I consider this Supplementary Estimate to have a very great deal more significance and importance than its size would suggest. I rarely find myself called upon to congratulate the Minister for Industry and Commerce, but on this occasion I think he has done the country a real service in accommodating this conference in Dublin. I believe the assembling of an international conference of this character, of a purely business kind, is a desirable thing and it is a good thing that we should be in a position to provide it with hospitality, accommodation and facilities for the discharge of its international business. However, I dare to say to the Minister that this must be one of the first conferences of this character that has gathered here and I would urge him to say to those officers of the various Departments on whose services he will rely for the accommodation of the various delegates who come here that, on this first occasion when we are constructing the organisation to deal with an assembly which is not only international but polyglot, questions of expense should not be allowed to stand in their way in building up an organisation which will really deal with the conference problems that arise for a host of a convention of that character.
One is so accustomed to the ways of one's own city, one is so accustomed, if one fails to find the amenity one requires in one street, to know in what other streets one may reasonably find it, one is so accustomed, if one fails to get luncheon in one hotel, to know instinctively where one can find provision somewhere else in our city, that one is liable to forget that a Spaniard in Dublin is as completely at sea as one of us in St. Petersburg, and we know how hopelessly and foolishly at sea one may find oneself in a foreign city, particularly if one does not know the language. I have attended a good many international gatherings, sometimes under the distinguished leadership of the Ceann Comhairle himself, and, I think, in the company of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, and it has been of immense assistance to delegates at gatherings of that kind to know of the existence of some central point where one can go to get information about everything.
I know the officers of the Department are probably better informed of these particular difficulties and troubles than I am, as they have much wider experience. What I am concerned about is to sound a note here to-day, for the officers of the various Departments charged with the extending of that hospitality and the provision of accommodation, to get them to realise that, if they find themselves in conflict with the Department of Finance, they ought to appeal to their Minister and that their Minister ought to know that the feeling of the House would be that we would wish to err on the side of extravagance rather than on parsimony on this initial occasion when it is desired to do things as they should be done.
There is a second point I wish to make. I have found that if you prepare hospitality for an ascertained number of persons, if you have laid an elaborate table which depends on their all turning up, 17 of them do not come and your table looks like nothing on earth. On the other hand, if you have cooked a certain quantity of desirable food, their aunts, uncles, cousins and nephews all come and the victuals run short. I have no doubt the Minister has taken every precaution to ascertain accurately the hotel accommodation that will be required for the various delegations arriving. I dare to prophesy that, just because at this moment the hotels of Dublin are strained to the limit of their capacity, 15 delegates will arrive whom nobody expects, or some influential delegate will discover that his lady has not been looking so well lately and, as he is going to give himself a holiday in Ireland, he will bring her.
It is vitally important, therefore, that the Department should hold in hand a certain reserve of hotel accommodation over and above what they are advised is actually necessary, so that if a development of that kind arises provision can be made for the unexpected and these people will not be required to go, let us say, to Mullingar in order to get a bed to sleep in, or else be housed in some very unsuitable lodging in a city back street. I do not know if the Minister's attention has been directed to that aspect, but I think he will agree with me that it is one of considerable importance. I believe every person who has travelled will agree on that point.
There is another point. When you get out to Collinstown and leave by aeroplane for London, you may find yourself in possession of a good deal of Irish currency. Irish notes can be changed at a discount in any bank in London, but will an English bank change Irish silver and copper? I suppose international delegates should not worry too much about 15/11. My experience, however, has been that a pocket full of centimes or nickels such as I brought with me from America— I brought the centimes from France— have been a source of irritation to me. I had the feeling that I had lost something irretrievable and got so much rubbish instead. These things can be like razor blades from the point of view of disposing of them. Would it be unreasonable to suggest that we should establish a Bureau de Change where persons coming by aeroplane will hand in their Irish currency and get British or other currency instead? It is a very simple service and it could be operated in connection with the restaurant, but it is the type of service that would be very much appreciated by strangers and it is the kind of gesture which would cause visitors to feel: “These fellows have thought of everything.”
I regret that I must raise here in a preliminary canter, to which I propose to return on a wider occasion, a matter which, I think, sooner or later, must engage the attention of the Tánaiste. Our delegation to this conference will be led by the Secretary of the Department of Industry and Commerce. I am constrained to say that I want it perfectly clearly understood that nothing I am about to say is to be interpreted as any sort of reflection on that distinguished public servant, for whose abilities and energy I have the profoundest respect. Deputies interested in the business of the Department of Industry and Commerce cannot but have observed that the Secretary of that Department now represents his Minister on the boards of about nine important companies. He is now one of the most occupied company directors acting on behalf of his Minister in this country. He is the executive head of an immense Department, one of the largest Departments of State, in which there is a greater volume of detailed work than probably in any other Department in Dublin. It is natural he must be expected to be at the disposal of his Minister continually for consultation and advice. He must be available for the proper co-ordination of the activities of the myriad State servants under his jurisdiction.
I feel bound to put this point to the Tánaiste. This official is about to lead our delegation at a very important international conference. Frankly, I think that for any of the individual tasks that have been assigned to him probably no man is better fitted than he, if natural ability alone and industry and loyalty are the criteria by which a man is to be judged. But no man, the most willing servant in the world, can do three men's work properly and I do not think it is right to resort to the expedient of leaving a man in a nominal office and requiring another public servant to discharge all the ordinary duties of that office, but to deny another public servant the honour and emoluments of the first place. We have an excellent precedent in many other Governments, where the volume of work has exceeded the capacity of any man.
An additional and new office can be created. In this case perhaps the individual might be regarded as commercial adviser to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, or any name one may care to put to it, leaving the present secretary free to carry out the special works that the Minister has thought it prudent to assign to him and allow a civil servant to administer the Department as secretary at the same time. If the Minister is resolved to continue in what is to me the detestable and obnoxious policy of establishing semi-State companies——
