He has not produced any opinion to contradict any of the opinions we have given here on the constitutionality of these proposals. Furthermore, I criticised the Brennan Commission on the arguments that they produced, and I am going to deal with the Minister's observations about my comments on them in a moment. I criticised that report, based as it was on the alleged unconstitutionality of the arbitration proposals. I dissected and analysed their statements and arguments, and showed the fallacies in them, and showed that they really had no real appreciation of the constitutional position. There is not a single phrase from start to finish in the Minister's speech that he has any authority for, or that he now stands over or tries to stand over the proposition that setting up an arbitration board of this kind would be contrary to the provisions of either the old or new Constitution. That is definitely and finally abandoned in the Minister's speech. That was the basis of the argument of the Brennan Commission's interim report. That was why I criticised the findings and the arguments in that report. When I criticised that report in this House I had not the faintest idea of who the members of that commission were, and I was not interested in who they were. What I was interested in was their arguments, their opinions, and the reasons for their opinions. Any person's opinion is only worth the value of the reasons he offers for his opinion. I criticised these opinions, and the reasons and the arguments put forward by the Brennan Commission, and not a single one of the arguments I advanced, or the opinions I gave, constitutionally or otherwise, cutting the ground from under every single line of the arguments in that report has been answered in the speech of the Minister for Finance.
What does he do? He alleges that I made a personal attack on the members of the Commission. That was a foul method of trying to deal with the reasoned argument I made. I repeat every single word of the argument I made last April 12 months. I criticised that Brennan Commission, and I stand over every word I said, and I repeat it here, and would go through it again if I had time. I made no attack on the personnel of that Commission. I did not even know who they were, and did not care. But, what I was interested in was their reasons and opinions. I took their opinions and reasons and I argued from their reasons and showed their reasons to be fallacies and their conclusions untenable, and, therefore, unsound. Not a single one of the arguments I put forward at that time was subsequently answered in the speech of the Minister. Is there any greater justification for the criticisms I have levelled at the Brennan Commission report than the Minister's own speech and the omissions from that speech? That is my justification for the speech I made, the criticisms I made then, and which I repeat here now with emphasis and with still greater conviction.
Deputy Briscoe, and even the Minister, in the course of his speech, endeavoured to create the atmosphere that the civil servants, in making demands that they were making for an arbitration board, were asking for something beyond what the British civil servants have got from their Government and which they enjoy at the present time. I made it clear last April 12 months, and in the opening statement on this motion, that the claims and demands of the Irish civil servants could be met by some concession similar to that granted to British civil servants. Give us the same type of arbitration for our civil servants as British civil servants have under the British Treasury and we shall be perfectly content.
We recognised, as can be verified from the two speeches I made, that it is the duty of the Minister to guard the taxpayers' money and to prevent increased taxation. Above all, it is the duty, not alone of the Minister, but of every Deputy in this House, no matter to what Party he belongs, to preserve the paramount right of the Dáil over finance and to keep the control of the purse. It is not the Minister who has the control of the purse or who has imposed upon him the statutory duty of safeguarding the public purse. It is the people's representatives, in the people's Parliament, who have that duty and that right. That is the constitutional right that the Minister wants to take from them. He wants to take that right from the people's control and put it in control of the Minister for Finance and, through the Minister for Finance, under the control of permanent civil servants.
Civil servants in seeking this arbitration machinery have consistently stated that their claims are subject to that paramount right of control of the Dáil. They have made it clear on every occasion. I made it clear, speaking in favour of this motion and on every occasion on which I have advocated their claims. I said that if there was anything wrong in the arbitration machinery suggested by the civil servants, if there was anything wrong in putting their proposals into operation, then there must be something constitutionally wrong with the British scheme and there was something wrong in the operation of that machinery in England. But, as we know, the arbitration machinery in England has been operated for many years to the great satisfaction of the Civil Service there, of the Ministry in England, and the British taxpayer.
There is no use in Deputy Briscoe getting up here in the last few minutes, asking us are we going to increase taxation. The Deputy and his Party have increased taxation to the extent of nearly £750,000 during the time they have been in office, by the recruitment of civil servants rendered necessary by the policy which they were operating. It ill becomes Deputy Briscoe or Deputy Corry to taunt this Party about increased taxation. It was because of the conservative finance of the last Government and their safeguarding of public finances during the ten years they were responsible for the government of this country, that the present Government could for the last six years, pursue an uninterrupted rake's progress in dissipating the resources built up by Deputy Cosgrave and his Ministers when they were in control. It is because of the sound financial condition of the nation's finances when Deputy Cosgrave left office that we can now emerge successfully as a solvent State from that orgy of spending to negotiate with the British Government. It ill becomes the Minister for Finance, or any of his back-benchers, to cast charges of that against Deputy Cosgrave anybody else on this side of the House.
Deputy Briscoe asked me if I could reconcile my attitude with the attitude of Deputy Cosgrave. If Deputy Briscoe will read the speech which I made last April 12 months, he will see the answer there. I have not the time, nor the desire, to repeat it now but I anticipated then what the Minister would say. The Minister had shown no desire then to get on his legs to answer any of the arguments or to take part in the debate at all, and I had to anticipate some of the arguments which would be advanced if he did speak. I anticipated that he would have a rap at the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. The Minister forgot, in speaking, to have that rap at the Cumann na nGaedheal Government and he put up Deputy Briscoe to have that rap to-night. The answer is there, given by me on the 28th April, 1937. We had, during that period of ten years when Deputy Cosgrave was President of the Executive Council, to stand up to a campaign of vilification and slander the like of which was never known in the history of any democratic State, a campaign led by the Minister himself with the support of Deputies like Deputy Briscoe and Deputy Corry. It is a pity that Deputy Corry is now deprived of the opportunity of filling a rôle that well becomes him, the rôle of a sort of Walt Disney hobgoblin, dancing round the cross-roads with his placard showing the salaries of the judges from the Chief Justice down—the same salaries, by the way, which are still being paid, but only to a greater number of judges—the salaries that are paid to Ministers, which are again at the same figure as when Deputy Cosgrave was in office— salaries all of which are voted by Deputy Briscoe and Deputy Corry. I do not want, however, to go into these matters.
In my opening statement I said that I put this motion down immediately after the last general election, so that this thing could be taken out of party politics, once and for all. I want to get no votes, as has been alleged, out of this motion. We want to get no party advantage from this motion. If there is to be any question of party advantage or party disadvantage from voting on this motion, can you imagine the farmers who are members of this Party gaining any party advantage from voting for, or supporting, a motion of this kind? But they have the courage to do it. The Minister had not that courage although he must have been persuaded by the speeches made in this debate of the justice of this claim. It is because they are convinced of its justice, of its correctness and rectitude, but, above all things, because of the fact that in supporting a motion of this kind they believe they are doing something for the best interests of the general community, that members of this Party will vote for the motion.