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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 6 Dec 1939

Vol. 78 No. 8

County Management Bill, 1939—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
Debate resumed on the following amendment:—
To delete all words after the word "That" and substitute the words "Dáil Eireann declines to give a Second Reading to the County Management Bill, 1939, pending an inquiry into the whole subject of local government administration by a committee appointed for that purpose by the Government."

At the close of yesterday's sitting I admitted that there was room for a reform in local government, but I pointed out that the way to reform it was not along the lines proposed by the Government—that there was no need to abolish it. I also pointed out the inconsistency of the Government when, some four or five years ago, they passed legislation extending the franchise in order, as they said, to make local government more democratic. Now they are proposing to withdraw the powers that the local authorities have. While they propose those drastic changes, the Minister does not give any reason for so doing. He expressed some concern for the members of local authorities who have to travel long distances. If they are prepared to travel long distances, in order to take an interest in local affairs and see how the money that is subscribed by the people is expended, that is their business and it shows a good public spirit.

There is one thing in this Bill that I agree with, and that is the abolition of the boards of health. Supporters of this Bill have referred to the long agenda of different boards of health. I have had ten years' experience of board of health work, and I quite agree that there are many items appearing on the board of health agenda which are nothing more than routine office work and should be disposed of by the secretary. If the Minister has at the back of his mind the inefficiency of local authorities, the corruption of local authorities, I can assure him there is very little room for anything of that sort. Anything that really matters in the way of local administration has to be sanctioned by the Department, and the tendency in the Local Government Department in recent years has been to exercise very stringent supervision over the matters for which its sanction is required. In regard to many matters, I might say that it does not display such a complete superiority of intelligence.

What case has been made for restricting the powers of local authorities? The Minister knows very well that a budget is prepared annually by the local authority and it gets considerable scrutiny. The various interests represented on the local authorities examine it from their particular angles; some are anxious for small expenditure and some want large expenditure, and the mean is struck by the representatives of the people. With regard to the money that is earmarked for various works, in the case of county councils, the county surveyors become the administrative technical officers. The county medical officers of health have their own duties to perform, but, in the case of various works, the county surveyor will be given control, as he has been in the past, of whatever money is carmarked for those works.

There are very stringent regulations respecting the expenditure of the money. The money will have to be used for those works and it cannot go astray. In order to change expenditure from one work to another, I think it requires the sanction of the Minister for Local Government. In those circumstances, I do not see that there is much room for corruption. Then, again, all the expenditure has to be audited. Not only are the accounts audited, but the authority for doing various works is inspected. In recent years the auditors have been examining into technical matters. I am not raising any point on that. The point I want to make is that the work of local authorities is under very efficient supervision, and I cannot see any reason for curtailing their powers. If they have too much to do, take the relief of unemployment from them.

The county councils and the boards of health will be combined in the future and I ask you to allow them to carry on the ordinary business of the county. Where you desire to relieve unemployment by the giving of grants, set up your own machinery from headquarters to do that. I think if you ask county surveyors—I believe this was the decision arrived at by county surveyors at one of their meetings; I think the Minister for Local Government is always aware of those meetings; I do not know if he attends the meetings, but he certainly attends the subsequent functions—whether they would like the unemployment grants not to be given to them for work in their counties, they would reply that the average county surveyor would prefer not to be called upon to dilute his labour and to be allowed to carry out county works in the ordinary way. I believe that it would make for efficiency and economy if the county surveyors and the county councils were left to carry out their work in a business-like way, and any relief schemes that are necessary in connection with unemployment should be carried out by the Department of Industry and Commerce, the Department of Local Government, or some other Department, which would set up its own machinery.

It is not fair to the local authorities to say that they have too much work when this extra work and work that does not belong to the functions of local government is piled on to them. Then they are accused of having too much to do. I would like, when the Minister is replying, that he would make a case for the abolition of the councils. There is one point in this Bill which surprises me and that is that dual authority was ever set up in it. I have long come to the conclusion that all county services should be run by one authority with certain branches made features of the county services. For instance, now we have in each county a committee for dealing with agriculture. There is no reason why that should be an independent authority. What results from it is the duplicating of offices and the duplicating of expenditure over the area. That expenditure is unwarranted by results.

Another aspect of the question that the Minister should consider is this:— this is a democratic county and it is very dangerous in a democratic country or otherwise to suppress public opinion. Many people have grievances, very often more imaginary than real and it would be a very useful matter socially that the public who pay their money to keep the services going should be given a voice in the administration of their own money. If people are denied that voice they will nurse grievances. I have not the least doubt that the time will come in the near future when an opportunity must be given to the people who pay, to have representation. In this Bill all the power that is given to the local representatives is to provide the money. That is all the power of any substance that they get. The spending of that money will be entirely in the manager's hands. Reference has been made to existing managers and a tribute paid to them. It is easier to get one or two or three good managers than to get 30 or 40 managers. I think the Minister will find a difficulty in getting managers for all the vacancies he is creating. He will find a difficulty in getting managers of the standard that we have to-day.

Reference was made to the City of Dublin and we were told how efficiently it has been run under managers. There are critics of the managerial system in the Dublin Corporation. There are Deputies of this House who have not criticised this Bill and I am afraid that they will not criticise it here. But they will criticise it in the Dublin Corporation. I hope we have heard the last of that now. If these Deputies do not make themselves vocal here when their case can be heard they should be silent in the Corporation. I stand for managerial control in the City of Dublin.

Hear hear.

I voted for it there when it came to a vote and I would vote for it again because you must get into your minds what local government in the City of Dublin is. We have to assess and collect something like £2,000,000 in rates. Business people cannot afford the time necessary to administer efficiently a big problem like that. That is my view. The attempt that was made by the previous Government to give the business element direct representation on the Dublin City Council was repealed by the present Government. They had certain opinions four or five years ago but they seem to have changed them now. As regards the local authorities outside the City of Dublin, I think it is a terrible mistake to divorce administration from the people's representatives. Surely anything that is wrong can be remedied. Is the franchise too wide or is the ability of those who go up for election and get elected not sufficient for the work they have to do and the responsibility with which they are entrusted? In that case cannot the Government set up some qualification standard? Let that standard be educational, property or anything you like, but leave with the local authority the power that it has. Cannot the Minister face up to that situation? I would prefer to see an educational test, a property test, an experience test or anything you like. I would be prepared to have those tests if a case is made that the proper material is not elected to man those local bodies. If the proper material is not elected, then improve the machinery and get the proper material or otherwise come here and confess that the ordinary people in this country who have to subscribe the money to run the local bodies are not sufficiently trustworthy to elect the proper material to do so.

Does Deputy Belton say that is the way in Dublin?

I say that the job in Dublin is so big, that the problem is a difficult one. The Dublin body has to administer £2,000,000 or so annually. I am a member of the Dublin Corporation. I am a member of the Finance Committee and I know the responsibility of administering huge sums like that.

I quite admit they want a manager.

The Deputy will admit that in this House when the whip is cracked but he will not outside. The Bill covers Cork as well as Dublin and I do not think we will have a rebel from rebel Cork in Rebel Corry on this occasion whoever else may rebel. I merely say that in passing without any offence to Deputy Corry. I would be glad to hear a case made that, for any of the reasons I have quoted, we on the local authorities are not competent to administer local government. If that is so, then let machinery be set up to secure that competent people be elected. First of all let us have the common ground that the power must be vested in the local authority to administer our local government business with the best machinery we can get. If that machinery is not there set up machinery for it. If we do not do that we have to confess that we are an incompetent lot and everything that the British said for years about our being unfit for self-government and unfit to control our own affairs, will have to be admitted. Even though the British themselves trusted us with the Local Government Act of 1898 to administer the local government, our own Government, notwithstanding, says: "we cannot trust these fellows." I would like the Minister to make a case on those lines. It is a great matter nationally to be training people for Government. Of course some people will say that every man who is elected on the local authority has visions of the Dáil. Why should he not if he wants it? I am sure I could get a business man to administer local government in the country and to teach the majority of this House. Be that as it may. Is it not a great thing to be training our people for responsibility? I do not understand how anybody who has touched politics or government or administration in this country since the Treaty has a different sense of responsibility to what he had previously. Before that it was easy to agitate and hound down the other fellow but it takes a different mentality and a different effort to build up. If you want to steady a man give him responsibility; if you want to unsteady him and make a rebel of him, take the responsibility from him.

I do not think that any case has been made for this. I am prepared to admit, after 15 or 20 years in local government administration in Dublin City and County, that it is very easy to make a case for reform; in fact it is sticking out that you want reform. After all, this local government administration which we have here is 40 years old. It is taxed beyond capacity, because it is doing a bigger job that it was ever intended to do. It is time for reform, not by taking away the power from local authorities, but by enabling them with the same power to do the extra work; and if there is too much, take it from them. The Government should be very careful, when we are only learning to keep the peace after a revolution, not to give any excuse to any revolutionary elements to fan the smouldering embers that we must admit are still there. There is no way you will keep down revolution and keep down cranks better than to give them an opportunity of a free platform, give them the opportunity of managing their own affairs. Who has a better right to have a voice in the administration of the money than the man who pays? Four or five years ago the Government gave every adult of 21 years of age and upwards a vote for local authorities. That was never contemplated in local government in this country. In order to swell their chests and to be ultra-democratic, they passed this Act giving everybody of 21 and over a vote, but they never put it to the test. Surely they did not extend the franchise four or five years ago with this in their minds? I am satisfied they did not. What has changed their minds?

I think it is only fair to the House and the country that the Government should make a case for taking this authority away. If it is too soon to give responsibility to those young voters coming into manhood and womanhood at the age of 21 and coming on the register, and if it is inequitable to give it to them when they are not direct contributors to the local rates, then say so. If a person who is not contributing much to the local rates should not have a vote, say so. Even if it were necessary to go as far as having some educational standard or some property test of £20 or £30 valuation, make a case for that if you can; but leave the local authorities the power to administer. I am not advocating that you should go on those lines. I have to be exploring and groping around in the dark to know what the fault is. I know there has been corruption in local authorities but one swallow does not make a summer. If there is corruption, it is not unknown to local authorities. I know of a classical case of corruption in the County Dublin which the Dublin County Council put up to the Ministry for a sworn inquiry during the last few years and they would not hold it. Coaches and fours, even omnibuses, were driven through an Act of Parliament and a considerable amount of public money was involved. That case was put up to the Minister for Local Government, but he would not hold an inquiry. I am not going to censure him for that.

Why not censure him vigorously?

Not on this occasion.

My censure would not be weighty enough; otherwise perhaps I would. The Local Government Department had no answer to that case. If the Local Government Department have a case put up to them to hold a sworn inquiry where there has been obviously some degree of corruption, is it not cheek for them to come in here and say that the local authority that put up that case must be abolished? Why did not the authorities in the Custom House do their job? Where was the corruption then? By implication it was in the Local Government Department; but I do not suggest that for any consideration they failed in their duty. But when that case was brought home to them they should have investigated it. If there is any case to be made with reference to corruption in local authorities why not make it?

The Minister for Local Government in his quiet, shrewd, unenthusiastic way introduced this Bill. I do not think he liked the job; I do not think that he is convinced himself that there is a necessity for it beyond a necessity for some reform. Even though he has been only a short time in the Department of Local Government, his experience in the Government and as a lawyer in the country generally, I am sure, leads him to the conclusion that reform is necessary. The system has outgrown its usefulness after 40 years and wants reform, but it does not want abolition. I think I have put enough queries to the Minister and I hope he will apply himself to answering them. I appeal to him not to push this Bill through a Second Reading. We have had enough of commissions in this country and I do not relish having any more, but I shall vote for the Labour Party's amendment. It is not the best amendment possible, but it is the only alternative that I have to fall back upon.

If the Minister wants information upon the matter, why not ask the local authorities (1) if, in their opinion, there is any need for reform of local government, and, if the answer is "Yes"; (2) let us have your suggestions as to how that should be brought about. The local authorities of which I am a member would, I am sure, say that there is need for reform and would be prepared to give the benefit of their experience to the Minister as to how that should be brought about. In conclusion, I appeal to the Minister to withdraw the Bill until he gets the opinion of the people who have experience of local government. When he has got that opinion, I think he will change the Bill. If he sets about reform, the form I suggest would be to devise machinery around this principle; that the power must remain vested in the local authorities, but safeguard the public interest by having the local government system proof against any corruption or abuse so far as possible.

When one examines this Bill he is reminded to some extent of the conduct of a business concern. Having read the Bill thoroughly, I could not help comparing local government as it exists to-day with the situation which you would have if you can imagine a very large chain store, with branches throughout the country, being conducted, not through the administration of a general manager, but through the same type of machinery as the present type of local government machinery. To go further into the matter, I have read many hundreds of pages of minutes of county council meetings and board of health meetings and I became more convinced than ever that the complexity of local government, the number of items on the agenda, the number of matters to be dealt with, the huge sums of money involved, make such machinery totally ineffective from a purely businesslike standard, the standard of spending money in a discriminating way.

If you asked any business executive who was accustomed to deal with large sums of money and who had a number of branches of his organisation to deal with, where there were interests in his organisation each of which was demanding the right to use sums of money from the central fund, and each of which had a vested interest in obtaining as large an amount as possible from the central fund of that organisation. I defy him to say he would not require a very drastic overhaul in the present type of machinery. In my opinion, the chief thing local authorities suffer from is a lack of discrimination both in the spending of the money they obtain from the rates and on the striking of the rate. As I see it, the effect of the County Management Bill will be to pre-digest, for the benefit of county councillors, all the information they require to enable them to discriminate far more successfully and far more efficiently than heretofore as to how they should spend the rate which they will still have the right to strike.

We have heard remarks in this House which would suggest that county councils were being abolished. In my opinion, they will, under the County Management Bill, have a far more valuable faculty than they heretofore had. They will have the faculty of being presented with the accounts of their unit in a form which they can understand and in a form in which they will see not only the parts but the whole. They will have time to consider more carefully than before and to give more thought to the question as to how they are going to spend the ratepayers' money and, when the rate is struck, for the remainder of the year they will be able to exercise their faculty of criticism instead of having each county councillor endeavouring to secure a larger portion of the grants for his own area.

Having read the minutes of a county council meeting, I cannot conceive any business man refusing to advocate a drastic change in the whole question of county council finance. With the enormous mass of detailed matter, the enormous number of small sums the spending of which is advocated by this and that county councillor and the piling up of business as the months go by, nobody—not even a person with the brains of Henry Ford—could possibly conduct the business properly. That is not the fault of the county councillors. Many of them have not had the training for such functions. Very few men in this country could have a training which would enable them to digest so much information and understand it as a whole. I think that the change advocated in this County Management Bill is quite essential. To mention a few of the abuses that have arisen under the present local government system, in spite of the efforts of the Department of Local Government, I would say that there was a considerable amount of unfairness in the allocation of cottages. I have myself seen very grave evidence of that. The Department did their best to correct many of the abuses, but owing to the fact that every county councillor is, quite naturally, working for his particular supporters, people get cottages who should not get them.

"Quite naturally."

That is an example you might compare with the operation of a chain store. If a chain store were conducted on that method and each manager was able to procure sums of money for the renovation of his particular establishment, the same mistakes would be made as are being made at present in the allocation of cottages.

Are you sure of that?

When we come to the question of the financing of all sorts of local government schemes, I must speak strongly about the infernal delay in making decisions—which is costing local authorities thousands and thousands of pounds—and the delay in completing housing contracts undertaken by county councils, solely caused by the influence of individual councillors. If the losses occasioned by these delays, including the amount of interest involved, were to be spent in one year in subsidising fertilisers for farmers, see what an improvement in farming production would be effected. The figures I examined for certain counties ran into thousands and thousands of pounds in a period of four or five years. I do not blame anybody in particular. I say the system is to blame. The delay in such matters as housing contracts, in respect of the work of local contractors in completing their contracts, in deciding what sites are available, in purchasing sites and in this correspondence between the Local Government Department and county councils costs money. Having regard to the enormous burden of central taxation, that is the sort of thing the people of this country ought not to be asked to pay.

Take the question of road work. I had occasion to talk to a supporter of the Fianna Fáil Party and he said that sometimes it made him sick to see his son idling by the roadside in front of his own house when he had to pay rates for that idling. That was, perhaps, rather a cynical thing to say, but the fact remains that, when you have so many county councillors in an area, each one of them has to use his mind in two ways. He has to consider how much he can extract from the central body for his own purposes, for his own friends and for his own supporters. At the same time, he has to see whether or not the rates can be kept within bounds, having regard to the capacity of the ratepayers to pay. It is impossible for him to resist the kind of pressure which is put upon him.

Read the minutes again.

None of these councillors are in the least corrupt. They are simply unable, in present circumstances, having regard to the amount of work available and the number of grants available, to exercise discrimination. If we are to conduct our business in this House in the same manner; if you can imagine the central Government operating in the same way; if we had to read the same minutes and if we had the same methods regarding the expenditure of money, we would be in the same position as the councils. I do not say that we are perfect but our information is pre-digested for us by the Departments and we are enabled to sit around a table and exercise power of correct judgment. Once again, I am not blaming any county councillor. I am merely stating the effects of the situation in my capacity not only as a T.D. but as a businessman having experience of large-scale organisation. In other cases, one finds in certain cases groups of county councillors holding up orders made by the Department of Local Government and the Department have no choice but to take extreme measures in order to get some simple act carried out. In one case of which I am aware, it was requested that a certain thing should be done. I shall not give details because people would know the case and it might lead to controversy. A certain thing was ordered to be done by the Department. It was not a thing of great importance but it would be of value to the people of a certain locality. The local authority refused to do that. The Department has no choice but to dissolve that local authority. They do not want to do that because the thing in itself is not sufficiently important. If you examine these things, you will see the necessity for greater centralisation of administration.

Again, on the question of road contracts, I mentioned the distress occasioned to a constituent of mine in seeing men obviously not doing the day's work for which they were paid wages, including a member of his own family.

A Deputy

The greatest hypocrite of the lot.

The county surveyor is brought under considerable pressure by the local council. The county surveyor is impressed by this and that county councillor that he must keep in employment this or that man on this or that account, whether the man is efficient or not. I myself question whether or not the money we spend on the roads—the same question that affects the central Government—could not at present be more usefully spent by farmers in giving employment and increasing production. I see throughout the country local roads being mended alongside farms of quite good valuation at a time when these men should be in the fields. I say that there again the pressure brought by county councillors to provide work and their natural desire to secure cash for their supporters when all the time they should be considering the total amount of rates, the extent to which that amount of rates bears upon those who have to pay the rates, and the extent to which those people could give employment if they had that money in their pockets. If we allow the increase of local expenditure to continue at the present rate of increase, just the same as if we allow such an increase of central expenditure to continue, we shall not be able to carry out what is at present so necessary, and that is an increase in our agricultural production.

Now, let no one suggest that I have made any unfair, undesirable or unjustifiable reflections on the county councils. I am merely saying that I would be in the same position if I had to contribute to local administration as it is under the present system. I fully believe that this Bill will go far towards eliminating these undesirable things if we can only find efficient secretaries, men of integrity, efficiency, and of independent minds, and men who can make decisions of their own, and I cannot believe that in this whole country we cannot find a sufficient number of secretaries of that kind to carry out that work properly.

There is no use in Deputy Childers ending up by asking that nobody should misrepresent him. The rest of this debate will be largely devoted to misrepresenting Deputy Childers For instance, I see Deputy Dan O'Rourke champing at the bit, and I could hear him scream with anguish as Deputy Childers accurately described Deputy Dan O'Rourke's pretty general occupation.

What is that?

Storming around County Roscommon, trying to get the gangers to put his supporters there on road works.

That is not true, and I demand that the Deputy withdraw that statement. It is a lie.

The introduction of the personal element does not contribute to good debate. Deputy Childers did not name any other member of this House.

No, but I did.

The Deputy's statement is untrue, and I demand that it be withdrawn.

I have not the slightest intention of withdrawing it.

I demand that it should be withdrawn; it is a personal reflection on my character.

What reflection is it on the Deputy's character?

It is a terrible reflection on my character. Apparently, Deputy Dillon does not know when he is being insulting; he is too ignorant.

Does the Deputy suggest that influence has never been brought to bear in the County Roscommon——

It is a lie.

——on the county surveyor?

I am talking about the statement that Deputy Dillon made, and I demand that he withdraw it here and now.

Perhaps the Deputy would sit down for a moment. Does he suggest for a moment that influence has never been brought to bear on the county surveyor in County Roscommon?

I demand the withdrawal of the Deputy's statement.

I have not the slightest intention of withdrawing it.

Very well, Sir; what is to be done? Am I to walk out or is the Deputy to walk out?

On a point of explanation, Sir. I did not intend any of my remarks as referring to any Deputy of this House or any county council in particular. My experience of local administration runs into four counties, and I was not referring to any particular county council.

I do not involve Deputy Childers in anything I said. What I am saying is——

I demand that Deputy Dillon should withdraw the lying statement he made. I have a character to maintain as well as he or any other Deputy, and I intend to maintain it.

Very good.

Deputy Dillon's statement was that Deputy Childers alleged that Deputy O'Rourke did something as county councillor.

No, Sir. That is not what I said.

That is my recollection. However, as I have said, the introduction of such personalities, as has been again proved during the last few minutes, makes for disorder. A charge is being made against Deputy O'Rourke of canvassing in a certain fashion in County Roscommon. Such allegations are quite irrelevant.

I propose to explain, Sir.

There will be no further explanations as to the action of Deputy O'Rourke or any other Deputy in connection with their work on county councils.

Is that statement to be withdrawn, Sir? If not, I have no business here, and if that statement is not withdrawn my character is gone as far as County Roscommon is concerned.

What statement does the Deputy complain of?

The statement made by Deputy Dillon, as I understood it, was that some Deputies, including Deputy O'Rourke, canvassed for work for their supporters. The Deputy's denial must be accepted.

And I say that it is not true, because I did not do any such thing, and I defy Deputy Dillon to prove that I did. Therefore, I demand the withdrawal of that statement. I think I have a character as well as Deputy Dillon or anybody else here.

I think that, if I make a statement and a Deputy denies it, the usual procedure under the Standing Orders of the House is to withdraw the statement. I do not object to do that. If Deputy O'Rourke categorically denies that he asked the county surveyor in County Roscommon——

I deny that I ever canvassed as the Deputy suggested. The Deputy has put it in a most malicious manner.

The statement I made was that Deputy O'Rourke went around County Roscommon canvassing gangers to put his supporters at work on the roads. Now, if Deputy O'Rourke says here that he never asked a ganger in County Roscommon to put a supporter of his on the road work, I shall withdraw the statement.

Deputy O'Rourke has stated that Deputy Dillon's statement was not true, and Deputy O'Rourke's word must be accepted and the allegation withdrawn.

Without hesitation, Sir. If he states here——

The statement must be withdrawn.

In the light of that statement, I have no hesitation in withdrawing it—none whatever—and I hope Deputy O'Rourke will repeat his denial and my withdrawal in our native county. Now, I listened with intense interest to the statement made by Deputy Childers. Of course, he will be misrepresented. He will be described as defaming the personal honour of every public representative in this country, but 85 per cent. of what Deputy Childers said is perfectly true.

What about the other 15 per cent?

I think that part of what he said was a justifiable misrepresentation arising from inexperience in the matters to which the Deputy referred, but I believe that 85 per cent. of what he said is true. However, if he imagines that that is going to protect him from vile abuse and unscrupulous misrepresentation, he never made a greater mistake in his life, because it will not protect him. Of course, a great part of the administrative work of the local authorities is seriously impeded by the intervention of individual councillors in work which really ought to have nothing to do with them. I believe that there is on the Roscommon County Council's minute book an order requiring gangers to consult the local councillor before employing a man, or certainly authorising the local councillor to wrangle with the gangers as to what men they should employ; and you can see all the boys on the Government side of the House chortle with joy, and they think that that is swell. Why should they not think so? What are they on the county council for? How would they ever get on it if they did not do that kind of thing? It simply does not make sense to them to be on the county council merely for the purpose of discharging public business and then going home to attend to their own business. God be with the glorious days when we were told by the Fianna Fáil organisation that the remedy for any unsatisfactory conditions in the public administration in rural Ireland was to extend the franchise to every man over 21, and the pure influx of enthusiastic young Fianna Fáil would clean up the Augean stable of the Cumann na nGaedheal organisation. But five years after the pure influx of Fianna Fáil into the local authorities we have a County Management Bill.

The voters never operated the franchise in the rural areas.

Thanks be to God this time you learned sense before the damage was done. Four years ago if anyone suggested that, after having extended the franchise on a universal basis, you would bring in a Managerial Bill immediately afterwards, the whole Fianna Fáil Party would have fainted away in sickened horror, but they have now made up their minds that a Managerial Bill is badly wanted, and of course it is. I was on a board of health in Roscommon, and I got off it. I got off it for the simple reason that I regarded it as a fraud to pretend to the people of Roscommon that I was looking after their interests on the board of health, because I could not do it, and Solomon in all his glory could not do it. We used to start business at 12 o'clock in the morning; at 8 o'clock at night we were still going strong, and half the agenda had not been dealt with. The end of the proceedings used to be that the whole business of the board of health was divided up amongst the several councillors, one man doing one bit, and another man doing another bit, and we got out about 9 o'clock at night, until eventually there arose among that body, as among other similar bodies, the feeling that if a councillor from the north of the county interested himself in a public health problem affecting the south of the county there was angry indignation, and the councillor was asked: "What business is it of yours?" It became the assumed thing that you should sub-divide the board of health up into small sub-committees consisting of local councillors who would deal with the local districts from which they came.

Nobody could do the work of the boards of health now, and the reason is perfectly simple, because since 1899, when local government was first instituted in this country, and even since 1925, when the last Local Government Bill was passed, the complexity of local government has grown out of all bounds. The additional work of a routine character that is being thrown upon those bodies makes it absolutely impossible for any committee to discharge their duties, unless they are in a position to meet once or twice a week. You cannot ask men who have got their ordinary business to attend to, to travel 30 or 40 miles to a board of health meeting once or twice a week. As it is, the Roscommon Board of Health meets twice a month, and that is far beyond what is a reasonable demand upon the average farmer or business man in rural Ireland. I am amused at the angry wrath of Deputy the Chairman of the Roscommon County Council in this House. I am also amused at Deputy Childers' optimism that the Department of Local Government and Public Health is going to act as a kind of Augean stable cleaner. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary has not developed the thin skin which Deputy O'Rourke has got. I suppose there is no more astute manæuvrer in local government in this country than the Parliamentary Secretary. I do not think he would get offended if I said there is not a more skilful "jobber" in Ireland than the Parliamentary Secretary. His name is notorious from one end of Monaghan to the other.

All of which is outside this debate.

I do not like to raise false hopes in the breasts of Deputies like Deputy Childers. It is quite an illusion to imagine that the Parliamentary Secretary is going to act as a kind of general antiseptic. I think he is far more likely to produce a very extensive bacteriæmia in local administration in this country, but I am not without hope that if we instal competent managers through the country we will do something to check the activities of the Parliamentary Secretary, and that is the best I can hope for.

Another optimist.

I admit I am a bit of an optimist. We can keep track of the 20 managers better than we can keep track of the 200 or 300 Fianna Fáil supporters who are the Parliamentary Secretary's agents all through the country. I am speaking from my modest experience in County Monaghan, and I may tell you that one would want to be a wary bird to keep track of the Parliamentary Secretary in that county.

You must have an anxious time.

He will have only one bird in each county, and there are about 120 in Monaghan at the present time, all placed in strategic positions.

You will have to cut their wings before you get them.

We are catching up with them. Most of them have lost one wing already. I am talking about his birds in Monaghan, and I am hoping that, from our experience there, we ought to be able to follow 20 birds.

You will be fit for nothing when we are finished with you.

Well, we shall see. I must pay this tribute to the Parliamentary Secretary; at least his skin has not got thin, and that is something. In future you will have 20 men there who will be responsible for the day-to-day efficient administration of the routine matters which arise, and if those routine matters are not efficiently and expeditiously disposed of there is somebody there whom you can make responsible for it.

The secretary is there already.

Wait a minute. Deputies know perfectly well that the system on which boards of health work frequently makes it impossible for secretaries to do their work efficiently, because everything has to be brought before the board of health and approved by resolution. You will get sheaves of stuff gathering in baskets waiting for the monthly meeting of the board of health before the secretary can move hand or foot. I think probably the truth is that if this Bill were discussed calmly we would find there was very little difference between us, except that some Deputies want to go on calling the manager "the secretary", and other Deputies want to call the secretary "the manager".

Some Deputies want to manage the council.

I certainly do not.

That is what you want.

Nothing of the kind. I think it is quite an illusion to imagine that this Bill contains any proposal for the abolition of local authorities. It does nothing of the kind. I admit that where you have a Bill of 30 sections it is quite a good cry to raise, that this is the introduction to dictatorship, and the hardy old warriors on the Government Benches raised a very similar cry when the Cork City Management Bill and the Dublin City Management Bill were brought in, and got great kudos out of it. The present Parliamentary Secretary stumped this country as the champion of democracy against dictator Cosgrave.

Wait now; I actually voted for the Cork Bill on the Second Reading.

Then I withdraw that. I am glad to be reminded of that.

And I think a big number of Fianna Fáil Deputies did the same.

I think, very wisely, on that occasion Fianna Fáil took off the Whips and said: "Do what you think is right". That is the attitude Fine Gael is adopting in this case.

Will you take off the Whips to-night?

We will take them off. Our attitude is that each Deputy must speak from his own personal local experience, contribute his measure of advice to the House, and then act according to his own views. I think it is true to say that this is a Bill which the county councillors do not like and the ratepayers do like. I think it is true that there are Deputies in this House who have given long years of their lives to conscientious public administration, and who are intimately associated with the works of well-run county councils; they feel there is no necessity for this Bill and that they ought to be allowed to carry on. I have great sympathy with them. Just as in the old landlord days there were some excellent landlords, most conscientious men, but the abuses created by the bad landlords were so bad that you had to abolish the system.

The worst of the county councils are surely better than were the best of the landlords?

Nothing of the kind. There were certain very decent landlords in this country, as any impartial observer must admit. However, that is a wide question into which we need not now go.

It is a bad analogy.

No, it is not. There were decent landlords, men who went a long way towards ruining themselves in order to assist their tenants. But the inefficient county councils and the inefficient boards of health can create such abuses in their particular areas that, despite the fact that the well-run county councils and boards of health are valuable bodies, their continued existence in their present form cannot be allowed. That is not to say that local administration ought to be abolished, or that the county councils are to be done away with. Not at all; but there will be rightly imposed on all county councils a degree of management analogous to that at present in operation in Cork and Dublin, in the full knowledge that it is supererogation, it is unnecessary, in respect of certain councils, but that it is necessary and good in respect of very many others.

Let the bad ones go to school for a while.

There is no use in talking as if the councillors were entirely to blame. I was on a board of health for some time and I got off it, and I submit that I am as well fitted to be a councillor as anybody else. I was of the opinion that it was nothing short of a fraud on the people of Roscommon to pretend that I was doing my work as a councillor efficiently when I knew that I was not. I say that Solomon in all his glory could not have carried out the work efficiently in the time available.

There was no trickery going your way.

I should like to make a suggestion. I enjoyed Deputy Childers' reference to councillors dividing the cottages amongst their supporters. Deputy Childers said he was shocked to discover members of boards of health distributing cottages amongst their supporters.

On a point of explanation. I never said anything of the kind. I said that, despite the supervision of the central government, there were occasions on which cottages had been allocated irregularly.

The Deputy is not aware, perhaps, that the county medical officer of health has the last word?

No, he has not. The Deputy is perfectly right. I saw a bachelor who was given a cottage when there was a man with a wife and five children waiting to get one. But that is not to say that the majority of cottages were so allocated. The majority of the cottages were properly allocated. I am glad to say that in any case where the Department of Local Government could intervence, in respect of the new cottages, they did intervene and they quashed such allocations. But where you were dealing with the old cottages, where there was no appeal to the Department of Local Government, some of the allocations were a public scandal.

Was that in Roscommon?

Does the Deputy want Deputy O'Rourke to go out through the roof altogether? To the credit of certain Fianna Fáil Deputies and members of boards of health, I have seen them turning in disgust from attempts of that character and saying, "I will have nothing to do with them," and walking out of the room. On the whole, the allocations of cottages was pretty fair because the constant supervision of the Department was there in terrorem and the boys knew that they could not get away with murder and that made them try to keep somewhere within the limits of public decency. There is a reason for that, and the reason is easy to find.

That improper administration, I do not think, was due to any inferiority in the material we have in this country for local administration. It was due to one thing, and that was because the Fianna Fáil Party turned the local elections into political elections. So long as the Fianna Fáil and the Cumann na nGaedheal Parties kept out of political elections, you had on local bodies men who did the work together without regard to their political affiliations. The moment the local elections were turned into political combats, the most popular lad to get votes was put up as a county councillor, because the political Party's honour was involved, and every supporter of the Party voted for the man who was carrying the Party banner, without any regard to his qualifications as a public representative. Naturally, the Party put up their best men for the Parliamentary election. The fellows who were put up for the local elections were those who failed to make the grade in Parliamentary elections, and they all got in. It was a kind of sop to them. That is partially true also of our own Party. Some good men got in, but a good many bad men got in, too, and they got in because they were nominees of a political Party. If they had not been nominees of a Party they would never get elected for their different districts.

When you get bodies of that kind, the decent men will not take any interest in local administration because they do not fancy having themselves abused or bally-ragged by the less reputable councillors who had secured election. In that way the public bodies gradually fell into the hands of the least reputable elements. Everybody knows that. We are all aware that it was the carrying of national politics down into the arena of local affairs that brought about that situation. It is perfectly true that there are Deputies on the Fianna Fáil benches who could sit with me quite comfortably at a committee meeting without any reference being made to our political affiliations, but, if we met as political antagonists, the business that would fall to be done would be pushed one side and both of us would be advancing the interests of our Parties in the presence of the local Press.

This is a new departure. I think one mistake that was made very clearly by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, when they were dealing with local government matters, was that they did try to centralise things too much. They had the idea that if you brought all the county services together into one place, have the one place of meeting, the one office and the one county home, that everything would be done more efficiently. I do not think that that has proved to be true. In the search for that efficiency, I think that certain hardships were done and they were done in this way: They withdrew from the poor and the destitute of every county the intimate contact with the local services that they used to have in the rural district council days. It meant that a poor person who had to go to the county home was completely cut off from all his friends and neighbours and might practically never hope to have a visit from them again if the county home was remote from his native district. I am not quite sure that that was a good plan.

I wonder, if we do get the managerial system established and the routine work of county administration done under that system, would it be possible—I am now almost thinking aloud, because I have not thought this out at all—to re-develop something in the nature of the old rural district council and have the county manager advised by bodies analogous to the old rural district councils instead of, or in addition to, one big county council doing all the work of the board of health and the county council for the whole county? I can imagine that that might give rise to insuperable administrative difficulties, but I feel if we had that we might get better work done in two ways, (1), we would bring the advisory body and the county manager closer to the people whom they were primarily designed to serve and, (2), a great many men who will not travel 25 or 30 miles to a meeting will readily join a body to attend which they would not have to travel more than eight or ten miles. It means a whole day has gone if you have to travel 30 miles to a meeting and return home again, whereas, if the county council is meeting only eight or ten miles away, you can drive there in the morning, get the business done, and have the afternoon in which to attend to your own affairs. That matter is worth considering.

Subject to those observations, I intend to vote against the Labour amendment and for the Second Reading of the Bill. I think the success of this Bill, as Deputies have said, will largely depend on whether the right men are chosen to be county managers. If the Fianna Fáil Government postpone the general election until they have distributed the jobs under this Bill, then we may get a very bad lot of county managers. On the other hand, if they go out of office before the managers are appointed we probably will get good county managers. The middle course would be to allow the Civil Service Commissioners or the Local Appointments Commissioners to fill the position without having any interference by the——

Does not the Bill provide for that?

Yes, but the Minister might wait for my proviso. I say if the positions are filled by the Local Appointments Commissioners without any interference by the Local Government Department——

Any more mud?

That allegation is unworthy of the Deputy?

As to this suggestion, or allegation, that I have made now I am puzzled as to whether the Minister is perfectly serious in suggesting that the Government never had any interference with the selections made by the Local Appointments Commissioners since they came into office. I appreciate the naïveté with which the Minister suggests this. I am sure he would not pretend so barefaced a denial if he were aware of what has been happening with regard to these appointments since the Fianna Fáil Party came into office.

I think the Deputy's allegation on that matter is an unworthy one. There is no foundation for it, and I am sure the Chair will tell the Deputy so.

I am in an awkward position, being Chairman of the Local Appointments Commissioners.

Let me say at once that what I have suggested does not in any way touch the Ceann Comhairle in his responsibility as Chairman of the Appointments Commissioners. I spoke of interference by the Government. I remember a most eloquent tirade by the Fianna Fáil Party when they were in Opposition about this matter of local appointments. When they gained office afterwards their own Minister was obliged to say that he had investigated the charges about these appointments, charges which no doubt he was anxious to find proved, and he was obliged after investigating them to say here in the House that he could not find any trace of interference by the Government in these appointments.

Then, why does the Deputy repeat the charge now?

This was in relation to the operations of the Local Appointments Commissioners during the period in office of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. Deputy O'Grady will probably remember that his colleagues then alleged every kind of abuse against the Local Appointments Commissioners. The Deputy will remember that, subsequently, the Minister, Mr. Seán T. O Ceallaigh, said that he had personally investigated the proceedings of the Local Appointments Commissioners during the Cumann na nGaedheal Administration, no doubt looking for the abuses and in the hope of finding these charges proved, but that after having done so he found there was not a trace of any such abuse. I say now if the Local Appointments Commissioners are to make the selections for these appointments——

That is the position under the Bill——

——they will probably get good managers. I trust they may. I would be glad to hear that.

The Deputy seems to be in some doubt.

I am. I would be glad to hear from the Labour Party what their experience is. I would be greatly consoled if any member of the Labour Party would get up and say that they were satisfied that these appointments were made without interference or that no kind of influence was brought to bear on the Local Appointments Commissioners by the Fianna Fáil Government since they came into office so far as these appointments by the Local Appointments Commissioners are concerned. I would be glad to hear the Labour Party——

I would not, because the matter is not, in my opinion, in order.

Surely it is in order. If the appointments under this Bill are to be made by the Local Appointments Commissioners it is in order. This is a matter that has been frequently and acrimoniously debated in this House. Deliberate allegations were made by the very Deputies who are now turning their eyes to Heaven and saying that they are shocked at such suggestions being made about these appointments. I had not bothered about speaking on this Bill but I am glad now that I have said so many things that required to be said. I am glad that Fianna Fáil Deputies have this opportunity of examining their consciences and, above all, asking themselves, has the pious indignation, which some of them displayed here to-day, been hypocrisy or was it a genuine reasonable resentment against allegations for which there was no grounds whatever.

This is a Bill which does require serious consideration in this House. Probably before the Final Stages it will be possible to submit it to a special committee of the House so that they may go into it in greater detail than is usually done on the Committee Stage of a Bill. This Bill is a revolution in local government. Certain allegations and suggestions made as to the past history of local government should have been left outside this Bill if the Bill is going to have a future at all. There is one thing that should be realised and that is that the county councils in the past have played a big rôle in the social life of this country. There is no doubt about it, the county councils and the other bodies did fill a place in the social order of this country and did work that it would be very hard to improve on. They were very necessary in certain stages of our history. There is no Deputy no matter how energetic who has had at any time during his period as Deputy done social work equal to that of many members of the county councils in the past. On fair days, market days, and county council days it was usual to find the county councillor, who had other work to do, spending a whole ten or 12 hours of his day looking after the work of local government. I do not know how the work they did in that way can be properly appraised; I do not know how that work will be done under this Bill. Perhaps the smaller number who will then represent the people will be able to do the work more speedily. I do believe that those councils have prevented revolutions against the social order in the past, at the same time that they carried out revolutions in social matters. I do say that appreciation should be given to those who in the past neglected their own business in doing local government work. I think something had to be done in the matter of local government. It is admitted by everybody that too much work had to be done by the county council and boards of health institutions, and it appears that the work could not be done efficiently if we were to continue going on in that way. I think it is a marvel and a tribute to the members of those boards that they did so much work and did it in such an efficient manner——

And in so clean a manner.

Yes, and in so clean a manner. I doubt if a body of civil servants, having the same amount of control and the same amount of latitude would do as clean work for the nation and for local government as did the county councils and board of health institutions in all parts of the country. I have said the same amount of latitude. When we hear it said here that it was a "you-scratch-me and-I-will scratch you" system that was carried on in county councils, I say that is not so, with the exception possibly of a very few cases here and there. But I know from county councillors themselves, who are active workers, that they could not carry on with the load that has been put on their shoulders by the Local Government Department. It would be impossible for them to carry on in future. These county councillors, who are good, decent, public representatives, have been asking for some measure of this kind. This may not be exactly the measure that they want, but they have been asking for some measure; and these people have more experience of county council work than I have, as I have never been a member of a public board. These people, who are good workers, and who work in county councils, not for the gallery, but for the welfare of the people, have been asking for some measure of this kind.

I think that you can have only one of two systems adopted. One is to go back to the old system of district councils, urban councils, and county councils. That might not be a bad system to give a trial to under the modern franchise. Deputy Dillon wandered for a moment in the wrong direction when he talked about politics being brought into county councils by the introduction of Fianna Fáil into the political life of the State. We all know the happy reading we got in local papers from the district council meetings of long ago. What was wrong was not the system they were supposed to work, but the fact that under the old franchise on which these district councils were elected you had all the tongue waggers and those who played to the gallery. They, undoubtedly, unwittingly brought district council work into disrepute. If you had the modern franchise applied to the election of district councils and county councils, with a little lightening of the burden of routine work, and a reduction in their membership, and gave them some facilities even for travelling to these meetings, you might be able to devise a very fine system of local government.

Not having tried that system, this is, I think, the only other system, and the best I can say about it is that it is evidently going to get a trial. I think it is entitled to a trial. If, after five years or a shorter period, it is found that there are snags in this, it should be possible to have them remedied.

I will say that after five or ten years of this system, if there is proper co-operation, local government administration will improve to a great extent. But, heaven save us from managers being selected who are competent only to answer satisfactorily questions put to them by the Appointments Commission or the Civil Service Commission. There is a danger that you will have possibly out of the Civil Service itself —I am not casting any reflection upon it—people who are highly qualified technically in the work of the Civil Service, who have reached a certain grade, who never had any knowledge of local administration except in a theoretic way; that they will be able to answer the questions put by the Appointments Commission or the Civil Service Commission, and that they will appear in that way to be the best qualified. That type, I think, would be a danger to the system, because you will then have sent down managers who would be qualified in theory; but in practice they would lack what is necessary in local government administration—a sympathetic ear for the public. If only to please the public, if you like, they require to have a sympathetic ear.

As some Deputy stated, it is the public who are paying for the upkeep of local government, and they are entitled to something more than the straight-cut, red-tape director in the county who will not hear them sympathetically, and who will not give way when the red-tape Civil Service rules direct him that he should not. If we get administrators in our counties who have a knowledge of local government and of the requirements and of the outlook of the people, I believe this measure will be a success. But, as I said, there is the danger of getting the other type, who will not mean to do the wrong thing but, because of the narrow, one-grooved mind, which undoubtedly exists in the Civil Service as a result of the system, that type of man will bring this Act into disrepute and do grave injury to local government administration.

In addition to that, there is the other danger of managers becoming subject to influence. The old system, which has been found fault with a great deal, was not subject to influence. There were too many different types of representatives on councils to allow one or two men, or even a party majority, to get away with anything worth talking about. There is a danger that a manager will become subject to influence by a certain body of people, no matter who they may be. He may be influenced in a certain direction to the detriment of the people as a whole. He will have to make decisions as to certain works in certain areas, and whom he may have social contact might be able to get him to weigh in their favour in his decisions. I wonder if that could be avoided by having a system of changing the manager from a county every five years. There might be a disadvantage in that, because an administrator in a county would know the county well by that time and know his work. But, still I think it would be worth while if a provision was put in the Bill that a manager should be changed from county to county after a period of five years. It would at least release such a manager from awkward influences so far as administration is concerned, and I think it would help to keep local government administration in a cleaner and healthier condition.

I am convinced that if the Bill is operated properly, with co-operation from the public, and if we get the right type of representatives, it will improve local government administration in the State.

The Minister in making his Second Reading speech on this Bill was obviously uncomfortable. He certainly did not go very far in explaining the provisions of the Bill. Of course, one cannot wonder at this when we remember that the members of his Party denounced very strongly the Bills dealing with Cork and Dublin when they were brought in. I think it will be admitted by the Minister and by various people in this House that the Government Party are not at all happy as far as this Bill is concerned. We have read of members of the Party giving expression to their opinions in various parts of the country at public boards of which they are members, in which they have condemned the whole thing root and branch. The Council of Municipal Councils and the General Council of County Councils have asked for the withdrawal of the Bill. These are very representative bodies and they have on them Deputies from each of the Parties represented in this House. All those Deputies with the exception of one, I think, who are members of these two bodies I have mentioned, have shown themselves strongly in opposition to this Bill. We heard a lot of sneers against democracy in the course of this debate. Deputy Allen told us that there was no democracy in this country now. If there is not, I do not know who is to blame except it be the present Government and the Party of which Deputy Allen is a member.

So far as I know, the people whom I represent are opposed to the passage of this Bill. I have made every effort since the Bill was introduced to ascertain their views. The members of almost every public body of which I am a member unanimously denounced the Bill. I again suggest, even though we be sneered at, that it is the absolute negation of democracy. The Party to which I belong and I myself are satisfied that there should be some change in local government. We are satisfied that it is absolutely necessary there should be codification of the laws. We are satisfied that, on some aspects of local government, too much time is taken up in discussion at particular boards or committees. But if a county council or corporation is unable to do the work set before it from time to time, I doubt very much whether you will get a man as manager who will be capable of carrying out the work.

We have heard a great deal about efficiency and economy in connection with this Bill. Like Deputy O'Higgins. I am all for economy and efficiency. Economy and efficiency are necessary in local government in the same way as they are necessary in business. But a little more than economy and efficiency is required so far as a public board is concerned. We want the human touch. We want members of councils to be able to get into contact with poor people in their area from time to time and to see that provision is made for supplying them with the necessaries of life. Is it suggested that a man coming into a county as manager—we are led to believe that, ultimately, "locals" will not be appointed—will know the needs and necessities of the poor people better than those elected as their representatives who have lived amongst them for years? If this Bill goes through in its present form, the poor are not going to get the attention they have been getting since local government was made operative in 1898 and 1899.

As I said before in other places, I do not object to a manager as such. I do not object to the personality of a manager but, so far as this Bill is concerned and so far as the Dublin, Limerick, Cork and Waterford Acts are concerned, the individual concerned is not a manager for the council but a manager of the council. Anybody who is a member of any of these bodies will say that that is the exact situation. Reference has been made to reserved functions. There are very few functions reserved to the council. They have not even the power to let a house or to adjust the wages of their employees. The council who are finding the money and striking the rate should have that power. They are the people who should have the power. If the manager can increase or decrease people's wages without acquainting the council which is, I suggest, the position under this Bill, it is entirely wrong.

We are told that we have complete control over the finances of the council. I do not think that we are allowed to prepare an estimate. It is predigested for us, according to Deputy Childers. We are permitted to meet on one day each year for the purpose of striking a rate. The moment that meeting is over, we cease to have any direct contact with the finances which are forthcoming as a result of the striking of the rate. That is not a very popular function for any member of a council. The attention of the people is focussed on that particular meeting in order to ascertain what the rate position will be during the financial year. If the rate is increased, the council is blamed. If it is reduced, the manager gets all the credit. That is the position so far as that meeting is concerned.

In the discussion on the Dublin Management Bill, strong comments, as I have said, were made by Deputies who now occupy Ministerial positions. Deputy O Ceallaigh, now Minister for Finance and previously Minister for Local Government, described the Bill as "a rotten Bill" and thought the President should recognise it as such. He said that power was being taken from the people and that that was against the will of the people. Deputy Lemass wanted a council which would have effective control over the municipal service and he wanted a manager who would be subordinate to the council. He also wanted unified control over the whole city area. These are some of the things said by Deputies who are now Ministers. A stronger statement was made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy MacEntee. He said that the manager would be "wearing the jack-boots of the Minister and would be able to walk rough-shod over their desires and opinions. There is no man in the corporation or outside the corporation, on the streets of the city or in the City Hall, who will be able to say him ‘nay'". I wonder what brought about the change in the opinions of these Deputies. I heard the Parliamentary Secretary say he voted against the Bill.

I voted for it.

If that is so, you ought to get the records changed, because you are down as voting against it.

We were talking about the Cork Bill.

It is the Dublin Bill to which I am referring.

You did not hear me say whether I voted for or against the Dublin Bill.

That is a distinction without a difference. One might expect Deputy Good to be in favour of the managerial system. He said:

"Since the publication of this Bill I have endeavoured, so far as one could, to get the views of Dublin men upon it. Nowhere in the city amongst the people whom I have come in contact with, have I found the least enthusiasm for this Bill."

In the face of these quotations, one wonders what has changed the opinions of those who have spoken on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party. I have been a member of an urban authority for 26 years, and I have been a member of a county council for 19 years. I have not seen any of the corruption that it has been suggested was carried on before. I suggest that it is far easier to get at one man than to get at a number of men, and there is no man in such a position in this country to-day as not to be susceptible to influence of some kind or another, no matter how strong that man is. I suggest that if there is corruption at the present time—and I emphatically deny that there is—there is a far greater danger of it if one man is to be in charge of large areas in this country.

In one particular part of the Bill the county manager is to take over, not alone the affairs of the county council and the county health board, but also the affairs of the urban authority. I suggest to the Minister that the affairs of urban authorities and the affairs of rural authorities, as a county council is, are two entirely different matters, and that he is not going to get the best results if there is to be a county manager in charge of both county and urban areas. Take the position of Drogheda, Sligo, Wexford, Kilkenny, Dundalk, and places like that, which have old charters dating from hundreds of years back. These towns, one might say, are now going to lose their identities under this particular Bill, and if the Bill is going to pass in its present form, I would suggest to the Minister that there should be separate arrangements or regulations made between urban and rural administrations. There are entirely different problems confronting an urban authority from those confronting a county authority, and I hope that the Minister will give due consideration to that aspect of the question.

Now, Roscommon appears to me to be in a very bad way. If one were to take any notice of what Deputy Dillon and Deputy Brennan say, none of them appears to be capable of doing the particular work that is required of them on the County Health Board or the County Council of Roscommon. Deputy Dillon said that they start at 12 o'clock at the county health board meeting and that they are still going strong at 8 o'clock. Well, I do not wonder very much at that, if Deputy Dillon takes as long to explain himself there as he does here in this House, and if he talks around a question so much at the meetings there as he does here. He says also that we cannot expect men to travel for miles to county health board and county council meetings. Nobody is compelling any of these people to travel 20 or 30 miles to these meetings. They became members of local authorities of their own free will, and it is a matter entirely for themselves whether they stay there or not.

Deputy Childers, to my mind, displayed a lamentable ignorance in so far as local areas are concerned. It was pretty evident from the very beginning of his speech that he had not the slightest conception of the work of a local authority, and he may say what he likes or try to cover the matter up as much as he likes, but the allegations that he made in his speech were that members of local authorities were corrupt and that there was some hole-and-corner work or hugger-mugger work in so far as the provision of houses and the getting of jobs were concerned. I think that is unworthy of Deputy Childers. Apparently, he was told something by somebody who was not very favourably disposed towards the continuance of local authorities in this country. At the end of his speech he tried to cover up what he had said, and stated that they were not corrupt—regardless of what he had said previously—but that they were incapable of doing the work; in other words, that members of local authorities in the country at the present time are practically imbeciles and not aware at all of what is required of them when they take up a position as members of a local authority. The Deputy also said that if we had a county manager we would have a pre-digestion of all the figures that would be necessary to enable the county councils to strike their rates in an equitable manner, and that all the figures would be prepared for them. Well, now, as I said previously, I have been a member of local authorities for a number of years in this country, and I have always found that the county clerks or town clerks were quite capable of doing all that before there was ever any mention at all of a county manager, and they did it very well. I do not think that the Local Government Department or any of its officials were able to find any fault with the way in which these accounts and figures were prepared year after year, and, so far as that is concerned, we do not need this superman that is to be imposed on the county councils if this Bill passes into law. I can assure Deputy Childers also that, so far as members of local authorities in this country are concerned, there is no corruption, and that people go in there in an effort to try to do their best for the public as a whole, and that most of their time is certainly taken up in looking after the best interests of the poor. As I have said already, I have yet to learn or to know of any one man in a county who would be capable of getting into touch with the poor as closely as he should in the same manner as the members of the county councils have been doing in the past.

Fianna Fáil was the last Party in this country that I would expect to introduce such a Bill as this, and I can tell the Minister that I am perfectly satisfied that, if the Whips were taken of and a free vote of the House were allowed, you would have a different situation when this Bill is put for its Second Reading. Now, nobody has definitely stated in this House what is wrong with local government to the extent that it was necessary that we should have county managers—not, as I said before, to manage on behalf of the council, but to manage the council, because that is the position that is visualised in this Bill. I also admitted before that there might be a tightening up in so far as local government is concerned, and we are offering in this amendment a medium which would enable the Local Government Department to have the whole question of local government in this country examined with a view to tightening up where it is necessary, and that if it were necessary, after that, that there should be a manager, he should be under the direct control of the council. Councils, after the passage of this Bill, will be so many puppets and so many rubber stamps. In a great many cases a matter will have become a fait accompli before the council knows anything at all about it. In my opinion, that is very undesirable and I think that it will bring about a spirit of apathy to such an extent that at, say, the election after the next one, very few people, very few intelligent people at any rate, will be found to offer themselves as candidates for local authorities at all.

I think the Minister would be serving a good purpose if he were to accept this amendment, and perhaps then we would be able to arrive at some decisions in which the House could be unanimous and that a definite effort would be made by every member of every Party in this House to establish a system of local government that would be acceptable to all. I am of the opinion that this matter is of sufficient importance even to warrant that there should be a referendum of the people to find out what their wishes and desires are in so far as local government is concerned. I suggest that Fianna Fáil has no mandate, good, bad or indifferent, from the people, to put this revolutionary change into operation. On the contrary, I think the people had a right to assume that, in accordance with the condemnation by the Fianna Fáil members of the Cork Bill and the Dublin Bill, Fianna Fáil were very definitely against the county managerial system. For that reason I suggest that the people in the country should be consulted before such a revolutionary change is brought about.

Deputy Brennan in the course of his statement said that the Minister had made a bad case, and that Deputy Norton had made a bad case. I must say that Deputy Brennan certainly made a better case for the Bill than the Minister did, but then of course Deputy Brennan had the feeling that he was always a supporter of the managerial system, while the Minister was not. There again he based his experience on Roscommon, which seems to be in a very bad state according to Deputy Dillon and Deputy Brennan. The Mayor of Limerick yesterday made a statement here, in which he said that he had been a member of the Limerick Corporation for a number of years, and that it was only during the last five years that they had had decent local government. I do not know who is in a position to speak for Limerick, but I distinctly heard two members of the Limerick Corporation, at the Council of Municipal Councils, condemning the County Management Bill in so far as it applied to Limerick. Those people were members of two different political parties, and they gave us to understand that they had a mandate from the Limerick City Council to speak as they did.

The Long Title of this Bill says it is going to make further and better provision for local government in this country. I must confess that I cannot see where the better provision is contained in any section of this Bill. I am perfectly satisfied that, if there were a little tightening up of the present system of local government, and a little more co-operation between the Minister and the local councils, we could get a system of local government which would be acceptable to everybody. As I said in another place, some people tell us that a great many of the ratepayers are in favour of this system. I doubt that very much. I am of the opinion that the people who are in favour of it will be found amongst those who have from time to time been rejected by the electorate, or people like Deputy Dillon who have run away from the County Board of Health in Roscommon—who have got tired representing the people. I would again recommend to the Minister the acceptance of Deputy Norton's amendment. I think that, if we were to accept that amendment, accommodation could be found whereby all Parties in this House could agree to co-operate with the Department of Local Government with a view to tightening up local government in the country, and devising if possible a better system. It may be necessary then that managers should be appointed, but, as I said before, as far as I am concerned, the manager I want to see appointed should be subject to the control of the elected representatives of the people. In any place where the managerial system has been brought into operation, any member of the council there can tell you that they have been deprived of much of the powers which they had prior to the appointment of that manager; that they cannot move hand or foot; that they cannot do anything effective for the good of the people, and especially the poorer section of the community. The Labour Party will never subscribe to a system of that kind. We will do everything we can to prevent this managerial system from coming into operation in this country.

I intend to support the amendment by the Labour Party. It was my intention yesterday to support that amendment, and every speech I have listened to since then has only strengthened my belief that before any legislation is introduced to order or amend our system of local government there should be a searching inquiry as to what is the best system to adopt. The proposals contained in this Bill are directed mainly towards curtailing and limiting the powers of the county councils, and in so far as they are intended to curtail those powers they are contrary to democratic government. They are limiting the powers of the people to look after their own affairs, and are placing the control of our local affairs in the hands of what may be, and what will in all likelihood be, local dictators. We are told that this system will promote economy and efficiency. I am not quite sure whether or not that is true. I am not quite sure whether 20 or 30 small dictators operating throughout the country, each with his own peculiar or particular ideas in regard to local administration, each with a strong personality and prepared to carry out his own ideas in his own way, will be any assistance to the Local Government Department in the general work of local government. I am not sure that those officials will not hamper the Local Government Department in various ways.

The great objection to this Bill lies in the fact that it deprives the plain people of the right that they should themselves look after their own affairs. For years when the demand in this country was for local administration, the slogan of those who demanded that reform was: "No taxation without representation." Now, under this Bill, we are going to have taxation without representation and—which is going to make this Bill even more obnoxious— we have the position in which the elected representatives will have no power whatever to administer the affairs of their counties or urban districts; yet they will have the duty, the very unpleasant task, of levying and collecting the rates. I think the position will be in the very near future that no self-respecting person will go forward as a local representative. No self-respecting person will be prepared to sit on a public board and carry out orders dictated to him by a permanent official—orders over the formulation of which he has no control whatever.

This is not the time when democratic government should be limited or restricted. At the moment, in every country in the world, an attack is being made upon democratic institutions. Democratic power in most of the Continental countries has been destroyed, and at this time we are proposing to destroy the basis of democratic government in this country. In this Bill we are setting out to deprive the people of close contact with local administration and, through that close contact with local administration, the contact which they should have with national administration. That is a step in the wrong direction. It is a step towards the ultimate destruction of democratic institutions in this country. Every argument that can be put forward in support of this Bill can be used with equal force in support of a demand for the abolition of this Parliament, and the substitution of a national dictator. I do not think any member of this House would stand over any such proposal. Members of local authorities have been sharply criticised, and I think they have been very unjustly criticised. It is very easy, particularly for people who are not members of local bodies, to cast a slur upon those representatives. It is equally easy for people who are not members of this Parliament to cast a slur upon this Parliament or upon each individual member of this Parliament, but any member of this House who is in close contact with local administration, any member of this House who has been either for a long period or a short period a member of a local body, must admit that the local elected representatives have discharged their duties very conscientiously, and with a high sense of honour and rectitude. As far as I am concerned, I have been a member of public bodies only for a short time. I have been a member of a county council for only five years, but I must say that when I was elected to that body I found it composed mainly of members who had been in public affairs practically all their lives, and I was very deeply impressed by the high standard of rectitude, honour, honesty, and conscientious attention to the details of their office which those gentlemen displayed.

I found that although that county council, of which I am a member, was composed mainly of representatives of the ratepayers, representatives of a ratepayers' party, there was very conscientious and very careful attention paid to the interests of the workers and of other sections of the community. I do not think there is any justification for depriving those locally elected representatives of the powers which they have enjoyed and exercised for so many years. I am quite prepared to agree that there may be need to reform or reorganise the whole system of local government, but, if you are to proceed to reform and reorganise the local government system, I think, before any step is taken, there should be a careful examination of the whole position.

I am not satisfied that the appointment of county managers is a step in the right direction. I would be inclined, if I were asked for a suggestion, to start at the top of the local government system. I would be inclined to abolish the Minister for Local Government. I am not referring now to the present Minister, but rather to the office he holds. I believe that the Department of Local Government has too many functions to perform. It has to deal with a variety of subjects, from housing to the maintenance of roads and public health. If a reform was to be considered at all, I think it should be on the lines of appointing a Minister and setting up a department which would deal exclusively with public health. I would also be inclined to think that the administration of roads should be under one department and that department should be confined exclusively to the maintenance of roads. The same might apply to housing. I feel that combining all those services under one branch of administration is wrong.

I do not think it will make things better to appoint a manager in each county, or in a group of counties, who will have all these services to look after. I do not think it is possible to find a manager who will be competent to look after, not only public health services, but road maintenance and the various other services over which he will have control. For that reason I am against the appointment of those managers. I believe that road maintenance would be better carried out if, over the heads of county surveyors, there was one general surveyor of roads who would have experience of road work, who would have been a road surveyor in some county and made his job a success and, having done so, would be able to have his progressive ideas carried out in other counties which might not be so progressive.

That might be a needed reform, but the most important reform which I consider necessary at the moment, is to bring the plain people into closer touch with local government. This Bill will have the opposite effect. It will create a situation in which local government will be administered, controlled and directed entirely by permanent officials. It may be asked, how can the people be brought into closer contact with local administration? There seems to be only one way and that is, so far from depriving local councils of their power, I think their power should be increased to a considerable extent and, if the work which they are called upon to do is regarded as too heavy for a county council, there is no reason why local bodies, such as parish councils, should not be set up in every parish, thus enabling the plain people to take a close and active interest in the administration of their public affairs. I believe that would solve the problem which has been referred to, to a great extent, the problem of the enormous amount of work which boards of health and county councils have to perform. A good deal of detail work could be transferred from the boards of health or the county councils to the parish councils, and I believe it would be carried out very conscientiously and very efficiently.

There is no use in pretending that permanent, well-paid public officials are the only people who possess intelligence and are the only people competent to administer public affairs. I believe that in every parish you will find conscientious, efficient men who are prepared to perform the details of local government work efficiently and without any reward. I think that by availing of the services of such men you will be bringing the people into contact with the administration of public affairs; you will be bringing the government of the country down to the plain people and, to a great extent, you will be narrowing the gulf which appears to be growing up between the central government and the people who elect that government.

I think that it is along those lines that reform should be made. Therefore, I am asking the Minister, if he cannot withdraw this Bill, at least to put it on the shelf, together with the Valuation Bill and other objectionable measures, and, in the meantime, have an inquiry into the whole system of local government and find out if it is not possible to get an efficient system which will be thoroughly democratic in its outlook.

Roscommon has been mentioned so often in this debate—and in some cases not mentioned in a favourable light—that I think it is necessary I should say something. I had not intended to say anything on this Bill, but, in the circumstances, I think it is better that I should do so. I may say that with some of the proposals in this Bill I am in wholehearted agreement. There are, however, some points in the measure with which I am not in such complete agreement. So far as reorganisation of the work of the boards of health is concerned, from experience of it, and not perhaps a very long experience, I am convinced that some change is necessary. Whether you call him a county manager, an executive officer, or a secretary, a lot of the routine work which has been left over fortnight after fortnight or week after week, in the case of the board of health, should be transacted by some executive officer. I have said that frequently, and I have heard the same thing from men who have been members for a great many years of boards of health.

We have in this House at the present moment quite a number of people who have been members of boards of health, and I think they will agree with me that some change is necessary. I can also see the benefit of unification of control and seeing that the money provided by the county council for the board of health is spent in a proper manner. It is true there is a certain amount of control at present, but I do not think that the parent body has sufficient insight into the method of spending the money or that they have a sufficient check on the proposals put up. For these reasons I think a change is necessary. I am not at all so confident as to other points in the Bill or that they are in the interests of the people or of the county councils concerned. Yesterday, when Deputy Fogarty was so unexpectedly cast from the debate, he made a point with which I agree. That is that he does not think dictatorial authority should be given to the manager either over the staff or the spending of money generally. I agree that there should be some limit set to the powers of the county manager.

If there is any object in my rising here it is to urge on the Minister that between now and the Committee Stage he will consider something that will put a check on the manager and give the county council more control over him. I believe if the Minister considers that matter he will see reason in it. I do not think at all that it is wise to make the county manager sole dictator, not only over the work of the staff, but with regard to remuneration, increments and so on. Neither do I think it right that the county managers should have the fixing of the salaries. It is years since the Roscommon County Council, with all its faults, urged that the fixing of the scale of salaries should be laid down by the Department of Local Government and Public Health. I repeat that to-day, so that there will be an efficient way of dealing with the county manager, the county council, or anything else as regards increments and salaries. I think increments should come automatically. I understand that the Minister is introducing another Bill. I suggest there should be a fixed scale of salaries for all officers. That would do away with all that trouble. I do not think that the county manager should have power to spend money without the consent of the county council. At the very least, I say that before the county manager makes appointments there should be a finance committee of the county council acting with him and co-operating with him. I think that is the very least that the county council should expect. They should have some say in and also some knowledge of the appointments and the remuneration.

I am sorry to say that there have been allegations made against both individual county councillors and county councils as a whole. I do not think these allegations should have been made, especially by men who really do not know that about which they are talking. When a serious statement like that is made, one would imagine that the person who makes it would know what he is speaking about. A moment ago we had a Deputy making reference to the disposal of cottages, and quoting an individual as an authority condemning the county councillors and local government. That is most unfair. There are thousands of individuals in a county, and thousands of others might have as important views as the one mentioned by the Deputy. Quite probably that man was prejudiced. I have had experience of many such people. I have had experience of a great many things, including working on the roads, and I hold definitely that road workers as a body are just as good workers as can be found anywhere else. That is my experience of them all. I must say that I found the road workers as honest as anybody else. They have their supervisors and gangers. This work will not be any better carried out under the county manager.

Deputy Dillon refers to wrangling and wangling in the matter of using influence with the gangers to secure employment for the supporters of certain county councillors. I repudiate that in the strongest possible manner. I have never inquired as to anybody's politics, nor as to whether a man was a supporter of mine or not. I made it a rule at all times not to interfere with gangers in the securing of employment for any supporters of mine. I challenge Deputy Dillon to produce a ganger who has been asked by me to give work to my supporters. The same Deputy made a sweeping charge against county councils—that the work was done inefficiently. In fact, that Deputy left both the board of health and the county council because he says he thought it was only fooling they were. The fact is that Deputy Dillon has not attended those meetings at all, and he could have very little knowledge of the working of the county councils. I do not think it is fair for a man like that to make so sweeping a charge as he has made.

The Deputy has gone once or twice in the year to these meetings. I think that would be about all he attended, and I do not think it is fair for him to come along now and to say that county councils are useless bodies. As far as county councils are concerned there is nothing to stop their functioning. They can do their work efficiently in the time they hold their meetings and I do not think there is much overlooked. In view of the introduction of a new Bill which I understand will deal with limited areas and name the number of members to be elected for those areas, I wish to impress on the Minister the necessity for giving adequate representation to those areas. I agree with all those members who state that it is necessary that there should be councillors in touch with the poor districts. The rich are able to look after themselves. It would be a fatal mistake to limit the county councillors too much. If the representation is made smaller it should not be made much smaller. That would be a great mistake and it would bear out what those in opposition to the Bill have been saying, namely, that pretty soon there will be no interest taken by the local people in the affairs of the county councils. I do not think that there is anything further I need say, or that I should take up any more time in dealing with this Bill. I appeal to the Minister to seek advice in this matter, and in the first place to give all the power that is possible to the county councils over the managers and not to make the managers dictators, for I think that would be fatal. Whoever lives will find that I am simply stating the truth. By all means make the manager the executive officer so as to make for more efficiency, but do not take the final authority from the county council. As to the method of appointment of managers, I have not much to say. The probability is that the county council secretaries at the moment are as good as could be got. As to the future I cannot say. It will certainly require a very capable man and, above all, a man with deep human sympathy to carry on the duties that the manager is supposed to carry on. It would take a great knowledge of human nature, because without that, I do not care what technical qualifications a man may have, he will certainly be a failure as a county manager.

Many different points of view have been expressed on this Bill. I was very much impressed by the points of view expressed by two supporters of the Bill. Deputy Dillon, in the closing portions of his statement, although supporting the Bill enthusiastically, still thought that an extension at the other end would be helpful. Deputy Cleary, who followed on the same lines, thought an extension and a creation of other boards, so as to divert some of the accumulation of work from boards of health, would be helpful. I was glad to hear their points of view, because my own runs somewhat in the same way. I am opposing this Bill and not supporting it. This Bill is entitled: "An Act to make further and better provision for the local government of counties and certain other areas." I find that under Section 14 all administrative power is transferred to the manager and nothing remains to the elected representatives but the striking of the rate, on an estimate, of course, prepared by the manager, the appointment of a rate collector to collect it, and a few other functions of no very great importance. All other powers, for which the council had got authority from the people, are placed in the hands of the Government's nominated manager. I do not think that that is going any way towards better local government.

There are many points in this Bill that are not understandable to me and can only be made so if, as the Minister has now stated, this Bill is to be followed by subsequent measures. In order, therefore, to get this Bill in its proper perspective, I think these Bills should have been introduced at the same time. Then we would know directly where we were. The Minister says "further and better provision for local government." Possibly there are two conceptions of that. The Minister's may be, further and better official control, making things easier for the Departments. Mine is, further and better control so as to make provision that all the legislation and social services passed on behalf of the people would be made available for them. You can pay too high a price for what I may term official efficiency. The purpose of all local government and all the social services is to serve the people. In my opinion concentration of them in one man will not tend that way.

What is the necessity for the Bill? Is the Minister aware of the hardships imposed by the amalgamation Act of 1925? The whole structure of local government at that time was practically swept away and large areas were left without representation. Is it suggested that by having them still further removed you are going to benefit local government? I hold that after many years of operation the old Local Government Act would lend itself to overhaul. But that is an entirely different matter from its complete elimination. Certainly there was no reason for sweeping away an entire structure and concentrating all the work of the boards of health, boards of assistance, and county councils in the one man. I might point out that in County Cork it means handing over to him ten urban councils, two commissions, and the entire area of Cork county. I think that is a matter entirely beyond the power of any individual to handle. By concentrating all these powers in one man under this Bill you are creating what I would call just an official life in the country and the Minister will not succeed in getting better and more efficient local government. Efficient if you like, but better local government, according to my conception of it, no.

What is this thing called local government? I have been listening to speeches in this House on the question of the higher forms of administration, the question of higher officials and the question of the difficulties of the various councillors. After all local government is the right of the people to administer their affairs in their own areas as they think best, subject, of course, to the overriding power of the Minister who always has the power of veto. It is their right to administer their own local affairs as they think best in the interests of their own locality. They are always, of course, under the supervision of the Minister.

I do not like dealing with this particular point, because I hardly think it is correct. I do not think that the Minister doubts either the honesty or the integrity of the members who are administering the affairs of the counties at present. But the whole implication of the Bill certainly is a complete lack of confidence in their ability. Does the Minister hold the view that they are no longer to be trusted?

If he thinks that he has ample powers, if undesirable things occur or if he holds that a council would be better under the managerial system, to appoint his own commissioner. But that is an entirely different matter from tearing up the whole fabric of local government. These councils at present are responsible for the supervision of the various hospitals, roads, boards of assistance, etc. They are all under their control. Speaking for my own area, I do not think it could be better done.

Is it necessary to remind the House of what local government means? When the Act of 1898 was passed and became operative in 1899, all the best men in the country came in to make a success of it. They gave their best efforts to the administration of it. After the grand jury system which we had before, it was hailed as giving liberty and power to the people for the first time. How well they succeeded is now a matter for history. From 1899 to 1914 they remedied most of the defects of centuries. They brought local government and its administration to a point in which we had contentment and happiness, and, if you like, prosperity that I do not think any of us here will live to see repeated in this country again.

I believe that the success of local government administration at that time aided in the demand for national government and for extended national powers. That period could be looked upon as the second period in the life of the Irish nation. So much do I think of effects of local government at that time. Passing over the intervening years, I believe that the Act of 1925 was the first element of disintegration in the administration of local government. With the accumulation of services, the administration of the various boards is difficult, but I hold strongly that these boards, which should be contributory to the county councils, do fulfil a fundamental national function. Men met at these boards and put forward different points of view. Public men learned restraint, moderation, and respect for one another's point of view. They learned what is really essential in the building up of a nation—how to administer their own affairs. I hold that these powers are necessary, and that many of the extravagances we occasionally hear about here would never have occurred if there were an extension of that principle.

With the amalgamation, there were whole areas and localities which had not representation. There was a demand by the councils for increased representation. There were localities in which the people had nobody to approach. They did not know how to avail of the services provided for them by the State. They knew nobody but an official whom they could approach. This Bill is, unfortunately, making the position worse. The public health and public assistance authorities which succeeded to the contributory boards created difficulties; but you are adding to the difficulties by handing over these services to one manager. I am of opinion, apart altogether from the efficacy of contributory local bodies, that these boards are essential to the life of the nation. I believe that opinion has to be formed at the bottom, and should not be dictated from the top. I hold that these boards help to form a public opinion, that they train men in administration, give them a grip of the national problems and difficulties, and ultimately fit them to take their place in the county or the national assembly.

By doing away with all that, you are taking a retrograde step, and the connection between this Dáil and the people will be merely through the ægis of an official. As time goes on, the quality of the men you will get to act as advisers on these urban and county councils will be questionable. A system of disintegration will follow and the ultimate result—psychological if you like—will be the presence of a few powerless advisers in each locality. The effect will be to turn the whole country into the position of governors and governed with only an official as intermediary. Efficiency between the local authorities and the Department will be secured, but it will be got at the cost of national disintegration.

Leaving subsidiary matters aside, the effect of the Act of 1898 was to teach the people to manage their own affairs. This Bill is bound to bring us back to the position in which we were before that Act was passed. This Government has imposed great limitations on the country. They have increased national and local taxation from £17,000,000 in 1932 to over £100,000,000. They have increased taxation to a point that is almost unbearable. They have raised the cost of living to a point which has brought privation to the homes of many of our people, but they have left us the institutions that can remedy that position. It only requires energy and determination on the part of the people to remedy that state of affairs. By this Bill, the Government is taking away from the people the power to rectify what is wrong in their local affairs.

There is a personal aspect to this question. I have been for a number of years associated with local authorities. I challenge any man to put a pin's point on any undesirable action of theirs. I am aware of one or two members of a county council who can only reach the city for meetings after a two days' journey. They have to spend the same time on the journey home. You may say that that is an argument for this Bill—that no man should be called upon to travel for two days to a meeting. But two members have done so, and done so with enthusiasm, because they believed in the right of the people to administer their own affairs. I am not, after these years of close co-operation and understanding, going, by supporting this Bill, to say to these men: "You are unworthy of the confidence the people reposed in you. You are unworthy to administer the affairs you were appointed to administer." I do not know whether or not I speak for the majority of opinion in this House. I suppose the Minister will get his majority within the House—much of it hesitatingly, much of it reluctantly, and much of it without conviction. He will also get support from this side of the House, but I wonder would the Government be prepared to grant a free vote of the House? At any rate, although I may not be speaking for the majority vote of this House, I do speak, I believe, for the majority of considered opinion outside. They believe and know that there are higher things in the national life and higher ideals than mere efficiency and economy, and that there is a higher spirit in this country that has to be adverted to. There is, and there ought to be, a better association between us and now, if the local bodies are wiped out, some of them, possibly, we may be going to far. I believe that the preservation of these public bodies and their powers is essential in the interests of the country and essential for forming and teaching responsibility, forming properly considered opinion, and teaching moderation and a proper national outlook. If I am not presumptuous in saying so, I look upon them as in somewhat the position of the family life, which is the basis of the spiritual life, and I believe that the opinions formed there are the basis of the national opinion. In my opinion, this House will come ultimately to regret, and regret very sincerely, that it has ever advanced or put forward anything that, in its effects, helps to stifle the formation of the opinion that is so essential in the real interests of the country.

There is one other small matter to which I should like to refer. No matter how you deny it, this Bill is striking at democratic right. It is striking at democratic control. Now, nothing is more insidious than to do a thing and pretend that you are not doing it, and this is undoubtedly striking at democratic right and democratic control. Is it not an extraordinarily inopportune moment to introduce a Bill of this kind? Whether it be true or not, the opinion is held by the overwhelming mass of our people that you are striking at democratic right and wiping out the foundations of democratic control. I know that many members of this House and Ministers have concentrated on trying to prove that that is not so, but when the whole world is in conflict in connection with those ideals, and when the very existence of civilisation is being threatened, is it not a very inopportune moment for our Government to bring in a Bill which has—or against which it is alleged, at any rate—principles of the very same kind?

—I fear that this will cause reactions, and extremely undesirable reactions, in our country, and from the points of view I have raised, I think the Minister should take the real long view of the matter and that he would be well advised, not alone to bow to the Labour amendment, or have a referendum or anything else, but to go into the matter and reform local government in any way he likes, so long as he leaves the power in the hands of the people and gives them opportunities of meeting. Much has been said here about undesirable things. A few undesirable incidents may have happened in certain places occasionally, but I do not regard that as being very much. As I say, there may have been a few such happenings, but even in the very worst localities I think it will still be found that the overwhelming mass of opinion is in favour of doing the business entrusted to them. The Minister should take the long view of this matter and endeavour to see what the effects nationally are going to be. Let the Minister endeavour, if he likes, to see in what way local government can be reformed and in what way expenditure can be curtailed, but let him leave to the people the rights and powers that they had and that they appreciated in former years, from 1898 onwards, when we had stability and prosperity and when we had an enlightened public opinion determined to maintain their rights. If this Bill is passed, it will have repercussions that, I am afraid, this country will regret, and regret very sincerely, in the future.

Before I sit down, Sir, I should like to refer to one small incident. It may not be in order, but there was a certain element of challenge in connection with it. I have some knowledge of the question of the Appointments Commission. I have opposed the Appointments Commission while I have been in public life, because I claim the right of the local authority to make its own appointments. Even at the moment, I am engaged in connection with that matter and have the honour of having a mandamus issued against me, but that was on a question of principle. However, although I am opposed to that method, there is no appointment that has been made in my county, of which I am aware, which does not reflect honour on the Appointments Commission and which was not made on merit. That is all I have to say. I do not intend to say any more about the Bill, but I would ask the Minister to reply to my question.

If we are to believe the statements made by Deputy Dillon in this House this evening the country must be in a very bad way indeed. All the local bodies are corrupt, the Local Government Department is corrupt, and the Appointments Commissioners are corrupt, according to him. All I wish to say is that anybody who would take Deputy Dillon seriously would have to say to him: "If I had the opinion of my fellow-Irishmen that Deputy Dillon holds, I am hanged if I would represent them in this House or anywhere else." This Bill, in my opinion, is going far beyond what is required. I have been a member of public boards since about 1924, and in only one case during all that period— and that was during the first five or six months that I was on the Cork County Council—did I find any case of the corruption that has been so broadly alleged here to-day. There was only the one case, and that case was duly reported to the Minister for Local Government, but no inquiry was held. That was in January, 1925, I think. I admit that there is something to be said in favour of giving more executive authority to the secretaries of county councils and of local bodies. I do not know from where this manager mad idea came into this country, but it seems to be flooding all portions of the House, and even the Labour Party.

I should like to know is the Deputy for the Bill or against it? I have been trying to follow the Deputy, and it seems to me he is both for and against the Bill.

The Deputy must be allowed to make his own speech.

Yes, Sir, but it seems to me that he is against the Bill at one time, and then that he is for the Bill.

That is for the Deputy to decide.

Let him tell us whether he is for it or against it.

The position, as far as I see it at any rate, is that there is occasion all right for giving more executive power to the secretaries of county councils and other bodies, but there is no justification whatsoever— particularly in the present position when our job is to curtail expenditure and to endeavour to see where it can be curtailed—for imposing on the unfortunate people of this country about 200 more officials and somewhere around a quarter of a million of money. The county secretaries may be all right as county managers. There is no doubt they will make better county managers than the city managers we have got up to the moment, but where in Heaven's name are we going to get the superman from? A superman is going to come along and take charge of the County of Cork. He is going to take charge of the county council, of ten urban councils, of two town commissioners' areas, of three boards of health, of a mental hospital, and of three boards of assistance. Unless they are going to get him out of the mental hospital, I do not know where else they are going to get him. All those things are to be handed over to a county manager—a county council, ten urban areas, two town commissioners' areas, three boards of health, three boards of assistance, and a mental hospital. A superman is going to be found for that. He is going to have assistant managers. It is just like the private secretary to the private secretary to the private secretary that we heard about here. I suppose it will wind up like that. I remember one occasion long ago in Cork when a case was being made for one county surveyor, and it wound up with the county surveyor having about 40 assistant surveyors under him, so that he could sit down and look at all the rest of the fellows working.

To my mind, what is happening here is that the county councils have too little power. The officials of county councils have for a number of years past considered themselves managers. I remember only about two years ago in Cork when the county surveyor, in the expenditure of a grant of something close on £200,000, ignored the county council altogether, and the whole matter was fixed up between the county surveyor in Cork, one official, and another official in Dublin. The money was spent without any reference whatsoever to the elected representatives of the people in the county. It was only when I had to move that county surveyor's suspension that we brought him to heel and made him have more consideration for the men who were paying him his salary. Officialdom has gone mad in this country, and that is what is wrong. Deputy Belton told us here he was in favour of managerial control in Dublin City, and the reason he gave was that the business people have not time to walk or go in their cars from their business places here in the city to Corporation Buildings. They have not time, but the country farmer would have time enough to get up in the morning and travel 60 miles to a county council meeting. We had one county councillor at one time who had to come 84 miles. I wonder if that voice from Heaven which I heard up there a while ago would ask Deputy Belton what side of the fence he is on?

I am not troubled about Deputy Belton, but I am troubled as to how Deputy Corry is going to vote on this Bill.

There is the position as I see it. The power even in regard to the sinking of an ordinary pump is not in the hands of the board of health, the elected representatives of the people; it is between the county medical officer of health and the Department. They are the deciding factor as to whether it is wanted or not, not the local bodies, so there is damn little power to be taken from us anyway when you boil it all down. We heard a lot about county managers and the success of the city manager in Cork. Where was the success? I cannot see it. The city manager in Cork, some time ago, with an official from the Local Government Department, examined a site for a hospital. He bought a large site, something about 26 or 27 acres of land, and he paid £3,360 of the Cork ratepayers' money for it. When he had bought it, another official from the Local Government Department came down and condemned it. The money was paid—again, I think, again without the knowledge of the representatives of the people of Cork city—by the city manager acting on the authority that was conferred on him here in the Managerial Bill. That was bad enough, but for four years after that money had been paid the gentleman who got that £3,360, and had it in his pocket or in the bank, grazed that 26 or 27 acres of land which is the property of the rate payers of Cork, without paying a farthing for it.

There is no public official on trial before this House.

I am making a comparison.

The Deputy, under the privilege of this House, is making allegations against men who have no opportunity of defending themselves.

I should be sorry to do that.

Then the Deputy should desist.

I am making a comparison between that and the action of the local body, the elected representatives, who, some 12 months ago or thereabouts, bought another site for a hospital, and during the very week in which that money was paid until such time as that site could be used they let the land and are using the income from the land for the benefit of the rate payers. The superman, the economist, let that go, but the elected representatives of the people immediately let that land and used the money for the benefit of the ratepayers.

We hear about the great economy that is going to be effected through the appointment of this superman. I wonder, and I think I have reason to wonder. I think it was about 1926 or 1927 that we took over the South Cork Board from the superman who had it before that, and who claimed that he could not administer the area with the amount of money he had for it. In 12 months we reduced the rates in that area by £33,000, and none of us claim to be a superman. Those are the facts. Another genius that we got there was not able to keep out of the bankruptcy courts. He was not able to manage his own affairs, let alone the affairs of an area or of a county. I wonder in what position we are going to find ourselves if complete control of the ratepayers' money in this country is going to be juggled between the manager in the county and an official in Dublin, because that is what it amounts to. The Local Government Department are not competent to manage what they are given to do, apart altogether from swopping managers down through the country. That has been my experience, at any rate.

This Bill could be made a pretty good one if, instead of appointing county managers, or calling men county managers, the present secretaries of county councils were given extra power to do the smaller items required to be done, and that, perhaps, a body of men coming a long distance to a meeting may not have time to do. Give more initiative to local bodies so that you will get a better type of man there. From my knowledge of officials in this country, as compared with the type of men we meet on local bodies, you will be a long time searching through the officials before you will get men who will do the work of the local bodies as well as it has been done.

There is justification for this Bill, for a portion of it, if it is limited to giving a little more executive authority and a small bit more of administrative authority to the secretaries of county councils, of boards of health or of boards of assistance. There is no justification for taking complete control of these things out of the hands of the elected representatives of the people. If that is done, I know what is going to happen. We have a gentleman named "Klondyke" in Cork, and I am thinking that you will have a lot of "Klondykes" on our local boards, because I do not believe that there is a decent man in this country who will be anxious to go into them.

I do not know if, for a very long time, any Deputy in this House was ever in the predicament that Deputy Corry finds himself in. I presume he intends to vote for the Bill, but his speech was mainly a tirade in opposition to it. Indeed, that was the sense of the speeches from the Government side during this debate. Although I am free to vote what way I like, I frankly find myself in somewhat of a difficulty. I freely admit I never have had such difficulty making up my mind as to what action I should take in regard to this Bill, and I have never found the people I have consulted more unable to give me any idea as to what the general opinion in the country is in regard to it.

In the course of the discussion various arguments have been used for and against the measure. The arguments for or against it could be equally well refuted. I could make a good argument for it and I could immediately refute that argument by an equally good and probably a better argument. It has been stated that the reasons for the introduction of this measure were the inefficiency and the extravagance of local bodies in the country. If there is any inefficiency or extravagance it is mainly due to the policy of the Government, if not altogether due to that policy. When this Government deliberately turned the local bodies into political bodies, they succeeded to a great extent in creating highly inefficient bodies. The local bodies have been largely turned into political bodies. A political body acts altogether for a Party or, I might say, for a cause, and it generally proves inefficient.

I remember a period in my own county when, for a few years after we got self-government, there was a council in operation—I expect it was the same in all counties—and the members of that council, in the matter of local administration, were highly inefficient.

That is not true at all; that is not correct.

Let me develop my argument. As economists, and in the careful spending of local moneys they were inefficient, but, as honest, decent men, put into a position for a certain reason, they were good men. I had at that period the duty of defending those men. I was a member of the succeeding county council and there was a charge levelled against the men who were elected in a time of trouble in this country when many people were either afraid or ashamed to take up the duties that those men took up. They were elected as councillors, not because of their efficiency for the job, or because of their record as economists, but because they were in the fight for freedom, and they were put in there as the supporters of a cause. I pay all due respect to those men, all the respect that any man in this House can pay to them. When these men were vilified in my county, and in other counties I expect the same applied, and when they were described as inefficient and corrupt—the charge of corruption was levelled against them— I was one of their foremost defenders.

There was a charge levelled against them and a demand was made for a sworn inquiry. The rates were admittedly high, and a charge was made that members of the council were corrupt. I was the leader of the minority that defended these men. My argument was that they were elected, not as economists, not for the reason that they were efficient administrators of local government, but that they were put in for a specific reason as soldiers, as people elected to further a cause. It is an illustration of the indefensible policy in normal times of turning anybody into a political body. It was proved afterwards to the credit of these men that, if they were inefficient in administration, it was because they had other highly-important duties to perform; that they could not have been efficient in the circumstances. But the charge of corruption was withdrawn. There was never a scintilla of evidence in my county or any other county that there was one atom of corruption that could be charged against those men. In fact, the greatest tribute that could be paid to them was paid, when it was pointed out that, while they had command of large sums of money, sums that were sometimes not lodged in a bank, but carried about from place to place, there was never an instance—this came out at the sworn inquiry—of misplaced trust or any corrupt action.

I merely state that as a refutation of the charge of corruption in one instance, and I am sure it applies equally to other counties. Our local bodies, through the action of the Government, have mainly developed into political bodies. Most of their time in the country is taken up, not with the efficient administration of local affairs, the economical administration of local affairs, but very definitely to further the Party that had a sufficient majority to send them there. A lot of their actions are confined to that particular performance. I am not blaming them; I am blaming the Government that allowed this state of things to continue. The difficulty most people see is how we are going to get away from that particular policy.

Who threw down the challenge in 1934?

What particular challenge was made in 1934?

To fight along a particular line.

If I remember correctly, the political challenge was made by the Government. They were the first to contest elections as a political Party, and they forced other Parties to follow suit. Naturally, if one Party tried to command all the public bodies, there was an effort to oppose them. There was an effort, and you have turned the local bodies, instead of being independent administrators, into political hacks. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned until to-morrow.
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