Vol. 88 No. 7
I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £15,208 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Civil Service Commission (Nos. 5 of 1924 and 41 of 1926) and of the Local Appointments Commission (No. 39 of 1926).
On this Vote, I am going to ventilate a point that was raised by question here the other day and I want to fit what I am going to say into the framework of the remarks the Taoiseach made here to-day, repeating what he has said on other occasions. He is always pleading for co-operation in this grave emergency. The point I am leading up to is a point that is undoubtedly causing great perturbation in a particular Department, the Department of Local Government, in connection with an appointment there concerning which questions were asked the other day.
I do not think that would be in order, with all respect.
We have not heard it yet.
It would be very definitely in order, I suggest.
We will see.
I shall proceed now to make it in order if I was not in order in my preliminary remarks. It is very easy to provide a scheme of making appointments through the Civil Service Commission and the Local Appointments Commission. It is very easy to distort the scheme if, when any particular appointment comes along, you first of all get your mind set on the individual you want to put into the post and, still keeping the Civil Service Commission and the Local Appointments Commission in the foreground—they are going to have their choice but only in respect of a limited number of people who are going to apply—you think of your selected candidate and add a stroke here to the picture, a qualification there, a reduction in the age limit or a raising of the age limit at another point and, eventually, you come to the point where only one or two candidates will go forward. It is only in that limited sphere that the Local Appointments Commissioners or the Civil Service Commissioners will work. In this matter of appointments the Government are marking their departure from responsibility and are revealing themselves as a Government that have forgotten their principles to remember their friends.
One of the best examples of that is displayed in an advertisement for an appointment to the medical staff of the Local Government Department. Since that advertisement has appeared people have come to me with such wagers as this—that they would here and now write down on a sheet of paper a name, and put it into the hands of the Ceann Comhairle or the Leader of the Labour Party, and put any money that is required on it and, when the appointment is made and that envelope opened, the name of the person appointed will be there because it is quite clear who is aimed at. It is absolutely clear as between two people. If the bet is to be taken another way and the two names to be written down, then, not merely could wagers be laid, but odds-on wagers. That is a scheme that we have seen developing over years but it has now reached its final perfection at this particular point. I say the scheme is one which allows people to parade themselves as still being in favour of the Local Appointments Commission and the Civil Service Commission type of appointment and excluding the question of patronage, while patronage can still be exercised in the most barefaced and blatant way.
The qualifications for an appointment under consideration at the moment are outlined in the advertisement which appeared, and it is easy for people who know the persons who might be up for it and who know the persons in the background, to sit down and study the little masterly strokes of this qualification and that experience, and to know exactly who is going to get his foot into that department eventually.
The significant thing is that, although there were many evasions when the question was put, the Minister eventually had to confess that he had not asked the senior medical officer to advise him, although there has been a tradition that that should be done and although it is obviously a wise thing that it should be done—that the person in charge of the office for years should be asked to say whether there should be any special qualifications demanded. He has seen the office grow up and how the work has developed. It is something which is done in an institution with which I have some association, where, on the death of any person who holds a university post, the faculty are immediately asked to say whether they think the qualifications for the post should be changed. People in close association with the post, particularly if there are people there who are lecturers or assistants under the professor who has departed, are constantly asked for their views as to whether there should be any change in the regulations. On this occasion, in connection with this particular appointment, the one thing which emerges was the Minister's definite attempt to evade that significant point as to whether he had or had not asked for the advice of the chief medical inspector when the conditions of the new appointment were being framed. It is a post which is now in the offing. It is going to be filled, and through the most obvious method of patronage. I ask members of the Government to remember when they ask people on this side to co-operate that co-operation does not merely mean that people on this side should go on platforms and ask young men, no matter what their political loyalties may be, to join the defence forces of the country. One would have thought that, in a time of emergency, when that appeal was being sent out, there might at least be a chance given to merit, irrespective of Party affiliations. That is not being done.
On the Local Government Estimate, I raised the question of the method, or lack of method, of, as I thought, the Local Government Department—I have since been informed that it is the Local Appointments Commission—with regard to filling various vacancies through the country. There was very severe criticism of the Department of Local Government and it was held up to odium because of delays of various kinds. I am now informed that, at least with regard to the making of appointments, they have endeavoured, and successfully endeavoured, to wash their hands of it, and that it is the failure of the Local Appointments Commission to do its job which is responsible.
I refer, in particular, to the appointment of a doctor to Roscommon County Hospital. That is a matter which nobody can understand. The hospital, which is both a surgical and medical hospital, was opened, so far as the surgical side is concerned, before Christmas, because we had the surgeon there, and, some weeks afterwards, we asked for a scheme from the Local Government Department in respect of the appointment of a physician for the medical side. We did not agree with the Department in respect of the scheme that should function and about three weeks or a month were lost. Eventually we accepted the Department's scheme. That was, I think, in March, but from that day to this the Local Appointments Commission has held up the appointment and nothing has been done.
In accepting the Department's scheme, we sent a request to the Local Appointments Commission for the appointment of a physician, but notwithstanding the fact that the hospital is ready, is furnished and is operating on the surgical side from February to the end of July, there has not been a budge by the Local Appointments Commission. What is happening? I do not know what the difficulties are in getting together a selection board. So far as I am concerned, ever since the Local Appointments Commission was set up in 1926, I have been a firm upholder of its findings. I think it is the best system, but my confidence has been shaken lately. The position with regard to delays is unpardonable. I do not know whether the whisperings are right or not, but I am told that many of the delays are occasioned by certain persons looking about for the right doctors to put on the selection board, so that certain people will be selected. I do not want to believe these whisperings, but there is something very fishy about the delays.
I think these people who are paid by the State to carry out these duties ought to carry them out. It is very unfair to the ratepayers of Roscommon who have asked for this appointment, and who have fallen in with the views of the Local Government Department months ago, that nothing has been done. The hospital is there, with beds in it, but with no patients, because we have no physician. It is a scandal which ought to be remedied, and I am glad of the opportunity of raising it on this Vote.
From my knowledge of the Local Appointments Commissioners, they act with scrupulous fairness as between all concerned in respect of their operation of the Act in the selection of candidates for appointment to local bodies all over the country. They are scrupulously fair, honest, and impartial.
I have always tried to believe that.
The chairman is a person in whom all sides can have confidence that they will get a fair and square deal. I do not know the appointment to which Deputy McGilligan refers.
It was questioned here two days ago.
I must not have been here.
There were five questions down about it.
I was not here, and I do not know what the appointment is. When I was Minister for Local Government, I often had a considerable amount of negotiation on questions of qualifications and age. The Local Appointments Commission and I often differed as to ages. We did not differ very seriously, as a rule, with regard to qualifications, and for all professional appointments which are filled nowadays, qualifications are fairly well standardised, so far as I am aware.
Differences in respect of ages may arise in relation to different kinds of posts. I do not know what the difference may be in the case Deputy McGilligan has in mind, but no effort has been made, so far as this Government is concerned, to give a political twist or Party bias to appointments by the Local Appointments Commission, and no effort has been made to get the Commission to allot marks by means of the selection boards for any particular political Party qualification, as was done by the last Government, when they laid down that men who had served in the Free State Army must get certain marks, and, therefore, made it possible for nobody but men who had served in the Free State Army to get certain posts. Nothing of that kind was done by this Government. I am sure that, so far as the present board is concerned, the Local Appointments Commission act fairly and squarely, and I do not think anybody can charge them with doing anything but what is just and proper as between candidates.
There may be delays. Certainly the Local Appointments Commission procedure is often a slower procedure for filling posts than was the arrangement in existence before the Commission came into operation: but I am sure that in respect of delay, such as that alleged by Deputy Brennan in relation to a particular appointment, it will be found, on inquiry—and I will have an inquiry made and will send Deputy Brennan the result—that they will be able to give an explanation of it.
The Minister has stood out very stoutly for the policy of the administration, but there have been a number of jobs done and they have been done through the Local Appointments Commission.
I do not agree.
They have been done in such a way that they left these people free from blame. The technique is what I have described. You pick a man and you can so prescribe the qualifications and the age limit that he will fulfill all these. You may have two men but you make sure that he is one of the men who will start for the appointment.
The Deputy must have a very good knowledge of the technique. He is well able to describe it.
It has been since discovered.
He knows it well.
I know it by observation.
Of course, and by operation.
I never had anything to do with it.
You had as much as any other member of your Government.
If the Minister wants to argue, I say that is the technique——
As described adequately by the Deputy from experience.
It has been revealed by observation. Let me say, in that connection, that if there is one man who has a record that is not wholesome in connection with jobbery it is the Minister.
Tu quoque—that is all I can say. There is not a more expert jobber in the House than Deputy McGilligan.
