Is the Money Resolution governing the principal Bill adequate for this Bill? Is there no separate Money Resolution required for this Bill?
Registration of Births and Deaths Bill, 1936—Committee and Final Stages.
Question proposed: "That Section 1 stand part of the Bill."
There is no expense to the Exchequer involved, I understand, in this Bill.
The local authority defrays the expenses.
Will there be no expense on the Exchequer at all?
No.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 2, 3, 4, 5 and the Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment and received for final consideration.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."
I should like to ask the Minister whether it is intended to increase the remuneration of assistant registrars. Since this Bill came before the House, a few letters have reached me from assistant registrars, pointing out that in fact they do a great deal of the work, which, of course, as we all know, is true. They can find in the Bill no suggestion that they are to receive any better remuneration than they obtained in the past. They want to know if there is any provision in the Bill to increase their remuneration. If there is no such provision, is it the intention of the Minister to encourage local authorities to give them better remuneration than they are now receiving?
Such is my intention.
Before the Bill finally passes, I should like to draw attention to a point that has not yet been raised as far as I know. That is, that there are some dispensary districts in which there are two doctors with co-equal status. These districts are situated generally in cities or county boroughs. The senior dispensary doctor in such a district is generally the registrar, and the junior dispensary doctor is the assistant registrar. So far as I know, when either of them retires, I think I am quite right in saying, the remuneration received is taken into consideration for pension purposes. At the present time the amount received from the office of registrar of births and deaths is divided equally amongst them. This Bill seems to make a provision for a small increase simply for the registrar without any increase for the assistant registrar. I should like to mention that fact so that at some future date that omission might be remedied, and so that the services of the assistant registrar who has an equal amount of work to do and who is equally recognised with the registrar by the Department, would be taken into consideration and the same amount awarded to him as is given to the registrar.
My intention was that the assistant registrars, where such exist—there are not many, so far as I know—would be paid an increase proportionate to that set out for registrars. So far as I know, in practically all cases, where there are assistant registrars they merely do holiday duty. That is the case with medical men who are acting as assistant registrars with the approval of the Minister. They act usually only when the medical officer is on vacation or is absent for reasons of ill-health. They will be paid in future an increase proportionate to that paid to the registrar.
May I say that I do not think the Minister is quite correct? In big dispensary districts in Dublin, say, where there are two doctors, what actually happens is that one takes the deaths for one month, and the other takes the births for that month.
That is a purely private arrangement.
I know that in a country town if you went in to a country doctor to register a birth, whilst he was otherwise engaged, you would probably be thrown through the dining-room window. He would tell you: "Go back to the assistant registrar to register the birth." In fact, a busy doctor with numbers of patients waiting in his consulting room has not the time nor the opportunity to turn away from his patients to enter on the register that Patrick McNulty's son was born a week ago. In fact, it is the assistant registrar does all the routine work. Anyone living in a country town will tell the Minister that.
That is a private arrangement.
The Minister may say it is a private arrangement, but I am telling him what actually happens. What the Minister thinks ought to happen would probably happen if all the births were registered in the Custom House. I am telling him what happens when they are registered down the country and the assistant registrar does the work. What happens in the city I do not know. Let me assure the Minister that he is wrong in thinking that the assistant registrar only operates while the doctor is on holidays. In 90 per cent. of cases the registration is done by the assistant registrar.
Question put and agreed to.