I should like to get away if possible from the atmosphere engendered in this debate by the silly, inconsequent, and demonstrably ignorant speech of the Minister for Agriculture who, I am sorry, is not here. I should like to do that for two reasons. First, because no one with any sense of responsibility or any feelings of public decency desires to have an issue so important as is raised in this Bill decided by the tactics of the virago or the weapons of Billingsgate. And secondly because this issue is one upon which, no matter how they may be divided upon other issues, those who desire to see clean government in this country or, if you like, to maintain clean government in this country, may co-operate with each other in resisting any proposal which may render these objects less easy to secure. In speaking to this Bill also, I would like to deprecate the frequent reference which has been made to the Public Accounts Committee. That Committee renders most valuable service to the whole community. It is able to do that solely because of the fact that it is an impartial Committee representing the general body of the Dáil and rendering decisions regardless of Party affiliations and Party advantages. The whole usefulness of the Committee and its capacity for service would be utterly destroyed if its proceedings were to become the shuttlecock of Party discussions in this House. I desire, therefore, if I can, to refrain from any specific reference to the proceedings of our own Public Accounts Committee and to base my arguments against this Bill on the principle of financial administration and practice which long experience has established elsewhere.
This Bill, I should like to repeat, strikes at the very roots of good government and sound financial administration in this country. It violates an important constitutional principle—the principle that the Dáil has complete control over public expenditure.
In order that the manner in which this violation will be made may be clear to this House, I should like to re-state how the control of the Dáil over public expenditure is made effective. The Dáil enforces its control over public expenditure first, by examining and sanctioning every head of that expenditure. It completes that control by learning from its own officer—the Comptroller and Auditor-General, against whose powers this Bill is deliberately aimed —after the close of each year, whether the limits which it has imposed had been obeyed and whether, generally, the financial administration of the public service has been orderly and sound. If the directions of the Dáil and its intentions as expressed in the several statutes or orders thereunder, and in the voted Estimates have not been observed, or if the expenditure has exceeded the amounts granted, the Dáil learns of this fact from the Comptroller and Auditor-General and, through its own Committee of Public Accounts, judges the infraction of the law and regulations thus brought to its notice.
Now, if there is one service which requires constant supervision it is the disbursement of public moneys. The history of other countries and the history of our own emphasise how easily that service may be abused and how grave the public evils which follow upon such abuse. To prevent that abuse and to escape those evils, the most constant vigilance must be exercised by the officer appointed to safeguard the public integrity. In other countries such an officer has been appointed by ordinary statute, but in this State the appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor-General is commanded by the very Constitution itself. By this fact, it is clearly indicated that the functions of this office are of no less importance and are no less indispensable to the well-being of the State and the whole community than are the functions of the legislature, the Executive or the judiciary. Like these, the Comptroller and Auditor-General is set in a class apart, with powers, duties and responsibilities not to be circumscribed nor limited except for the gravest reasons. In fact, in Great Britain, as long ago as 1876, after a prolonged and careful discussion extending over a period of years the following principles were authoritatively laid down for the guidance of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of Great Britain in the discharge of his duties. "You should," it was stated in a formal communication to him from the Treasury, "if you think fit examine the Vote, sub-head of a Vote, or head of a sub-head, as often as you please. In short, your discretion in the conduct of your examination should be absolutely unfettered."
Under the Constitution and the Acts relating to his office subsequently enacted or adopted by the Oireachtas, the powers of the Comptroller and Auditor-General were in no way curtailed, nor was the general principle which was to govern him in discharge of his duties, and which I have just quoted, qualified or limited in any way whatsoever. For instance, Article 62 of the Constitution provides:
"Dáil Eireann shall appoint a Comptroller and Auditor-General to act on behalf of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann). He shall control all disbursements and shall audit all accounts of moneys administered by or under the authority of the Oireachtas and shall report to Dáil Eireann at stated periods to be determined by law."
Again under the Comptroller and Auditor-General's Act (No. 1 of the year 1923) it is laid down:—
"It shall be the duty of the Comptroller and Auditor-General to control all disbursements and to audit all accounts of moneys administered by or under the authority of the Oireachtas at such time and in such manner as shall from time to time be prescribed by law."
In Section 7 (3) of that Act it is stated:
"Unless and until it shall be otherwise provided by the Oireachtas the Comptroller and Auditor-General shall have and exercise all such powers and perform all such duties as are prescribed by this Act or are conferred or imposed on him by any Act of the Parliament of the late United Kingdom having the force of law in Saorstát Eireann and adapted to the circumstances of Saorstát Eireann by or under the Adaptation of Enactments Act, 1922, and particularly by the Exchequer and Audit Departments Acts, 1866 and 1921."
Now so much importance did those who framed the Constitution and those who drafted the Constitution Act and the Adaptation of Enactments Act attach to the functions and powers of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, that actually after the section of the Adaptation of Enactments Act which established the Central Fund, the following section is inserted:—
"Every mention of or reference to the Exchequer or the Comptroller and Auditor-General contained in any British Statute shall in respect of the doing or not doing of any act, matter or thing after the 6th day of December, 1922, in Saorstát Eireann under or in pursuance of such Statute be respectively construed and take effect where the context so admits or requires as a mention of or reference to the Exchequer of Saorstát Eireann or to the Comptroller and Auditor-General of Saorstát Eireann as the case may require."
Therefore, under the law the office of Comptroller and Auditor-General here was established with exactly the same rights, power, privileges and responsibility as up to the year 1922 appertained to that office in Great Britain. Under the law, therefore and from the nature of the Constitution the Comptroller and Auditor-General has control over all disbursements—there is no exception made of disbursements under the Military Service Pensions Act—and is required to examine every appropriation account on behalf of the Dáil. There is no reservation that the appropriation account relating to military service pensions is to be exempt from the Comptroller and Auditor-General and not to be examined in the same way as he is entitled to examine other appropriation accounts. And in the conduct of such examination the principles laid down by the report of the Public Accounts Committee, 1876, are definitely adopted, and in the conduct of such examination therfore, as we have seen, the Comptroller and Auditor-General is to be absolutely unfettered. I have shown how the Dáil exercises and makes effective the constitutional principle that it controls all public expenditure of the State.
It may be asked what are the practical results which have followed from the appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor-General. Unfortunately our own control over our own financial affairs has been too brief to enable me to cite any instance from our own records which here have stood the test of time. We have always had a Comptroller and Auditor-General here. The State has always reaped the advantages of such an appointment, but in Great Britain where the principle that the House of Commons has sole control over supplies has been admitted for centuries, and where the operation of that principle had not been given proper effect until 1866 when, by the Exchequer and Audit Act, the Comptroller and Auditor-General was appointed, not as an officer of the Crown or even of the Parliament, but as an officer of the House of Commons, to supervise the disbursement of all public moneys in Great Britain, from that country we are able to cite opinions and to cite, if you like, considered judgments setting forth the beneficial results which have followed from the appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor-General.
In the report for the year 1876 the Public Accounts Committee printed a memorandum from the Treasury in which the benefits which had followed the establishment of the office of the Comptroller and Auditor-General were set forth in the following terms:—
"My Lord of the Treasury, indeed, believes that even many of those who have studied such matters are hardly aware of the revolution in the public accounts that has taken place under the Exchequer and Audit Act, through the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor-General addressed to the House of Commons. These reports are submitted to the judgment of the Public Accounts Committee, and each irregularity, which in former days would have been judged and buried within the walls of a Department, is examined and reported on.""Judged and buried within the walls of a Department," in exactly the same way as the Minister for Defence and others presenting this Bill to this House wish the findings and activities of this Board of Assessors to be judged and buried. "Judged and buried within the walls of a Department," where the skeletons would be always kept in the cupboard and never uncovered by the Comptroller and Auditor-General.
"This great administrative reform has been gradually effected during the 10 years which have elapsed since the passing of the Exchequer and Audit Act. The success of the measure may be tested by the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor-General ... as these reports testify to a regular and orderly administration of the public money..... If exception be made of certain questions which have stood over from former years and which are approaching settlement, the irregularities are few.
"My Lords gratefully acknowledge the result as showing the efficacy of the independent audit administered by the Comptroller and Auditor-General.... If on the one hand the responsibility of Parliament for financial order through the Service has been rigidly enforced, on the other hand... my Lords have, with the co-operation of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, been enabled to exercise far more completely than previously the control entrusted to them by constitutional usage and essential to the maintenance of the financial order for which they are responsible."
I would direct the attention of the House to the terms of the report. "My Lords, indeed, believe that even many of those who have studied such matters are hardly aware of the revolution in the public accounts.... Each irregularity which in former days would have been judged and buried within the walls of a department is examined and reported on. By "this great administrative reform"—the appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor-General with the wide powers given him—"my Lords have been enabled to exercise far more completely than previously the control entrusted to them by constitutional usage and essential to the maintenance of financial order." These words are not my words. They express the balanced and considered judgment of those who are responsible for a system of public administration unchallenged and unsurpassed by that which exists in any other State. This judgment has no partisan relation whatever to the matter now immediately under discussion. It was not expressed in relation to the awkward inquiry or request from the Comptroller and Auditor-General for certain files. It was expressed after that office had been established for 10 years, and after those who expressed that opinion had 10 years experience of its working and, therefore, it may be unreservedly applied in the present instance to indicate what the position might have been in this State if the position of the Comptroller and Auditor-General did not exist, and if the present occupant of that office had not endeavoured to fulfil his responsibility in accordance with the principles and practice so long established and accepted elsewhere. In the course of the report to which I have referred it is stated that the duty is imposed on the Comptroller and Auditor-General of ascertaining that the accounts of all the moneys provided for the service of the year:
(1) Are supported by proper vouchers and are ordered by proper authority;
(2) Are accurately computed;
(3) Are applied to the purposes for which Parliament voted them;
(4) Are in accordance with the Statute;
(5) Are in accordance with the Treasury authority—in our case in accordance with the authority of the Minister for Finance:
(6) Are in accordance with the formal regulations of the Department.
In exemplification of the purposes to be served by these inquiries, the Public Accounts Committee pointed out that in auditing the Military and Naval expenditure, the Comptroller and Auditor-General sees that a stated sum has been expended, and he receives the explanation of the Department that it has been expended on a certain object, and that this particular sum has been charged to the Vote in which such provision has been made, and to the proper sub-head of that Vote, as set forth in the Estimates.
To avoid misunderstanding I would point out to the House that in the year 1876, when the accounts of the Army and Navy were being considered, the Comptroller and Auditor-General——