Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 7 Jul 1936

Vol. 63 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Vote 5—Office of the Minister for Finance.

Mr. MacEntee

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £45,022 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, 1937, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Airgid, maraon le hOifig an Phághmháistir Ghenerálta.

That a sum not exceeding £45,022 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, 1937, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Finance, including the Paymaster-General's Office.

General Mulcahy

I do not know whether it is strictly appropriate to this Vote or not, but I think the Minister for Finance, in his capacity as such, is endeavouring to hoodwink the people on a very important matter. He is co-operating generally in a policy that on the outside bears the stamp of being an industrial development policy, but which is, in fact, purely a taxation policy; a policy of taxation imposed in a very subtle and widespread way on the people, every class being unable to bear the burden.

An Ceann Comhairle

We dealt with that on the Budget Resolutions. The Minister for Finance can scarcely be held responsible for all that on this Vote. That is a matter of the Government's industrial policy rather than one arising out of a Vote dealing with the office of the Minister for Finance.

General Mulcahy

Am I not entitled to discuss the situation seeing that £2,000,000 more were raised in customs last year than in 1931-32, following a period of years when an almost similar amount was raised £1,500,000—in circumstances in which the additional employment has not been more than 2,000 a year, if as much as that?

An Ceann Comhairle

I think the Deputy realises that that has nothing to do with the Finance Bill.

General Mulcahy

I think it is of the utmost importance to discuss it in connection with the Minister's office. What really does it matter what finicky details of administration are dealt with wrongly or rightly in his Department, if the general effect of his policy is to impose these burdens on the people? They are imposed as if they were for the purpose of industrial production but, not having that effect, they are simply searching the pockets of every person.

Mr. Cosgrave

Previous to the Minister coming into office, very elaborate promises were held out to the Civil Service about promoting greater peace in that service than there was there previous to this Government coming in. An arbitration board was to be set up. If my recollection is correct the people who decided on this arbitration board were the civil servants themselves, but the Ministry, one and all, from top to bottom, said ditto to that. We have been waiting a long time for the board. It has not turned up yet. Perhaps the Minister could inform us when it is likely he will be able to arrive at such a decision as will give greater satisfaction to the Civil Service than appertains now. The second point to which I direct the Minister's attention is that he proposes to spend nearly £6,000 more on his Department than was spent last year. It is some time since I dealt with the increased cost of the Civil Service since the Minister came into office. My recollection is that it was nearly £750,000 over and above what it was four years ago. If one were to say what the prospects are like for the current year, as compared with the intervening four years, they can be seen in the extended Estimate for the Civil Service Commission. That Vote has gone up by over 50 per cent. during that period.

While one may enter no objection to an extension of such a service as the Civil Service if value is given for the expenditure entailed, the question arises at once: from which of the two industrial arms is any extra value coming? If our agriculture were prosperous we might perhaps be satisfied to see an extension of the Civil Service. If our secondary industrial arm were extending we might find some compensation in that extension which would provide the extra money that is needed to provide for a more extended Civil Service. I think it will be found that there has been no such relative extension in our productive capacity. While a greater amount of propaganda may be indulged in as to the extension of the secondary industrial arm, and while various statements may be made as to increased employment under that head, we do not find them reflected in what, after all, is the acid test in connection with the extension of employment in this country, namely, in the increased sums collected in unemployment insurance contributions. There has been an increase, but if one deducts from it the contributions traceable directly to the building industry one finds that there has been a negligible, if any, increase in other classes of employment. At the same time our indebtedness is increasing. It has increased under the Minister's administration and a great deal of it is dead-weight debt. Nobody questions expenditure on such necessary developments as the social improvements that should take place in any country, but one is entitled to sound a note of warning in connection with the present situation where costs of all sorts are on the increase.

The cost of our Civil Service is not alone increasing; indebtedness is growing at the same time and the expenditure which we are called upon to face has not yet made an impression on the purposes for which we might justify an extension of our indebtedness. Our dead-weight debt is growing. That is a matter which should be the concern of the Minister for Finance more than any other Minister of State. His job is two-fold. He has to impose taxes and collect revenue and he has to exercise the greatest possible care in the distribution and expenditure of the money collected to ensure that the public services are run efficiently and at the minimum cost. We cannot ignore the special circumstances that now obtain in this country; the fact that the agricultural industry was never in a worse plight than now, that profits from it are lower than they have been at any time in living memory, the fact that such extensions as have taken place in the industrial arm do not compensate for more than five per cent.—certainly it would be impossible for them to compensate for more than ten per cent.— of the losses incurred in the agricultural industry and the fact that the main costs of government must fall upon those whose livelihood is derived from the land and whose profits can only be realised from the land. In these circumstances, with an increasing demand not only for the Minister's Department but for the other Departments of State, with an increasing indebtedness, with an increasing taxation, with increasing costs upon the future as well as upon the present, the Minister would be well advised to take, in his capacity as Minister for Finance, the Executive Council into his confidence and warn them of the direction in which the country is proceeding.

Mr. MacEntee

I agree with the principle which Deputy Cosgrave has laid down, that it is not merely my job to impose taxes and to collect them, but also so far as I can, to ensure that the expenditure of the various spending Departments does not exceed what is requisite to give effect to the policy of the Government, the policy of the Dáil to which the Government is responsible, and the policy of the country, to which the Dáil is itself in turn responsible, because we cannot dissociate the policy of the Government or the policy of the Dáil from the policy of the country. We were returned by the electors to undertake certain things and to fulfil certain commitments to them. I would say that we have zealously endeavoured to fulfil these commitments. Every item in our election manifesto, with possibly one exception——

Mr. McMenamin

The £2,000,000

Mr. MacEntee

——we have, I think, succeeded in fulfilling. There is one matter in respect to which, because of special circumstances, we have not been able to do everything which we hoped to do, but I am not without hope that, when circumstances change and times improve, we shall succeed in doing even that. But I think, Sir, it would be wrong for the Dáil to think that I can either efficiently control the expenditure of the spending Departments and fulfil what I regard as possibly the most important function of the Minister for Finance—to exercise that control having regard to the resources of the State—unless the office of the Minister for Finance is adequately staffed. I think that if those who had experience of former administrations, bearing in mind the very numerous and very varied functions which my Department has to perform, look at the figures which are set out in the Estimate, they will see that we are not, bearing in mind our commitments, an extravagant Department. There is an increase in sub-head A for salaries. That is very largely due to the fact that our Department was one of those which was established at the change of Government. It was manned by officials who came in at the lower end of their salary scales in many cases, and each year, as the annual increments of the officers of the Department fall due, the total amount required for the sub-head of Salaries, Wages and Allowances must, in the ordinary course of events, increase also. I think it will also be seen that the increase in the numbers of the staff is a modest one. We have to provide this year for 131 officers as against 123 last year. It will be noted that of the total increase 25 per cent. is represented by the addition to the number of junior administrative officers, highly-qualified young men whom we are anxious to get into the Service in order that they may receive a proper training to become the future administrators of the various Departments of State. Another increase will be found in the ranks of the clerical officers, where the number has gone up from 22 last year to 26. I do not think that any person, who understands the amount of work the Department has to do, and particularly its increasing responsibility in connection with the new services which have been brought into being, will say that the increase is unjustified or unwarranted.

With regard to the other question which Deputy Cosgrave put to me, I would say, undoubtedly, we did indicate prior to the 1932 Election that we would be prepared to agree to an arbitration board being set up to deal with matters between the Civil Service and the Executive. But I have to say again what I have said before, that we never gave a blank cheque to any person. The question of arbitration is a very complicated one. We set up a most competent committee to investigate the matter in all its bearings. That committee brought in a number of reports, one signed by the overwhelming majority of the committee, and, so far as we are concerned, it is the Government's intention to implement that at the earliest possible moment.

Question put and agreed to.