Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 10 Mar 1949

Vol. 114 No. 8

Supplementary and Additional Estimates, 1948-49. - Vote 28—Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

Minister for Education (General Mulcahy)

I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1949, for Grants to the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (No. 13 of 1940).

When the Estimate for the current year was being prepared, the School of Cosmic Physics had not yet got under way and provision was made for reconstruction and adaptation of buildings, etc., on a conservative basis. The work of the school developed with unexpected rapidity, and the necessary works of alteration and adaptation at Dunsink Observatory and at the headquarters in Merrion Square have been pressed forward with such vigour that an additional sum of £10,000 will be required to meet the bills falling due this year. About £10,000 will be needed for Dunsink and £4,000 for 5 Merrion Square, a total expenditure of £14,000, as against the provision of £4,000 in the original Estimate.

The institute has, however, been able to effect considerable savings on the grants for administration and for the various schools, owing, in great measure, to the fact that a number of senior posts have not been filled. The purpose of this Supplementary Estimate for the token amount of £10 is to obtain the authority of the Dáil to apply these savings to the discharge of the additional liability incurred on reconstruction and adaptation.

Major de Valera

Will the Minister say what posts are being economised on, what the saving of practically £10,000 represents and in what school?

General Mulcahy

On the cosmic physics side of things there is a vacancy for an assistant professor in the cosmic rays section and one on the geophysical side, two clerks and one junior technical assistant. On the Celtie studies side there is a vacancy for two senior professors in the Celtic Studies School. Generally the savings of about £5,000 are made up: under administration, of which £850 is in respect of posts unfilled, £1,800; in the School of Celtic Studies, of which £3,300 is in respect of posts unfilled, £3,400; in the School of Theoretical Physics, of which £1,800 is in respect of posts unfilled, £7,000; in the School of Cosmic Physics, while certain vacancies exist there, the savings have been £2,000 on equipment.

Mr. Derrig

We are not to assume that necessary capital expenditure should continue to be provided on the basis of savings effected from the non-filling of important posts like senior professorships in the Celtic Studies Institute, for example.

General Mulcahy

It is the most unsatisfactory circumstance to have to ask the Dáil to do a thing of this particular kind. I have had the greatest possible difficulty in understanding, particularly in relation to the Institute of Advanced Studies, why we should find ourselves in this position. I have had very great difficulty in understanding why this development has taken place, but I do not want to discuss the matter in any critical way. There have been reasons for it and the structural development that has gone ahead is a development which, if we are to have a School of Cosmic Physics, is particularly necessary. There has been a considerable amount of expenditure on construction in connection with Dunsink Observatory. Quite a considerable amount of work has been carried on in Dunsink which should be paid for from the vote for the Institute of Advanced Studies. Actually, Dunsink Observatory has not yet been transferred from the Board of Works to the institute and it is still in the hands of the Board of Works. A considerable amount of work has been done by the Board of Works but a considerable amount of work has also been done under the direction and control of the Institute for Advanced Studies. Deputies will understand the progress that has been made and particularly when I say that the following works have been completed:

(a) Re-decoration of residence and part of observatory;

(b) Re-decoration of Dunsink House as the residence of Mr. Butler, Chief Assistant;

(c) Re-decoration of the South Dome (the dome in the field);

(d) Replacement of cover of dome on the roof of the main building;

(e) Sanitary annexe to the main building completed;

(f) Most of basement re-plastered;

(g) Preparations made for erecting benches and shelves in the workshop and laboratory;

(h) Two sinks fixed in the darkroom;

(i) Re-decoration of lodge;

(j) Most of the observatory, and also the dome in the field and the lodge, wired for electricity supply.

An amount of work is still outstanding, but a considerable amount has been done and the position at Dunsink Observatory is now such that the public can visit the observatory on the first Saturday of every month between 2.30 and 4.30 in the afternoon and between 8.30 and 9.30 in the evening, which in summer is extended to from 7.30 to 9.30. There will be professorial and other attendance to see to any laudable curiosity on the part of the public.

Mr. Traynor

Is any modern equipment being added to the observatory?

General Mulcahy

I understand that there is every up-to-date equipment in the observatory.

Major de Valera

This is not the time for a complete statement on that, but anybody who visits Dunsink—as I have done recently—can be quite satisfied that good work is going ahead. If I have any criticism to make of the Minister's statement I would say that the word "redecoration" gives a wrong picture. The equipment, some of it of a valuable type, was in a bad state of repair and was neglected for years. The work of the staff in reconditioning that equipment was very notable and great credit is due to Dr. Bruck and the other gentlemen concerned in the rehabilitation of the place. Nobody can have any worry about expenditure which is, having regard to modern values, relatively small expenditure for work of the size involved. I take it that the question of accounting between the Board of Works and the institute is merely a matter of accounting for such work which would be more properly charged to the institute than to the Board of Works.

General Mulcahy

It is all charged to the institute.

Major de Valera

And properly so. There are two matters, however, that are perturbing. I wonder would the Minister say, regarding the reductions in staff, whether the keeping of these posts vacant is to continue or whether it just happens that during the past recent period they became vacant and are an incidental saving. It is too familiar a device in certain other State Departments, one of which I was associated with myself, not to fill appointments in order to secure economy. I am not making any such suggestion here, but I will be pardoned for my suspicions having experience of other State Departments in that regard. I am glad to hear that the Minister will fill these posts if the institute is to be an institute.

The Minister, I think, said that a junior technical assistantship was among the posts unfilled. If there is one thing that has hampered our universities and our research people generally, it is the inadequate provision of clerical and technical assistance for the men on the job. I have myself seen in the physics department in University College where a man whose ability and knowledge should have been applied in another way found himself devoting his time to building with his own hands pieces of apparatus which could equally well have been built by a competent technician if such were available. Financial circumstances at the time precluded his having that assistance and consequently the research upon which he was engaged was held up. A very valuable paper which he subsequently published, for that cause alone to my certain knowledge, was delayed for a year when a delay of that kind is important having regard to questions of priority. The good name of the country and its academic institutions are involved in this so I would like to stress the importance of such posts and ask the Minister to press that these facilities which have already been provided for statutorily and officially should in fact be there. The institute has work to be done but it will be slowed up.

I gathered from the Minister that he is not satisfied in his own mind about these matters and I do not press him to make a statement at this stage as we will have the opportunity shortly of talking about the institute. I just take this opportunity in advance, so to speak, to mention these points and ask this assurance from the Minister if he can give it: that it is not intended permanently to effect economies of this nature and so deprive the institute of the means of functioning efficiently. If he is able to tell us just that to-day it will be sufficient, I should imagine, and we can discuss the other matters on the main Vote. But it does strike one as an extraordinary large saving, a matter of approximately £10,000, at the expense of the technical and professional members of the institute who in fact are its working members and without whom it cannot operate. I should imagine that there should not be very much difficulty in filling some of these posts. There may be some reasons, such as waiting for some one who is studying abroad. I have no information on the matter, however. If it is temporary, one can accept it but, if such savings are designed to be permanent, it is a very serious matter indeed.

Mr. Derrig

I should like to say also that I believe that if the situation were to continue that the posts were not to be filled through a belief that the institute should not be supported as is necessary if the country is going to get full value from its functioning, then it would seem to me that that would be a very serious issue. I join with Deputy de Valera in asking the Minister to let us have an assurance that that is not the position, that so far as he is concerned he will do what he can, in so far as it lies within his function, to ensure that the vacancies will be filled and that there will be no question that economy will be sought at the expense of starving the institute of necessary professors, assistants and technical assistants also.

General Mulcahy

Strictly speaking, the Department of Education and the Minister for Education are responsible for primary education, secondary education and vocational and technical education with a number of such science responsibilities as the National Museum and places like that. Under the Act dealing with the Institute for Advanced Studies the Minister has a very peculiar and rather unaccustomed responsibility for supervising and directing, in a way that I do not yet fully understand, the institute's studies, which I understand are supposed to be at a higher level than those normally carried on in the universities, so that I find myself as Minister for Education in a rather difficult position with regard to the Institute for Advanced Studies. I do, however, undertake to Deputies that to the fullest extent of our responsibilities in the matter these will be exercised and the function of the various schools in the Institute for Advanced Studies will be thoroughly and fully understood, and, in so far as there is an important and useful function to be served by these schools in this State, that function will be made clear and that function will be safeguarded.

I have had occasion to consider and to discuss whether some or all of the schools attached to the Institute for Advanced Studies might not more properly be associated with the National University. That is a matter that will come up some day for discussion, because some day there will come up for discussion the function of our universities on the one hand and the function of all our advanced studies institutes on the other. That is a matter that we can all join in discussing and considering on the understanding that we are seeking for the best possible results that can be obtained from any of these institutions.

I do not think that the Deputy need be alarmed at the fact that there has been a considerable amount of saving on the administration and staffing side in the institute, because you have to take that in relation to the total sum that was voted in the beginning of the year for the Institute for Advanced Studies, namely, £53,000. Now that £53,000 can compare with the grant to, say, University College, Cork, of something like £67,000, and as there was a certain amount of margin there for saving it was deliberately saved. There has been saving in respect of two senior professors in the School of Celtic Studies, but we know what an unhappy history the School of Celtic Studies has had and how in one way or another it has operated to take some of our most talented and valuable workers in Irish studies out of the university into the Institute for Advanced Studies and then to leave them quite unattached in any kind of systematic way with work connected with the advance of Irish studies. We have a Celtic school in the institute; we have the Royal Academy; we have the Irish Manuscripts Commission, and some day or another somebody will question whether co-ordination might not be brought about between the three of these bodies. It may be perfectly clear that there ought not to be amalgamation of them; it may be perfectly clear when the matter is thoroughly looked into that there is a satisfactory coordination of the work that is being done through these three bodies for the higher Irish studies. But I should like Deputies to understand that so far as the Department of Education or the Government is concerned, there has been no deliberate saving in any of these appointments. If it may appear to Deputies that it is as unsatisfactory to have a saying there as to have a spending on the constructive side that was not estimated for, that to my mind is really a reflection on the organisation of control in relation to the institute itself. That is unsatisfactory, but I hope all these matters may be rectified and that it will not be necessary when we pass through the next year's work of the institute to have a Supplementary Estimate of this particular kind coming before the House.

If there are any theories or plans with regard to the better organisation or the better arrangement of the Institute, then those who are in touch with it can perhaps make suggestions to us when we come to discuss the main Estimate next year as to what is wrong in the organisation of the place that can and should be remedied in order to see what saving is required and what spending is really required and that that saving is got and that such constructive work as is required will be systematically and properly envisaged at the beginning of the year before that work is gone ahead with so that there will not be expenditure undertaken in any year that has not been systematically foreseen, because expenditure which cannot be systematically foreseen is seldom well directed.

Vote put and agreed to.