I move:
That in the opinion of the Dáil there should be set up at the earliest possible date, but in any event at a date not later than the 1st day of September, 1931, a commission with power to send for persons, papers and documents, and consisting of three persons, of whom one should be an accountant of international reputation as an expert in the economics of state electricity supply undertakings, one an electrical engineer of international reputation as an expert in the organisation and administration of large scale electricity supply undertakings, and one a person actively engaged in a manufacturing enterprise owned, controlled, and operated in Saorstát Eireann, to inquire into and report upon the following:—
(1) The actual present position of the Electricity Supply Board in relation to assets, liabilities, expenditure, income, and capital expenditure;
(2) as to whether the present rates charged by the Board for electricity are economic having regard to the present and prospective market for electricity in the Free State;
(3) the existing staff and organisation of the Board, and whether same or what staff is most conducive to economic administration;
(4) the probable future income, expenditure and capital requirements of the Board in relation to the present and all further possible developments of the Shannon Electricity Undertaking;
(5) the most suitable policy for the future development and organisation of that undertaking particularly in relation to plant and finance;
(6) whether the policy pursued by the Electricity Supply Board over the period from its inception to the 14th May, 1931, was sound in the following regards—
(a) In the specific use of its capital;
(b) in the prices charged for electricity to different classes of consumers;
(c) in forming a monopoly in generation and in distribution;
(d) in not selling in bulk to pre-existing undertakers;
(e) in engaging in wiring and installation business:
(f) in engaging in wholesale and retail trade in appliances;
(g) any other matters relative to the present position and future development of electricity supply in Saorstát Eireann that may be useful to the Oireachtas.
As the time available for the discussion of this motion is short, I will be compelled to deal in a rather summary manner with the points involved. Fortunately, the resolution is a rather lengthy one and, to a certain extent, is self-explanatory. The resolution, in general terms, is that a Commission of Inquiry should be set up almost immediately, and should consist of three persons: one an accountant of international reputation as an expert in the economics of State electricity supply undertakings; one an electrical engineer, similarly of international reputation as an expert in the organisation and administration of large-scale electricity supply undertakings, and one a person actively engaged in a manufacturing enterprise owned, controlled, and operated in Saorstát Eireann, to inquire and report upon the following matters, which I shall deal with one by one. As regards the composition of the Commission, our view is that the best constitution would be that we should have two experts dealing with the two technical sides, namely, the accountancy side and the engineering side, and that they should be people who would be accepted as acknowledged authorities upon the two sides of the expert work, namely, an accountant and an engineer.
The need for an inquiry like this has been stressed so much in the debate that I wonder whether it is necessary to go back on it again. We feel, at any rate, that it is necessary merely as an act of justice. Here are men whose reputations are at stake. We have been told that they so mismanaged a great enterprise, and left things in such a mess that the Minister for Industry and Commerce professes to be very aggrieved at the situation that has arisen, inasmuch as it is in conflict with all the plans he had for the control and development of this great undertaking. We want to know the facts of the situation. The House by a majority has given the Minister authority to dole out the money and, therefore, to control the new Board. He has changed his position absolutely and completely. Those of us on this side of the House regret that there should have to be a departure from the original scheme. I shall deal with the merits of that later on, but we think that before a judgment of the kind that is involved should be passed upon men like that they should, at least, get a trial.
We have had one side of the case presented to us here by the Minister. The people who have the facts are not here to confront him and to point out wherein he erred, if he erred, and where he made misstatements, if he made misstatements. We have no check on the statements of the Minister except a certain public statement. I say that as an act of justice we ought not to allow ourselves to be put into the position in which we have to pass judgment and destroy, as far as we can destroy, the reputations of people who came in to serve—I admit they got a salary for it—the interests of the country. We ought to be very careful when people come into an undertaking of this kind, take their part in a scheme that is laid out for the general interests of the country, before we pass hasty judgments upon them and keep men of that sort from being prepared in future to enter into the public service in undertakings of this kind.
Ministers have very often been ready to complain of our attitude as one which would deprive the State of the services of individual citizens of special ability, which it would be in the interests of the State to exploit. I never have denied that if there was anything that would really tend to that it should be discouraged. But here is the Minister himself going to do something which does definitely tend to prevent the State from getting the services of citizens who are in an independent position, as business men and so on, to serve the State. We have had the complaint about Parliamentary representation, that we cannot get the best of our citizens to come forward and to take their part in representative institutions because they are not prepared to face up to the rough and tumble, so to speak, of Parliamentary and public life. It is a fact that very good men are prevented from giving service to the public interests because they do not want to get into that. They feel that they are much happier at their business. There is enough of selfishness in most of us to get along without having to battle very often on matters that we consider insignificant. Let us admit that. Here is a case in which certain businessmen, some of them anyhow, are in a position in which they need not have given this service at all. They are prepared to give their abilities to the national service in this undertaking and here are we, by an act of ours, on one-sided evidence, going to destroy the reputation of these men, and certainly we are going to do something which will make it more difficult in future to get men of ability to come in and help us in an undertaking of this sort. I say, therefore, as an act of justice and of wisdom, that if we do want to get the best men in the country to help us in business undertakings we ought not to allow the situation to remain where it is now. We ought to see that they get an opportunity of vindicating themselves, vindicating their ability, possibly proving that they were right and the Minister wrong. That is the first point.
Now let us come to it even more narrowly from the business point of view. It is our duty, in my opinion, to set up this inquiry as we would if we were managing a private enterprise. I put it to anybody here that if they had a business which was being managed by some committee or group, and if they found that the accounts were late, and that a statement from somebody in a position in relation to the group like the Minister revealed that there was something wrong on the part of the persons who were in charge, or about the business itself, if they were inclined to give any credence to the information supplied to them by the person in a position like the Minister they would immediately, as an act of ordinary business prudence, see that the matter was investigated home. They would not leave it in the situation in which it is now. They would not offer their money to the Minister and tell him: "Fling that good money after bad." They would try to assure themselves that the situation was one which would justify the expenditure of further money, and they would say to themselves: "We must take this opportunity which has been presented to examine the whole affair anew and to chart the road that we wish to travel in future."
At the beginning of this enterprise a great deal was in the air; it had to be. There were estimates about things and the development was altogether in the future. But the scheme has been in operation now for a certain period, and the fact that it has been in operation for a certain period gives a new set of facts and figures that we can go back upon. It gives an opportunity of taking stock of the situation at its present point of development. Accordingly I say we here, who are the people's representatives and guardians of the people's interests in this particular undertaking, ought to do what an ordinary businessman would do in relation to his own business affairs. He would say there is a conflict of opinion here between my two sets of advisers, and I want to get this examined home. I will try to get outside, impartial investigation. We have often heard of auditors coming in, and so on. The idea of bringing in auditors is to get some outside, thorough investigation. Why does not the Minister agree that in this case, in the national interest, something should be done; not auditors, however, because they would not be sufficient to do the work. We want in this case men whose knowledge of the matters concerned is such that they can pass something like an authoritative judgment upon them. I say that is necessary for us, if we are not to convict ourselves of plunging ahead wildly into further expenditure without knowing where we are.
There is another matter. There is no doubt anybody who attended carefully to the statement of the Minister will admit that he passed on to us a doubt that must be in his own mind, or else he would not have passed it on, namely a doubt as to the economic soundness of the whole enterprise. It is a very big enterprise, and there are very large sums of national money involved in it. Surely before we expend further money without knowing where we are going to, we ought to get the question of the economic soundness of this enterprise put beyond yea or nay. We ought to know exactly where it is. For that we will have to depend largely upon the judgment of men competent to give judgment upon it. I said during the last debate that if it lay between the Minister and his view whether this undertaking was or was not economically sound, and the views of the men on the Board, such as the chairman and the managing director, one of whom had experience of accountancy and general control of money, and the other who was an expert in this particular work, anyhow as compared with the Minister I would be bound to take the side and accept the judgment of the managing director rather than of the Minister. I say that, but I do not want the Minister to interpret it as expressing more than what at one time he spoke of as a state of philosophic doubt. I do not think any one of us is justified in going beyond the state in which we suspend judgment. It is obviously a case in which we must suspend judgment if we are to be fair and just, because we have not the facts to enable us to come to definite judgment. But we have enough, I contend, to determine us upon a certain line of action, and that line of action is to have this whole position investigated by a body as impartial and as competent as we can get. I think therefore that any reasonable man approaching this situation with an open mind would agree with us that that inquiry should be set up. There is another matter if we are dealing with the justice and merits of the case. One side is prepared to face an inquiry. The managing director in a public statement in the interests of the enterprise, and not less, I am sure, in his own interests as an individual, asks that this inquiry should be set up. He asks for it as a man whose credit is at stake, and as a man interested in the success of this enterprise because he was the man who, to a certain extent, conceived and pressed it upon the Minister.