Amendments 36 and 37 raise certain questions such as the appointment of the named first manager, the question of the machinery of the appointment of the manager and, the further question of the tenure of office of the manager. I propose, in order to leave room for Deputy Anthony's amendment, No. 37, to take Deputy de Valera's amendment 36, in the form of deleting subsections (1), (2), (3), saving sub-section (4), and substituting the proposed new sub-section on the amendment paper. In that way, the question of the first manager and the question of the appointment of the manager will come under discussion, and I shall put the question that subsections (1), (2), (3) stand part of the section. Then we will take Deputy Anthony's amendment, No. 37, in the form, that sub-section (4) stand part, thus giving debate upon the matters that arise in Deputy Anthony's proposed new sub-section. I think that meets the case of the two Deputies.
PUBLIC BUSINESS. - CORK CITY MANAGEMENT BILL, 1928—THIRD STAGE (RESUMED).
This amendment deals with a question that has already been discussed as a side issue on other amendments, that is, the question of the appointment of the manager. It is proposed in Deputy de Valera's amendment that the first manager should be appointed for the period of one year; secondly, that subsequent managers shall be appointed for periods of five years, and eligible for re-appointment at the expiration of that period; thirdly, that the manager shall be appointed in the manner set out in paragraph 2 of the amendment and not in the manner suggested in the Bill, by the Local Appointments Commission. Dealing with the three points in order, I will take first the question of the appointment of the first manager. The proposal in the Bill is that the existing Commissioner in Cork City, Mr. Philip Monahan, should be appointed as the first manager for life, and that only when he has died, resigned, or been removed by a vote of the council shall the question of any other manager arise. We think the question of the appointment of the manager, and who that manager should be, is primarily a question for the Cork City Council and not for this House. The proposal in the Bill is that this House should decide who the manager should be and not the council.
We think a case could be made out for the appointment of the existing Commissioner, as manager, for a limited period, in order to help the new council over the transitional stage, but the proposal to appoint the existing manager as manager for life is one, we think, that could not be defended on any reasonable grounds. The Minister has said that this is a Bill to restore to the citizens of Cork the power to control their municipal affairs. If it is such, then undoubtedly the power to make the appointment of the manager from the first should be given to the people of Cork. The personality of Mr. Philip Monahan should not properly come into this discussion. The question is the one I have put to the House: whether or not it is the council or this House that is going to make the appointment. After the question of the appointment of the first manager is decided, the period for which he would hold office and the period for which subsequent managers would hold office would next come up for consideration.
We have endeavoured to present to the House the idea that the relations which should exist between the city manager and the Council should be similar, in general detail, to the relations which would exist between a general manager of a business firm and the board of directors of that firm. The Minister has contested that idea. In his speech on a previous amendment, he endeavoured to establish that the position of the manager in relation to the Council is altogether different from that of a manager of a business firm to its board of directors. But he supported that contention, not from the point of view of the council, but from the point of view of the manager. It is, undoubtedly, better for the manager that he should be appointed on terms different from those on which the manager of a business concern is appointed; that he should be appointed for life, with a pension when he resigns or leaves his office. The question that this House has got to decide is the question whether it is more important that every provision should be made to ensure that a really expert and efficient man should be appointed manager, or that satisfactory terms of appointment should be secured for whomsoever is appointed. It appears to us that the Minister is more concerned to ensure for the manager, and particularly for the first manager, who is the present City Commissioner, satisfactory terms of appointment than to ensure that there should be a really first-class man appointed to the city who will have the sympathetic co-operation of the members of the council.
We have, during the course of the discussion on this Bill, repeatedly emphasised the fact that this is a very important experiment in city government, and we cannot possibly jeopardise that experiment out of sentimental consideration for any individual by endeavouring to be too generous to the person who may be the manager of the city for the time being. There appears to be real danger that the success of the scheme will be jeopardised by such considerations. The manager of a city like Cork, or any other city, exercising the powers conferred by this Bill, will be able to exercise very considerable influence upon the life of that city. He will be able to affect its prosperity and well-being to a very remarkable extent, and we cannot take the risk of a person being appointed to that position who will not be the very best available and who will not give the very best results possible.
The question, therefore, of the period for which the manager will be appointed arises. If the manager is appointed for life, I repeat what I have said, and it has not been seriously contradicted that there is considerable danger that the council will be slow to remove him unless he does something of a rather serious nature which would make it impossible for them to retain him. There is always a considerable difficulty in getting public boards to remove from office any official who manages to muddle through his work fairly successfully but against whom no specific charge can be laid. We wish to see in the important position of city manager the best man available at any time, and therefore we think that some provision by which the appointment of the manager would come up periodically for consideration is the better one. We suggest a five-year period here. We think that every five years the council should be asked to consider the work done by the manager during that period and if they consider him satisfactory they can re-appoint him but if they consider him unsatisfactory they can dispense with his services and in consequence of that fact can if they wish give a gratuity or allowance, compensating him for the interruption in his livelihood. I would like to emphasise the danger which will exist if that periodical revision of the manager appointed is not made, that a man may be appointed who may, as I say, be fairly successful but who may not be the best available or produce the best results possible. But at the same time will not, by any gross carelessness or inefficiency, merit a vote of no confidence on the part of the council. In the Bill the arrangements made for the removal of the manager are very severe. There must be a two-thirds majority of the council and subsequent to that there must be the approval of the Minister before the manager can be removed. I submit the manager must have done something very wrong, muddled up the affairs of the city to a great extent, before that machinery can be brought into operation. That is not the right principle to work on. The right principle should be the welfare of the city. That should be the right consideration and not the welfare of the manager. If it is necessary that individuals should suffer to ensure the welfare of the city let that individual suffer to preserve the interests of the people.
The other section in Deputy de Valera's amendment concerns the method of the appointment of the manager. The provision in the Bill is that the first manager should be appointed by the Dáil, but that subsequent managers will be appointed by the Appointments Commission. The alternative suggestion in this amendment is on the lines laid down in the Local Authorities (Officers and Employees) Bill, which we introduced here some time ago and which was defeated in the House. We think, in relation to such an important position as that of the manager of a city, suggestions such as are contained in that Bill are very applicable and would ensure better results than those which the Minister suggests. The power of the council is really determined by the fact that it can, or should be able to appoint and remove the manager itself. In the Bill it has neither the power to do one or the other thing. It has not power to appoint a manager and can only remove him with the approval of the Minister. We think the council should have power to appoint and remove, and in that way you will leave the ultimate control of the destiny of the City of Cork in the hands of the citizens. These are the main points which can be advanced in support of the amendment and I would be pleased to hear what reply the Minister has to make.
There is very little difference between the amendments in the name of Deputy de Valera, spoken to now by Deputy Lemass, and the one —number 37—which I have on the paper. In fact there are many points of similarity between my amendment and those of Deputy de Valera. In this amendment, I seek to fix the limit to the manager's term of office. A life appointment under this new system, which is acknowledged to be an experiment, I suggest, is absurd under these circumstances. I do not care whether you increase the period or reduce it, but I suggest to the House that there should be a limit fixed to the tenure of office, at least for the first ten years, which I suggest in this amendment, or five, as is suggested by Deputy de Valera. So far as the section as a whole is concerned, I take exception, and so do very many others even in this House amongst the Deputies who have not voted with us, to this Bill as a whole. We take exception to the mention in the Bill of any man's name as the forthcoming city manager. I believe if the gentleman mentioned in the Bill had been consulted beforehand he himself would have objected. I say that in all fairness to the present occupant of the commissionership in Cork. I have read many Acts, and I have never yet seen in a Bill of this character the name of any individual mentioned in a capacity corresponding to that of city manager or of any other official for that matter. To show that I do not contemplate any injury to one who may occupy the position for the first five or ten years while this Bill is is an experimental stage, I provide that before the manager's services may be dispensed with, if he is found incompetent or in any other way unacceptable to the citizens of Cork, that can only be done after calling a meeting, due notice of which will be given and two-thirds of the council will be found to favour dismissal or removal from office of the city manager. I do not know why it is that that should prove itself unacceptable to any member of this House, particularly to the business members of all parties.
Let us take the case of what occurs in some of our large commercial undertakings and institutions. Is it not a fact that from year to year the activities of the banks are brought under review? Is it not a fact also, coincident with that, that the acts or activities of the various managers of branches and head offices of these banking institutions and such other commercial undertakings are brought under review? Is it not a fact also that in large and small commercial establishments if a manager is found to be incompetent or in any other way unacceptable his services are dispensed with? I would be the very last in this House to suggest that anything should be done to make the position of the Cork city manager unstable. I submit, as an ordinary business proposition, you are going to experiment on Cork; as I said some time ago, you are going to try it on the dog. You are going to experiment in Cork with a view to extending your operations to the other cities and towns in Ireland. I hope sincerely if any Cork delegates are listening to me that they will take particular note, and pay particular attention to the discussions in this House in connection with this Bill, because what is the story of Cork city to-day will be the story of Cork County Council, and other institutions of that kind.
I have already indicated that the whole Bill as at present constituted is repugnant to me and to any other Cork citizen with a sense of civic duty and civic pride. As I have suggested in this amendment, I think the persons, whoever they may be, who will be elected to the new corporation of Cork, that is to say, when it is made more acceptable than it is at present, because as I have already stated, you will get no one but jelly-fish to go up under the Bill as it is constituted—I have this confidence in my fellow-citizens at any rate —may be trusted to deal generously as they have always done, with their officials, and they will not perpetrate an injustice against any city manager unless he is found incompetent or in other ways unacceptable to the people. This is, to my mind, a section which, as it stands, will prove in the long run as unworkable as it is unacceptable. Assuming for the moment, and it is not a very difficult thing to assume, that the system which is acknowledged to be experimental may be found unsatisfactory, if this system is found unsatisfactory before the city manager dies, where are we then? That is the position I would ask the Minister to consider. I want it to be clearly understood, so far as my amendment is concerned, and I want to put it very seriously to any Deputy from Cork city or county listening to me that the Bill in its present form has been condemned by all and sundry, with the exception of very few, in the city of Cork. I have endeavoured by means of these amendments to make that Bill, as I have already stated, less unacceptable to the people and I would ask the Minister, unless he wants to create a state of turbulence in our city affairs, to consider very seriously the amendments suggested—either Deputy de Valera's amendment or mine, or, as I suggested on a former occasion, he might be able to do something as between the two. He might be able to evolve something which would be acceptable to Deputy de Valera and me, and would meet with all-round acceptance. As I have indicated, I want to make this Bill as acceptable as possible to the citizens of Cork.
I am not opposing this through any spirit of cussedness, not because I am in the Opposition, but because I have a genuine desire to see that this Bill, when it becomes an Act, gets a fair show. I want to be quite clear on that point. I want to see the Act put into operation in a more acceptable form than it is in at present; otherwise I am going to continue to fight it even when it is in operation. I would not be true to what I said in Cork unless I continued in that attitude. I want the Minister and those associated with him in the framing of the Bill to make it workable and acceptable to the ordinary people of Cork. I would suggest that you would get as much good out of the amendment suggested by Deputy de Valera as you would out of that suggested by myself. I am not quite concerned as to the tenure of office of the first manager. What I am very much concerned about is that a limit should be fixed. I do not care whether you make it five or ten years. I have suggested ten. Perhaps I was more generously inclined than Deputy de Valera. wanted to give a longer term of experimental work, if you like. Again, I would draw the Minister's attention to what he must have observed in a long connection with local government work both before and after the establishment of the Free State. We are turning out from our universities day after day a large number of very clever young men, so far as academic degrees are concerned, at any rate. The education system for which Professor O'Sullivan is partly responsible has flooded the country with B.A.'s and M.A.'s. Although I am not a graduate of his university—I am an old R.U.I. boy—I want to say that it may happen, as it has happened in Government Departments, that you would get one with academic degrees who may be chosen because of these things and because there would be a prejudice in favour of this particular university. You may have one of these graduates chosen to take on the position of city manager in one of our cities or towns. I want to provide that even that class of candidate would get a fair show, and that this House should fix a limit of practical experience. This may appeal to Professor O'Sullivan and those who are so largely interested in turning out these B.A.'s and M.A.'s, so that some of the products of this university might get a fair chance. What I want to ask the House seriously to consider is that this will be an experiment, and, being an experiment, we are asking you not to make it a job for life. Let us experiment with the new city manager. Let us put him on his trial for ten years or five years, as is suggested by Deputy de Valera. I only want to fix a limit. I believe if that is done it will make the Bill a little more acceptable. There are a few points in the Bill which I would ask the Minister and this House seriously to consider, with a view, as I have already said, to making the Bill somewhat less unacceptable to the citizens of Cork.
I propose to take Deputy Anthony's amendment first, that the manager shall hold office for ten years and then shall be subject to a vote of confidence and that in the meantime he may be removed from office. I suggest that sub-section (5) of Section 10, which states that the manager shall not be suspended or removed by the council, save by resolution of the council, gives the council full powers to make such representations as they consider are proper to be made by a two-thirds majority to have the manager removed. Not even the new Cork council will want to be persuaded by Deputies that this is a very important experiment, as it is called— the introduction of the city manager as part of the city government machinery. There is no one in Cork, whether on the council or otherwise, but will realise that if the manager is not giving the return in the better administration of the city that is expected from him they are at full liberty, and have a responsibility on them, to move for his removal. I want to suggest to Deputy Anthony that the putting in of this provision of his, holding office for ten years, is a kind of invitation to the Council to say, "Let him stay for ten years, to see how he gets on, until the time for a vote of confidence comes." The Bill, as it stands at present, enables the Council, at the earliest possible moment, to move for the removal of the manager if he is not giving satisfaction. In so far as the Minister for Local Government's responsibility in the matter goes, we did put in a commissioner there for the purpose of the better looking after of the affairs of Cork, and if under a council and city manager things are not going to be better, but are going to go back into the old kind of rut, the Minister for Local Government for 1935, no more than the Minister for Local Government for 1924, is not going to lie down. He is likely to take action if the council itself does not take action.
Are we to take it that if the council should demand the removal of the manager the Minister's reply will be to remove the council?
No. But if the affairs of the City of Cork are being badly managed and if the council is not standing up to its responsibility in the matter and are not seeking for the manager's removal, if necessary it will be the business of the Minister for Local Government for the time being to move for his removal.
If the Minister for Local Government is as venial as the manager, where will we be?
You will be in a very bad position.
If this thing is going to be an experiment, why not let it come up automatically at a stated period. What is the argument against that?
The answer is that we expect people to shoulder responsibility, to face their responsibilities, to face facts and carry out the actions that it may be necessary to carry out in order to discharge those responsibilities. We give full power to the council in the matter, and there should be no necessity for chalking the line for three, five or ten years.
Will the Minister explain what he means when he says: "We give full power to the council in the matter"?
There is full power given to the council to move for the removal of the manager.
Can they dismiss?
With the sanction of the Minister they can.
Then they have not full power. You have full power.
If you are going to eliminate the Minister in connection with local government matters in the country, then let us be clear about it and let us be clear that you are doing it not only for Cork, but for every local body in the country. If you are going to retain a Department of Local Government you must be satisfied to retain it.
Why have a council?
Why not give the Commissioner a pension and let him go and not inflict a further burden on the people?
As regards the position of the manager and his term of office the proposal in the Bill is that the manager will be appointed for life in order to invite the proper type of person for the position, and he will be secured in that position except it is made clear to the satisfaction of the council and the Minister that he is unfit for it. If to the satisfaction of the council and the Minister he is unfit, then the provisions of the Bill give ample power for his removal.
Will the Minister explain how he is going to invite the proper type of person seeing that he has now definitely decided upon a particular individual?
That is the general position. With regard to the position mentioned by Deputy Lemass, a Commissioner was appointed in Cork, and that Commissioner has acted for four years. We have now come to the time at which it is ripe to restore the council and there is a question of appointing a city manager to act with the council. Deputies on the far side want a manager to be appointed by the Civil Service Commission. They want him to be appointed in a way that, as Deputy Lemass admitted, was turned down by the Dáil when a proposal was brought up along those lines generally for the making of local appointments. I submit that machinery for appointments that was not considered by the Dáil suitable for a county medical officer of health, a county surveyor or any position like that is not going to be suitable for the appointment of a city manager. There is no use in bringing in the Civil Service Commission.
Is this not a negation of all the Minister and those associated with him have said in connection with the Local Appointments Commissioners? Why should a city manager be above and beyond the powers of discernment of the Local Appointments Commissioners?
We are dealing with the appointment of a city manager for Cork in continuance of the system under which the Minister for Local Government set up a Commissioner there. This is a continuing experiment. We are handing back the democratic control into the hands of a council, and we are setting up a city manager. It was a particular responsibility lying on him that made the Minister in 1924 put in a commissioner. To-day the Minister for Local Government has not that responsibility as to whether the affairs of the city of Cork will be properly administered or not. I consider, in the first place, that it would be invidious to ask the Local Appointments Commissioners to invite applications from people in a country where there are not very many people with experience in city management. We have seen the work of a commissioner here. We have seen how acceptable his work is to the citizens of Cork fairly generally. As Minister I take upon myself the responsibility of asking the Dáil to appoint this man as our first manager. Deputies have suggested that it is not right to embody that in legislation. I could, if it were so desired, bring in an amendment on the Report Stage asking that the first manager should be appointed by the Minister. I consider it better that we should be frank with ourselves as to the type of continuity we are proposing in Cork, and that we should face the passing of legislation like this knowing that the person who was to be first manager was the person who has been acting as a commissioner for the last four years.
It is a question of simple frankness and facing facts. It is much more satisfactory to appoint the present Commissioner as first manager than to ask the Local Appointments Commissioners to find a manager. I have not the slightest doubt they would select the man who is at present Commissioner, and it would be invidious to put the Appointments Commissioners into that position. I do not, as Deputies have suggested, approach this matter of the period of office of the manager from the point of view of what would be most acceptable to the manager, or what would be better for him as against the interests of the council or the city. Mainly, I approach it from the point of view of my own responsibility in the matter, and I consider I am best standing over that responsibility by proposing to the House that the first manager be appointed as stated.
Deputy de Valera's amendment would mean that we would ask the Local Appointments Commissioners to find a man. The Civil Service Commission would send down three names to the new council and they would select one and after all this trouble they would appoint him for a year. Then it would be continued from five years to five years if necessary without any provision of any kind about his being regarded as a pensionable officer. The provisions in the Bill in the circumstances obtaining and the circumstances that have obtained in Cork contain the best approach to the problem that is there.
I spoke so often on these amendments that I feel I shall have to repeat myself with respect to each one. I pointed out already that my idea was that this amendment for five years was due to the fact that I thought of the manager as an expert and not as an ordinary official—an expert who would be employed by the council to manage the affairs of the city during a restricted period. If you do not approach him from the point of view of an expert then it seems to me the Bill has no real foundation, and it seems to me it would be more like giving certain powers to a town clerk. If you are going to appoint a manager at all it is on the grounds that the administrative business of the Corporation can be managed better by a single individual with special knowledge and personal abilities and qualities than by Committees. If you do not have an appointment for a short period of this kind you are not going to get the type of man who will be most suitable for the work.
I think if the manager is appointed at all, that he should be appointed in the same way that a business firm would appoint its managing director— for a short period. The Minister says: what is the difference? There is no difference, he says, in the Bill. The council can bring in a vote of no confidence or they can pass a motion to suspend him. Now, we all know that that is not the same thing as having the matter of his re-appointment coming up at the end of a period of five years. It is not the same thing at all, as if it were known that the period of an appointment would be for five years. That is so to speak in the terms of contract with the manager. He knows it from the start. Everybody knows it and the attitude of the council towards dismissal or change or appointing another man in his place is bound to be different from that in which a man is supposed to be appointed and can only be removed from office for inefficiency or bad conduct. We ought to look for more for the council than the power simply to remove him from his post because of his inefficiency. The matter of inefficiency or bad conduct should not be the test with the council. We ought to look for the best possible man the country can give. You are going to have the best possible man the country can give if you are going to have repeated periods of revision of appointment in which you can judge a man on his merits. You can re-appoint that man or get a new man as seems best to the council. I do not think that the two positions are the same at all. They are altogether different and in practice you will find that they will have quite a different effect.
Now, the next question is with reference to the mode of appointment. It is true that the Bill which we brought in here regulating local appointments was defeated in the Dáil. Now, the Local Appointments Commissioners are here and if there was any disposition on the part of the Ministry to accept the principle that the body that examines into the qualifications of the candidates should send down three names, I would be prepared to accept the Local Appointments Commissioners for this particular purpose. That is, for examining the candidates and sending down three names. If the Local Appointments Commissioners be the examining body so as to examine the qualifications and see that the men proposed are suitable men, then I would be satisfied with the Local Appointments Commissioners. Let them examine the candidates and send down possibly the names of three men and allow the council to select the city manager out of the three.
The case for the appointment by the council is this, that you ought not to put the manager into the position that he can snap his fingers at the council. That is what you are doing by this Bill. The effect of mentioning the name of the present Commissioner in Cork in this Bill is that he will feel that he is the nominee of the final authority in the matter. He is the man who was sanctioned, and he cannot be dismissed no matter how the council may feel about it. If you are appointing the present Commissioner, he knows that as long as the present Ministry is in office he cannot be dismissed, and he knows also that if the present Ministry was to be succeeded by another Ministry that his removal then would, in fact, look like political victimisation. It is altogether wrong to give an individual such powers in the executive line and make him, by legislation, practically independent of the council which he is supposed to serve.
If this man is giving satisfaction in Cork, he—the man who is actually doing the work—will in all probability be reappointed. He has been dealing with the affairs of the city for some years past, and you should leave it to the council to appoint him if they want to do so, and not put him in the position in which he feels he is really independent of the council, and that he is continuing on as a Commissioner and not simply as city manager, who is to be responsible directly to the council and who can be removed by them. I would say that, no matter who the present Commissioner may be, he should not be independent of the council. He has been mentioned here in this Bill by name, but I am not thinking of him as an individual. As a matter of fact, I have made inquiries myself about the particular Commissioner who was mentioned, and except in one particular case I have not heard very great complaints about his actions. I am not a citizen of Cork and I do not know, but I am speaking in this matter without any particular enmity about this man or his nomination. I think it is a wrong principle to say that the Minister or the Executive Council who are going ultimately to be the people who will have a voice in saying whether he is to be removed or not should appoint him in the first instance. The House is acting against the whole principle of leaving responsibility to the council. Nominally, the manager is responsible to the council, but in reality he is not. I, therefore, say that you ought, first of all, to make it possible for the council to change their manager. Do not put unnecessary difficulties in their way.
In a previous case, the President was saying how difficult it is to deal with employees and the rest of it. All these considerations will have play when there is a question of removing a person from a responsible office like that, as well as the difficulties of finding another to take his place. The House will admit that at present we have not very many trained men who would be capable of taking over the position of city manager and doing it really well. Consequently, there will be always the difficulty of whether the council is going to get a person who will be able to do the work. All these considerations will have influence upon the council and will help to prevent them bringing forward resolutions which the Minister says can easily be brought forward. I hold that the terms of contract with the manager of this kind, if he is appointed to a pensionable office, will imply that he is not going to be removed except for grave dereliction of duty.
Then, about the appointment. The appointment should be left finally in the hands of the council itself. If he is to be responsible to them, the only way in which he can be made to feel he is responsible is by the council having the final word to say in his appointment—not simply ratifying the appointment of the man who is sent down by the Appointments Commissioners— handing over to him the council, who will be compelled to do with him during the term of his natural life or until he is so old that he is incapable of performing his services. His appointment and dismissal should be in the hands of the council in order that he might clearly understand that he is responsible to them.
Then, in respect of the first manager, I think that the proposal of the Minister should not be tolerated at all. The present Commissioner is in office. His work is there for the council to judge, and the Minister ought allow him to be judged on his merits. Does he think that he is going to be ignored altogether in the matter? I do not see how he could be ignored. Then there is the other point, that the first manager should be appointed for one year. I admit that a certain amount of criticism is to be levelled against that. There is a slight confusion, due to the fact that what I had in mind there was that the appointment in the first place might be made by the council.
That is not in it.
I admit that. I would be ready to change that particular part—that the appointment, in the first instance, should be for one year. I take it that the council would hardly have a choice except to appoint the present Commissioner for the first year.
They cannot very well throw out the man who has had immediate control, and who has had all the details of administration for the last four or five years in his hands. They can hardly dispense with him during a period of transition. What was in my mind was that during this period of transition the present Commissioner might be retained, but that the period should be one year, to enable the council to get back again the whole of the details of administration which they have lost during the period in which the Commissioner has been acting, to enable them to get in close contact with the details of administration, to put them in a position of independence, so that if they did think that the present Commissioner, after he had become manager, was not as good as they could get they would then be at liberty to make a change.
There is no provision for that either. I think that that is another defect in the amendment.
One needs to be here only a short time to realise that when one or two main amendments go the rest will have to go, and that a series of amendments are, on the whole, rather to indicate general lines and to give an opportunity to the Government —and this is the only way in which one can get these things done—to avail, if they choose, of any of the ideas that are in the amendments and incorporate them, just as to-day, if my first amendment to the Constitution Bill was carried what the Government would probably have done would be to withdraw the Bill and reconsider it.
No. I would not have done that. If he likes I will tell the Deputy what I would have done.
Well, tell us.
I can tell the President what he would have done. He would have had a show-down.
No, I would not have done that.
I rise to support the amendment. I regret that in this experiment we should have any individual's name mentioned, and I regret it all the more because, having, as a member of a committee, to disagree with the proposed city manager in one respect, I do not think that the individual named is competent to fill the position of manager for Cork City. The more I look over this Bill, the more I see on it, not the stamp of the Minister for Local Government, or of the secretary to the Minister for Local Government, but the stamp of the Secretary to the Department of Local Government. During the year and a half in which there was a commissioner in charge of the North Cork Board of Assistance the salaries of the officials were raised by between £1,800 and £2,000 per annum. The proposed manager for Cork City was also very proficient in raising salaries, and as for his business capabilities, when the South Cork Board of Assistance took over control, after six months they were able to reduce the estimate £18,500. equivalent to about ninepence in the pound reduction in the rates, and there is every prospect at present of a further reduction next year, despite the manner in which this superman was able to carry out his duties.
The Minister is personally aware of the difficulty of getting even a bare majority to dismiss an official. I have had a good deal of experience of it, as has every member of the County Council from time to time, and I can say that it is practically impossible, no matter how badly an official has discharged his duties, to get a majority to dismiss him. Take the case of a rate collector, for instance: no matter how badly he collects the rates you cannot get even a bare majority of the council to agree to his dismissal or suspension.
Does that mean that the officials control the council?
If you are going to give an official the power that you propose to give the city manager, there is no doubt that he will control the jellyfish you will get to go in under him. There can be no manner of doubt about that. And when you see here that in order to suspend this gentleman you must have a two-thirds majority of the new Corporation, it means that he is going to be there absolutely independent of any Corporation, that the Corporation are going to be there merely as a cloak for his dictatorship. I am glad that the necessity has arisen to compel the Government to get even a cloak for the dictator. But the fact that so many puppets are going to be set up in Cork to act as a smoke screen for the dictatorship of the city manager is, to my mind, a pitiable state of affairs. I think that since we are to have a manager for Cork that manager should come in without having any of the bickerings or the jealousy that would occur in handing over the position to the present Commissioner for Cork City. I think the fact that it has been decided in this Bill to appoint a special individual and to name him as city manager is adding insult to injury for the citizens of Cork, that the citizens of Cork are now going, with the benevolence of the Government, to be presented with a new Corporation without any powers, without any control whatsoever, and the Corporation will not even have the power of appointing their own manager or of selecting him out of a list of three names selected by the Appointments Commission, that they are to have a cut and dried city manager shoved down their throats, and they are to be told: "Here is your boss. You are going to act under him. He is to pull the strings and he will hold the purse. He is going to be an absolute dictator; you are going to be the gentlemen invested with an empty honour and an empty cloak, and you are going to have no power." It would remind you of some kind of nigger king who would be set up in some part of South Africa.
You are setting up fifteen puppets in Cork who will be absolutely under the control of the city manager, and the city manager will pull the strings. I think that setting up an official, and handing over the control of the purse-strings of the city to that official, is going to mean only one thing, that the ratepayers are going to be bled through the nose for it and the citizens of Cork are going to pay for the bleeding. It is provided in the Bill that this individual cannot be removed except by a two-thirds majority, and even if you were to get backbone into the new Corporation sufficient to have a two-thirds majority to decide to remove him, the Minister will say: "He shall not go. He is there, and he is our man." He will probably act as he did in 1924 and say: "It is far easier to shift the Corporation than to shift the manager, and therefore we will shift the Corporation."
I have not spoken on this Bill before but I have the feeling, which is practically general, that very wide powers are being given to the present Commissioner of Cork. I also think that it is very undesirable that his name should be mentioned in the Bill. I would like to avoid making any reference to the Commissioner in Cork at the present time, but I would like to say that I am in violent disagreement with his administration in other spheres in many respects. I have not a very intimate knowledge of his work as City Commissioner, but I have a knowledge of his work in another sphere in South Cork. I violently disagree with his administration in connection with home assistance. I disagree with his administration so far as the dietary scale in Cork Workhouse is concerned. Unlike Deputy de Valera, I have heard many complaints with regard to the administration of the City Commissioner. I think it is very desirable that this official should not have a vested interest in this position and I think it is a very reasonable demand that the Corporation should be in a position to review the work from time to time. If the Corporation is to have any reality, to be given any life, they ought to be given some power in connection with this matter, and not be put in the position of being mere echoes of any administration devised by the city manager. It may be, perhaps, said that the proposed city manager, who has been Commissioner for three or four years, has carried out his work satisfactorily in some respects, but I am perfectly satisfied that there is in Cork a big body of the citizens who would not subscribe to the claim that he has been an ideal Commissioner, and in that respect alone I think it would be very advisable that the whole question should be one for the Local Appointments Commissioners to decide, and that the Corporation would have a voice afterwards. I was surprised to hear the Minister make a statement which amounted to the fact that there was no one else to be found in the country except the City Commissioner for this position. I do not agree with that statement. I strongly support the amendment that the Corporation should have a veto in the matter at the end of a certain time and be enabled to review the work of the manager in the meantime with a view to considering whether or not he should be retained.
They are supposed to review it at least yearly.
Deputy de Valera explained one or two matters in connection with the amendment which attracted my attention. That could be remedied on the Report Stage, although it is rather vital, and it is not clear at the moment. I think there is considerable weakness in his amendment and in his statement. He stated that it would be almost inevitable that the Corporation would appoint the present Commissioner. I would be inclined to agree with him in that. I think the Minister had that view when he put down the section worded the way it is, naming a person as city manager. Why the manager should be appointed every twelve months at first I do not quite understand. The normal term, according to the amendment, is five years. I think the Deputy is also willing to settle the second portion with regard to the Local Appointments Commissioners having the appointment, rather than the Civil Service Commissioners. But I violently disagree, as I did before, in having three names submitted to the local authority. I think you can only reach final success in the matter of public appointments by having persons with the highest qualifications appointed. This is a subject upon which there may be different views. We are presented with a case in which a person, even allowing for all the criticisms uttered, has done comparatively well. He has had four years' experience, four years of a start on most applicants, if there were such for the position, and I can imagine the difficulty of the Local Appointments Commissioners, being likened to that of the council, in being, almost, constrained to put his name first, if the circumstances are as I have described—a person with four years' experience of the work having done more than comparatively well.
The other points as to review after a period are open to quite a number of different criticisms. The person holding this office has a pretty secure term, with this limitation, that he must carry out the duties with considerable efficiency. It is idle to say that the council has no power. The new council has in respect of policy exactly the same power as the old council. The new council will be in a position to appraise the value of the services rendered by this official in a way in which the old council never had. They had to judge their own work. Now they will be judging another person's work, and they will be at any time in a position, if they are satisfied that a case lies, to ask the Minister for a sworn inquiry into his work, and can make whatever case they can in regard to the administration of his office. It appears to me that the person occupying this or any other similar office in the country would have to give a remarkable exhibition of public administration in order to retain his office. The amendment has so many legs that it is not easy to compare it with the recommendation in the measure. The recommendation, at any rate, is based on the experience of a person having been in office for some years, and I think Deputy Corry need not have any particular nervous symptoms of any great increase in the rates, having regard to what has actually happened during the last four years. The citizens of Cork are perfectly entitled to get the best person in the State appointed to this office. The Minister for Local Government having reviewed all the circumstances, and with the responsibility of his office, nominates a person to the position. If there is one weakness in connection with this proposal it is that, for the next few years, the council can review the position of the manager, and the representatives of Cork can question the Minister here regarding the administrations of the office.
In rising to support the amendment, I would like to view it from a different point of view from that expressed in the debate up to the present. Would this House assume that Mr. Monahan will of a certainty be appointed manager for Cork? I ask the House one question. Are you treating him fairly by mentioning his name in the Bill? To my mind, you are not. Whether we like it or not, it was a certain political situation that created the position of Commissioner in the city of Cork. I am saying that without any feeling behind it. There is no individual who understood the situation existing in the city of Cork but must admit that the actual appointment had a political flavour, since every member supporting the Government Party was asked to establish a case against the public representatives in their own city. That undoubtedly is the situation that surrounds Mr. Monahan, and that is his only weakness, in my opinion, at the present day in Cork. Instead of trying to get him out of that weak position, and put him into a strong position, the Government is allowing him to start off on a measure that is supposed to be tried on Cork, and that is going to be applied to the rest of Ireland as a model of local government, if successful there. You cannot do that unless you give the manager at least a fair start and a good foundation to work upon, and you are not going to give him that by mentioning him in the Bill. As to whether the appointment of a manager is to be made by the Appointments Commissioners or not, I am not particularly interested, but this I will say: If the people of Cork are to have the opportunity of electing their representatives, surely sufficient confidence ought to be placed in those representatives to allow them to select the best individuals they can get to manage the city.
The President said that Cork was entitled to get the best man in the State as its future manager. Mentioning Mr. Monahan in the Bill is not allowing the people of Cork to do that. As a result of the experience he has had, Mr. Monahan possibly has advantages that would make him the best qualified person for the position, but the point that I am making is that the Bill, as it stands, does not give the representatives of Cork the right even to look beyond a particular individual for the position. This question is a serious one. It is certainly serious for Cork, where we want local government properly and efficiently carried out. The Bill does not give the people of the city a reasonable opportunity of doing that. In my opinion, it would not take much to change the Bill and make it a reasonably good measure from what it is—a bickering little measure. About the Bill as it stands there is an air of absolute distrust, an air that this House and those who are standing on this Bill are not prepared to trust wholeheartedly the people of Cork.
Fortunately or unfortunately for yourselves, you have named in this Bill a man who has definitely been the representative of the Minister's Party since he was first appointed Commissioner in the City of Cork. No matter how he is described in this Bill, he will continue under it as a definite political nominee unless you give the citizens of Cork an opportunity of appointing Mr. Monahan and removing the stigma from him of being the nominee of a political Party. You are denying to the people of Cork the opportunity of even making Mr. Monahan's position more secure and advantageous to himself, and of giving him a better opportunity of shaking off the old shackles and old hankerings associated with the dissolution of the old Corporation. I say that you are not giving him a reasonable chance of managing the affairs of Cork in the future. If you persist with the Bill as it stands, there is no doubt whatever but that large sections of the people in Cork will always have that feeling about the appointment of the city manager.
It is within the memory of the President that as regards the last appointment of one of the senior officials under the Borough Council of Cork—I refer to the present city engineer—that we ourselves in Cork set up a Board of Examiners. At that time the Corporation had the right to advertise the appointment in the ordinary way and vote for a man in the usual manner for that office. I would remind the Government that we did not avail ourselves of that right, but asked the Local Government Department to nominate a representative. What happened was: the ex-city engineer was asked to nominate a chairman for the Board of Examiners. That Board was set up, and under it we got the present city engineer in Cork. That appointment shows that there is no anxiety on the part of the people of Cork as regards the making of hole-and-corner jobs. There is a rooted belief amongst the people of Cork that this Bill is intended more or less to foster and make permanent the state of affairs that at present exists in Cork. I am not going to enter into a controversy on the merits of the individual mentioned in the Bill. Perhaps if I did I would have more to say in his favour than I could say against him. I will be very frank on that, but I am not going to be drawn into a discussion on it.
There is one thing that I would warn the Government about, and it this, that they are lending themselves whether willingly or not to fostering a measure that has been recommended to them by a particular class in Cork. On a previous amendment, moved in connection with this Bill, Deputies heard a certain gentleman's name mentioned. He published a letter in the Press giving the Bill the blessing of the people of Cork. Anyone who knows anything at all about the City of Cork is quite well aware that that particular gentleman never got the smallest position in the gift of any section of the citizens. Any position that he holds in Cork is a privileged position given to him because he was a representative of a certain class. Any honours that he has got he got them from that class. But, from any section of the people of Cork he has never got any honorary position, and he never deserved it. At the present time, in the City of Cork, you have the paid Secretary of the Employers' Federation going around the city and begging every second merchant to sign his name that he is in favour of this Bill, and that it represents the will of the people of Cork. Anyone who knows anything about the history of Ireland knows quite well that the Employers' Federation in Cork never did, and never will, represent the City of Cork. If the Government allow themselves to be pulled into that position, they are simply pulling an oar which is going to row against their own will, if that will is intended to be for better local government in Cork. I say that under this Bill you are not giving the individual mentioned in it a fair chance. You are not giving him the opportunity of shaking off the shackles that unfortunately were put on him by your own administration.
I am prepared at any time to debate in this House the question that Mr. Monahan could not have progressed in Cork if the borough council that was in existence at the time of the dissolution had not left him in a strong financial position. At the time that he took over control the public debt of the Borough of Cork was less than that of any other borough council in Ireland. But to-day the public debt of the borough has been increased. I am not using that argument as a kind of criticism against Mr. Monahan, because I think the increase has been well invested. There is no question about it but that in certain ways he has made certain progress in Cork.
I believe even he himself, if he were allowed to speak his heart, would tell you that he would work better under a certain amount of reasonable control, and that he would prefer to have a body to look to for advice. If this is a reasonable Bill, there will be people elected in Cork with sufficient authority who will have respect for their office and respect for representative people, and he would be very pleased to have such a body to advise him, for there are peculiarities about Cork City he could not and certainly does not know. There are points of policy, some perhaps trifling, to be considered. There is, for instance, the development of the city. It is a wrong and retrograde step to develop Cork on the south bank of the river. Anyone who knows anything about the matter knows that development on the southern side of the Lee is absolutely wrong. That might be done by a man with a particular point of view, but it would not be done by Cork men who know the requirements of the city.
I say it is fundamentally wrong in principle to mention any individual in any Bill for a particular position or for a particular right in anything. Even for his own sake, if he is to be the future manager of Cork, his name should be removed as soon as possible from this Bill, and the stigma taken off him which you are putting on by asking this House to hall-mark a job. Take the stigma off him that you are trying to continue a political position in Cork.
There is only one remark I would like to make in reply to Deputy French, and that is that the dissolution of Cork Corporation did not take place because of any political cause.
I definitely stated that the people of Cork were of the opinion that it was a political vote. You had a representative of Cork, Mr. J.J. Walsh, who stated definitely in the city of Cork that within six weeks he would have the Corporation dissolved. Alderman Beamish was simply worrying the office of the Minister's predecessor for the purpose of getting an inquiry held with a view to dissolving the Corporation.
Again I say that the dissolution of the Cork Corporation was not due to a political cause.
Mr. BOLAND
What about Dublin?
The Minister referred to by Deputy French was not at that time a member of the Executive Council, and he might have made certain statements to his constituents of one kind or another. The dissolution of the Cork Corporation did not arise out of political causes. It arose out of certain circumstances, so that the overhauling of the machinery of local government there was necessary. As to the appointment being regarded as a political one, all I can say is that, so far as we are concerned, I am perfectly prepared to leave my nominee for first manager in Cork to live down any difficulty he may be up against because people may say his is a political appointment. In 1924 people were divided, and there were political divisions about things from which political questions should not necessarily arise at all. If the question arises that the person appointed as city manager of Cork is going to be a political appointment, it certainly justifies me in putting it down in this measure rather than leaving it that the appointment shall be made by the Minister for the time being.
Mr. BOLAND
That is why it is done.
The man's name is mentioned in the Bill, and that certainly conveys to people of ordinary intelligence, and that is all we claim to be in Cork, that he is a nominee of the Minister and his Party.
I hope the House will appreciate the fact that it is an honest way of doing it and facing the facts.
As regards the amendment moved by the Leader of the Party in connection with making the appointment for a number of years, I would like to call the attention of the Minister to the constitution of the Electricity Supply Board. In the Electricity Supply Act you have somewhat similar circumstances arising, as you will have the appointment of managers for the Shannon undertaking. You want to give them absolute executive control similar to what is being suggested as regards Cork. Part 1, Section 2, sub-section 4 reads:
"The members of the Board shall be appointed by the Executive Council, and every person so appointed to be a member of the Board shall hold office for such period, not exceeding five years, as shall be fixed by the Executive Council when appointing him, and every such person shall on the expiration of his term of office be eligible for re-appointment."
I see no difference in the appointment of a manager to the Shannon Scheme Board and a manager for Cork City, and I believe the management of the Shannon undertaking requires management by personnel that would be absolutely free from interference by any outsiders. If that is considered good in the case of the Electricity Supply Board, we contend that Cork City should be put on the same basis.
I support the amendment, and I am very pleased to find that the chief opposition party during this discussion has shown a keen desire to help to make the Bill a success. I think it would be well if the Minister admitted that fact and endeavoured to meet the opposition and to allow the council that will be elected for Cork City to appoint the manager. Certainly, it is most unusual to name in a Bill the person who will become the manager of the city. I am quite convinced from the record of the present manager that the new council will elect him. What fear then has the Minister, or why should he feel constrained to name in this Bill Philip Monahan? I am quite convinced the Minister would be doing well if he endeavoured to meet the opposition and accepted the amendment. I quite agree with Deputy French that no matter what the Minister may say to the contrary, the people of Cork will look upon this appointment as a political one because of the fact of the name being mentioned in the Bill. For the success of the council that will be entrusted with the management of affairs of the City of Cork I think it would be well if politics were kept out of the arena altogether. I am delighted, and it augurs very well for the future, to find the different parties in this House discussing the amendments in a calm atmosphere and showing willingness to help to make this Bill, which is going to be the headline for similar Bills in the future for all the councils in the Free State, a good one. There is very little separating the parties in their views as to what should be introduced into the Bill.
For that reason I sincerely hope that the Minister will try and find some way out of the present position, and avoid dividing the House on what is, after all, only a very minor detail.
I am rather unwilling to rise, because I would rather that some members of the most distinguished category of the living species who have been silent during the whole of this debate should speak. It is very extraordinary that we should have reached this stage in the discussion of this Bill, which has never been subjected, we are told, to any party meetings of Cumann na nGaedheal, in which no single member, no single back bench member of Cumann na nGaedheal has opened his lips, in which the vast majority of Cumann na nGaedheal members during the whole of the discussion have been absent, but yet in which, the whole of the Cumann na nGaedheal members came when the bell for milking rang, and when the cattle were called home, found themselves automatically going into the old byre to be milked for party purposes. That ought not to be so. That blight of silence which has fallen on Cumann na nGaedheal should be broken. Some members of Cumann na nGaedheal who have some knowledge of local government, which the President courteously tells us we have not, should have had some ideas upon a Bill of this kind which, we are told, is to be a headline for local government in this country. Are we to take it that they are absolutely barren of ideas, that there is no single reforming amendment or improvement they can make in this Bill, and that on this Bill, which has never been submitted to a party meeting, which has come from the head of the Minister for Local Government so perfect in every word and in every line, they have got nothing to say—nothing to do, but automatically when the bell sounds for prayer, to marshal themselves as arguments into the Division Lobby in favour of it?
The Deputy is not dealing with the amendment.
I agree with you that the appeal which I have made to the back bench members of Cumann na nGaedheal to find a voice, if it will not be effective with what I have said, will probably not be effective at all, but I am entitled to ask Cumann na nGaedheal members here who have definite instructions in relation to this matter, who have been sufficient to alter the decision of this House, and who are acting in definite refusal of the instructions of their own constituents, to stand up and give reasons why they disagree with their constituents.
Perhaps the Deputy will now come to the amendment.
Yes, certainly. I object to a name being put into this Bill. It is exactly the same as if a man died and under his will left all his property to his daughter's nominated husband, and leaving as his last solicitation, "Join together of your own free will and live permanently in peace." You can have it that way or say that the difference in this matter between Cork appointing its own manager and its manager being appointed by the Minister for Local Government, is the difference between free marriage and forced, permanent concubinage for the rest of the natural life of this designated bridegroom of Cork. Cork has got to live with it. It is not merely that. If Cork does come together by two-thirds majority and say that it does not like this husband any more, the Minister for Local Government can say that we must have him. Let us go a bit further. No divorce.
Oh, yes.
No. It is a Bill of divorcement?
In this case—
Will you sit quiet for a few minutes? I will then give way to you with pleasure. I do not want you to do any more harm.
Perhaps the Deputy would address the Chair.
Yes, I will. Not merely have we to live with this designate bridegroom if we do not like him, but, if we do like him, the Minister for Local Government can force a divorce.
Or you can get two-thirds of your free will.
No. On two-thirds of our free will we can make a recommendation to you which you will not obey. Is that the English of it?
No.
On the recommendation of two-thirds you have got to do it?
No.
We have got to live with him if we do not like him. Is that so?
No.
And we cannot keep him if we do like him. Is not that so?
No.
Unless by your consent. The Minister for Local Government appoints him and dismisses him and if we do like him and if we do not dismiss him the Minister for Local Government has told us in plain English that he will suppress the Corporation of Cork and give us back the Commissioner.
No.
What else did you say?
I did not say a word about it.
The Minister for Local Government said a great deal more than he is likely to acknowledge, but he said nothing in my hearing which he is going to get away with. The Minister said that if that man conducted himself in a particular way and, if we did not take the initiative to get rid of him, he would do so.
Certainly.
In other words, we cannot choose whom we are to live with, and when we have got him we cannot get rid of him, and cannot keep him except by the consent of the Minister.
No.
Where is the liberty? I said that the difference was between marriage and forced concubinage, a sort of white slave traffic run by the Minister for Local Government. The council is to appraise a value. The wife is to appraise the value of the husband whom she cannot choose or get rid of. The Minister has not said a straightforward, honest word in this discussion up to the present. The position is that of a man who was found dressed in newspapers in the public street and, when he was asked why he wore them, said, "Decency compels me." Decency compels the Minister to put in some sort of camouflaged democracy, to cover the fact that he is going to continue the Commissioner system in Cork, whether we like it or not, on the strength of a majority of three or four. This is pure and simple camouflage. He cannot stand over openly what he is doing. They say, "Oh! we are going to associate a manager with the council." They are going to associate the council with a manager who is there but whom we cannot dismiss, and they threaten us with very severe penalties if we like him well enough to keep him though they want to get rid of him. As to the man himself, I have nothing whatever to say against Mr. Monahan. If I were a member of a council appointing a man I should require that the man was distinctly better than Mr. Monahan before I would prefer him to him. He has shown a certain amount of human nature, but he has not shown as much human nature as I would have expected an ordinary human being, under the circumstances and under the force of pressure, to show. In taking his name out of the Bill we do not say a single word against him. The name should not be there. The appointment should not be made by the Minister. He should not be permanently imposed on us by the Minister. He is there for life. A young man goes into one of these jobs full of enthusiasm and new plans, and grows conservative with the growing years, grows through a process of ossification to senility. It is all a steady process. There is no period at which we automatically are able to interrupt his progress. Would the Executive Council have taken the responsibility of sacking the late Governor-General? There came a very convenient moment for his disappearance. It would have been a very different position if, when the Chamber of Commerce for Dublin after a couple of hundred years of not eating, decided to eat together, and that man went there and committed a blazing indiscretion, a blazing political indiscretion.
The Deputy must not try to drag that in in this sort of amendment.
If there had been any period in which the office came up for automatic review it could be dealt with without trouble and disturbance.
The Deputy must leave that matter now.
And in exactly the same way, if the position of manager of Cork has a definite period in which his continuance in that office comes up for automatic review, things which otherwise might be difficult might be easy. Of course we cannot be expected to treat the President as a responsible man. The fictitious importance given to him by his position as temporary representative of Cork does, perhaps, tend to make people think that you ought to regard him as responsible, but look at what he said about this matter. He was dealing with this Bill and he said that what would happen, if we were capable, if the council was capable of dealing with officials, was that the whole time would be taken up in discussing dismissed officials and the merits of their case. If he likes to withdraw that I should be very happy, because it is a libel on Philip Monahan. Is it suggested that, under the new powers which Philip Monahan has, he is going, in the security for life which is now given him under this Bill— under a guarantee of security—the amazingly weak security I think of the permanence in his present position of the Minister for Local Government—to dismiss other people whom he could not have dismissed up to the present, or people whom he should have dismissed up to the present and has not done so, because he had not always the security which he now has? Where are we going to get all the dismissed employees whose cases the President said were going to occupy all our time under this amendment? I think the President makes some very reckless statements about people who are not here to answer. To sum up, I am in favour of a definite period for review of appointment. I am in favour of taking out of the Bill this particular name. I am in favour, in general, of the amendment proposed by Deputy de Valera and I am hungrily anxious to hear some of the dumb-driven cattle of the back benches of Cumann na nGaedheal moo.
I think the House might have been amused by Deputy Flinn's perverted attempts to stampede or to dictate to this side of the House. So far, such attempts have been practically a failure. We have refused either to be dictated to or stampeded by the Deputy in question. Speaking to the amendment, to come back from all the vilification and vociferation to solid ground on the question of appointing a manager from year to year or from five years to five years, Deputy de Valera said that this is what a business house would do with its manager, that this is what a board of directors would do with their manager. I have never heard of a business house making an appointment of a manager for five years. So long as a manager gives satisfaction and makes good, he is retained in office. These are the terms of his appointment, and I take it that so long as the manager of Cork makes good, so long will his appointment continue. Deputy Flinn said that the back benchers on this side had no additions to make to this Bill and that it had sprung perfectly from the brain of the Minister. I take it that the brain of the Minister has not been the sole source of the Bill, and I think the Deputy in question knows that very well. It has been the good fortune of this country that we have been able to look to the experience of other cities and other countries where the people started off without the advantage that we have to-day. We have the advantage of modelling on other systems that have been worked out for years, and the advantage of adapting these systems to our own particular circumstances. That is one of the reasons why there has been so little amendment from this side of the House, and why so little time has been wasted by this side of the House. I think if our opponents took a leaf out of our books, got their feet on solid ground, cut out the nonsense, the piffle and all the rhetoric, all the misstatements, and all the misrepresentations to which we have been listening for hours and days here, this Cork Bill would have been out of the way long before now.
And we would be all very happy.
took the Chair.
One complaint was that the present City Commissioner's name being included in the Bill means that it is a definite political appointment and that the City Commissioner will start under all the disabilities attached to having his name included in the Bill. The City Commissioner started under very much more severe difficulties when he came to Cork and with a far bigger handicap, and he has out-lived that and earned the respect of all but very small sections who very often arrogate to themselves more importance than the people of Cork would give them. I have no fear but that the City Commissioner, working with the new Corporation, will set a headline for local government all over the country that will revolutionise it, not merely in Cork but elsewhere.
I should like to say a few words on this matter. We have listened to Deputy Flinn for something like twenty minutes. The Deputy has made himself particularly adroit at saying rather objectionable things about people who are certainly his senior in public life and likely to remain his senior in common sense.
And decency.
The impersonal President !
"Order, order."
The Deputy on the Second Stage of the Bill, if my recollection is correct, said it was necessary that the Bill should be an efficient Bill to secure safeguards for the citizens of Cork and to make for good government. The Bill is one of a great many clauses, and the House has had before it for a long time a good number of amendments. The Deputy, who has such very strong views, did not put down a single amendment to the Bill— not one. I have looked through the list of amendments and I do not find his name to a single one of them.
What are you arguing from that?
Will the Deputy refrain from using the second person?
I am arguing that the Deputy's heat and excitement and the enthusiasm which he has brought to bear upon this are assumed —that he is pretending to the citizens of Cork that he is taking an enormous interest in this. I suggest that his interest is negligible; that he has none; that he did not bother himself about the Bill or what it meant and that he wants to sit upon two stools: one, friendship with the proposed manager, and the other, one, in which he can talk to the manager over people's heads through this Dáil. Every single speech that has been made from the Benches opposite, with the exception, I should say, of Deputy French's, has been that this name should be in the Bill; that each of them would vote for this person being appointed. That, we are told, is public honesty. Deputy Flinn would take the line that that is public honesty. The Minister does the really honest thing by putting the name in the Bill, being prepared to stand over it, to be responsible for it, and to answer to this House subsequently for the acts of the city manager, if and when these acts are criticised here, if the administration should, during the years that are to come, form the subject of any criticism. If the Deputy were really in earnest about making this Bill perfect, if he had what he pretends to portray to the Dáil and the country, sufficient intelligence to qualify him for membership of the House, he would have seen the defects in Deputy de Valera's amendment — they would have been apparent to him. But he is more concerned with criticising members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party than with endeavouring to make this Bill a success. I make the Deputy a present of the abuse he can pour upon me in Cork city or anywhere else, and of the statements which have been made concerning him by members of his Party as being the greatest orator since O'Connell.
Why drag in O'Connell —I protest. That is unfair.
There was a dispute at one time between a number of litterateurs with regard to the opinions they held of one another. One said to another that it was only off the stage that he was a great actor.
The Deputy may, perhaps, think that dramatic outbursts here are going to make a name for him in politics, but they never do. Really honest, hard work, some attempt to improve legislation, is what the Deputy is here for. Some interest in the city of Cork, some method of proving that there is a way of bettering this measure, should be his object. Let him get out of his mind the danger of Cumann na nGaedheal. That is not the point. The point is this measure and its use to the citizens of Cork. The Deputy is standing over an amendment to this Bill which proposes that the names of the three persons of the highest qualifications should be sent down to the Cork Council. In the same breath he states that he has a high opinion of the manager who is nominated in the Bill by the Minister.
Hear, hear.
That he knows nobody better.
I did not say that.
If the Deputy did not say that he knew nobody better, he said that he would appoint him if no better was forthcoming.
That is exactly what I said.
He gave no indication as to the likelihood of a better person being found,—he would not go as far as that. That is an important point, because we are asked to go to the expense and trouble of having this matter put before the Local Appointments Commissioners.
It being 10.30 p.m., progress was ordered to be reported.