Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 23 Nov 1938

Vol. 73 No. 6

Committee on Finance. - Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Bill, 1938—Second Stage.

Mr. MacEntee (Minister for Finance)

Perhaps in introducting this measure, I might give the House a brief history of the problem with which it deals. Prior to March, 1932, the salaries of Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries were at the rates contemplated by the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, that is to say, £2,500 for the office of President of the Executive Council; £1,700 for the other Ministers, and £1,100 for Parliamentary Secretaries, of which the equivalent of the Oireachtas allowance was free from taxation in each case. The Attorney-General was paid £2,500; the Ceann-Comhairle, £1,700; the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, £1,000; the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, £1,200, and the Leas-Chathaoirleach, £1,000. As from the 9th March, 1932, by administrative action, the salaries which the House was asked to vote were reduced and the following salaries were paid free of tax:—The President of the Executive Council, £1,500; other Ministers, £1,000; Parliamentary Secretaries, £900; the Attorney-General, £1,500; the Ceann Comhairle, £1,000; the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, £700. The salaries of the Cathaoirleach and the Leas-Cathaoirleach were not altered and these rates remained in force until 21st July of last year.

It is necessary that I should refer to the salaries which were paid during the period from March, 1932, until July of last year, because I want to emphasise that those salaries have been found to be quite insufficient to permit a Minister to meet the demands which are made upon him. In February, 1937, the Executive Council decided that in view of the approaching general election it was necessary to make the normal provision for ministerial salaries and this was accordingly done in the Estimates for 1937-38. On the 25th February, 1937, the President of the Executive Council made a statement to the Dáil calling specific attention to this, and he added:—

"This does not mean that the Ministers and others affected will, during the period of office still to expire, accept the statutory scales. They will accept the same net sums as heretofore. A general election, however, is due to take place during the coming financial year and I am convinced that it is in the public interest that before the election, and before the new Constitution is put into operation, the question of the position and remuneration of the whole-time public representatives should be fully examined. At some stage, therefore, when the new Constitution is under discussion, I shall propose the setting up of an independent commission to inquire into the matter of the remuneration of Ministers and other such officers as will function under the new Constitution. The Dáil will then, on receipt of the report, be asked to take a decision on the matter."

This statement was received with approval in all quarters of the House. Some delay took place in securing the necessary personnel for the Committee of Inquiry, but it was appointed on the 4th June, 1937. The Dáil was dissolved on the 14th June and a general election took place on 1st July.

The Committee, in the course of its inquiry, heard evidence from the then President of the Executive Council, the then Minister for Finance, the former President of the Executive Council, Deputy Cosgrave, and Mr. J. J. McElligott, the secretary of my Department. Confidential information furnished on request was received from the then Attorney-General and from the three former holders of that office. On the 24th November, 1937, the majority report of that Committee was signed by 12 of the 14 members; one member presented a minority report and another member signed neither report. The report of this Committee is a very closely-reasoned document of the first public importance relating, as it does, to some of the highest and most important offices of the State. It will repay careful study by all who believe in representative democracy, as it touches one of the problems which that system has to face, that of securing good and clean government.

The main objects of the present Bill are, first, to implement these recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry which the Government have decided to accept and, secondly, to make the statutory provision required by the Constitution and for the remuneration of the Attorney-General and the Chairmen and Deputy-Chairmen of the two Houses of the Oireachtas.

The salaries recommended in the majority report of the Committee of Inquiry were: for the Taoiseach, £3,000; the Tanaiste, £2,500; other members of the Government, £2,250; for the Parliamentary Secretaries, £1,400; for the Attorney-General, £2,250; for the Ceann Comhairle, £2,250; for the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, £1,100; for the Cathaoirleach, £1,200, and for the Leas-Chathaoirleach, £750, all fully subject to taxation.

The Government, after careful consideration of the Committee's report, has felt unable, in present circumstances, to accept the recommendations where they would involve increases in salaries. The rates in the Bill now before the House are, accordingly, in all cases those which were paid before March, 1932, and which have been restored since July, 1937. Although no change is being made in the maximum salaries payable to Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, it has been decided to provide for those salaries in this Bill and repeal the relative provision in the Ministers and Secretaries Act of 1924. This Bill, when enacted, will thus contain all the legislation relating to the remuneration of the holders of the offices in question, with the exception of the provision which is contained in the Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) Bill, which was introduced simultaneously with this Bill and the Second Stage of which, presumably, the House will concern itself with this evening.

I should say that the Government has found itself unable to accept the recommendation that the salary of the Attorney-General should be reduced, because it feels that it would not be in the public interest to increase, in any degree, the sacrifice which the acceptance of that office may involve for a leading member of the Bar. On the other hand, neither does the Bill implement the Committee's recommendation that the office of the Attorney-General should carry pension rights. Further, a minor departure from the recommendations regarding salaries appears in the Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) Bill to which I have referred. It proposes to continue the exemption originally provided for in Section 1 of the Oireachtas (Payment of Members) (Amendment) Act of 1925, in respect of allowances payable to members of the Oireachtas. All this matter dealing with the salaries of Ministers and other public officers will be found in Part II of the Bill.

Part III of the Bill provides for the payment of allowances for expenses to leaders of the second and third largest Parties in Dáil Eireann, excluding, of course, the Government Party, on the lines of the majority report. I should like to make it clear that this money is being provided not in any sense as a salary either to the leader of the largest Opposition Party or to the leader of the second largest Party in the Dáil, but is payable mainly as a contribution towards the expense of discharging adequately the duties and functions of that office. The desirability of making such an allowance will be clear if we consider the theory upon which parliamentary government rests. In the realm of public affairs there is a function not merely for the initiator, the projector of legislation, so to speak, and for the administrator of the public estate, but for the critic who, to serve the public good, will bring the critical faculty to bear upon all proposals and all actions of the Government of the day. It is obvious that those upon whom, as the result of public election, this task of critical examination devolves, should be as well equipped for it as possible. They should certainly not be called upon to bear in their private capacities the full financial burden of discharging that public duty. It is as a contribution towards the cost of this public work that the allowances set out in this Bill are being provided.

No one who is familiar with the expense involved in maintaining active opposition in Parliament will pretend that the amounts here provided will cover anything like the whole cost. Nevertheless, since the proposals are largely experimental, the Government has not felt justified in enlarging upon the recommendations of the Committee. Provision has been made in the Bill for the solution of difficulties which may arise in determining the Parties to whom the allowances are payable and for ensuring that what may be merely a temporary reduction in the strength of the third Party, due to a casual vacancy, will not result in the suspension of the allowance. As it is not considered desirable that the allowances to the leaders of the second and the third Parties should be subject to review annually on the Estimates for Public Services, provision has been made in the Bill for the payment of the allowances out of the Central Fund.

Part IV of the Bill is concerned with the grant of pensions to former holders of qualifying office, and to the widows of such persons on their death, and the grant of allowances during minority to the orphaned children of such persons. Deputies who have compared the provisions of the Bill with the report of the Committee of Inquiry will have observed that, with one major exception, to which I shall refer later on, the Bill is broadly based upon the Committee's recommendations in regard to all its essential features. The justification for the provision of a pension to an ex-Minister, who has served for a minimum period in office-three years is the period prescribed in the report and in the Bill-is set out in some detail in paragraph 66 of the report of the Committee. There it is pointed out that such provision as is now proposed would help, firstly, to reduce the extent of the financial sacrifice which is involved in taking ministerial or parliamentary office because of the enforced severance of all active connection with the office-holder's original occupation or profession, and because of the impracticability during the years of office of making any provision for the future of himself and his family. The severity of this sacrifice may often only be realised after the cesser of office. Whilst the provisions of this part of the Bill, that is, of Part IV, are mainly intended to cover future contingencies, and admitting that self-government in this country is, comparatively speaking, as yet only in its infancy, there is, unfortunately, already sufficient experience to afford evidence of the need for some means of preventing this consideration from becoming an increasingly powerful deterrent from the acceptance of political office. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Committee of Inquiry recommended the grant of pensions, not merely for the reasons to which I have referred, but as an inducement towards retaining in political life ex-Ministers who have gained, in the responsibilities of office, a special knowledge of public affairs and a firsthand experience of public administration which makes them, when not in office, the most valuable members of the Oireachtas.

Whilst the Government have felt compelled to depart from the Committee's recommendations in regard to remuneration during office, they have decided to accept in principle the views of the Committee as to pensions and allowances payable on application after cesser of office. In fact, they have taken the responsibility in one respect of going further than has been recommended. The general conclusion of the Committee was that Parliamentary Secretaries, who had held office for a period of not less than four years, should be eligible on retirement for the award of a gratuity equivalent to one year's salary. The Government regret that they are unable to accept that recommendation. With the special knowledge which they possess of the services rendered by Parliamentary Secretaries, and of the risks and sacrifices, actual and prospective, which they, equally with Ministers, incur in thus serving the public, and of the disabilities under which they likewise suffer as regards providing for the future of themselves and their families, the Government have in this Bill provided for the grant of pensions to and in respect of Parliamentary Secretaries, but at two-thirds of the rate appertaining to ministerial office. That is an approximate proportion to the differences in their salaries and their responsibilities.

The rates proposed for children's allowances are identical in each case, and I have no doubt that they will meet with the approval of the House.

As I have already stated, the main provisions of this part of the Bill are based broadly on the recommendations of the Committee. In the case of widows' pensions and of orphans' allowances during minority, which were recommended in principle, the Committee found difficulty in prescribing a detailed scheme and in specifying definite amounts, but the Government have accepted as pointers the tentative conclusions of the Committee in a certain paragraph of the report that widows' pensions should not exceed £250 a year; that the allowance for each orphan under 18 years of age should be at the rate of £30 a year, and that special provision should be made to meet the case of orphans whose parents were both dead. It will, I think, be generally accepted by this House that the pension for which her deceased husband's service in office would have qualified him, and that the allowance payable to an orphan during minority should be raised from £30 to £50 if deprived by death of the support and guidance of its second parent, and the Bill provides accordingly.

Turning to the definition of ministerial office, it will be seen that it applies both retrospectively and prospectively, and covers all those who have already held Cabinet office under the first, second, or third Dáil Eireann, or who have been members of the Provisional Government or of the Executive Council of Saorstát Eireann, or who held the office of Ceann Comhairle in this House, as well as those who now function or will in future function as members of the Government under the new Constitution or as Ceann Comhairle here. All this is in accordance with the views which the Committee expressed in the report.

I should perhaps make a particular reference to the position of the Attorney-General. As I have said, the Government has felt unable to accept the recommendation to make the post of Attorney-General a pensionable one. Let me say at once that the Government has not reached this conclusion without much hesitation. I know that it may be argued against it that the Attorney-General shares with Ministers under the Constitution the obligation to vacate office on the resignation of the Taoiseach, that as generally recognised head of the Bar he has to maintain a social position higher perhaps than if he were engaged purely in private practice, that whilst theoretically or in fact he does not relinquish the practice of his profession he must at least temporarily relinquish his professional connection —an important sacrifice representing the accumulated results, the goodwill, so to speak, of a long time of effort.

In addition, it may be urged that he has, in common with the Ministers of the Government for which he is acting as legal adviser, to meet the vicissitude of resignation and to try, thereafter, to re-establish his private position at the Bar against the competition, not perhaps of better minds, but certainly of men of fresher and, possibly, younger physique, and that, in an occupation and profession so labourious as the Bar, is admittedly a very heavy handicap. I admit at once the cogency of every one of these considerations. The Government have given them all full value in their examination of the question of pensionability. But there are countervailing circumstances which, on the other hand, we have not found it possible to ignore. To begin with, the Attorney-General, unlike most Ministers, remains, during the period of his office, in touch with his profession, and it is only to be expected that the enhancement of professional status, which results from his occupation of the exalted position of Attorney-General, and the specialised knowledge he thereby obtains of certain branches of the profession, should secure for him, in the event of his leaving office, a place among the leaders of the Bar. These, as I said, are the pros and cons of the problem, and, rightly or wrongly, the Government has come to a conclusion opposite to that arrived at by the Committee of Inquiry, and accordingly no provision is made in this Bill for making pensionable the office of Attorney-General.

I do not propose at this stage to go into other matters of detail, embodied in the Bill, which are either consequential on the conclusions already mentioned, or are of minor importance in the framework of the scheme. Before concluding, however, I should perhaps call attention to sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph (d) of sub-section (4) of Section 13, in the first portion of which double pensionable value is given for services rendered before the 11th July, 1921. As the House is aware there are statutory precedents for this. In the Military Service Pensions Act and similar Acts there are precedents for making special provision for particular services, and I think this House will accept that sub-section without question as being merely what is due to those who bore the brunt of the leadership in that historic period. Most of the surviving Ministers of that day are already qualified for maximum pension under the other provisions of this Bill and would not need the reckoning of that period of service in the manner prescribed but a few former leaders who have gone have left dependants but ill-provided for, dependants who would not otherwise be eligible for awards, and the Government have felt that it would be invidious and entirely contrary to the wishes of this House if a provision of this nature were to be made for those now surviving and the others to be excluded.

In submitting and recommending this Bill for the approval of Dáil Eireann, I welcome the opportunity of paying on behalf of the Government, a tribute to the thoroughness with which the Committee of Inquiry discharged the duties entrusted to them, and to the good sense and careful appreciation of the public interest which they displayed in the recommendations embodied in this report. They have facilitated the preparation of this difficult and, in some of its personal aspects, to this Government, rather invidious measure. In framing the Bill, the Government on their part have done their utmost to emulate the spirit of the Committee and to weigh with equal care what they genuinely and sincerely believe to be the best interests of the country. We have tried to have just and due regard, on the one hand, to the standards on which the State can afford to base the life of its public men, and, on the other, to the financial prospects which those who devote their abilities to the necessary service of their fellow-men in a political career must perforce abandon. We have taken some time to reach the conclusions embodied in this Bill, and much thought has been given to its provisions. We submit it now for the consideration of Dáil Eireann, in the belief that it will contribute materially towards attracting high-minded, competent persons to office in the service of their country, and towards preserving proper and right standards of democratic government here in future.

Dr. O'Higgins

In supporting the principles of this Bill, I should like in the first place to call attention to the fact that this is not a Bill produced, in itself, by the Government, and certainly not, as has been alleged, a Bill produced as a result of a conspiracy between the various political Parties in this House. Deputies who were present here two years ago will recollect that a suggestion was made from the Government Bench to refer the questions included in this Bill to a commission or committee whose duty it would be to take evidence and inquire very fully into the advisability of providing pensions, and into the adequacy of Dáil officers' salaries. A large committee was got together, fairly representative of the political Parties, representing the professional classes, representing the industrial classes, and-perhaps the highest percentage of members on that Committee -representing the agricultural community. That Committee was made up of people of very different classes, different religions and different political affiliations and, as one member of that Committee—no matter whether their recommendations are popular or unpopular—I should like to say that I never witnessed any committee or any group of men who went about their work as sincerely and as impartially as the members of that particular Committee. It sat for many months, held very many meetings, took evidence from a considerable number of persons, consulted authorities from practically every European nation, and at the end of months of very genuine and sincere work compiled a report making certain recommendations.

In the main, the recommendations are incorporated in this Bill. They based those recommendations, not prompted by the idea of trying to do better for X, Y or Z, but prompted solely by the idea of trying to do the right thing for this country as a comparatively young, democratic State, and guided by the experience of 18 years, assisted by the evidence of members of two Administrations, they came in the first place to the conclusion that, after a period of ministerial office, some provision should be made by way of pension. That was establishing no new precedent in Dáil Eireann. Many pensions Bills of different kinds have gone through this Dáil, pensions Bills for holders of high office, pensions Bills for people who rendered military service and, instead of having to defend or justify the procedure of giving pensions to those who served the State, in my opinion the boot is on the other foot. In my opinion, if there are any opponents of this particular Bill, or of the principle contained in this Bill, the responsibility is on them to justify a situation under which the only officers of the State who would be non-pensionable are those who hold or have held the highest office; those who have carried on their shoulders the greatest responsibilities; those who have held an office by virtue of which, to all intents and purposes, they are rendered unemployable for a long period after they have left that office.

I speak not only as a member of the commission but as a person who is an intimate friend of those who have been Ministers in this State. All Parties at least will believe this, that after a man has ceased to be a Minister, when his political fortunes are down, when his political Party is down, he is the one man in all Ireland who can be regarded as unemployable. In other countries the same thing does not prevail. In other countries when a man ceases to be a Minister, having had administrative experience, having had years of experience in dealing with statistics and trade and finance, every big corporation, every big industrial board is running after him to get him on their board of directors, but in our country our experience has been that, whether a man belongs to the commercial or professional classes, certainly for years after he has become an ex-Minister he is definitely untouchable. His cause is down. His Party is unpopular. We cannot all the time expect people to serve the State only by making the very gravest sacrifices. In the past people did it. When they embarked on a political career most of them were single. When people enter into wedlock they take on their shoulders responsibilities which they dare not and cannot ignore, and in my opinion no young man with a prospect either in professional life or industrial life would, with the experience that we have had, embark on a full-time political career unless some provision were made for the time after he ceases to be a Minister. We know this, that if there is any business or any position which is designed and calculated to be the most difficult, it is that of the political head of a Department in any country, because when he is doing his job it is the duty of all other Parties in the Parliament to criticise his every act. That is what keeps him up to the mark. That is the assurance the public outside has that nothing will go through without full examination, full consideration and full discussion, but the result of all that is to harass and break down the political head of any Department. He is faced with opposition, faced with criticism, faced with having to justify every word and every line of every Bill. Outside, in commercial and industrial life, three or four times the salaries paid to Ministers here are paid to and well earned by people whose responsibility is not a fraction of that of any Minister at any time in this country. Everybody is there to help them, and no one is there to criticise.

Do any of the critics of the principle contained in this Bill really make allowance for the strain under which Ministers have lived in the past, for the strain under which they live at the moment, or the strain under which they will always live? Does anyone make allowance for the amount of mental energy that is used up in a few years in a Government Front Bench? Does anyone make allowance for the amount by which a life is shortened by the strain and responsibility? Does anyone think of the generous way in which this Irish Parliament has in the past treated others who gave good service to the State? Do they think of the precedents established, and can they think of any sound reasons for departing from those precedents in the case of a couple of dozen men? One of the earliest Acts of this Parliament was to provide pensions for those who founded this State. Five or six days' service under arms was reckoned as service of years. Every man, no matter how young, who carried firearms in Easter Week was pensioned, and rightly pensioned. Yet, criticisms are aimed at this Bill on the ground that the men concerned are comparatively young. They are nearly 20 years older to-day than when that Bill was passed with acclamation, and I see no real distinction between the men who struggled to lay the foundations of the State and those who built on the foundations that were laid by others. We in this country, which prides itself on being one of the leading democratic States, have, in the light of experience, to choose between keeping this Parliament a real democratic institution, or in the course of time reviving a situation whereby this Parliament will only be the hunting ground of the comparatively rich.

Speaking with knowledge, I can say that not two out of the previous Ministry could have afforded to go back into the Government if the political tide had been otherwise at the last two general elections-not two out of the whole lot. A burnt cat dreads the fire. These men, in their time, had experience of giving up six, eight or ten of the best years of their lives to the work of the State, and then in the forties, with families, they found themselves faced with the job of competing with comparatively young men, to resume their previous profession or business careers. Nobody suggests or believes that any Minister who fulfils his office with credit, as the representative of a young State, is in a position to put by money, no matter what his salary is. What he spends or what he has to lay out is not spent or laid out as an individual, but as one with the high political responsibility of office. When a Minister goes to other places, he has got to spend money, not as an individual, but as a representative of the State. He has got to meet representatives of other States, and all that is costly. No Minister has ever succeeded in putting by money as a Minister. There is no Minister that I have known who did not leave office considerably poorer than on the day he took up office. If this Bill is opposed, it will be opposed on the grounds that we must all the time expect people to make sacrifices; that we must all the time expect people to serve their country only by doing an unjust thing to their dependents and those who rely upon them.

From an Opposition Bench I support this Bill with pride. I think it can be said that there are very few Bills coming from the other side that I support. I support this Bill with pride, because I think it is doing a just thing by people who, at least, deserve justice. We will, I expect, have a type of carping criticism, that we are pensioning a person after three years' work, and that such was never heard of before. Of course, it was heard of before. That argument is about as honest as if I were to say that you are giving a pension of £500 a year to a man who was a Minister for 30 years. Any of us could take up an experiment and argue on it, if we were sufficiently dishonest to do so, by saying that this Bill gives a pension of £300 a year to a Minister who has been only three years in office. That is true. But this Bill gives a pension of £500 a year, and only a pension of £500 a year, to a Minister who has been 33 years in office, and it would be as fair to argue from one end of the scale as from the other. The fact of the matter is, after 18 years, and two, three or five Governments, I do not think there is any Minister pensionable after such a short term as three years. The normal life for a Minister is, at least, one whole Parliament. According to our experience the average life of a Ministry is two whole Parliaments. The average man who, in the course of time, will be pensionable under this Bill, is a man who has served for ten years, and if the ordinary ebb and flow is similar to other countries, there will be a return now and then of one or two lots, who may be on pension or be ex-pensioners, to become Ministers.

The amount of money involved in the Bill is rather small. At its peak point, I expect the cost will not amount to £6,000 per annum, allowing for practically two whole Ministries being on pension at the same time. I have heard arguments against this Bill on the ground of the increased taxation. Any argument that is really honest should be patiently listened to. I have not taken a pencil in my hand, but roughly I would say that we have something over 1,000,000 taxpayers. Some are well-to-do, and some are very poor, but the cost of this Bill would be something less than 1d. per taxpayer per annum. I do not believe any taxpayer is going to get excited about the cost to himself or herself of 1d. per year.

There are some points in the Bill of which I do not approve. In the first place I think discrimination between the Attorney-General and a member of the Government, is neither defensible nor justifiable. Whatever arguments could be advanced—and they are unlimited—with regard to a Minister's loss of contact with his trade or profession during his term as Minister, everyone of these arguments apply with equal force to the Attorney-General. It is my belief that they apply with greater force to an Attorney-General than to any other member of the Cabinet. The Attorney-General in this country is a barrister. A barrister makes his living, not so much from the public as through being the direct agent of so many solicitors. It is the custom with solicitors to have their leaders and their juniors. When a man leaves the Bar and comes here as Attorney-General, every one of these solicitors has got to get some other leader in his place. At the end of five, six or seven years when the Attorney-General returns to the Bar what is the position? Every one of these solicitors has got another leader, a man who has done their work adequately, competently and honestly. No solicitor could say to a man who had been representing him for seven years: "You have got to get out now, because X or Y is back." These solicitors have got to maintain the connection with the man who served them for seven years. In my opinion, the Attorney-General's lot in returning to his profession is, at least, as hard as that of any Minister.

I cannot see justification for discriminating between the Attorney-General and any other member of the Government. In fact, we all know that he is a member of the Government, carrying perhaps greater responsibility than any of the others, because he is the adviser of all in a crisis, sitting as a member of the Executive Council in all but voting. In every sense of the word his task is equal to that of the others, and on leaving his plight is, at least, as bad as any of the other members of the Government. On every matter there is a certain amount of division of opinion, but I strongly urge that there should not be discrimination against one individual. A Government is a team. The Attorney-General is one member of that team. Discrimination against one man is unjustifiable. His time, his responsibility, and his loss of contact with his normal work, equals that of any other member of the Government, and instead of disimproving it, this Bill would be improved by treating the Attorney-General as one of the team. I ask the Minister to bring under the consideration of the Government the inclusion of the Attorney-General in this Bill.

There is another point on which I have to criticise this Bill, and it is a point in which it departs from the recommendation of the commission. In its very early days it came under the notice of the commission that there were certain hardships being imposed while the commission was sitting; that if the ultimate recommendation was in the direction of a pension for ex-Ministers, or the dependents of ex-Ministers, then delay by the commission would be adversely affecting such persons. The commission itself was then faced with the task of doing the work in a hurry, meeting three, four or five days a week, or doing it in a way that suited their own convenience better by merely meeting once a week. It suited the members better only to meet once a week, but that meant very long delay in bringing in the report, and consequential delay in bringing in a Bill. One of the earliest decisions taken by the commission, therefore, so as not to prejudice any potential pensioner under the Bill, was that whatever recommendations were made by the commission should apply as from 1st April, 1937. The commission met only once a week. Their work was interrupted by a general election. That election suspended the work of the commission for quite a long period. Finally, the report was circulated and the implementation of the report by way of a Bill was again interrupted by another general election. It might be unreasonable now to urge that the date fixed by the commission be adhered to, but at least it is reasonable to urge that the provisions contained in this Bill should be given effect to as from 1st April of the present financial year.

With regard to the provision made for widows and children, I think the provision made for children is entirely inadequate, particularly a child who is left without either father or mother. In this Bill we give half the Minister's pension to the widow and we allow £30 per child up to the age of 18. In the event of the mother dying and the child being left without either parent, we increase the £30 to £50. I consider that that is an absolutely inadequate sum. That child, in the first place, has grown up in a Minister's household. Subsequently, between the mother and itself there is an income say of, £300. Then the mother dies and the child is thrown on the world with £50 per year behind it. It is entirely out of proportion and entirely inadequate. I believe that some more generous provision should be made for children than is made in this Bill, particularly in the case of a child left without either of its parents. With regard to the age at which the child allowance ceases, I think nobody will differ from the suggestion that the allowance should be continued up to 21 years of age.

There is another type of case to which I should like to call attention. The principle contained in this Bill is more or less as between Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries; that time served as a Minister counts higher than time served as a Parliamentary Secretary. In the rough, I would say it is in the proportion of three years to two years; that two years as a Minister is equal to three years as a Parliamentary Secretary. Where a person has served as a Minister and subsequently as a Parliamentary Secretary, or first as a Parliamentary Secretary and subsequently as a Minister, then the sum is more or less made up by counting two years as a Minister as equal to three as a Parliamentary Secretary. I suggest, without departing from that principle, that where a Minister has served only as a Minister, and not in both capacities, he should have the option of converting his period in office into that of a Parliamentary Secretary and getting a pension accordingly. I am referring to a case, say, where a Minister spent two years and 11 months as a Minister. Under this Bill, that would be equivalent to five years as a Parliamentary Secretary. If he were allowed five years as a Parliamentary Secretary, he would be pensionable; but if we stick rigidly in that case to his Ministerial service and do not allow conversion, then he is a month short of getting anything.

Generally, with regard to the Bill, I have only one further word to say. This report and its recommendations have been before the country for something more than a year. The report was published in full. Every daily and provincial newspaper published the outlines of that report. The full recommendations were within the knowledge of everybody capable of reading. We had a general election since, and no individual that I am aware of, and certainly no Party, challenged the recommendations. In other words, it is reasonable to say that if any Bill got the approval of the people, at a time when the people had an opportunity of expressing approval or disapproval, that Bill got the approval of the people.

I know that it is politically attractive to criticise this type of measure. I know that there is a big political attraction in criticising expenditure, not because of the volume of the expenditure, but because it is particularly attractive to criticise expenditure when that money is going to individuals, no matter how and when the money has been earned. There is something characteristic about people that they can look on without being perturbed at the expenditure of millions, even the misspending of millions—it will create no excitement. But the reasonable expenditure of pounds, if it is going directly into the pockets of any known individuals, particularly if these individuals happen to be in public life, will rouse all the patriotic fervour of people talking on behalf of the oppressed taxpayer.

This is an Assembly that is spending money week after week in one direction or another. If a case is to be made against this particular Bill on the grounds of the increased taxation which it will mean, then I would ask the person who makes that case to calculate exactly what it will mean to the individual taxpayer. Remember that we have got to choose between having a Government of wealthy people or having the position that the seats of Government should be open to the comparatively poor or to the very poorest. If we were a highly wealthy nation, dealing with a people of great resources, then there would be no necessity to consider a measure of this type. But this measure exudes the real spirit of giving expression to what democracy should mean—that the seats of Government are open to the poor and are not the monopoly of the rich.

Mr. Cogan

I cannot agree with the previous speaker that this Bill has been before the country for the past couple of years, or that it has been subjected to the approval of the people at the recent elections. As far as I am aware, the plain people were absolutely unaware that any such measure as this was intended. There was, of course, in various newspapers a hint that there was some question of introducing legislation to increase salaries for Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, but suggestions of this kind were always denied. People were told that there was nothing in them, and the people accepted that view. They generally felt that for some time to come there would be no alteration in the salaries of the Ministers and Secretaries, and in the allowances to members of this House. As far as I am concerned, as one member of this House, I must say that this Bill came to me as a complete surprise. I had no idea that such measures were contemplated, and I was completely astounded when I received copies of those two Bills now under consideration.

I cannot agree with the previous speaker that the people of this country are satisfied that this measure is necessary; that it is so urgently necessary that it should be passed this year. At the present time we must remember that the people of this country, particularly the people engaged in the agricultural industry, are passing through a very severe economic crisis. It is no answer to these people to say that the amount of money involved in this Bill is comparatively small. I admit that the amount directly involved is comparatively small. But there is a principle introduced here which will certainly impose a further increased burden upon the taxpayers of this country. If we agree that the members of the Government and the leaders of the political Parties should be provided for to such an extent that they should not suffer any loss, and that all their grievances should be looked into, are we not faced with the fact that every paid official in this State, every servant of the Government, will have an unanswerable claim for having his grievances looked into and redressed, and for having his income increased?

As a result of the measures which are being introduced now we will have demands from every paid official of this State and from every pensioner of this State for a review of his position in the light of this measure. If we start at the lowest rung of the ladder, if we start with the lowest body of pensioners, the old age pensioners, what do we find? We find people who have worked for 50 or 60 years and have reached the age of 70 compelled to make application to a local committee. Their means are investigated by a number of inspectors, and if they have any means whatever these means are taken into consideration in assessing their pensions. The mere fact that these applicants for the old age pension are living on a small holding, which belongs not to themselves, but to their children, is taken into consideration and they are awarded a pension of 5/- or 6/- a week. They are not awarded the maximum pension allowed by this State. These people will now feel they have a grievance—that they have been treated very harshly in comparison with people in higher positions.

There is another effect which a measure of this kind will have—that is its psychological effect upon the taxpayers of the country generally. I refer to its effect on the people who are struggling to meet the calls and the demands that are made on them. These people will naturally feel that they are being unfairly treated. As they are being called upon to make sacrifices they will, naturally, ask why it is that those in higher positions in this State are not also asked to make sacrifices. If an army engaged in warfare in a very difficult and dangerous position find that their officers are in a position of comparative safety the effect upon the ordinary rank and file is demoralising. The ordinary rank and file here are the taxpayers. These are engaged in warfare against acute poverty. They are engaged in a desperate struggle to maintain themselves and to secure for themselves the very barest living. Now if these people find that the men who are directing the affairs of this State and making the laws under which they have to live—laws which they find to a great extent harsh—are given these large increases, they will come to the conclusion that they are labouring under very strong grievances. This will to a great extent deter them from continuing their struggle. That will have a bad effect on the economic prosperity of the country. If we are to have close co-operation between all sections in this country, if we are to have close cooperation between the people and the Government of this State, then we have to get down to hard facts and get to look at things in such a way that it will be clearly understood by the plain people of this country that there is no advantage whatever in occupying the position of head of the State. It must be made clear to the plain people of this country that those who occupy important positions in the State are not to use those positions to improve their own financial positions.

I am afraid that a measure of this kind, introduced at a time when the country is labouring under a huge economic depression, must certainly have a demoralising effect on the entire community and must add to the discontent which already exists in a very large measure. We know, and all statistics prove, that the economic condition of the country is bad. The main industry upon which the nation has to depend is in a deplorable plight. All the figures that have been produced before us confirm that the overwhelming majority of those engaged in agriculture, whether farmers or agricultural workers, are living in a condition of poverty. In addition to that, we have the fact that the volume of agricultural production is declining, and that shows that the people engaged in agriculture have not either sufficient capital to carry on the industry, or they have lost courage and given up all hope of making it a success. The result is that the agricultural industry is declining and the economic condition of the country is becoming steadily worse. In the circumstances, it should be the duty of the Government to give a lead to the people and ask them to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to get the country on its feet, and they should set an example by making whatever little sacrifice may be involved in postponing a measure of this kind for some time.

I find that the general principles of this Bill are absolutely unsatisfactory. There may be minor portions of it with which most people would agree; that is, the making of provision for those who suffered during the struggle for the independence of this country— making provision for the dependents of Ministers. So far as providing pensions for ex-Ministers is concerned, that principle is one which I think no reasonable person could support. It has been said by one Deputy that there is a precedent for this in the provision made for pensions for those who took part in the struggle for independence, I submit that was an exceptional circumstance. It does not often happen that a nation is engaged in a war of independence, and I think that could not be accepted as a precedent for making provision for Minister, which is a position that will always arise.

If we are to make provision for pensions for Ministers, you may have a demand for pensions from everybody who devotes a certain amount of time to the public service. You will probably have a demand for pensions from ex-Deputies and ex-Senators, and possibly, after a time, you will have a demand for salaries and pensions from members of local bodies, county councils, and the like. After a time there might be a demand for remuneration for jurors or anyone else who considers he has given service to the State. I think the whole principle of pensions for able-bodied people should be reconsidered. It was necessary in the case of those who took part in the struggle for independence, but beyond that I think the principle should not be extended. It may be said that people who occupy positions as Ministers are at a disadvantage by being dissociated from their ordinary business activities for a number of years. But we ought to remember that people who hold such high offices gain considerable prestige which will help them to secure important positions in commercial life afterwards and that would completely outweigh any disadvantage that might arise from dissociation with their private business during their period of office.

I think, on the whole, there is really no disadvantage and no financial loss involved in the holding of ministerial office. I think the Committee were over-generous in their estimates and did not take into consideration the conditions of the overwhelming majority of the people, who have to put up with various disadvantages and make various sacrifices and who have completely to finance measures of this kind. It is not the actual amount involved in the Bill, but the consequential amounts that will be involved through increasing demands from every section of the Civil Service and the national service generally. Such demands must be considerable and they will impose an exceptionally heavy burden upon the taxpayers. Therefore, so far as I am concerned, I cannot support this measure.

Mr. Broderick

With the underlying principles of this Bill, and its conception generally, there can be very little disagreement in the House. The restoration to the full of the statutory allowance previously in existence in relation to ministerial salaries will be accepted, I am sure, by most Deputies. We know now that that full allowance has been drawn for some months past. With the pensions it is different. I agree entirely with the point of view put up by Deputy O'Higgins, that any man who served the State should not be put in a position of embarrassment. I am quite satisfied that any person in the country, no matter what his limitations may be, would not deny anyone who filled ministerial office a reasonable security; but I do not feel that the mechanical application of regulations of that kind quite fulfils the idea. There was an implication of censure in Deputy O'Higgins' statement when he referred to carping criticism with reference to the £300 a year after three years' service. I think a man after three years' service is hardly entitled to a pension of £300 a year for life. It is quite possible that one may arrive early in life in ministerial office and he may retain office for five years. He would then be entitled to a pension of £500, irrespective of his private position. These are, however, points that can be argued on the Committee Stage.

There was one phrase used by the Minister that I can hardly understand. He said that this Bill guarantees good and clean Government. I would be very sorry to think that we would have to bribe our Ministers to do their duty properly. Experience has convinced me that no matter what remuneration you give a dishonest man he will avail himself to the full of his opportunity, and no matter what the limitations of an honest man are, he will endeavour to pass his name on unsullied to his family and his country. I do not think that line of argument should be used, Sir. Coming to the main portions of the Bill, I agree, and I think the House will agree, that consideration ought to be shown for men who filled ministerial positions. For anyone filling ministerial office, who has compromised his own opportunities in life by devotion to the public service, I believe it should be shown. I believe the mechanical application of the Bill is not the most desirable and we will endeavour and hope on the Committee Stage to apportion that to what we think is just between those who are to receive and those who have to pay. There is no use in dividing the House on this matter, Sir. We can see from statements in other places that this Bill has the support of the entire majority. I, too, support the underlying principle of the Bill, but I reserve the right, on the Committee Stage, to amend the Bill so as to give what I think would be a just apportionment between those who hold office and the people who have to maintain them.

Mr. Fagan

I do not agree with Deputy Cogan that this Bill was before the people on the last election. As far as I see, there is no use opposing it because the people now have got what they voted for at the last election. I am surprised at the change of front on the part of the Government. I remember the time they were in opposition when they said that no man was worth £1,000 a year. Their mentality is changed now, which shows that they can change from one day to the other.

There is another matter I would like to bring up on this measure. The Minister for Agriculture, in reply to repeated requests from the farmers of this Party for help for the farmers, said there was no money to help the farmers in the position they are in at present. There is money for this thing. This Bill or such Bills as it will tend to the growth of Communism in this country, because the people who are in poor circumstances, poor people, a man and wife living on 7/6 a week in the country, and I know lots of them, will say to themselves: "Look at these people in high positions. Might not we as well help ourselves?" The position in the country at present is that every second person has a pension. Some, no doubt, deserve it, but I want to know where is this all going to end. I hope that this will be the last measure for pensions to be brought into this country or into this House. I am glad that the Government have not thought it well to go back as far as Brian Boru. It looks as if it were tending in that direction.

Mr. Smith

There is one proposal in this Bill that nobody except the Minister for Finance has attempted to justify and before he speaks I would like to ask him to support that proposal with greater force than he has done before I could say I would be prepared, as Deputy, to vote for it, and that is the provision made in it for the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the third largest Party in this House. I suppose it is right to say that a certain amount of responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Leaders of the two second largest Parties in the House but, at the same time, the men who occupy those posts are men who have been chosen for those posts by the organisation and by the members of the Party elected by that organisation, and I think that if any man is so chosen that he is chosen because of some outstanding qualifications, and that he can only show those qualities if he is called upon to exert himself and to make all the sacrifices involved in hard work and endeavour. I think that, while the allowance that is proposed in this Bill is not regarded as a personal allowance (as the Minister for Finance has pointed out, it is regarded as an allowance in order to provide him with the necessary assistance to study and make up measures that come before that House), that individual in accepting the leadership of a Party should be called upon to take the full responsibility that that position entails. In so far as the substantial portion of this measure is concerned and the provision that it makes for those who have to break their connections to take up Ministerial posts, I am perfectly satisfied. I fully agree with the reservations that were made in the report by a member of the committee that was set up to examine this whole matter and I agree with the reservation made by Deputy Moore regarding the payment of this allowance to the two Leaders of the two largest Parties. I do think that it is carrying this thing a little bit too far, and I, like Deputy Broderick, would feel like supporting an amendment that would after that provision when this measure comes before the House on the Committee Stage.

Mr. Linehan

I would like to say that, like Deputy Broderick, I agree in principle with what is in this Bill, and I am rather amazed at Deputy Smith's trouble over that particular point, because he says the Minister did not make a case for it. The Minister made a case for the Bill, and, whatever my feelings are about the principles for which this Bill stands, I think the Minister made the wrong case, and made the wrong case altogether. This is the only reason I am speaking on the Second Reading of the Bill at all. First of all, he said that the provision of pensions for future Ministers and present Ministers, and the provision of the salaries fixed in the Bill would lead to representative democracy; that it would help something that was not helped in present circumstances; that we would get a type of people coming into public life with the knowledge that they would not be asked to make sacrifices, and that the position would not be as it is now, that the present system was a deterrent to the acceptance of public office. If that was the reason for supporting the Bill, I would not support this Bill.

I would not like it to go from this House, or to go out from anyone in this House, no matter what we think of the principle in this Bill, that the one good reason or that a good reason for supporting this Bill was the fact that we thought we would get better people into politics, and that the Irish people were of such a nature and such a kind that the only way to get proper representation of public opinion was to increase the bidding. I do not agree with that. It is not so very long ago in the history of this country that there were Irish Parliamentary Parties and good representatives of Irish Parliamentary Parties when there was no parliamentary salary at all. Agreeing, as I do, that anyone who gave service to the State ought to be rewarded, that anyone who gave good service should not be thrown on the wayside, I regret very much that the Minister or anybody would see fit to put forward, as even one justification for this Bill, the fact that present circumstances acted as a deterrent to some people to come into public life in this country, and that the provision of increased salaries, or pensions, or anything else, would lead those people into public life. If there are people in public life in this country or people who have ambitions to go into public life, and they do not feel like going in under present circumstances, and who can only be induced in by the provisions of this Bill, then I say I hope they will stay out of public life in this country.

Mr. T. Kelly

I was in the position of having to submit to the proper authorities a statement that I was not in favour of this Bill, that I was in a position that I could not support it, and I think it my duty to say so here publicly. I am not at all satisfied that this is the time for increasing salaries or providing pensions. There is no doubt about it that we want a good Government, and that if we have a good Government they should be paid well and paid a salary sufficient not only for their expenses for the period they are in office, but also sufficient to enable them to protect themselves after quitting Ministerial office. Therefore, it is not on the question of the Ministerial salaries that I would suggest opposition, but certainly it is on the question of the principle of providing pensions. I think this whole Bill means an invitation, a general invitation to all and sundry to look at politics as a career. That is a very unwholesome thing to have in this country. If this Bill and the other Bill pass, hundreds will undoubtedly get it into their heads that a political career is for them —or maybe thousands—and I do not think that would be good for the country.

Reference has been made to the effect that no newspaper made any suggestions or offered any opposition to these measures when they were first published. I would refer members of the Opposition to the fact that their own paper opposed it, and not only opposed the measure, but opposed it in an offensive way. They sent out a questionnaire, or sent out reporters, asking for individual opinions and they printed these individual opinions, and many of these individual opinions were such as to bring this Chamber into contempt. It is only a few days ago, and you can procure the newspaper. If you, over there, do not read it, you ought to read it; it is your own journal. That is the class of talk that has been going about amongst the people of this city—the people that I reach. I found none of them in favour of this proposition. I found none of the working class, with whom I am in daily contract, in favour of these proposals. Quite the contrary. I do not know for what reason Ministers should be pensioned. I say that, when political opinion becomes unstable and Ministers do not get support and have to go out of office, they should look for a job, and their ability, their training and their experience should recommend them to any amount of people who would be satisfied, and very welcomingly satisfied, to accept their services. That is the position. Or else they could go back to the professions or the positions they occupied or practised before taking office.

I do not propose to speak very long on this matter. Indeed, a few minutes is all that is necessary. A short speech has long results, but unfortunately that is not adopted here now. It is a matter here of long speeches and very short results.

Mr. Fagan

That is the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party.

Mr. Kelly

However, as many eyes were directed over this way in order to see who was going to speak, I thought that if the opportunity were given to me I would make my opinions very plain. Some people seem to think that this Party is very hide-bound, and the accusation of being "yes men" is often thrown at us. There are no "yes men" on this side. When it comes to a matter of conscience and a matter of political honesty, we are free to express our opinions. Certainly, if there is a division on this measure, I shall not vote against the Government, but I shall not support it. I will not support any measure calculated on these principles. I cannot do any more than that. I cannot go out in rebellion—I will not do that, because I am satisfied that the Government we have is the best Government the country could get. I do not want to weaken their position even by my slight voice or vote, Nevertheless, I think it is only right that the position should be clarified, and I want to make it clear here and to my constituents in the City of Dublin that I am not satisfied to support this measure.

Mr. D. Morrissey

I did not intend to say anything at all on this particular Bill had it not been for the speech delivered by the last speaker. Some people in this House, and perhaps many outside the House, may be inclined to treat the speech of Deputy Tom Kelly as of no importance, but he is a Deputy of this House. The Deputy gets on his feet and talks first about the principle in the Bill, and then goes on to talk about political honesty, and his conception of political honesty is that he is not going to vote either for or against the Bill. The Deputy, of course, gave away the whole point in the end of his speech. He wants to let his constituents outside know that he does not agree with the Bill. The difference between Deputy Tom Kelly and, perhaps, a good many people in all parts of this House is that he has blurted it out quite plainly and that many others will not. Deputy Tom Kelly and some of the other speakers here, if they were to be logical, would be against any salary being paid to a Minister or any allowance being paid to a Deputy of this House. Either salaries or allowances should be adequate for the carrying out of the business of the nation or they should not be paid at all. I think, if I might say so, or if it is possible to say so without offence, that both inside and outside the House there is a great deal of hypocrisy about this measure. Deputy Tom Kelly and others have told us here in the House that this is not the time to put further burdens on the people, that the people are already bearing such crushing burdens that they are not able to carry them. We heard very little from those particular Deputies, either inside or outside the House, when hundreds of thousands and even millions of pounds were being placed on the backs of the taxpayers of this country.

Mr. T. Kelly

When?

Mr. Morrissey

For the last six or seven years.

Mr. Kelly

The Deputy is introducing the economic war now.

Mr. Morrissey

I am not introducing it at all, good, bad or indifferent. I am making a plain statement of facts. It is not confined to that side of the House. The Deputy can never see any position in this House except that side and this side—your newspaper and our newspaper. The Deputy should face up to the facts. We are told that this is not the time to impose an additional burden on this country, and that the people cannot bear an additional taxation of, roughly, £14,000 or £15,000 a year. Within the last six months, however, two measures alone passed through this House—were passed by this House, whether they were wise or unwise which put £1,500,000 each on the taxpayers of this country. Numerous measures have been put through this House, and received the sanction of the House, to place very heavy burdens on the poor of this country and on the poor of the City of Dublin, but I did not hear Deputy Tom Kelly get up and mention them.

Mr. Kelly

Let the Deputy mention them.

Mr. Morrissey

No. If I did so the Deputy would immediately accuse me of playing party politics.

Mr. Kelly

The Deputy himself can play party politics.

Mr. Morrissey

I could. Now, Deputy Tom Kelly is a very good attendant here, and he listens to the debates very patiently and can remember them as well as I do.

Mr. Kelly

I think the Deputy is caught now.

Mr. Morrissey

No. Unfortunately, I think the Deputy is caught. He is in a cleft stick and is caught so badly that he cannot vote either for or against the measure. Like every other member of the House, I have constituents to answer to also, and I have no doubt, that there are people in my constituency who are against this measure, but I am going to vote for it. I am going to vote for it because it is a just measure. That is number one. Secondly, I am going to vote for it because I believe that the people of the country will be repaid a hundredfold.

Mr. Dowdall

Unfortunately, I did not hear the early stages of this debate, but I should like to make a few remarks, induced principally by the remarks of Deputy Kelly, The comparison between this country and England is not quite correct. The British members of Parliament have been paid salaries for only a comparatively small number of years. I think they were paid before the Irish Party left the British Parliament finally—I do not want to state that definitely, but I think it is correct— and the salaries have been increased since. Now, we all know that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and while I do not think it is justifiable that a political career should be the goal of the people who come into this House, we have to remember that when members do come in they have certain expenses. The people who go into the British House of Parliament are moneyed men, or have the control of money, and perhaps can act more independently, but the people who come long distances to this House week after week have a perfect right to get at least sufficient remuneration for that. However, coming back to the particular Bill we are discussing now, in the British Parliament pensions are granted to Ministers who require them. Ministers were not supposed to ask for pensions unless they did require them. There is one instance; I do not care to mention the name, but he was a brother of the Leader of the House, and he got a pension of £1,200 a year because he was not well off when he retired, and he had only been a comparatively short time a member of Parliament. He occupied a rather prominent position.

Deputy Tom Kelly also said that when a Minister left this House he could, owing to his abilities and experience, get a good position outside. I do not think that is correct. I do not think there is any job which makes a man more unsuitable for ordinary business work than that of a Deputy or Minister of this House. They get too hide-bound in their opinions; they do not change sufficiently; they do not suit positions outside as well as people who have been brought up in trade or commerce. I am in favour of this Bill, and I will vote for it if there is a division. I should like to say something with regard to widows' pensions. Most men who are married and have families live their lives for their families, and they hope to make provision for their widows and families if they are not cut off. Two Ministers have been cut off in this House, and I understand that their widows are not at all well off. I certainly think they should be treated in a very liberal fashion. If the Bill could be made retrospective to the time of the death of those people it would be a very good thing. I think that Ministers and ex-Ministers and their widows are entitled to pensions. After a man has been a Minister for ten or twelve years he is not well suited for any other position outside. I support the Bill.

Colonel Ryan

I support this Bill with certain reservations. I am surprised at the attitude adopted by Deputy Tom Kelly on this matter. While his conscience pricks him about this Bill, he cannot give a ballot to his leader. Outside of that, if anything would make me support the Bill it would be the speech of Deputy Cogan. He places the matter on the patriotic side. He talks about the dependents of those who fought in the I.R.A. and all that. I think it is time we gave that up. It is time that we should have in the Government the best people who are to be had in the country, no matter whether or not they were children 15 years ago. It is time that we should have in the Government the best people and the best brains in the country. In the past we had very good men as Ministers in this country, and because of their lack of private means they could not live up to that job. I think it is a very sad state of affairs that when a Minister is ousted he should have to look for some paltry job outside, only to be told that he is a politician and will not get the job. As I said, I think we should have in the Government the best material and the best brains that can be had, because those people are dealing with more money than any firms or anybody else outside. We should have the best brains and material, and the cost does not matter, because it will be so small in the end that it will not count.

But what is the position? It is gradually coming to this, that in the future you will have very few big men wanting to come into the Government in this country because they do not want to ruin their career. They will say that after six or seven years of service in that capacity their business or their profession will be gone. You are not going to get them to come in unless some provision is made for them. You are not going to get a great university professor to come in here, and destroy his career, unless some provision is made for him. I think that if a Minister had some prospect for the future when the public ceased to give him their votes he would be a better Minister. Mind you, we are all human. Everyone of us in this House is human, and if we have not very good prospects we are inclined to do things which we would not do if there was a big career ahead of us. If I am a Minister, and I am afraid I am going to lose the votes of the public by doing what I think is right as far as this country is concerned, I am very likely not to do the right thing. I am very likely to take the wrong line in order to obtain the votes of the people. A realisation of the necessity for guarding against that inclination is one of my strongest reasons for supporting a pension to ex-Ministers. I may be wrong, but I have watched the last six or seven years carefully, and I am watching the present moment carefully, and I think that if a man had prospects for the future he would not be likely to take the wrong line in order to obtain a salary or obtain a living. I do not want to reopen old sores. It is a terrible thing to be standing here and supporting the people opposite, but I intend to do so in the interests of the country. I believe this will lead to better government and to the making of better men. I have not more to say except to refer again to my very honest friend, Deputy Thomas Kelly, who, I hope, will be rebellious when the time comes to vote.

Mr. McGovern

I felt sorry for my friend, Deputy Thomas Kelly, when he was speaking. I am not going to vote for this Bill, and I will give my reasons. I am sure Deputy Kelly had a reason for the attitude he adopted. My attitude, I expect, is just the same. I am not going to vote for the Bill, because I think it goes a little too far. On the other hand, I am not going to vote against it, because, in principle, I believe in providing for Ministers.

Mr. Corry

Wait until Deputy Morrissery sees you.

Mr. McGovern

I believe that conditions could be worse if Ministers were, at the end of their terms of office, in financial difficulty. I would not like that. I would not like the nation to show ingratitude—and I regard this Bill as a matter of gratitude—to Ministers. I am convinced that we will get the very same type of people at the salaries, but I believe the country would be inclined to show gratitude towards those who had served it in some responsible position. No one would wish to see these men in difficulties at the end of their term of office. There is no doubt that if they have to break up their business they cannot later pick it up in a day or two. For that reason, they are entitled to consideration, but I think giving a life pension for three years' service is going too far, as is also the provision for widows and children. We have to take into account the conditions under which the majority of the people have to live. We have to remember that this is a poor country, and that the principal producers are making sacrifices for its freedom. Even though they have felt these sacrifices, especially during the struggle with Great Britain, they were satisfied to make them for the freedom of the country. It is not too much to ask that people in all walks should make sacrifices. I suggest that pensions might be given for a limited number of years, and that no ex-Minister with three years' service should draw a pension for 20 years, even though the pension is not very big. At a further stage the Bill might be amended. On the Committee Stage I am prepared to support others in reducing the amounts proposed to be expended. That is why I am not prepared to vote for the Bill now. At the same time I am not prepared to vote against it because, in principle, I believe in providing as decently as the country can afford for Ministers.

If the Bill expressed gratitude in that manner I believe it would be expressing the mind of the people generally. I would not agree to the setting up of a pensions scheme that would provide for a fresh crop of Ministers every three years. It is possible that every three years 22 or 26 men might qualify for pensions. I do not expect that will happen, but it is possible. It would be a bad precedent to set at a time when the country is faced with financial difficulties. The Report of the Banking Commission has been published, but without any such report we know from experience that the condition of the country is anything but prosperous, and that this is not the time to set a headline that other parties might follow. I hope that the Minister will look at all sides of the case, and be prepared to consider some reasonable amendments on the Committee Stage. I am preparing an amendment designed to cut down and to set a limit to the expenditure. While there is a limit to the number of Ministers who can draw salaries, there is no limit to the number who can draw pensions. There should be a limit to the number of persons and a limit to the amount of money to be spent. If the Minister looks into the matter and is prepared to consider reasonable amendments we can get along nicely with the Bill.

Mr. Corry

I should like, first of all, to protest against the manner in which Deputy D. Morrissey attacked Deputy T. Kelly. In my opinion Deputy Kelly has always shown himself to be as responsible a member of the House as Deputy Morrissey. He is, I might add, a respected member of this House, and is not on the same plane generally as Deputy Morrissey. I say that openly. Deputy Kelly spoke out his mind, and I hope every other Deputy will do the same. This is as distasteful a Bill to us as it is to the Deputy. It is a distasteful Bill, and one, undoubtedly, that will create a certain amount of adverse comment in the country, where we will have people saying: "Oh, you were up last week giving a pension to so and so." At the same time, we must look on these matters in view of our responsibilities here. I hope that this country will never elect Deputies on the same mentality as members are elected to the British House of Commons. I consider that Deputies come here with an entirely different viewpoint. They come here having very definite views as to what the country requires, and they want to carry out those views to the best of their ability. Therefore, I would never expect to have any comparison made between the position of Deputies or Ministers here with Ministers or members across the Channel. The position in the two countries is different.

I should like if this measure could be looked upon as one that would not be used, as one that Ministers or ex-Ministers would not avail of except in case of necessity. I think that is the line on which it was introduced. It is the light in which Deputies, Ministers and ex-Ministers will look upon it. I do not think that this country could expect that any man should give the best years of his life to its service and afterwards find himself and his family in penury. That is the view I take. I intend to vote for the Bill. I wish honestly that some other means could be found by which men who devoted their whole time—as Ministers undoubtedly must—to the service of the State, would not, when things change at any time, be faced with want, as a result of their services to the nation. I do not think anybody would expect them to do it.

If there is a certain amount of unreality in this, I suggest that it is due to Deputies who come in here and object to this and who, in their local councils, add five or ten years to a dispensary doctor's service in the hope that the Local Government Department will sanction it and that the doctor will get an increased pension. You have the same line running through the whole of this debate here. There are men who devote their whole time for five or ten years, and in some cases 15 years to the service of the State, and the nation should at least make some provision for them afterwards. You do it with everybody else: with the dispensary doctors, the Civil Service and every other branch of life. I see no reason why Ministers, who have to give up their home life and their business to come in here to serve the State for a certain period should not know at least that they are not going to drive themselves and their families into penury and want.

That is my viewpoint in connection with this, and I express it honestly here. I think that that is the manner in which this Bill will be availed of afterwards, namely, that an ex-Minister will have the knowledge that that money is there if he requires it, that it will not be drawn by ex-Ministers who will not require it. I would prefer if some other means could be got of getting over the difficulty, but I cannot see any other means of getting over it. As far as the allowances to leaders of the Opposition are concerned, I will say this much: that we were here from 1927 to 1932 as an Opposition, and we were a fairly effective Opposition. There was no Opposition here afterwards as good as we were.

Mr. Seán Brodrick

Self-praise.

Mr. Corry

I mean it. We proved it. We were able to tear to pieces every single measure brought in here, which Deputies opposite dare not do. All that they can do is blather. They will not take the trouble. One reason why I am allowing that clause to go through here is because I see plainly that the same attention, or the same sacrifices, cannot be expected from Deputies opposite.

Mr. Keating

And what have you done to the country?

Mr. Corry

Your Party is a menace instead of a Party.

Mr. Keating

Take your hands out of your pockets and be like a Deputy.

Mr. Corry

I realise that if Party leaders and Parties are to give proper thought and proper criticism to measures brought in here, they will have to have something in the line of private secretaries to assist them. They are not going to get the voluntary assistance that was given when we were in Opposition. They are not getting that voluntary assistance. It is plain to be seen that from 1932 to the present time that voluntary assistance has not been forthcoming. You have Deputies opposite contradicting one another upon every measure brought in here. Deputy Dillon will get up and, as a responsible leader, will make a statement, and when he sits down we have Deputy Bennett or some other Deputy getting up and contradicting every word he said. If there was an effective Opposition we would not have that occurring. Either Deputy Dillon would be curbed before he came in, or the other fellows would be curbed before they came in. At least the Opposition should speak with one voice and not with divers tongues. Therefore, I see the necessity for giving the Leader of the Opposition secretarial assistance and typists; also the Leader of the second Opposition, whoever he may be, and that is the object of this. Therefore I am going to vote for it, and I make no bones about it.

I know that I will get a bigger hammering down the country over this measure than over any other measure we can dream of introducing. I know well that as soon as I go down the country they will say, "Last week you voted for a pension for so-and-so"; but I think Deputies should have the courage of their convictions. I consider it wrong that a Deputy who will go to a county council meeting and 6 or 12 months before an official retires vote him an increase of £100 a year in order to increase his pensions, or add five years to a retiring official's service in order to increase his pension, should come in here and say, "I object to this measure." I do not believe in that kind of thing, and that is the reason I am supporting the measure. I believe that the pension will not be drawn, that it will be held there as something that an ex-Minister can fall back upon if he considers that he and his family are in want. I look upon it in that light alone, and I am sure that Ministers and ex-Ministers will also look upon it in that light—that there will be something there which will at least provide that they and their families will not be in want on account of any service they render to the nation. That is my sole reason for voting for it.

Mr. Hickey

And every other citizen as well.

Mr. Corry

And every other citizen as well.

Mr. Dillon

I am going to vote for this Bill because I approve of the principles enshrined in it. In connection with the proposals contained in this Bill, I read with interest the observations of Mr. de Valera at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis held in Dublin. You know that is a very remarkable man, because he can slander his political opponents and he can get all the kudos possible out of that slander——

Mr. T. Kelly

Is the word "slander" in order?

Mr. Dillon

Yes. He can then come out——

Mr. Corry

We can only expect filth from you.

Mr. Dillon

He can then come out in a white sheet——

Mr. T. Kelly

Is it in order to use the word "slander" in reference to the Taoiseach?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is not a disorderly expression. I think it has frequently been used in the House from all sides.

Mr. T. Kelly

It is in very bad taste to use it when he is not here.

Mr. Corry

On any occasion when that word was used here the Ceann Comhairle always demanded its withdrawal and it was withdrawn. I think it is an impertinent utterance from a pup.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy had better behave himself.

Mr. Corry

And who has always been a pup.

Mr. Coburn

If he is a pup, you are a monkey.

Mr. Dillon

He can then come out at the Ard-Fheis and proclaim that he was wrong, that he had no justification for saying that he said, that the event proved him to have made a mistake, and that he was mending his hand. Six years ago, this country was campaigned on the issue that the Ministers of the Cumann na nGael Government and the civil servants of that day had been bleeding the people of this country white. That argument carried great weight down the country. I know because I was in that campaign and I saw the people deeply impressed by that argument. I myself heard the Taoiseach say from a public platform that no man in Ministerial office or in the Civil Service was worth more than £1,000 a year and I heard the crowd go delirious with enthusiasm with this Daniel-come-to-Judgment when he indicated the leader of the Opposition, Mr. Cosgrave, with having battened on the public and robbed them for ten years. He indicted every one of my present colleagues who was then a Minister with having robbed the public for ten years, with having lived in luxury at the expense of the people——

Donnchadh O Briain

Ceist or-duighthe: Ar bhain sé usáid as an focal "robáil"?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Ní fheadar.

Mr. Dillon

He indicated every Minister of the preceding Government with having drawn from the State a salary far in excess of what he was entitled to, and he impressed the electors. Then, when he came into office, he reduced the salaries of his own Ministers to £1,000 a year. Now, he comes out at the Ard Fheis in a white sheet and says that every one of them ran into debt. Whether was it better, as Deputy Cosgrave did when he was Prime Minister, to give Ministers a reasonable salary and let them pay their bills or to make what appears to me to be a dishonest political gesture and have them running into debt? Having run them into debt, the Taoiseach comes in here and advances their salaries. The truth is that he should never have reduced them. The salaries fixed by the first Government of this country were modest salaries— in my opinion, too modest—and nobody would have taken them but patriots. I saw men who took those salaries and who spent the best years of their lives in the public service leave office without 6d. in their pockets. Poor men, they had to go down the country in competition with boys who had only just been called into their professions before the last Government went out of office. Having been ten years Ministers of this State, these men, without 6d. in their pockets, have had to go back to their jobs and struggle up from the bottom. Such of the Ministers as had not time to take up a profession owing to the work they were doing for the country at the inadequate salary given them by their leader, and by the Oireachtas on his recommendation, were actually looking for jobs and finding it hard to make ends meet—after giving the best part of their lives to the service of the country. These were the men who were held up to public odium by the Prime Minister as having robbed the country and battened on the State. Now, we are told he made a mistake—just a little error of judgment. But it was an error of judgment which blackened and slandered honourable men. There is no retraction, no apology, no explanation when it is now known that the statements uttered on every Fianna Fáil platform throughout the country were slanders and that, far from getting an excessive salary, these men got too little. There is just a casual observation by the Prime Minister that he found he made a mistake and that, when he put his scheme into operation, all his Ministers ran into debt. The astonishing thing about the man is that he got full political advantage from the slander, while there is not an old lady in Rathmines who is not now saying: "Is he not a wonderful man; when he is wrong how freely he admits it; he is so honourable and so courageous that he is never afraid to admit he is wrong." It is a gift, I must say, I wish I had. If I make a mistake in a public speech, there is a riot. If I admit subsequently that I made a mistake, there is a hue and cry for six months and everything I say is aspersed because it is held that I must be wrong since I made a mistake previously. If the Taoiseach makes a mistake, far from detracting from his reputation, it elevates him into the ranks of the saints. At the same time, it is desirable that slander so effectively put over should be publicly repudiated. I do not hope that the Taoiseach will repudiate it but I take his words at yesterday's Ard-Fheis and I interpret them as meaning that every word he and his colleagues said about the Ministers who went before them getting a penny more than was their minimum due was a slander—a slander of which every member of the Fianna Fáil organisation ought to be ashamed to-day.

I am in favour of giving Ministers of this State not only a fair salary but a good salary, and I want to tell you why. The bulk of our people are small farmers. It is notorious that if there is one group in the country whom it is difficult to organise in their own interest, it is the small farmers. They are divided into sections—political sections and other sections—and they seldom or ever get together in defence of their own material interest. Every big vested interest in this country must ultimately get its plunder out of the small farmer. When a vested interest is gathering to spring, for the purpose of sucking blood out of our people, the first thing it does is to scour the world for the ablest man it can get to make its case. I have in mind at the moment a vested interest in this country whom I saw send abroad for and hire a man at £10,000 to make their case. It was made so well that they have plucked the people of this country to the extent of about £2,000,000 in the last three or four years. Our unfortunate farmers, instead of seeing the vital necessity of getting for the defence of their interest the very best men money can buy, are encouraged by obscurantists to grudge their representative every pound he gets. They want to cut his salary down to the last penny—pay him the lowest penny for which they can persuade him to work.

Mr. Corry

Can you blame them?

Mr. Dillon

I cannot blame them. It is because of that that they have got the type they have at present. If they paid a decent salary, they would get competent men. The Minister for Finance will excuse that "aside," because it was more a debating point directed against the Deputy who interrupted than against himself. Ministers are leaders of their Party. The mistake that the agriculturist makes is that, instead of realising that he has got to have as able a man to defend his interests as the vested interests have to attack them, he thinks he can get as good a man as the vested interests have at one-tenth of the salary. The ultimate result of that will be that no really able man will be able to afford to go into public life at all. A lot of people will say that that is a queer reflection to throw at my own colleagues. That brings me to the last point I want to make. We are forgetting that practically up to yesterday this country has been involved in a patriotic struggle to be free. Throughout the period of that struggle the leaders of our people were prepared to work for nothing, and did, in fact, work for nothing. The leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party lived in tenement houses in London. The late Thomas Sexton was perhaps the greatest orator in the British House of Commons, and yet he lived in penury becoming a pauper on the Vauxhall Bridge Road. He lived there because he had no other place to live. After them, equally ready to make sacrifices, came the later leaders and they worked for this country for nothing. The first Ministers who established this State did work for which no money could pay them. They devoted their whole lives to it. They took their lives in their hands. They risked their lives every day. No money could pay them for that.

I do not deny, though I profoundly disagree with the leaders of the Fianna Fáil Party, that they came to their task at first with a kind of ecstatic devotion, born of the idea that they could make some radical constitutional change in the State which would add lustre to its glory. That day is over. We all realise now that that phase of the national work is done, that the country is now ours to do what we please with it, and that all that exalted enthusiasm can no longer be expected in the public life of this country, any more than it is expected in the public life of any other country. We are now getting down to the pedestrian business of administering the affairs of State. We have got to protect ourselves against allowing that immensely important work to fall into the hands of mediocre men. If we want to get the best type of men, I do not suggest that it is practical politics to compete against the highest salaries that their intellects can secure in the commercial world, but we ought to do this: we ought to go as near as we can to provide them with a standard of living analogous to that which they would enjoy if they were reaping the rewards of a commercial career. I should not wish them to look to politics as a source of wealth, but we have got to make up our minds that unless we can reassure men, in the rising generations of Ireland, that Ministerial office in the service of the State is going to give them a standard of living as high as they could get in commercial careers, without its luxuries, we are not going to get the right men into politics at all.

Anybody who knows the circumstances obtaining in many other countries realises that a very similar mistake has been made in other democratic countries. Of that mistake has been born mediocrity in public life, and, what is worse, corruption, because the evil of inadequate remuneration is one which plays into the hands of mediocrity. When mediocre men have become complete monopolists of public affairs, the vested interest discovers that it is cheaper to buy the Government than it is to oppose it. We may resist that for one generation or two generations, but if you allow the standard of ability and independence of the public man to fall, as a result of financial exigencies, sooner or later you are going to be confronted with the horror of corruption in public life. It would ill-become me categorically to name any particular State, but any one of us who has travelled the world knows that we are not without examples, if we chose to point to them, of countries where corruption has ridden public life, and, once it has ridden it, these countries cannot get rid of it. There is no means of getting rid of it. Once corruption has got a fair strangle-hold on public life there is no means of clearing it out without a revolution in the system of Government. We believe in democratic government here. It is the best form of government, I think, even though, God knows, it is fairly exasperating sometimes. I should like to see it maintained. One of the greatest menaces to it is the possibility of corruption creeping into it. I want to make Ministers of State of this country, no matter to what Party they belong, independent men into whose minds will never come the temptation to accept financial bribes, or bribes of any kind, from any vested interest, no matter how powerful or wealthy it may be.

Now, I fully sympathise with the first reaction of certain Deputies who, I think, perhaps, have not given to this matter as careful reflection as they might have because, to judge from the emphasis with which they spoke, one would imagine that they were resisting a heavy burden of expenditure out of the taxpayer's pocket. What is this Bill going to cost? The outside expenditure is £9,000 a year, much less than the President's salary. The wheat scheme is costing over £2,000,000 a year. The beet scheme is costing £1,000,000, and we are delighted with both these schemes. We voted £500,000 for the alcohol factory a few days ago and thought we had done a good job. We vote millions in this House, and nobody gives a hoot, but we work ourselves into paroxysms of rage when a Bill is introduced, the maximum present vote under which cannot exceed £9,000. Really, that is not prudent.

The last word I have to say is this. I say it without consultation with anybody, without any authority to speak for anybody. I referred to the sentiment of patriotism that moved men at great personal sacrifice to fight for this country years ago. Most of them are gone. Most of them are dead. Some of them remain—a very few. To those of us who were their colleagues they mention difficulties under which they labour now. I break no confidence when I freely admit that in regard to some of them, those of us who are more fortunately circumstanced than they have had to help from time to time. That was a pleasure and a privilege for those of us who could do it, though we would have preferred that those men should have enjoyed an independence which would deliver them from the necessity of accepting any benefaction, even from their most intimate friends and warmest admirers. Their number is few. There are a few who have left widows in circumstances of very acute distress. They are a rapidly diminishing number. Neither they, nor I on their behalf, have ever asked anything from this State, nor do I now, but I do feel that in a Bill which makes provision for everybody who took part in the struggle, an option should be left to them, if their circumstances demand it, to turn to our Government and get such assistance as might make it possible for them to end their days in modest comfort. It may not be possible for their friends to meet the circumstances as they have in the past, and it would be very bitter knowledge to us that any of them should find themselves confronted with real and inescapable destitution.

I cannot think that anybody would wish to deny them the security which such an offer would make, and, therefore, I suggest to the House that if it is proposed to go forward with this Bill, provision should be made that any man who spent his life fighting for this country in the ranks of the Parliamentary Party, or as a parliamentary representative in any other Party which spoke on behalf of Nationalist Ireland between 1880 and 1918, should be entitled to consideration on the same lines as that provided for ex-Ministers, and that a consideration similar to that envisaged under Section 18 should be made available for his widow who survives. The request is trivial. Their number is small, and rapidly diminishing. It is a request which I make with some hesitation. Frankly, I would prefer not have to make it at all, but circumstances demand that I should mention the matter, and I have no hesitation in doing so in the light of their services, because if ever men deserved well of this country, they are those who, without recompense of any kind and without any hope of profit, rejected all offer of advancement, rejected the thousands of bribes that were offered to buy them, and stood fast to the principles in which they believed, a sovereign and independent Ireland. Though they were rejected by the electorate of this country in a general election, I think many of them look back with pride now on the fact that those who rejected them have come to know that they were honourable servants of this country.

Mr. Norton

This is a Bill upon which it is quite possible for people to hold entirely divergent opinions, and to hold them conscientiously and honestly, and, realising that fact, the Labour Party has decided to allow this matter to be decided by the free vote of its members, so far as its attitude to this Bill and to the other Bill dealing with increases in Deputies' allowances is concerned. I am, therefore, expressing at this stage my personal views on the Bill. Deputy Dillon, having opened with a very high tribute to those who served the State since 1922, wound up on a note which warned us that this Bill was necessary to prevent the possibility of the growth of corruption here. He told us of other countries where corruption has so vitiated honesty in public life that liberty and parliamentary government had been seriously menaced. I do not regard this Bill as necessary to guarantee purity and honesty in Irish public life, and I do not believe that Ministers who have served this State, who do serve this State and who will serve this State in the future, will find it necessary to have cheques of the dimensions contemplated in the Bill to keep them honest.

I said before, and I want to make my position clear on this Bill now, that if any person serving the State in the capacity of a Minister does so for a substantial number of years, and, through that service either finds it necessary to abandon his private or professional employment, or suffers a loss as a result of that service, it is the merest justice on our part to try to make good to that person the loss which he or she has sustained in the national interest. We ought to recognise the value of that service to the State, and so far as it is possible for us, we ought to compensate the person who loses in the interest of the State, but in my view we are doing much more than that in this Bill. We are here providing a pension of £300 per annum for life to a Minister who has served the State for three years.

We had, during the discussion on this Bill, many references to the position of persons who had given the best years of their lives to the State. This Bill does not grant pensions to those who gave the best years of their lives to the State; it provides for the payment of a pension of £300 per annum to a Minister who has served the State for a period of three years. A Parliamentary Secretary who has served the State for less than four years will get a pension of £200 per annum. When we talk, therefore, about providing pensions and compensation to persons who gave the best years of their lives to the State, let us remember that this Bill does not confine pensions to such persons, but that it opens up the possibility of pensions of £200 and £300 per annum for life to persons after relatively trifling service to the State. If we want to make compensation to people who have served the State for a substantial number of years and who have suffered loss on that account, it is quite possible for us to evolve a scheme by which allowances, gratuities or pensions could be paid to such persons for a limited period in order to enable them to rehabilitate themselves in their private or professional employment.

But are we doing that in this Bill? It is possible under the Bill for a person who has served as Minister for seven years to receive a pension of £500 per annum. Let us know now what we are doing, and if we propose to do it, let us do it with our eyes open. There are many persons serving the State at present in a Ministerial capacity who are now entitled to a pension of £500 per annum, having served for a period of seven years. Many of these people are not yet 40 years of age, and for that seven years' service to the State we are going to pay them a pension at the rate of £500 per annum for another 25 or 30 years. If that person could show, or if from our examination of the position we believe that he has suffered certain losses by serving the State, I, for one, am prepared to make generous restitution to him, but I am not prepared to stand for a Bill which provides a pension of £500 per annum for life to a person of 40 years of age after a short period of service, measured in the Bill as seven years.

Those who want to support this Bill, and those who tell us that these allowances are only reasonable—that they are a necessary insurance premium on the continuance of honesty and the avoidance of corruption—might tell us in what other service in this country or outside this country: in what other service in any other comparable State in the world, is it possible to get pensions of £500 a year after seven years' service, or £300 a year after three years' service. We are now setting up in this State by this Bill a specially privileged Ministerial pensioner class. We are going to make it easier for them to get pensions on this generous scale than it is for any other citizen in the country to get pensions.

This Bill, we may be told, is founded on the recommendations of the committee that dealt with the question of salaries and allowances; but, after a very careful consideration of all the issues involved, that committee recommended that no pension should be paid to parliamentary secretaries on the grounds that parliamentary secretaries had not reached the plane of responsibility that justified them in being put into the category of Ministers. But, notwithstanding the fact that the committee recommended that there should be no pensions paid to parliamentary secretaries, we find in this Bill pensions provided for parliamentary secretaries—if they have served for three years, £200 per annum; and if they have served for seven years, £333 per annum. I do not know on what grounds it can be contended that a parliamentary secretary elevates himself to such an important position in public life that he cannot resume whatever private or professional appointment he had prior to his elevation to the rank of a parliamentary secretary.

There is a provision in this Bill to which I would like to make a personal reference. It is the one which provides for an allowance of £800 per annum to the leader of the second party, and £500 per annum to the leader of the third party in the Dáil. So far as I am concerned, as one who would be entitled to benefit under that section, I do not want to handle one farthing of that sum of money, and I do not propose to handle one farthing of it. What the leaders of Parties in the Dáil want is not an allowance but some assistance to enable them to discharge their parliamentary duties. The leader of a Party is placed in a position where he must express the viewpoint of his Party; to consider and examine Bills with possibly greater care and detail than the ordinary members of the Party. He needs secretarial assistance in that capacity. He needs the assistance of somebody capable of reading a Bill, and of getting up material relevant to an informed discussion on a Bill. That assistance is, at present, unfortunately, not provided, either by Party headquarters or by the State. A contribution which would lead to a detailed examination of the provisions of Bills is a valuable contribution to parliamentary work in this House and to this country. I would very much prefer if, instead of allowances to leaders of Parties, the State were to recognise an obligation to provide secretarial and research assistance of that kind which, I think, would be much more valuable to the leaders of Parties and much more useful in the matter of making an informed contribution in this House, than the provision of allowances such as are contemplated in Section 9 of the Bill.

My general complaint, however, against the Bill is that it is excessively generous in the matter of granting pensions: that it provides pensions for short periods of service and on a basis not experienced in any other walk of life in this country. I think we are far too generous in the amount of the pensions, far too generous in the duration of the pensions, and that we are singling out for specially generous treatment in this regard a very small section of the community while tens of thousands of people in the community cannot get their economic and financial difficulties listened to with the same ease, the same understanding and the same sympathy as has been bestowed on the recipients under this Bill.

Mrs. Redmond

I desire to say a few words on this Bill. I am opposed to the paying of pensions to Ministers or ex-Ministers. I, like many other speakers who have spoken here to-day, realise that perhaps in certain cases just recompense should be paid to men who have given the best days of their life for the country's good, and who have given up their way of making a livelihood for themselves and their families. What I do realise is that the country has been taught in the wrong way, perhaps, because there were men who gave their services to the country free of charge for over 50 years. That happened. Perhaps people have now come to think that when we have here a Government of our own that that responsibility of the country is finished. Well, that apparently is not so since we find that this Bill is being introduced. I suppose I should say that I believe it is justifiable to make up to a Minister who has given the best days of his life for the good of the country. That may be so in certain cases. On the Committee Stage I would like to have this thing fully inquired into. I would like, for instance, to see some kind of committee set up that would investigate special cases that need attention; but as for this system of pouring out pensions of hundreds of pounds to able-bodied men, I think it is a disgrace. I think it ill befits any Government, or any ex-Minister to accept such a pension.

After all, people come in here and take up the duties of their office for the sake of the country. They get a salary, and in my opinion that salary should be a good one to compensate them for leaving whatever walk of life they were in. At the same time, I do not think it is quite the thing for a man to come in here and take a good salary, and then at the end of his time to find this magnificent pension waiting for him. As the last speaker said, he might get that pension at the early age of 40 years. I do not think it is fair to the ordinary taxpayer in the country. The ordinary taxpayer, the man who is bearing the burden of the taxes levied in the country, has no pension to look forward to at the age of 60. During all his life he has been striving to earn enough to provide for his wife and children and, after his death, for his widow and dependents.

I think we are accepting this thing too lightly. It has not been examined with sufficient care, in my opinion. I think that if we all speak our minds truthfully, honestly and sincerely, we will agree that this whole business ought to be examined carefully. I presume that it will be, on the Committee Stage. If there are necessitous cases, then let a pension be given—but let it be a nominal one and not one of hundreds of pounds, and certainly not £500 a year to a man who has given perhaps seven years' service. Seven years is not a very long period. There are men in this country who have been working for 50 years and have no pension coming to them. Everything that one takes up is a venture, whether it is farming, a business or a profession. After all, if you do take up a position in public life, if you decide to become a Minister, then I say you must be prepared to take it for what it is worth. You must be prepared to understand that the country expects something from you, and that you must be prepared to shoulder your responsibilities just the same as the ordinary taxpayer, and that you cannot expect to be put in a privileged position. You cannot be relieved from the obligation of providing for your wife and family.

For these reasons I think the commission has been extra generous in apportioning such large pensions to young able-bodied men. The question is where are all these pension schemes going to end in this country. Everybody at the present time is drawing a pension of one kind or another. The people are being taxed out of existence. Every other day we have Bills being introduced here which are putting additional burdens on the taxpayers. We hear a great deal about this—that it would only mean a small amount, but where is it going to end? In the case of an ex-Minister it may go on for 40 years or for a much longer period in the case of his widow and children, if they are to be provided for. I would ask that the whole matter be carefully looked into. If, as I have said already, there are necessitous cases, then let some kind of a committee be appointed to look into them. The proposal here is to grant £500 a year to an ex-Minister after seven years' service. After all, seven years is a very short period of time to give to the service of one's country. Again, I want to ask the House to realise that the country cannot afford to keep on paying pensions. I ask Deputies to realise that this committee has been far too generous in apportioning such large pensions to ex-Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries. I think in justice everybody will say that there are certain cases that are probably necessitous and that pensions are needed, but, on the whole, I think it is a bad precedent to set up here. We are setting up a precedent that a body of men just after three years in office should find themselves ready and qualified to draw pensions from the State. The people are getting sick of these pensions. They are losing confidence in us. The people who sent us here, as their representatives, think we are too much engaged in providing for our own future and not thinking much about the needs of the ordinary people and their future.

I would, therefore, ask that I be allowed, on the Committee Stage, to put forward something in the way of amendments to this measure. We should call a halt to these pensions. I believe that in this House there are many others equally opposed to this measure as I am, but who do not feel like expressing their views in that way. I want to say that I think we have been too generous. Generosity is a good fault but not in dealing with other people's money. I would ask the Minister on Committee Stage to redraft the Bill. I know there are many people who will have suggestions to offer on this measure. There is one thing every member of this House should keep in view and that is rather than introduce new pension schemes we should cut down the old ones.

Mrs. Rice

I thoroughly agree with the sentiments given expression to by Deputy Mrs. Redmond.

Mr. O'Neill

As far as this side of the House is concerned, I am afraid there will be very little opposition to the principle of the Bill so far as ministerial salaries are concerned, because it enshrines very little that is new. But when we come to the question of pensions, I should say that that portion of the Bill has been very crudely drawn up and the drafting has not shown sufficient discrimination when dealing with those to whom pensions are to be given. With regard to the amounts of the pensions, to my mind they are rather on the generous side. No conditions seem to be laid down. What I mean by conditions is the fact that there are no restrictions as to what personal resources a man may have after leaving office. That is to say, no restriction is put upon a man's own financial position. As the Bill stands, it would be possible for a man after leaving office to fill either an important commercial or industrial position in the State. He could fill a high position in a semi-State capacity such as chairman of the Currency Commission or chairman of the Electricity Supply Board.

Mr. MacEntee

No, the Bill makes that quite clear. He could not draw a pension then.

Mr. O'Neill

I know he cannot draw a double pension, but he could draw a salary and still have a pension. At all events, the Bill as it stands does not make it clear that a man may not be in independent circumstances, holding some position, semi-State or otherwise, in an industrial or commercial undertaking, and still draw a pension. He may be a comparatively young man; he may be able to take up a big position outside and still, as an ex-Minister, draw a big pension. At the moment we have an ex-Minister on the judicial bench, and under the Bill as it stands it would still be possible for him to draw a ministerial pension and fill the position of judge at the same time. I see nothing in the Bill that would prevent that being done. These are a few of the snags in the Bill. I see much necessity for a pension scheme of this kind. The general principle is one that I can, within certain restrictions, commend. No matter how much anybody may speak against pensions, I am aware that there have been cases of hardship which none of us would like to see. None of us wants to see that any Minister who, in a self-sacrificing way, gave service to this State, should be deprived of the means of living or that he should find himself in a state of penury. A person at the age of 40 or 50 years, after serving as a Minister, may find it difficult to start in another way of living. He himself and his dependants should be preserved from penury and want, and there should be some assurance that they would be above financial difficulties.

I do not, however, think that the pension portion of this Bill has been properly conceived. I recommend to the Minister that, on Committee Stage, he should have amendments brought in and that, in fact, he would re-draft that whole portion of the measure. As the Bill stands, it is very badly drafted. There is a committee of three persons appointed to deal with qualifications. But the only qualifications on which they have to decide is his holding of ministerial office. They do not decide as to the person's need for the pension. I think power should be given to this committee to function in such a way as to inquire into the means. There should be a test as to whether the person really needed the pension. The pension should not be given if it is not needed. If the pension is needed the requirements of the particular person should be very carefully looked into. I again appeal to the Minister to have these particular points elaborated when the Bill is going through Committee and to make it clear that it is only the person who needs a pension who will get it. I am in agreement with the spirit of the Bill. I think it is a good Bill and a very necessary one.

I do not at all cavil with the salaries paid to Ministers. I do not want to find fault with the Government because of the fact that at one time they thought that Ministers were too well paid. A good man is worth his salary. Too many people in this country are inclined to fall into the ten shilling mind. Many people think they ought to get a first-class engineer for the wages of a village carpenter. If we want to have important positions in this country filled by men with good brains we should be prepared to pay these men adequately. Ministers have always done their work honestly. I do not think there is any fear that at any time people holding the important positions of Ministers and Secretaries will give way or become a prey to corruption. I think we will always be above that. We have been above it up to this. A man who gives service to his country and does it in a self-sacrificing way should be well paid. I think in the future that men serving in a ministerial or secretarial capacity will not depart from the line that has been followed up to the present. In the future the running of this country will be looked upon more as a business proposition than as a patriotic one. The best patriotism perhaps is founded on business lines. By paying them a decent salary we will get good men, we will get good results and the country will be satisfied that it is getting good value for the money. I again appeal to the Minister to have this whole Bill recast in Committee.

Mr. Cole

In what I have to say I will not detain the House much longer. I am one of those who believe that the labourer is worthy of his hire. I quite agree with the last speaker on that point, but when it comes to pensioning a man for his lifetime after he does three years' service, I think it is rather too much for the country. We thought some years ago when a change of Government came about that the country was really going to change and that our taxation was going to be reduced, but instead of that it has been multiplied many times. I think that granting a pension to a person after a few years' service, as recommended in this Bill, is totally absurd and there is no justification for it. The man who takes up a position as a Minister should be well paid. I do not think the salary in this case is overdone. Indeed, I would be inclined to give more than that. A man who takes up a position as Minister in this House has to devote a lot of time to public work. He has to spend not only his days, but often his nights here attending to the requirements of the House. A man in public life outside getting the same salary would be finished at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Here Ministers very often have to spend until 11 o'clock. That is very hard and trying and I think they should be extra well paid.

When it comes to giving a man a pension after three years' service, that is nothing short of absurd. Deputy Dillon said that the whole cost would be £9,000. It might be £9,000 for this year, but to what amount would it accumulate? Suppose we have a new Minister every five years, in the course of time it will reach an absurd figure. How do people in public life in the country fare? Take the case of a dispensary doctor. There is a regular hullaballoo if he gets a pension a few years short of his time. I am appealing at the moment for a man who is dying in harness. He cannot get a pension; he cannot get any compensation. I would be inclined to pay Ministers well, but the idea of giving men pensions after three years' service is too absurd. Some person said that the average man would live for 30 years afterwards. Thirty years at £500 a year would amount to £15,000. That is not fair, particularly when you consider the position of the farmers, some of whom have the greatest difficulty in making ends meet. Many of them have been trying to pay their annuities and their rates and they find it extremely difficult to do so. It is unreasonable to put this extra burden upon them when they are quite unable to pay their way in other directions. It is for those reasons that I will oppose this Bill.

Mr. MacEntee

I would like, first of all, to deal with the point raised by Deputy Cogan, that this proposal has not been before the country. I have already read the statement made by the Taoiseach in the House, in February, 1937, in which he stated that a committee would be set up to consider this question of the salaries paid to the holders of public office and that, when that committee reported, the report would be brought here to the Dáil for consideration and decision. There was an election in June, 1937, and during that election one of the questions which was canvassed before the country was this proposal to deal with the salaries of public office holders and the provisions to be made for their future. In fact, when the matter was raised in the House, the question, not merely of considering the salaries to be attached to these offices, but also the desirability of giving those who had held ministerial office more security for the future, was mooted for consideration. That question was mooted here, and was embodied in the terms of reference of this committee. The matter was canvassed in the newspapers, up and down the country, and in this House, and if Deputy Cogan has been unaware of it, perhaps, because he has not read the newspapers, that is no reason why he should ascribe equal ignorance and unawareness to every other person in the country.

We know there is no substance in what Deputy Cogan has said. If there is one proposal which has been before the country for a considerable time, it is this one and, with this proposal before them at two general elections, the people of the country returned the Party and the Government which made itself responsible for initiating the matter. Why did the Government take that step? Because, having taken responsibility for submitting a new Constitution to the country, it had to consider how best the organs of government set up under that Constitution could be permitted to function in the manner in which those who drafted the Constitution and the people who accepted it hoped they would function: that is to say, so as to give the country good and clean government. That is the primary problem which democracies have to face. There are governments elsewhere, some of them good and some of them bad, but there is one thing that I can say, and that is that bad and corrupt government is more often associated with cheap government than otherwise.

It is well known that there are many countries, many States in the world, which pay their representatives, their Ministers of State, very much less than the committee recommended, possibly less even than is proposed in this Bill. There are countries which make no provision for the future of their Ministers, but I think it will be found as regards the person who holds office in those States, that it would be the exception if he died a poor man. I do not for a moment allow myself to be put into the position in which Deputy Broderick said I put myself. I do not for a moment contend that you should bribe a man to be honest; but I do say this, that, unless you make proper provision for those who have to carry the responsibilities of State in this country, you may find it very difficult to get honest men to accept those responsibilities and to accept the disabilities which the holding of Ministerial office, in particular, imposes upon an individual.

We have heard it said here that this Bill is all right so far as the salaries go. I think there are people on both sides of the House who, in private life, earned higher salaries than they are earning now, and I am sure it will be admitted that, in comparison with the salaries which are paid in the commercial sphere and the incomes which may be earned in the professional sphere, the salaries proposed in this Bill are moderate. It was found previously, and certainly it was found during the period from 1932 to 1937, that the reduced salaries drawn were quite insufficient to enable a Minister to meet all the demands upon him. I understand that those who had experience in the previous ten years found themselves in the same position, even with the salaries proposed in the present Bill. Therefore it is clear that if the position is that the present figure is the minimum which would allow a Minister to meet all the demands that are made upon him—and there are many demands not apparent to the public made upon a Minister—if that sum is just sufficient to enable him to meet all the demands made upon him, it certainly does not permit him to make any provision for the future.

What is a Minister called upon to do when he assumes office? First of all, he has got to make a complete break with his previous career. We have heard it said here that there would perhaps be young, able-bodied men of 40 going out and drawing pensions under this Bill. I should like to contest that straightaway. I do not know that there are any Ministers under 40. I do not know that there are any ex-Ministers under 40. Therefore, so far as the question of the age at which a person may become entitled to a pension is concerned, we may rule out that figure straight away. Even if there were Ministers going out at 40 years of age, what is the position? Here is a person of, I should say, exceptional talent and ability—because he would be an exceptional man who, in the circumstances of the future, would be called to public office at so young an age as 40—here is that man asked to accept the responsibility for administering one of the great Departments of State —a Department where he has a great deal of power and a great deal of influence, and therefore a Department which imposes upon him great responsibilities towards the public. He is asked to assume those responsibilities and all the worry, all the toil, all the envy, all the criticism and all the ill-feeling, mind you, which those responsibilities involve. He is asked to assume those responsibilities, and to assume them at a salary which would be much less than commensurate responsibilities or proportionate responsibilities would carry in ordinary private life. But not merely is he asked to do that, but he is asked to do it with the knowledge that he is merely going to be, so to speak, a tenant at will, for he has no security of tenure. When we talk of people employed in a similar situation elsewhere, not merely do we think of the salary which that post carries, but we also have the feeling that if a person once is appointed to a post of that sort and is placed in that sort of predominant position, then so long as he fulfils the duties of that post with ordinary zeal and ability, he will have a life tenure of the post; he will not be put into it to-day and be subjected possibly to eviction from it to-morrow. Therefore, the person called to ministerial office not merely has to carry heavy responsibilities, and carry them at what would be regarded as less than the normal salary, but he has absolutely no security in that office. He may be there for one year, two years, three years or four years. A question of great public policy may arise which will compel him to relinquish the office before he is in it 12 months.

There is, therefore, all this element of insecurity, but not merely that; the moment he is in office he has got to cut himself adrift from all his former avocation. He has got to do that if you are going to have clean government in this country and if you are not going to have a Minister for Industry and Commerce who will be, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, seeing how his legislative proposals are going to affect his business down the country, in the City of Dublin or in the City of Cork or elsewhere; or if you are not going to have a Minister for Finance seeing how the fiscal proposals which he brings before the Dáil are going to affect his business, profession, or avocation. The fact of the matter is that the moment a man becomes a Minister he has to make a new career. So far as I can see, he has to break definitely and finally with his former career. I think that was the experience of our predecessors. That certainly has been my experience and it is only out of personal experience that one can talk about these things. He has to break definitely and finally with his old avocation and start on a new career. Therefore, it is not after three years' service, it is not after four years' service or five years' service as a Minister, that you are asked to give this pension but because you know that a Minister wound up one life when he became Minister and had to start a new one afresh, and that, when he leaves office, he will have to try and restart life again for the third time. How can a man do that? How can a man with family responsibilities, with a household to maintain, with commitments that have accumulated during the period that he has been a Minister, do that unless special provision is made for him?

You are taken completely out of one sphere into another when you become a Minister. You meet quite a different set of people. You have to be ready to meet them. You have to provide yourself with a house in which you can receive them, and you have to involve yourself in a thousand and one responsibilities and expenses that you never would contemplate if you were a private individual. Then, suddenly, you are to restart life again—according to some Deputies here, you are to restart life for the third time, having passed the meridian, having passed middle age. Remember, there are few Ministers who are not bordering on 50. There are few ex-Ministers who are not bordering on 50 or past 50. Moreover if, by reason of the revolutionary movement and of the history here since 1916. Young men were called to ministerial office, that is not going to be the position for the future. In future, it is not going to be young men of 30, 35 and 40 who are going to occupy these benches but it is men who will have grown grey in the service of the Dáil, who will have spent years in that service. Most of us, on both sides of the House, have already spent over 20 years in public life. Those who come here in future as Ministers will at least have to give as long an apprenticeship as we have had to give. It will not be a case of giving pensions to young men of 40, after a few years' service, but to mature men who have had to put their own careers behind them and who will not be in a position, as you have been told here they should be, to go out and take up an ordinary commercial career or an ordinary professional career. It is to meet the position in which these men may find themselves—and will find themselves, if they are honest men—that the pensions provision in this Bill has been introduced.

Mark you, I said, if they are honest men, because that is the kernel of the whole situation. Undoubtedly, as Deputy Broderick said, you cannot bribe men to be honest, but there is one thing about it—if you attach such conditions to the public service as will make it impossible for men to accept ministerial office and fulfil the responsibilities of that office, unless they are prepared absolutely to sacrifice themselves and their families and to find themselves at the end of a term of office with the prospect of having to go around with the hat to their friends asking them to help them to get on their feet again or cadging to get a job from some person or another, then you will not get men of capacity and you will not get honourable men to accept public responsibility under those conditions. That is what is going to happen. You will not get honest men and you will not get honourable men and men of capacity to accept office and help to form a Government under those conditions.

I am not going to say that there are not in this Dáil many men who would just as easily fill my portfolio as I fill it. I am not going to say that there are not people in this House and outside this House who could not fill it quite as capably, but I wonder how many of them would be prepared to fill it under such conditions as have been laid down by certain Deputies in this House; that having, as the Minister for Finance has, control and supervision over the expenditure of £34,000,000 of public money, having had to carry a very heavy burden and responsibility, and having cut himself adrift absolutely from every other avocation he would, at the end of his term of office, have to go out and start life anew. How many men of even average intelligence and average ability, with any sense of family responsibility, would accept ministerial office under those conditions?

As I say, there are any amount of people who could fill the office, but how many men will you get to accept it under those conditions in the future? If you do not get first-class men, if you do not even get second-class men, is the position going to be that, for the sake of £9,000 a year, or even twice that amount—it might be for the sake of £18,000—the people are going to be content with third-class government, or fourth-class or even fifth-class government, even if it should be honest government at the end of that time? That is really the kernel of this Bill: that because of the fact that you want your Ministers to be in a position to discharge the responsibilities of their office, completely and entirely independent of personal interest, they must first of all cut themselves adrift from their own ordinary private avocations in order to serve the State and that, when they have come in here and have served the State to the best of their ability for such a period as would mean that their former professional connections would be altogether severed, you must then at any rate ensure that they and their families will not be reduced to complete penury and want.

That is one reason why the pension provision is in this Bill, but there is another reason. Undoubtedly, the most useful people in public life, in Opposition as well as in Government, are those who have had experience of ministerial office. I have no doubt that when, in the course of time, some of us find ourselves in Opposition, when some of us go back there, we will be better in Opposition because of our previous experience here. I have no doubt that if members of the former Administration had full time to devote themselves, as they ought to be enabled to do in the public interest, to public affairs here in this country, we would have a first-rate Opposition. Now, I do not want to be throwing bouquets any more—I would very much prefer to throw bricks at the Opposition—but in any case it is quite clear that a person is a better critic of governmental office himself and consequently knows what the requirements and limitations of public office are. I have pointed out what is the position, from a personal point of view, of the individual who has held public office. Now let us consider what is the position from the point of view of the State. Is it not quite obvious that if such a man has held public office, and if the people compel him to relinquish office, they ought to make it easy for him to continue in public life?

Now I want to say, in regard to the pension provisions of this Bill, that it is not a fact that people will get these pensions as a matter of course. First of all, persons have to apply for these pensions, and not merely that, but since the pensions are a charge on the Central Fund, the particulars as to the recipients of the pensions and so on will be printed and published in the ordinary Financial Accounts. Of course, there are people who, when they get out of office, may be more fortunate than others, but so far they have been the exception. There are some who are fortunate enough to fall on their feet, but mainly it will be found to be those who have cut themselves altogether adrift from public life and who, having envisaged what was likely to be the fate of former Ministers in this country if no proper provision was made for them, decided that henceforward, instead of looking after public affairs and serving the public good, they were going to look after themselves. There are one or two people, as I say, who having retired altogether from politics, have been fortunate enough to fall on their feet, but we may be quite certain that those people who are in an independent position are not going to come along and apply for a pension, thereby holding themselves up to the public odium of applying for a pension when it is well known that they are in comfortable circumstances.

That is the protection you have in this Bill to ensure that its provisions will not be abused. I should hate it to go forth, however—and one of the purposes of the Bill would be defeated if it should go forth—that the fact that you have to apply for a pension is going to deter any ex-Minister, who wishes to remain in public life, from applying for a pension which would enable him to give more effective service to the people here in the Dáil. That is not what we want. We want, on both sides of the House, men of experience and men of first-hand knowledge of the various problems; and we cannot get that in this country of ours, where most of the people who man the public offices are men of limited means, unless the State makes up its mind that, as their services are essential to the State, it is going to put them in a position to render these services, if need be. That is why I hope, and sincerely hope, that no person will be deterred—no person who feels that he can render good service in public affairs will be deterred—by anything that has been said here from applying for a pension if this Bill goes through, because, otherwise the effect would be to defeat the secondary purpose of this Bill, which is to make it possible for men of experience to continue their public services when they have reached such an age as to make it impossible for them to devote attention at the same time to their private concerns and to the affairs of the Dáil and of the Oireachtas.

Another part of the Bill which has been criticised is the provision which is being made for an allowance to enable the leaders of Parties other than the Government Party to meet their secretarial expenses. Now, I think Deputy Norton quite misunderstood the purpose of that provision. Deputy Norton said that, speaking as one who was personally affected by this Bill, as one who would be entitled to benefit under the Bill, he would have nothing to do with it; but he completely misconceived the position. This allowance is being voted, not that the leader of the second largest Party in the Dáil, or the leader of the third largest Party in the Dáil, should personally benefit by it, but that his whole group—the groups which these leaders lead—and the Dáil and the country as a whole, should benefit by it. It is given in order that they may provide themselves with that very assistance which Deputy Norton said was necessary in order to enable these Parties to fulfil their proper function in this House, namely, the function of examining and criticising every proposal that is put before the Dáil. That is where the effectiveness of Parliamentary Government comes in. That is what distinguishes representative democracy from the system which prevail elsewhere—that the critic has a useful function in the State; that it is one of the primary duties of those who are not in the Government Party, of those who do not support the general policy of the Government, to criticise the proposals which the Government is submitting. And the country expects them to carry out that function and to discharge that duty. The purpose of those two paltry allowances of £800 and £500 is to enable those Parties and those groups which are charged with that function to discharge it more efficiently and more effectively. Of course, it is anticipated that it will be utilised for the purpose of providing secretarial assistance, for the purpose even of providing the professional advice which is necessary in order properly to criticise a complicated measure. While it is true that when we were in Opposition we did that without any grant, nevertheless I should say quite frankly that that was a severe strain on our Party, and particularly upon those who were charged with the primary responsibility of advising the Party as to what its policy should be in regard to certain measures. It is a strain which, I think, so long as we accept the system of representative democracy, ought not to be imposed on private individuals and it involves an expense which they should not be called upon to bear out of their private purse.

Those allowances may be criticised on the grounds that they do not go far enough, that they are small and insecure; but I say it is an experiment and we have got to see how it works. But certainly it is no substitute for those allowances to suggest, as Deputy Norton suggested, that the Government, out of Government funds, ought to provide public servants to do that work. Now, there is one thing you have got to be quite certain about, and that is that every civil servant can serve only the Government of the day. You cannot have, in any Government Department, three sections—one section looking after the Government side of a Bill, the second section looking after the interests of the second largest Party in the House, and the third section looking after the interests of the third largest Party in the House. It would be quite impossible to run our State upon such a basis. The Civil Service and civil servants can have only one loyalty, and that is to the Administration of the day. Therefore it would not be possible for us to second members of Government Departments to go and help the leader of the Opposition when he is criticising the leader of the Government, or the leader of the third Party when he is criticising both the leader of the principal Opposition Party and the leader of the Government at the same time.

The only way in which you can get over this problem, and provide what Deputy Norton admits he requires, is by saying to each of the responsible leaders of those Parties: "We will give you a small sum, £800 in one case and £500 in the other, and let you select and employ for yourselves the persons whom you think are best fitted to advise and help you." That gives to them the maximum liberty of choice within the limits which are imposed upon them by the sums which are allocated for that purpose. But let me repeat, and let me emphasise that it would be quite wrong to consider those allowances as some personal perquisite of the leaders of those Parties. Of course, the leaders of the Parties, because they carry the primary responsibility, will naturally decide in what manner that money is going to be disbursed, and we are not going to interfere with their discretion, but it would be a great mistake to imagine that either Deputy Norton or any other Deputy is entitled to regard this as some personal benefit conferred upon himself. It would be quite wrong, and it would be a grave injustice to himself to the members of his Party, and to the members of the other Opposition Party, if he for one moment were to lead the public to believe that those allowances were intended to confer personal benefits upon the Deputies who for the time being happen to be leaders of the second and third Parties in the House. The Deputy, therefore, was talking quite beside the book. If his Party wants the facilities which he said are necessary in order to enable it to do their job properly here, the only way in which they can be provided —and I think that the public purse should make some contribution towards the provision of them—is the way which we have laid down here in the Bill. In the course of his speech Deputy O'Higgins referred to a number of matters. I can only say I will give to all those matters serious consideration, as indeed I shall give to everything said here for and against the Bill, but it has to be remembered that this matter ought to be discussed entirely independently of the personalities involved. It has not been an easy job for me—any more than I am sure it has been an easy job for the people in the Opposition who have supported this Bill and accepted the principle of it—to bring in this Bill. It has not been an easy job. It was a most invidious thing to bring it in here, but somebody had got to face up to this problem, and somebody had to ensure as far as he could that those who are called upon to serve the State will be able to enter into the responsibilities of ministerial office with the assurance that at the end of that period, when they go out of office, they will not have to go around begging favours of any man. If some members of the House feel that that is not a sound principle, let them face up to the other side. Let them say whether they want the position to be this: that a person will enter the Government of the State, will accept responsibility for a big public Department, and during the whole of his period of office have this in front of him, that, at the end of the time, whether he be 40, or 50 or 60 years of age, whether he has served three, or five or seven years, he is going to be beholden for the future to some one citizen or other of this State for the very bread which he eats, and the clothes which he puts on his children's backs.

Question put.

The Dáil divided:—Tá, 94; Níl, 5.

Tá

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Belton, Patrick.
• Bennett, George C.
• Benson, Ernest E.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Brady, Brian.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Breen, Daniel.
• Brennan, Martin.
• Brennan, Michael.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Brodrick, Seán.
• Browne, Patrick.
• Buckley, Seán.
• Childers, Erskine H.
• Cleary, Mícheál.
• Cooney, Eamonn.
• Corish, Richard.
• Corry, Martin J.
• Cosgrave, William T.
• Costello, John A.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Henry M.
• Dowdall, Thomas P.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Everett, James.
• Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
• Flynn, John.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F.
• O'Loghlen, Peter J.
• O'Neill, Eamonn.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• O'Rourke, Daniel.
• O'Sullivan, John M.
• O'Sullivan, Ted.
• Pattison, James P.
• Reidy, James.
• Ruttledge, Patrick J.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• Fogarty, Patrick J.
• Friel, John.
• Fuller, Stephen.
• Giles, Patrick.
• Gorry, Patrick J.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hogan, Daniel.
• Hughes, James.
• Humphreys, Francis.
• Kelly, James P.
• Kennedy, Michael J.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Kissane, Eamon.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Linehan, Timothy.
• Loughman, Francis.
• Lynch, Finian.
• Lynch, James B.
• McDevitt, Henry A.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• Maguire, Ben.
• Meaney, Cornelius.
• Mongan, Joseph W.
• Moran, Michael.
• Morrissey, Daniel.
• Morrissey, Michael.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Mullen, Thomas.
• Munnelly, John.
• O Briain, Donnchadh.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Jeremiah.
• Ryan, Martin.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Tubridy, Seán.
• Walsh, Laurence J.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Ward, Conn.

Níl

• Burke, Thomas.
• Coogan, Patrick.
• Hickey, James.
• Hurley, Jeremiah.
• Norton, William.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Smith and Kennedy; Níl: Deputies Hurley and Hickey.

Question declared carried.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, November 30th.