As I indicated on the introduction of this measure, having had the information given to us by an announcement in the Press of what was in the Government's mind, we are opposed to this measure. We are opposed to it because it lacks the clarity which is essential at present with regard to the emoluments of persons holding Ministerial office and because it is introduced without any previous consultation or public consideration of the question, at a time when there are very many elements in the economic and social situation which make it prudent and advisable that anything done towards increasing the incomes or emoluments of persons associated with the Government should be very carefully considered and very fully understood, so as not to add to the unrest with regard to the cost of living and the difficulties with regard to income and employment which so many people are experiencing.
Deputy Dillon's amendment would probably find a seconder, if it were not for the fact that it provides no solution of the principal difficulty I mention, that is, that substantial increases to holders of Ministerial offices in the State are being proposed without any understanding of what these emoluments are, or any preparation of the public mind for an understanding of the difficulties which exist in regard to the cost of living and the high cost of carrying out their duties generally which Ministers are supposed to meet. The position we find ourselves in at present is one in which these proposals are put before Parliament without any preparation, without any approach by way of discussion or examination of the situation, but simply as a sequel to the attitude of the Government Party all along towards the whole question of their salaries and emoluments and arising out of the hypocrisy and make-believe of the past.
One of the difficulties we have in accepting this proposal is that, when the question was examined in 1937 and reported on, certain definite proposals were made which were not accepted, and, in considering the question now, we ought to go back and consider the principles upon which the recommendations of 1937 were made, when a special committee, consisting of persons drawn from outside the political life of the country and of some people who had Dáil experience, was brought together for the purpose of discussing what Ministerial salaries should be, what allowances to Deputies should be, what pensions should be paid to Ministers and what other payments should be made to Parliamentary offices.
In paragraph 33, on page 16 of the report then presented, we find this recommendation:
"We recommend that in future all salaries should be subject in full to assessment for taxation in accordance with the ordinary law. We can see no grounds upon which Ministers should be put in a special position as regards the incidence of taxation, the more particularly because in effect it is their function to decide what the rates of taxation should be and consequently on grounds of public policy it seems only proper that they should, in common with other citizens, experience the full burden of any increased impositions. It is, moreover, our view that existing law exempting from taxation that portion of the Ministerial salary which is equivalent to the Parliamentary allowance—at present £360 a year— should be repealed."
In relation to that statement, they make a recommendation, on page 17, that the salary attaching to the office of Taoiseach should be £3,000 a year, fully subject to taxation; to the office of the Tánaiste, £2,500; and to Ministers, £2,250. They make proposals with regard to transport and suggest that a pool of transport should be arranged somewhat as is arranged at present for the use of Ministers in carrying out their general public business, but the fact is that these recommendations were not accepted at that time.
What the explanation of that is I do not know, and there is no purpose in going into it, but I suggested, when speaking on the introduction of this Bill, that Ministers, as well as being in receipt of a salary of £1,700 per year, have transport facilities which cover not only their Ministerial and official duties but their whole possible requirements of transport for family and friends and for Party or political purposes and that these transport facilities are of a value not less than £1,000 a year.
I submit that the provision for their service, day and night, of a high-powered car, fully provided with petrol and covered in every way with insurance, with drivers and any other service required, surely represents a sum not less than £1,000 a year, so that, in fact, for private and Party purposes, outside official purposes altogether, I suggest that Ministers have enjoyed emoluments greater than were recommended in that 1937 Report. There may be a case for that but it ought to be looked up to and faced up to and we should not be in the position that we do not know the extent of a Minister's emoluments. We ought not have a position in which, at their own private service and at the service of their Party, there should be a substantial fleet of motor-cars fully provided with drivers, fully insured and fully serviced over and above what ought normally be going to them to enable them to perform their official duties.
The Minister has indicated that Ministers' salaries should be brought up to £2,125. I submit that there is, added to that, a transport service outside what is required for their official duties which is at the service of themselves privately and of the Party and that is used very fully and elaborately. I think that is wrong. I think that when the Dáil is asked to face up to the fixing of adequate salaries for Ministers it ought to fix salaries in such a way that we can know the measure of them and that we can be in a position to fully approve on the facts of the case. Nobody wants in any way to minimise the laborious duties a Minister has to perform. Nobody wants to deny in any way that the minds of Ministers should be completely free of anxieties or worries arising during their period of office out of their financial position.
If we have Ministers whose minds are clouded or disturbed by worries of a financial kind we cannot get from them the service for the protection of the country generally or the developments of the country that we ought to get. When we speak here in criticism of this particular measure we speak in a constructive spirit rather than a destructive spirit and we express regret that the problem that Ministers find themselves up against has not been approached in a more constructive way. The Minister says the Government went fully and exhaustively into this particular matter. No reason has been given why the Leaders of the other Parties were not consulted, why there was no discussion with the Committee on Procedure and Privileges or with any Parliamentary body that could assist the members of the Government to face up to this problem. No Party and no Deputy in this House wants to shirk responsibility in respect of any matter that refers either to the effectiveness or prestige of this House or the effectiveness of the services that the Government and the Executive have to provide for the country. We are all prepared to take our responsibility and take our share in dealing with any problems that may have to be discussed. It is almost impossible to understand why the Government has chosen the manner of presentation they have chosen in this case. This Bill which we are discussing now as well as providing for the Taoiseach, Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, provides certain allowances for Leaders of various Parties here. The allowances that are made to two Leaders of Parties here are dealt with in the 1937 report. On page 36 of the report, paragraph 91, we read that the committee is in agreement with certain views expressed before it and carried over from a joint committee which had sat in 1929 to deal with the work that had to be done in the House by the Leader of the Opposition. Paragraph 91 says:
"We are in agreement with the views expressed above, but we consider that the experience gained in the meantime has proved conclusively that some provision should be made for the Leader of the Opposition. One of the witnesses who appeared before us suggested that members of the Parliamentary staff should be made available to assist the Leader of the Opposition. We consider, however, that such an arrangement would not be feasible as that staff is composed of civil servants and, by reason of their position, it is unlikely that they would be able to afford assistance, in the fullest sense, to the Leader of the Opposition who is, perforce, opposed to the Government of the day. Moreover, such staff might have to be provided for the Leader of more than one Party in Dáil Éireann, and these Parties might be as much in opposition to one another as to the Government."
Paragraph 92 goes on to say that the provision made from public funds for the Leader of a Party in opposition to the Government should not be in the nature of a salary but would be an allowance of a sufficient amount to enable such a person to defray secretarial and other expenses.
"The allowances which we have recommended, i.e., £800 for the Leader of the largest Opposition Party and £500 for the Leader of the second largest Opposition Party, being in the nature of a recoupment of expenses, should be exempt from taxation.... It is also suggested that arrangements should be made to provide accommodation in the Oireachtas buildings for secretarial staff which the Leaders of Opposition will be enabled to employ if the allowances recommended above are made available. It must be clearly understood that in recommending the payment of allowances to Leaders of the Opposition, we do not intend that these allowances should be regarded or utilised as in any sense personal remuneration or solely as a grant towards the personal expenses of the Leaders, but that they should be used by those Leaders for the purpose of providing effective secretarial and other assistance not only for themselves but for the general conduct of the Opposition in Dáil Éireann."
Certain members of the committee disagreed with the idea of these allowances. At any rate they were provided. There has been no consultation, and no inquiry has been made, as far as I know, from any of the Leaders of the Parties receiving these allowances for secretarial and other assistance that would warrant the Government saying that they had considered the matter. I see no reason why the allowance should be increased. Parties before the granting of this allowance were able to get along and do their own work on their own funds. This allowance gives a kind of a statutory position to the Leaders of the Opposition and enables them to get a small special civil service for themselves as it were. But there is no reason in the present circumstances why the various Parties would not be able to carry on their own work without falling back on the taxpayer to assist them in the carrying on of their work. I would like to ask the Minister why, before they made up their minds to propose increases of this particular kind, they were put into the Bill without consultation with those people who are directly concerned with them. Even if it was necessary at the present time to employ more assistance in order to keep the work of the Opposition going on, we would not be prepared to put the expense of that on the country. So that, in making a proposal of this particular kind as well as in making proposals for the increases of salaries, the Minister is taking an action which outrages the Opposition at the present time.
Deputy Morrissey referred to one particular case of an old age pensioner. I want to take one particular class. One of the weekly newspapers in Tipperary, The Nationalist, a paper not revolutionary in any way, looking soberly at the facts of Irish life, closely in touch with the facts of agricultural and industrial life, the life of the country and the life of the town, looking at everything objectively, never writing a hasty word, on 4th June had a leading article headed: “This Bureaucratic Tyranny” which began: “Are the poor and the lowly never `to get a break' from the bureaucrats in this country? That question is prompted by the decision of the Local Government Minister concerning South Tipperary road workers' wages.” I do not want to go into the discussion we had here last year with regard to the road workers' wages. But a system of systematic repression was carried on by the Minister for Local Government against the express wishes of the South Tipperary County Council over a period of two years to prevent road workers from getting anything but the most meagre wages to maintain their wives and families. On 1st April, 1939, their wages were 35/- per week. Later on they got an additional 3/-. On 1st April, 1945, after a long fight, they were given 40/-. Further representations were recently made on their behalf by the county council. They have been partially turned down by the Department of Local Government and the road workers' wages have been fixed at 50/- a week.
That reflects part of the problem we have here in arranging any increase to meet the expenses of anybody connected with Parliament. Where you have a widespread situation like this in the country, where you have stable-minded and responsible leaders of public opinion and journalists departing from their normal even tenor and describing the administration here in the words I have quoted, "This bureaucratic tyranny", we have a responsibility here from whatever side of the House we speak to realise that a problem exists arising out of the cost of living, low wages, and the difficulty of increasing them, on the one hand, and the fact that a very serious repression has been carried out systematically by the Government, particularly where they were able to control things.
The Irish Trade Journal for June, 1946, on page 62, gives particulars of the average weekly earnings in every group of industries in this country. The figures are for the year 1944. Increases have been given practically over the whole gamut of industry and employment since. But the figures for 1944 are the latest figures available and they show the earnings in the various occupations: grain milling, bread, creameries, bacon curing, sugar, malting, brewing, etc. We find that the lowest average earnings of males of 18 years of age and over are those paid by local authorities and Government Departments. They are 45/5 per week, as against 101/10 in the tobacco industry, 94/10 in electricity, 89/10 in printing, and 89/8 in brewing. The average earnings by persons employed by local authorities and Government Departments are only two-thirds of the average earnings over the whole gamut of employment in industry, namely, 67/10 per week. These figures simply make a comparison and they refer to 1944. But the outburst of The Nationalist with regard to the recent action of the Minister for Local Government pointed to the problem which is there. Unless that is understood when approaching any increases that have to be made in the salaries of Ministers or the expenses of anybody connected with Parliament, you will only inflame a very dangerous and difficult situation for the people who ultimately maintain this country, namely, the workers.
We oppose this measure because it still conceals the position with regard to the emoluments of Ministers. They ought to be adequate, but they ought to be made clear. In making any change in them, it is particularly necessary that the amount of these emoluments should be made clear. We oppose the treatment of the matter in this Bill and I hope the Minister will realise that our opposition is made constructively and that he will approach the matter in a different way.
