquaint them of it? We had a very eloquent appeal from the Deputy's colleagues. Deputy O'Dowd, I think it was, pointed out the value of experience.
You cannot have it both ways. You cannot slate the Appointment Commissioners on the one hand because they do not take experience into account and then you cannot have a Deputy of the same Party slating them for taking experience into account.
There was another case dealing with the appointment of an opthalmologist in Wexford. The Local Appointments Commissioners adopted the recommendation of their Board. They appointed a man who, as an expert, in the opinion of the Board very favourably outshone the other man. The charge is made that they should not have done so, because he was not a local man and would not be able to fulfil the duties. It must be assumed that every man when he goes for a position is willing to undertake all the steps necessary to carry out his part of the bargain. If he does not, there is a remedy. But until he fails to do his duty it is not fair to attack the Appointments Commissioners because they do not reject the opinion of an expert Board.
There is an amendment down to this Bill in the name of Deputy O'Connell. It proposes to hang up the Bill until a Committee of a certain kind has been appointed. I suggest this to Deputy O'Connell for his consideration. There is one thing I am convinced of. The whole attitude of the Labour Party indicates that they are in favour of the present Act, and they are in favour of seeing it work. They think a case has been made for an inquiry of a certain kind into the working of the Act. They have as strong a view of the present Bill —they have stated it as strongly—as the members of this Party have. I suggest to them that that being so there is no excuse for keeping this Bill; they should not attempt to keep a Bill they consider a bad Bill from every point of view, keep that in a state of suspended animation, and give it a kind of artificial life for a few months. The Bill is of such a character in their and in our view that there is only one thing to be done with it, namely, to kill it.
I am not now dealing with Deputy O'Connell's amendment, I am dealing with what Deputy O'Connell and the other Deputies who spoke said in favour of the amendment. I refer to columns 135 and 136 of the Official Reports. Again, I think there is no lack of clearness in what Deputy O'Connell had in mind and intended. He moved his amendment, and said there was a case for inquiry, but he was very careful before the Minister for Finance spoke to state that there were certain limitations to the inquiry he called for. He said: "I want to make it quite clear that I do not mean that this Committee should go into particular appointments that have been made under this Act. I want to make that quite clear. I do not propose that the particular appointments that were made or the methods used by the Local Appointments Commissioners of finding out who should be the best candidate for any particular appointment would be inquired into in any particular way. What I do wish would be to get a Committee together who would find out what the general complaints are with regard to the working of this Act generally and what defects have been shown in its working and in its operation." So far as the Government is concerned they are quite willing to co-operate in the setting up, if the Dáil wishes, of a Committee of that kind that will inquire into operations of the Act, see how the Local Appointments Commissioners work, and see what system they have of dealing with the different classes of appointments that come before them. But Deputy O'Connell was careful to limit himself to rule out certain kinds of inquiry. I hope I am not misinterpreting the Deputy. He did not think a Committee of that kind ought to undertake the work.
The fact that the Minister for Finance felt in duty bound to point out that there were certain types of information that could not or ought not to be called for has been held up as something unclean by the opposite Party. I will take two particular types of cases, and I think from what he said that Deputy O'Connell will agree with me in this, that he would not want these things to be brought into public because if they were, the working of the Act, as a practical Act, would be impossible and the Act would be dead. Let us take it that there is a Board appointed, a Board of eminent men who are asked to act. We will suppose that it is for a professional appointment. They give their opinions very candidly, I presume, on the different candidates. Does anybody suggest that these opinions should be brought to the public, opinions that were given in confidence and on the strict understanding that they were in confidence? Is that the way to secure the future of this or any similar Act? I suggest it is not.
There is another type of case I might mention where it would be disastrous if publicity was given to the information that came to the Appointments Commissioners. It is known that in the case of these appointments, just as in the case of Civil Service appointments, the candidate who has been successful up to a point is asked to nominate references—people who know him and who can give evidence and information as to his character. He nominates them and very often he gets people who, he thinks, will carry weight, men of position in his district. Very often these men give an opinion very candidly and very honestly and perhaps it is not the type of opinion always that the candidate thinks they would give. Is it suggested that a Committee should be appointed with power to make public anything of that kind? I suggest if anything of that kind is done the future working of an Act of this kind, of the present Act, or any amendment of the present Act, would be impossible. There could be no confidence on the part of those called upon to act on boards. There certainly could be no confidence in those asked to give their opinions as to the character of individuals examined by the Civil Service or by the Local Appointments Commissioners. There could be no confidence on the part of these people. The danger is that they would refuse to act or give the information required. In the case of experts they would have to refuse to act.
Therefore, on these considerations, so far as the actual words of Deputy O'Connell's amendment are concerned, he will realise that it does not aim at or achieve the purpose that he has set before himself. So far as he and the Labour Party made the case for the setting up of the Committee to inquire into the general working of the Act and see how the Appointments Commissioners operate, as I say, the Government is quite ready to co-operate with the House in the setting up of a Commission of that kind, but I do oppose, and am bound in honour to oppose, the dragging into public of documents of the kind I have referred to—documents given in confidence to the Local Appointments Commissioners. I do not think it is reasonable to ask it. I know Deputy O'Connell and the Labour Party are keen on the proper working of the Act, and I take it for granted that they do not want anything of the kind. I oppose any such publication of confidential documents of that kind, because it would actually kill the Act. I do not believe the publication of every document in the hands of the Local Appointments Commissioners would show that there was a single case in which political considerations influenced them in rejecting any candidate put forward by the Board. That is the attitude of the Government towards the Bill and towards Deputy O'Connell's amendment.