Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 Mar 1935

Vol. 55 No. 4

Public Business. - Vote No. 22—Stationery and Printing.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Lemass)

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim Bhreise ná raghaidh thar £6,003 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh Márta, 1935, chun costais soláthair Pháipéarais, Clódóireachta, Páipéir, creamuíochta agus Leabhra Clóbhuailte i gcóir na Seirbhíse Puiblí; chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an tSoláthair d'íoc; agus chun Ilsheirbhísí Ilghnéitheacha maraon le Tuairí scí Díospóireachtaí an Oireachtais agus Deontas-i-gCabhair.

That a Supplementary sum not exceeding £6,003 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1935, for Stationery, Printing, Paper, Binding, and Printed Books for the Public Service; the Salaries and Expenses of the Stationery Office and sundry Miscellaneous Services including Reports of Oireachtas Debates and a Grant-in-Aid.

The excess on this Vote is not entirely due to the speeches made by Deputy Dillon and his colleagues during the course of the year. Nevertheless, there has been unforeseen expenditure on paper and printing, which has occasioned an expenditure heavier than was anticipated at the beginning of the year. The excess of £2,750 on Sub-head J.—Miscellaneous Office Supplies—is partly due to the same causes. The expansion of staffs within the last year has necessitated the spply of many items of office supplies. A substantial portion of the excess is attributable to the fact that typewriters and accounting machines supplied in the years immediately following the change of Government in 1922, are now becoming unserviceable and require to be replaced. A typewriter nominally ceases to be economically repairable at the end of ten or eleven years of use, and replacements have in consequence been so heavy this year that the Stationery Office has only three machines in stock.

Mr. Dillon

It is an interesting commentary on the Minister for Industry and Commerce that whereas the medium through which I speak, the Parliamentary Debates, has produced an Appropriation-in-Aid amounting to £60 more than last year, the organ which enshrines the Minister's Orders, Iris Oifigiúil, is going to produce £150 less, because people have grown sick of reading it. The more the Minister swells the list the more the loss. The Minister referred to Miscellaneous Items, and pointed out that the typewriters have gone out of order. The fact is that the Minister is the epitome of bureaucracy in this country. The Minister loves to be lord of all these services. No man in this country may now move, or buy or sell, and in good time no man will be allowed to walk, to sneeze or to laugh without getting a licence from the Minister.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister for Industry and Commerce is not responsible for this Vote. The Minister for Finance is.

Mr. Dillon

I appreciate that the Department of Finance is placed under an obligation to provide the myrmidons of the Minister for Industry and Commerce with typewriters.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not pertinent to this Vote.

Mr. Dillon

The stationery supplies are growing every year, for the simple reason that more men and more women are required by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in his bureaucracy. More typewriters have to be supplied and we are going to spend £100,000 on building a mausoleum in order to accommodate the typewriters and the bureaucracy.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy sees the sophistry of his argument.

Mr. Dillon

I shall depart from that. I take this occasion to protest most emphatically against the growth of bureaucracy that is developing in this country under the tutelage of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I shall seize the opportunity to raise another question which I intended to raise on the last Estimate but which I refrained from raising because it dealt with the Oireachtas services over which you, Sir, so gracefully preside. I understand the custom of the House is not to embark on a detailed discussion of these services, as there are other means of doing so. I take this occasion to recall a statement made by the Minister for Finance when defending his original Estimates after I had drawn attention to the fact that the Book of Estimates was of an unprecedented size and involved a burden of taxation which was a grave reflection on the Government. The Minister for Finance then blandly replied:—

"Ah, the Deputy does not understand. The Estimates look big, but this year we have provided for every conceivable head, and whereas last year we had a very considerable number of Supplementary Estimates, we do not expect to have any now."

There has been a snowstorm ever since the financial year started. It developed into a blizzard two or three days ago when we got 11 Supplementary Estimates in one lump, which were followed by another handful of Estimates the following day. I venture to say that in this current financial year there have been larger Supplementary Estimates, and more Supplementary Estimates, than in any year since Fianna Fáil came into office. I am aware that this Government has reduced to a fine art the business of saying to-day what suits the present circumstances and trusting to God that everyone will have forgotten all about it in 12 months' time.

Mr. T. Kelly

Their piety makes them do it.

Mr. Dillon

That is the Fianna Fáil type of piety, but, unfortunately, the Deputy has forgotten that there is another word in the dictionary — one word—which describes that, and instead of taking three words to describe it—Deputy Kelly calls it Fianna Fáil piety—I use one word and call it hypocrisy. That is the difference between us. I quite agree that the Deputy's colleague from Cork says that when the Minister for Industry and Commerce makes a promise in the course of an election campaign, it is not a promise: it is only a statement.

Mr. Lemass

And neither is it a charge against the Stationery Office Vote.

Mr. Dillon

In that connection, it is relevant to say that one of the many promises which were made in this House by the Minister for Finance of this Fianna Fáil Government was that he was appropriating an unprecedented sum, and that he was doing it in order to obviate the necessity for bringing in Supplementary Estimates. But we have had more Supplementary Estimates this current financial year than ever. That, says Deputy Kelly, is merely Fianna Fáil piety: that, says Deputy Dowdall, is merely a Fianna Fáil statement. I venture to describe Deputy Dowdall's paraphrase and Deputy Kelly's paraphrase of that conduct by the simple words, common hypocrisy.

An Ceann Comhairle

There is nothing whatever about Supplementary Estimates in this Vote. It has no connection with them. The matter which the Deputy is now raising might be raised on the Appropriation Bill or on the Central Fund Bill.

Mr. Dillon

I do not for a single moment desire to contest your ruling.

An Ceann Comhairle

There is only one way of testing the ruling of the Chair and that is by formal motion.

Mr. Dillon

And I at once discharge myself from any desire to act in a disorderly way. If I get an undertaking from the Minister for Finance that there will be no Supplementary Estitimates, I am surely entitled to protest when there has been a betrayal of that undertaking; an undertaking that was given in order to induce the House to pass the original Estimates.

An Ceann Comhairle

But not on this Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

I think I should be entitled to do it on any Supplementary Estimate—to negative this undertaking.

An Ceann Comhairle

Quite right in reference to this particular Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

And, in so far as it negatives the undertaking given by the Minister for Finance, I protest. I think I have made my point clear. I am grateful to Deputy Kelly for having crossed my t's, dotted my i's and pointed the moral. I trust that his younger colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, will learn that in the honest searchlight of the honest Deputy for the City of Dublin his qualities stand out in their true form.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy's protest will be noted.

Vote put and agreed to.