Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 31 May 1933

Vol. 47 No. 17

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 28—Universities and Colleges.

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee)

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £77,500 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1934, chun Deontaisí fén Irish Universities Act, 1908, fén Acht Talmhan, 1923, fén Acht um Oideahas Phríomh-Scoile (Talmhaíocht agus Eolaíocht Déiríochta), 1926, agus fé Acht Choláiste Príomh-Scoile na Gaillimhe, 1929 (8 Edw.7, c.38; Uimh. 42 de 1923; Uimh. 32 de 1926; agus Uimh. 35 de 1929).

That a sum not exceeding £77,500 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1934, for Grants under the Irish Universities Act, 1908, the Land Act, 1923, the University Education (Agriculture and Dairy Science) Act, 1926, and the University College Galway Act, 1929 (8 Edw.7, c.38; No. 42 of 1923; No. 32 of 1926; and No. 35 of 1929).

Mr. MacGilligan

Arising out of this, I should like to know whether or not the Minister is going to give us any indication of an increase in this grant during the year.

Mr. MacEntee

We are merely dealing with the grant which we have to provide under the statute in this Estimate, and I do not know whether or not it is in order, on an estimate, to discuss forthcoming legislation. As a matter of fact, I think it is not in order.

Mr. McGilligan

I just wanted to get that reply in order to find out what was meant by the Minister's Party, who represented the National University, when they circulated an election address to the University to the effect that the University was going to be made more Gaelic.

Mr. MacEntee

I should like to know from the Chair whether or not it is in order to discuss an election address issued by a Deputy of any Party.

Mr. McGilligan

A certain policy was promised, or at least a diversion of policy was promised, by the people who, presumably, had the authority of the Fianna Fáil Party behind them. At that time this Vote was the vote which was annually given in aid of the universities and there was a certain administrative policy carried out under that. I understood that an increased grant was to be included. I gather now that that is not so.

Mr. MacEntee

The only thing I gather is that the Deputy is out of order.

Mr. McGilligan

I have not yet gathered that and until the Chair says so I would not accept it any more than I would accept anything else from the Minister. I know that there is going to be a reduction from this grant and that that will bear a certain amount of criticism; but even with the amount voted I understood that there was going to be a certain amount allocated to make the University, at least, Gaelic.

Mr. MacEntee

Again, I should like to know is this in order?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We can discuss the administration of funds voted under a certain vote. The Deputy is entitled to raise the question of whether or not these funds were administered properly.

Mr. McGilligan

There has been a particular type of administrative policy in regard to this and I take it that the policy in regard to the Gaelicising of the universities, so far as that institution is concerned, is regarded as sound.

Mr. MacEntee

Do I understand the Deputy to be arguing now that we can discuss the internal administration of the universities in this House? To my mind, as these moneys are paid there is nothing further to it.

Mr. McGilligan

Is this a speech or an interruption of a disorderly type? The Minister had better listen and then perhaps he will understand.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy had better understand that no question of administration can arise under this vote. The moneys are paid and that is all there is to it. If we were withholding payment something might be said for the Deputy's attitude.

Mr. McGilligan

I would not like to ask that a second member of the Fianna Fáil Party be put out of the House. Since the more cultured man is gone, perhaps it is a pity that the less cultured man should remain. There has been a particular policy in relation to the universities. Certain moneys have been made payable. They have been voted from year to year and there has arisen for criticism in relation to those institutions the existing policy. It used to be the policy of the Executive Council in relation to these universities——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Let us try and get clear on this matter. Does the Executive Council or the Minister direct the policy of the universities?

Mr. McGilligan

They direct their own minds as to why they give these sums.

Mr. MacEntee

They give these sums because they are bound to do so by statute. The moneys are paid. We have no control over the administration and, therefore, I suggest that no questions of administration can be raised on an Estimate. No debate can take place on the Estimate as to the policy of the Government in regard to the universities or as to any future legislation which may be contemplated.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Clearly, there is no Government Minister responsible for the internal control and consequently, that cannot be discussed on this Estimate.

Mr. McGilligan

There does arise the point as to the reason for the moneys being voted. We are told that the Vote is put before us in accordance with the statute. We know quite well that the statute can be altered, repealed or amended, and we know quite well that is taking place at the moment. We know further that in relation to every Estimate there has been discussed, not merely the use made of particular moneys, but the policy of the Government with regard to the voting of money in future, whether there is going to be an increase or decrease, and their particular attitude towards the Land Commission Vote, or any vote that comes up from time to time. That is the point which I am querying here. We do know there has been a certain deprivation in regard to this institution. That arises under another measure, and I will deal with it in good time.

Mr. MacEntee

If the Deputy proposes to discuss the general educational policy of the Government with particular reference to university education, he has lost his opportunity. That discussion should have taken place on the Vote with which the Minister for Education was connected. It is quite clearly laid down in the Standing Orders that once a question has been disposed of in a major Vote it cannot be resurrected in a minor Vote. There is nothing in this Vote for which the Government has any administrative responsibility whatsoever.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

My recollection is that matters relating to the University always fall for discussion under the Vote of the Minister for Finance, and not under the Vote of the Minister for Education.

Mr. McGilligan

Never under education certainly, because it does not arise here. The Minister is now trying to argue that the Government have no responsibility for the administration of the universities. Then he suddenly tells me that the Minister for Education has. That I completely and entirely deny. The only responsibility the Government has is with regard to the sums they vote each year as grants-in-aid or as annual votes to the university. Why they do that is a proper matter for discussion here.

Mr. MacEntee

They do that under statute.

Mr. McGilligan

Nearly everything they do in connection with these Votes is done under statute.

Mr. MacEntee

And consequently it is not a matter for discussion on the Estimates.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is a statutory obligation on the Government?

Mr. MacEntee

Yes.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Then we cannot discuss legislation.

Mr. McGilligan

We cannot discuss changes which necessitate legislation, but we can surely discuss administration as it is governed by statutes at present in force?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Quite.

Mr. McGilligan

That is all I am doing, and I am calling attention to the fact that no change is being made. A change necessary and desirable and likely to come was indicated by people who support the Minister, and it was indicated on the grounds that the universities——

Mr. MacEntee

Do I understand the Deputy to be discussing a change in the law?

Mr. McGilligan

I am not discussing a change in the law.

Mr. MacEntee

Then what is the Deputy discussing?

Mr. McGilligan

The Minister will have to keep quiet and listen. I am not to be subjected to any examination by the Minister. I would like to have some indication from the Minister, if those who support him are not capable of speaking on this matter, of the respects in which changes were thought desirable and as to what was supposed to be wrong with the use made by the universities of the money they got, of the things in which they were deficient, and how it was proposed that changes were to be effected if changes were considered desirable.

Apart from that nationalist matter on which I have spoken, there was criticism made many a time here by people now in the Government, when they were in Opposition, that the trend of university education was not as nationalist in its outlook as might have been expected from a university calling itself a national university; that its economics were not properly directed, and there was criticism of the general principles of the teaching and the instruction that was given in economics. The point was urged on one occasion by a person who now holds a financial position behind the Government that there should be a limitation of the number of students who were allowed to go to a university; that there should be a quota system established with regard to the Faculties. It was suggested that, of necessity, people opting for a Faculty which found itself congested in a particular year, should have to await their turn until the next year. Whether these were the things in the minds of the people who wrote a certain pamphlet to the graduates of the university, I do not know.

Mr. MacEntee

Are we in order in discussing what certain people wrote to the graduates of the university?

Mr. McGilligan

It would be interesting to get these people to state their views as to what they meant by this, nowithstanding that the Minister wants to put them under the same process of oppression as he himself was put under on finance matters. It is to be expected that people who address themselves to a constituency and appear to indicate that they have a Government policy in their minds, and indicate a particular change which they think is going to be made in the relation of the State towards the university, should take an opportunity which educated people would welcome of stating their point.

Mr. MacEntee

May I suggest that that opportunity will arise but that opportunity does not arise on the Estimates. It is a principle that has long been upheld in this House that questions of policy and future legislation cannot be discussed here on the Estimates. On the Estimates we are bound down to the narrow subject of administration. These grants are being properly administered, I submit, so far as the Government are concerned, once the money has been paid and the money will be paid as soon as this Vote is passed.

Mr. McGilligan

It is a very ordinary thing in a Vote to have people criticising certain moneys which are being voted giving as their reason for doing so that these moneys should not be paid because according to their criticism the moneys are not being properly used. That is the contention I expect will be taken by the people who will speak—if not by the Minister. If he does not he can keep quiet then and give them an opportunity of explaining the point that I am raising.

Mr. MacEntee

That is the most extraordinary excuse I ever heard given for taking up the time of the House.

Mr. McGilligan

The Minister is not a person who ordinarily wants an excuse for taking up the time of the House. He has been generally inexcusable. We had the Minister not merely without excuse but with no possible excuse. I approve of these moneys being granted. I think that the institutions receiving these moneys are operating in the best possible way for the good of this country and for its education. Within the very limited resources that they receive they are giving an education which can bear very favourable comparison with the education given to any students in any country in the world. The education which they are giving is to be praised, not merely on the grounds of the nationalist outlook that is around that institution and which pervades its teachings and not merely because of the soundness of the particular men in this institution in regard to their work, but also because of the very definite character that lies behind everything that they do. And if as is the case, any one of these three points is criticised or has been criticised in a loose fashion in an address made at any time or place I say that where that criticism should be advanced and borne out in detail is here on this Vote. Any attempt to avoid it is deplorable.

Mr. MacEntee

I want to raise another point of order. I am sorry but I am under the impression that on the Estimates the discussion must be confined to matters which had arisen in the course of the year. I should like since Deputy McGilligan is apparently going to refer to statements made I do not know when or where——

Mr. McGilligan

It is not necessary that the Minister should know these things.

Mr. MacEntee

But it is necessary that the House should know them.

Mr. McGilligan

If there are two people in this House who have the courage of their convictions they will let you know.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is it the point that this was paid for out of public funds?

Mr. McGilligan

It is in relation to these moneys.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Was it paid out of public funds?

Mr. McGilligan

I could not say that.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Then it does not arise here.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy could not say that. Discretion is once again, in the Deputy's case, the better part of valour. He would not dare say that now.

Mr. McGilligan

I cannot speak under these continuous interruptions. There must be fair debate or none.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair is giving fair play to every Deputy.

Mr. McGilligan

This criticism has been passed upon institutions which are referred to under sub-heads (a) and (b) of this Vote. The criticism has been on the point to which I have referred. The institution in question, the National University, belies its name! It is not national in any way, and it is particularly not national in the use that is made of the facilities afforded to it in relation to the Irish language and it has then been particularly brought under criticism in that it is supposed to have pervading all its economic teachings a certain spirit which is not of the thought or deliberations of those who are trying to operate a policy at the moment! What we have to regard is the deliberation behind such a policy. When I say that, I do not insist that there is thought or economic teaching or a national spirit behind that policy. The criticism has been made that it is the duty of this House to interfere with the people who are appointed under the Charter and statutes of the University. We were told that it was a proper subject matter for debate in this House. What would fall for discussion is the number of students who would come to the University, and whether there should be any regulation of them or of the Faculties which they should attend. In fact the mentality which pervades this pamphlet to which I refer is that the University ought to become as much a State controlled institution as the industry and commerce of the country has become at the moment. We were to interfere with regard to what professions are allocated from time to time amongst the various students; what moneys are paid from time to time, what they are to teach the students, what Faculties students are allowed to congregate in and to say what are the Faculties from which they will be ruled out. That is the clearest sort of autonomy for the University!

Mr. MacEntee

Once again I must ask the Chair for a ruling. Is the Deputy out of order in the line he is taking?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Of course the Minister is entitled to appeal to the Chair as to whether any Deputy speaking to the House is or is not in order.

Mr. MacEntee

I again submit that the Deputy is not in order in the speech he is making.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I must ask the Minister to say in what respect the Deputy is not in order.

Mr. MacEntee

There is nothing in this Vote or in the proposal before the House which proposes to interfere in any way with the autonomy of the University or with the number of students who are to be allotted to any particular Faculty. There is no suggestion in the debate that there is any interference with them in the choice of their own professorial staff and no suggestion as to their own right to determine what course shall be laid down for the students in the University. Yet the last five minutes of the Deputy's speech have been devoted to proving that there is.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is very difficult to say what a Deputy can discuss if he does not make some reference to the Faculties or to the staff of the University. It is very difficult to say how one can draw the dividing line between administration and policy in matters of this kind.

Mr. MacEntee

That is the point I am making; that on this Estimate no discussion of that sort can take place. If the Deputy wishes these matters to be raised in the House he has his remedy. He can give notice of motion and raise them or he can bring in a Private Bill. There are a number of other remedies open to him. I suggest, however, that on this particular Estimate he cannot discuss any of the matters with which he has been occupying the attention of the House since the discussion began.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I should like to listen to the Deputy a little further until I hear what line he is going to take.

Mr. McGilligan

I should like to have a definite ruling on the point raised by the Minister. May I put my opposition to the point this way? The Minister stated that there is nothing in this Vote which has relation to, or in any way implies upon, university autonomy. The fact that that is so can be discussed. Whether that is right or not can be discussed.

Mr. MacEntee

It does not arise.

Mr. McGilligan

I am not asking the Minister. If that cannot be discussed—I take your own point, sir— what can be discussed on this Vote? That we vote against this grant of money or that we approve of it simply without saying anything?

Mr. MacEntee

May I suggest that the only thing that can be discussed on the Vote is whether the moneys are duly provided in accordance with the statute and nothing else.

Mr. McGilligan

Is that the only thing that falls for discussion on this Vote—whether there is less or more money than what the statute allows?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not accept Deputy McGilligan's point that we can discuss whether the voting of this money interferes with the autonomy of the College—whether there is any attempt to interfere. I believe that there are certain regulations governing these grants which would make that point clear. I do think, however, that Deputy McGilligan so far has not gone beyond the scope which he is entitled to go in discussing the Estimate.

Mr. MacEntee

May I point out, in that connection, that the universities are very jealous of their autonomy; that if we were entitled to discuss any one of the matters raised by Deputy McGilligan in this House the mere discussion would be an interference with the autonomy of the universities? If the discussion was such that it convinced members of this House that certain restrictions should be imposed on the universities with regard to any one of the matters which he has raised in this debate legislation would inevitably follow and that legislation would be an interference with their autonomy. Even the discussion of the matter is to impose a potential limitation on the autonomy of the universities.

Mr. McGilligan

May I submit with respect, sir, that you have misunderstood the point I was making? What the Minister says amounts to this: that even to attempt to discuss whether universities ought to be autonomous or not is an infringement of their autonomy and cannot be admitted. If that is the point, and if that is accepted, and if, therefore, all discussion of universities is to be completely wiped out of the House, I am agreeable.

Mr. MacEntee

I did not say that. I say that a discussion of the matter referred to by Deputy McGilligan would be an interference with their autonomy. I want to go further and say that if the Deputy thinks universities should not be autonomous he can raise that matter in another way, but not on this Vote.

Mr. McGilligan

I think they should be.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We cannot, of course, discuss the professorial staff or other things like that. Surely the general direction and general atmosphere of the universities can be discussed.

Mr. MacEntee

I suggest not. I suggest that there is one way in which the Deputy can have a discussion of these matters if he wishes, and that is by putting down a motion. We are limited to discussing, as I said before, whether the amount provided in this Estimate is the amount that is prescribed by the statute. That is the only thing we can discuss.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Is the Minister for Finance entitled to waste the time of the House by making these repeated speeches on a subject on which you have given your ruling?

Mr. MacEntee

He is, because the Minister is responsible for the Vote and, consequently, has the obligation imposed upon him to see that extraneous matters are not introduced.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

When the Chair has ruled Deputy McGilligan in order, is the Minister entitled to get up and waste our time with these senseless interruptions?

Mr. MacEntee

The Chair has just ruled that a Deputy, when he thinks that another Deputy is not keeping within the rules of order, has the right to appeal to the Chair in a matter like that.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

That is what I have done.

Mr. McGilligan

If the Minister thinks that 20 times in ten minutes and gets up each of the 20 times, he ought to have learned his lesson to keep quiet.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy McGilligan to resume.

Mr. McGilligan

I should like to get this matter very definitely cleared up. The Minister's point is that the only matter that falls for discussion is whether or not the right sum is being voted, and that that is all that can be discussed. Can I have your ruling, sir, on that—that you are not accepting that?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I called on Deputy McGilligan to resume.

Mr. McGilligan

I am taking that as having a meaning adverse to the Minister's contention. There has been very definite criticism of the National University on three grounds: (1) that it is not properly called, or properly named, as an institution, by reason of its failure to develop fully along Gaelic lines as far as the language is concerned; (2) that it has not its doctrines informed with national spirit in the matter of economics, whether they relate to agriculture or industry; (3) there has often been criticism of it— how the criticism can be met I do not know—that it has allowed students to congregate in large numbers in its Faculties without any attempt to regulate these students; not to let them regulate themselves according to their desires as to what profession they think they are fit for, or what they want to do in later life, but that there should be—and that was urged from this side of the House by at least two speakers— a definite regulation of the numbers who enter certain Faculties each year, and that, in so regulating, there should be attention paid, not so much to the capacities and dispositions of the potential students, but to the numbers that should graduate year by year in certain Faculties; that there should be some mind who would consider outside the optimum number that should be allowed to graduate in, say, medicine, law, art, etc., and that the College should be so regulated. I oppose any criticism of the University on these three grounds. As I said before I think it is fantastic, as well as being nonsensical, to suggest that there should be any regulation of the number of students and, particularly, that there should be any such regulation based merely upon the students who should emerge as qualified men at the end of a particular period, without attention being paid, if attention should be paid by anybody outside, to their capacities, temperament and inclination towards certain pursuits.

Mr. MacEntee

At the risk of being again rebuffed, I suggest that the Deputy is not in order. There has been no criticism of that nature offered here, and I did not say anything in introducing the Vote that would make this matter relevant to the discussion.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair is not concerned as to whether these arguments have been advanced here or not. The Chair has no knowledge of their having been advanced anywhere. Deputy McGilligan, however, may be making the arguments in order to afford himself the satisfaction of knocking them down. I do not know. I have no means of finding out whether these arguments have been advanced or not, but I do not think Deputy McGilligan is out of order in discussing what he is discussing at present relative to the University.

Mr. T. Kelly

What is he discussing? We do not know.

Mr. McGilligan

We are discussing education, and Deputy Kelly will not know much about that. I am not putting up arguments simply for the Minister to knock them down. Two colleagues of the Minister's, Deputy Little, now Parliamentary Secretary, and the Ceann Comhairle, discussed the very matter that I am discussing at the moment, and on this Estimate. If there seems absurdity in the particular thing I am discussing it is not I who am responsible for the absurdity, but those two Deputies who put forward this contention about the regulation of the student in relation to certain Faculties. I well remember raising, as an objection to that particular regulation, the point as to what would happen to a student who had indicated that he thought he had a talent for engineering, and on arriving at the process of being entered up as an engineering student found, under Deputy Little's proposal, that the engineering Faculty was full, but that the Faculty belonging to the clergy was not yet filled up? Could that gentleman transfer himself to the clerical Faculty for a year, until such time as the engineering Faculty had got rid of some of the pupils? That was the subject of discussion in this House.

Mr. MacEntee

Does this arise in the present year? Much water has flown under the bridges since then. It happened last year possibly, or the year before, but did it happen this year?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Clearly nothing falls for discussion here except what did happen during the administrative year. I think everybody knows that. Surely Deputy McGilligan knows it.

Mr. MacEntee

The present Ceann Comhairle at any rate could not have riased that issue this year or last year.

Mr. McGilligan

I have to assume that he has some spiritual brethren or some people educationally akin to him in the Party.

Mr. MacEntee

I do not know whether the Deputy is in order in bringing the Ceann Comhairle into the debate. It is an unseemly procedure.

Mr. McGilligan

I think the onus descends on Deputy Little, the Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. MacEntee

Did these things arise in the present year?

Mr. McGilligan

Surely there should should be something in the nature of order in this debate. It is not for the Minister to keep order. The Minister is forgetting his functions.

Mr. MacEntee

I am not trying to keep order.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Could we get something that did happen? Surely something happened in university administration within the last 12 months?

Mr. T. Kelly

There did—an election.

Vote No. 28 put and agreed to.

Mr. McGilligan

I thought there would be a division challenged by the two people to whom I have referred.