Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 23 Feb 1950

Vol. 119 No. 5

Transport Bill, 1949—Committee Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That Section 59 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Lemass

When the Committee adjourned last night, we were discussing Section 59, which provides for payments by way of compensation to the directors of Córas Iompair Éireann and of the Grand Canal Company. The Minister when framing his Bill proposed that the directors of Córas Iompair Éireann should be granted compensation for loss of office on a fairly generous basis, a basis of payment of the equivalent of directors' fees for two years. Until the discussion of the section began yesterday, Deputies were entitled to assume that the Minister had given careful consideration to this provision of the Bill, had arrived at a decision as to what was equitable and desirable and that this decision was embodied in the section. When the section was moved from the Chair, however, Deputy Larkin spoke, as he had intimated he would speak, in opposition to it and the opposition expressed by him was supported by a number of other Deputies on the Government side of the House. Some six or seven Deputies on the Government side followed Deputy Larkin and expressed unanimous opposition to the section.

After they had expressed that opposition on varying grounds, some logical and some illogical, the Minister intervened in the debate. It was noticed that he made little effort to persuade the Deputies who were opposing the section that they should withdraw their opposition. He spoke at the conclusion of his remarks of leaving the question to a free vote of the House, but he did not even intimate how he himself would vote, if a division were challenged on the section.

I think that we should recognise that there is no obligation on us to vote compensation to these directors. I think that the Minister was overstating the case when he represented himself as being coerced by precedent to provide for compensation for these directors. There is no such precedent of which I am aware. It is true that the 1944 Act provided for the payment of compensation to such of the directors of the old Great Southern Railway and the Dublin United Tramways Company as did not seek or secure election as stockholders' directors on the C.I.E. Board. The position which arose then was that two companies were being amalgamated and the total number of their directors exceeded the number of directors which was to be appointed to the board. It was obvious that they could not all be elected as directors of the new undertaking and there was, in any event, a consideration of policy which appeared to me to make it desirable to give some of them an inducement not to seek reelection. The circumstances were entirely different. The concern of which these directors are in charge is being wound up. It is being transferred to the custody of a new board, the members of which will be appointed exclusively by the Government. I cannot feel, therefore, that there is in the provisions of the 1944 Act, any precedent which is so coercive that the Minister was compelled to put this section in the Bill against his will. We must assume, until the Minister tells us otherwise, that he put this section in the Bill because he thought it should be there.

The Bill took a long time in its preparation. It reached the Dáil some nine months after the Minister announced his intention of bringing it here. Its drafting was not rushed in any sense of the term. Every section of it was undoubtedly fully considered, including this section, and it is because he had fully considered it, giving due regard to every consideration of expediency and of equity, that the Minister came to the Dáil with a proposal that these retiring directors of Córas Iompair Éireann should be compensated generously. Whatever considerations obliged the Minister to insert the section in the Bill, surely operate to place an obligation on him now to defend it. He made no attempt to defend it. He did not even endeavour to explain to the Dáil the considerations which prompted him in the first instance to insert the section in the Bill. The House is now in the position that it is considering a section of the Bill which nobody is prepared to recommend. In so far as it is a matter at all for Deputies on this side of the House, I want to make it clear that we will not accept an obligation which is clearly the Minister's

Mr. Morrissey

I was expecting that.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister sat there last evening hoping that I would intervene in the debate and take the burden off his shoulders.

Minister for Finance (Mr. McGilligan)

What burden?

Mr. Lemass

The burden of defending the section.

Mr. McGilligan

I am glad the Deputy recognises it to be that.

Mr. Lemass

In so far as our position requires clarification, I want to make it abundantly clear that if this section was not in the Bill, we would not move an amendment to put it there and if the Minister wants to withdraw the section, we will not refuse him our consent.

Mr. Morrissey

That is a big change.

Mr. Lemass

But we will not vote for it unless the Minister defends it.

Mr. Morrissey

You want me to extricate you from the difficulty you got yourself into last night.

Mr. Lemass

I got myself into no difficulty last night. I want neither the Minister nor the Deputies who spoke in opposition to this section nor the Deputies who might be persuaded to vote for it to have any misunderstanding of our position if this matter comes to a vote. If the Minister does not want it, we will not force it on him. If the Minister has changed his mind about it, he has only to say so and we will pass to the next section.

Mr. McGilligan

If the Minister wants it——

Mr. Lemass

He has to make a good case for it. We will base our attitude on that. We do not much mind what he does. We are prepared to sit here and hear his case for the section if there is a case for the section. I think the Minister owes it to himself and to the Deputies behind him, who spoke in favour of the Bill, at least to put on record the reasons he had in his mind when he put the section into the Bill. If, however, the Minister is indifferent to the section, if he is not prepared to defend it to the Dáil or make a case to the Dáil, then I think he should withdraw it.

My intervention in the debate last night was prompted by the nature of the arguments which were advanced by the Deputies who spoke against the section. One Deputy said that we should refuse these Córas Iompair Éireann directors the compensation which the Minister thought it equitable to give them because they had had the audacity to criticise the Minister's proposals. That is a rather dangerous precedent to establish. I know that there are countries in Europe where criticism of a Government leads to penalties.

Mr. Morrissey

There used to be a Government in this country where it led to penalties, before the recent change.

Mr. Lemass

Was the Minister ever penalised for criticism he expressed?

Mr. Morrissey

Several other people were.

Mr. Lemass

The historical record is there. The Minister is trying to sidetrack this, for him, awkward discussion by introducing irrelevancies and untruths. The case was made by a Fine Gael Deputy that to punish the directors for their criticism of the Minister's proposals the Minister should withdraw the compensation he previously intended to give them. What was the criticism? They criticised the proposed terms for the acquisition of the stockholders' interests in Córas Iompair Éireann. Who are the people who criticised these proposals? The representatives of the stockholders in Córas Iompair Éireann. I do not think their criticism of the Government's proposals was very sound. I think that a far better case could be made to support an argument that the Minister was unduly generous to the stockholders of Córas Iompair Éireann.

Mr. Morrissey

He was telling me last night what a sound financial structure the whole thing was until I came in.

Mr. Lemass

Remember that the question of acquisition terms arose after the Minister came in.

Mr. Morrissey

Do not get yourself tied up in a knot.

Mr. Lemass

If the opposition to this section proposed by the Minister which was made by the Deputies behind him is an expression of their spite against free citizens—because they are presumably free citizens—or if because in the discharge of what they thought was their duty they expressed criticism of the Minister's proposals, then I think that most decent people, irrespective of their personal view as to the proposal in the section, would prefer to vote for it merely to dissociate themselves from that attitude.

More importantly, however, other Deputies urged that, whatever principle is involved in this, whatever case could be made upon general grounds for compensating persons whose office has been abolished by statute, an exception should be made in this case, because these particular directors of Córas Iompair Éireann were personally responsible for the condition of the undertaking, a condition which necessitated the voting of moneys to subsidise it some months ago. That case against the section is, of course, in general line with the whole case which the Minister has been making to justify his previous attitude to Córas Iompair Éireann and his proposals in this Bill. I argued yesterday, and I assert here again, that so far as it was possible for any body of men to manage that concern in the conditions laid down by the present Minister during the past two years, these directors did as good a job as could be done. It was humanly impossible to save the concern, to prevent it losing money, in the circumstances which the Minister created.

The Minister perhaps may recognise that his effort to find a scapegoat to bear the consequences of his own actions is in conflict with his proposals in this section. If he withdraws the section it will be because that fact became clear to him from the speeches which were made on the benches opposite last night. I will not assert that these directors are entitled to compensation because of any special services they gave. I do not want to be committed, and I do not think the House should be committed, to any precedent of this kind. It may be that in the future other concerns, now in private ownership and managed by directors elected by their owners, may be transferred to the management of statutory boards or State-controlled companies. If there is to be a development of that kind, I do not think that we should accept now that there is a necessary obligation established by precedent for compensating such directors.

The only argument which the Minister advanced in favour of the section was that he was coerced by precedent. If he wants to assume that such a precedent exists, then we should make it clear, here and now, that it does not, by reversing the previous practice in this case. It may be, and probably will be, desirable on grounds of expediency to provide for compensation in some cases to facilitate the transfer of an undertaking to public ownership where such transfer is considered desirable in the public interest. I wonder if I am right in assuming that, when the Minister framed this section, considerations of expediency were upward in his mind. Some Deputies have mentioned that the agitation which was being conducted on behalf of the stockholders of Córas Iompair Éireann by their representatives after the terms of acquisition were made known died down considerably when the terms of the Bill were made known. The Minister may have purchased a few months of release from criticism by this section.

Mr. Morrissey

Are you suggesting that it would not have died down if I had not made provision for compensation for the retiring directors?

Mr. Lemass

I am anxious to find out.

Mr. Morrissey

That is what you are suggesting.

Mr. Lemass

I am anxious to find out why you put the section in the Bill in the first instance, and why you are prepared to take it out now.

Mr. Morrissey

That is the suggestion, that it only died down because they were promised it in the Bill.

Mr. Lemass

It is the Minister's suggestion.

Mr. Morrissey

No.

Mr. Lemass

I am suggesting that in following that course, in publishing the Bill with this section in it, having in mind that he could take the section out after the Bill came to the Dáil in Committee, he was endeavouring to create the impression that the damping down of that agitation was due to the particular inducement which he was holding out to these directors.

I am not a friend of the directors. So far as I am concerned I feel that there is no obligation of any kind, either as a member of the former Government or as a member of a political Party, upon me, or no sense of duty arising out of anything in the past, to speak here in their favour.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

There was every evidence of it last night.

Mr. Lemass

I am trying to expose a discreditable campaign directed by an incompetent Government to cover up their own mismanagement of the nation's business. In 1948, they wrecked Córas Iompair Éireann. They imposed conditions upon it which made it inevitable that it was going to lose £1,000,000. The directors of the company went to the Minister and told him that, under the conditions which he laid down, they must lose £1,000,000. They lost £1,000,000. The Minister had to get a scapegoat, and he got it in the former chairman.

Mr. S. Collins

Who got 53,000 quid.

Mr. Lemass

He got nothing of the kind. The facts of that matter will, I hope, be communicated to the Dáil before we finish the debate. He then appointed another chairman, his own selection, and again he put on that chairman the obligations to manage this enterprise under impossible conditions. I do not know what private directions were given. I refer only to one known fact, that in February, 1949, the Minister announced publicly his intention of acquiring the Córas Iompair Éireann undertaking and of transferring it to a board to be appointed by him. It has not happened yet. For months after that declaration was made by the Minister there was no sign of any action by him. It was not until last November that the Bill came to the Dáil. Does any Deputy think it was likely that a concern under sentence of death, the officers and directors of which had no knowledge of the policy the Government desired them to follow, with no financial resources to undertake any developments, could have been effectively managed over the whole of that year? It was not. They lost more in 1949 than they lost even in the previous year.

Mr. Morrissey

That is not so.

Mr. Lemass

Well, they lost a substantial amount of money. For that a scapegoat has to be found and the directors have been nominated for that dubious honour. That is why we had Deputies speaking here last night about withholding this compensation, promised to them by the Minister, as an expression of dissatisfaction with their management of the undertaking. I do not think I am capable of instructing Deputies opposite in the rules of decency. It would require a man of much more forceful personality and persuasiveness of speech to get them even to understand them. There are, however, considerations of decency here. These considerations are possibly known to the Minister. It is for him to decide now what course of action they dictate for him. So far as we are concerned, it is he who will have to decide. We would not have put the section in if the Minister had not done it. We will not object to his taking it out. We will not vote to keep it in, unless the Minister makes a much more convincing case than he attempted to make last night.

Mr. Sweetman

Last night, Deputy Lemass just before nine o'clock informed the House that I opposed this section because I had heard criticism of me that had been passed by Mr. Wylie, the so-called deputy-chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann. At that time, I told Deputy Lemass and the House that I had not heard of it. I want just quietly to repeat that now. Even if I had heard of it, I hope I am able to view matters that come before this House in an objective way and without recourse to any personal feelings that any particular person may or may not have towards me. As a matter of fact, as I have said, I am not aware of it.

In the course, however, of the Deputy's rather frenzied outburst last night he also referred to another matter that I think cannot be let just pass and be forgotten without comment going on the record. Deputy Lemass suggested last night that the effect of the removal of this section would be to hinder or obstruct any possible chance of amalgamation of the Great Northern Railway Company of Ireland with the new national transport concern. Let me say as emphatically as I can that I do not accept the Deputy's view that the directors of that concern are not capable of judging what is in the interests of their shareholders without being offered a bribe as compensation. Let me state emphatically that the directors of any company, as I am sure the Deputy is aware, are there as the trustees for the shareholders, bound to consider first, foremost and at all times, not their own interests, but the interests of the people by whom they are appointed as directors. It should not for a moment be suggested, as it was suggested last night in respect of the directors of the Great Northern Railway, as it has been suggested again by Deputy Lemass this afternoon, that the only thing that would weigh with these directors in the future of the other concern and that weighed with these directors in this concern was whether they were going themselves to receive compensation or bonus. I do not accept that view about the directors of the Great Northern Railway, nor do I accept that that was in any way a consideration that governed the directors of Córas Iompair Éireann whom we are discussing.

Let us get down to this matter in an objective and careful way. What is the position? Directors, as everybody knows, are people elected from year to year or for a term of years as the articles of association of the company may provide. They are not in the same position as permanent servants of the company. It may happen, and it often does happen, that they are continually re-elected for one term of office after another. But they are not in the same position as people who have a permanent contract of service or employment such as the ordinary officer may have in any company.

We have here a company that is insolvent. I shall deal with Deputy Lemass's point about who made it insolvent in a moment. But, for the purpose of consideration of this question, it is not who made it insolvent that matters, but the fact that it is insolvent. It is news to me that it is necessary to pay to the directors of an insolvent company compensation because their directorships are going to cease to exist, as undoubtedly they would have ceased if the company had become insolvent and had been wound up in the ordinary way under the courts or by voluntary liquidation.

That is not the only consideration in this case. We have here a board of directors who are in one of two capacities. They were either a purely advisory board with no powers, as I think the so-called deputy-chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann suggested, or they were a board with full and complete powers. If they were mainly an advisory board, I do not think the question of compensation should arise.

If they were, in the proper sense of the term, a board with full competence, then I think there is one essential question that must be answered if we are to consider why they should be given a bonus. There is no right to this. It is a bonus and must be considered as a bonus. The question is this. I am going to take Deputy Lemass at his own words last night. I am not going to make any other case except on the speech that Deputy Lemass made, and that was that the loss of 1947 was due to three things, to the weather in 1947, to the strike, and to the wages increase which became operative, according to the Deputy, in August, 1947. I want one simple question answered. Why, if these directors were aware of the fact, if they were operating as a board should operate, they took no steps whatever to bring to the notice either of the shareholders or the Government the parlous condition in which the company was placed by these three things between August, 1947, and March, 1948?

Mr. Lemass

They did, and were granted authority to increase fares by 20 per cent.

Mr. Morrissey

When?

Mr. Lemass

In 1947.

Mr. Sweetman

From August, 1947, when the facts could have been communicated to the shareholders, there was no step taken by these people until after the change of Government in February, 1948. I think that the shareholders are entitled to know why the directors, if they were, as Deputy Lemass said, looking after the interests of the shareholders, dealt with the matter in that way. I think we are entitled to an answer to another question. As is common property, this concern was in a parlous condition. Yet, in the first six months of 1948 capital schemes involving some £5,000,000 were commenced, according to the Milne Report.

Mr. Lemass

Read it again.

Mr. Sweetman

I have read it several times.

Mr. Lemass

You did not read that in it.

Mr. Sweetman

I did.

Mr. Lemass

In the first half of 1948?

Mr. Sweetman

The Deputy will find that that is in the report, in the summary. I shall find it while I am continuing to speak. That those schemes were initiated, that proposals for them were initiated without any consideration being made as to where the funds were coming from—I think it is an extraordinary thing that a sensible body of men, if they had access to the whole affairs of the company, could possibly have done that. May I now refer Deputy Lemass to page 6 of the Milne Report, paragraph 12? It shows there that capital expenditure amounting to £5,325,000 had been authorised by the board up to 31st August, 1948.

Mr. Lemass

In the first half of 1948?

Mr. Sweetman

From January to August, 1948. The concern was admittedly in a parlous condition.

Mr. Lemass

It was not. According to Sir James Milne it made a profit.

Mr. Sweetman

According to the people who produced the accounts it made a loss of £811,000. That was the figure on which they wished to be judged in 1947. If they now want to stand on the variation suggested by Sir James Milne, they are only giving further evidence of the fact that they did not understand what was happening in the company in that they returned to the world a loss of £811,000 whereas there was not any such loss. It was a conflict of opinion as between Sir James Milne's method of accountancy and theirs. They cannot have it both ways. They must make up their minds whether they were wrong when they put those figures before the public, before the shareholders, and, if they were wrong, that Sir James Milne's methods were right; or they were right and Sir James Milne was wrong. But they cannot have it both ways.

It appears to me entirely new that the directors of an insolvent concern should be given compensation because their insolvent concern is being wound up—because all that this is is a new method of winding up. Deputy Lemass suggested last night and again to-day that the method in which these affairs of Córas Iompair Éireann had been approached was one of vituperation. I want to put this on record, that, far from accepting his view, I think it has been a matter for great compliment, the restraint that is being shown on this side of the House in dealing with the affairs of this company, because we all realise that they could have been dealt with in another way. I want to put this to the House, that if the positions had been reversed, if Mr. Courtney, the present chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann, had made appointments such as were made in the past, would Deputy Lemass and his colleagues have been as restrained in discussing the matter and in not referring to that particular matter as we have been on this side of the House?

Mr. Beegan

More insinuations.

Mr. S. Collins

I intervened briefly in the debate last night because I wanted to put on record something I felt then. I feel a bit more strongly on the subject to-day and I want to enlarge my opinion. Having heard the Minister's figures last night I had a feeling of amazement that a concern like Córas Iompair Éireann, electing these alleged directors—and I purport to show later why I consider them to be alleged directors—undertook to pay an exorbitant figure to these directors, exorbitant in view of the known financial state of the concern. We are faced with the proposal here of paying a further £10,000 odd——

Mr. Lemass

That is the Minister's proposition.

Mr. S. Collins

——to get rid of some more of the dross that is knocking round that concern. I am not going to mention names or deal with personalities, but I say that the reaction of the country to this whole Córas Iompair Éireann problem is that an appalling mess was made of it by somebody and we should not have to pay large sums to get out of that mess. When I think, as a rational being, representing a small farming constituency, of the value that we could get in that constituency from £10,000, I am very loath to contemplate anything further than Deputy Cowan contemplated last night—leather medals for these retiring gentlemen.

Here is the situation. A company that is completely insolvent, not able to carry on and now subsidised out of public funds, is purporting to award a bonus to these gentlemen who, I submit, no matter what they are alleged to have been, seem to have been completely inept. There is no doubt that the ex-chairman ruled the roost and that whether Mr. Wylie and his stockholder directors liked it or not, they never had any say in the matter. It appears quite clear that Córas Iompair Éireann was run without these directors. I do not know what the Minister would be giving them a bonus for if the House was to let that section stand. There is no record of incompetence so blatant, so nauseating, as the record of Córas Iompair Éireann.

I said on the Second Reading that it was a suitable epitaph to the incompetence of a former Minister for Industry and Commerce. I still think that. I think that in the light of the situation as we know it, we are lucky to have any type of transport system at all left. I want emphatically to put it on record that I think we are creating a very bad precedent. We may be encouraging some further large concerns in this country to allow themselves to drift into an impossible situation where the State will be forced to help them out. If we are going to start a policy of bonuses for those worthy gentlemen who were elected by the stockholders of an insolvent company and who paid themselves nice fancy directors' fees—if we are going to create that kind of precedent, I do not know where we will stop.

Are we here not far more sane to approach this problem on the basis that if this was not something of such vital importance to the nation that we had to save and preserve it those directors might be answering hardy questions in the winding-up under another method and getting nothing for their trouble? Those directors, if the concern was other than one of the paramount national importance that it is might have to be facing a rather prolonged investigation of their stewardship, finishing up, as I suggested last night, maybe being asked for something back rather than being given something for nothing.

Is it not better for this House to get rid of this sordid mess? These people as long as they served and in whatever capacity they served, advisory board or directors, gave themselves no small reward for it. I think they have got more than enough. It is the unfortunate taxpayers who will be asked to contribute this largesse. As a representative of some of them I urge upon the Minister that we should leave these now requiescant in pace, and that we do not pass here any more bonuses to people passing out of what has been an inefficient concern.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I find myself in disagreement with what has been said by Deputy Sweetman and Deputy Collins. As I understand the machinery of the Road Transport Act, 1944, and the machinery under which Córas Iompair Éireann functioned, no charge against the shareholders' directors and no reasons adduced under this section on the matter of their duties or the way they carried them out are, in my opinion, sustainable because, under the transport system set up in 1944, it is quite clear that the directors had no functions to perform of an executive kind and had no share in the direction of policy. Their functions were extremely limited. They were merely representative of the shareholders of Córas Iompair Éireann, to give such advice as they could without any assurance whatsoever that any advice they might tender would be accepted. For that reason I think it is unfair of Deputies to shoulder the directors of Córas Iompair Éireann and the deputy-chairman with any responsibility for the affairs of the company itself.

I think it has been apparent for a number of years to the people generally that the transport undertaking set up by Deputy Lemass, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, under the direct control of the former chairman, was not run on successful lines. Deputy Lemass is always most vehement in attack when he is weakest. Perhaps there is nothing on which he is so weak as transport matters.

Mr. Lemass

When I and the former chairman were running it there was a war on. The Deputies do not seem to have heard of it.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

For a number of years in this country the war was a grand old excuse, but there was no war in 1946 and 1947.

Mr. Lemass

1947 was the worst year.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

In 1947 the youngest schoolboy travelling by rail could have told Deputy Lemass there was something radically wrong with Córas Iompair Éireann.

Mr. Lemass

There was no coal and, therefore, no trains.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

There was also no policy and no proper direction. On the figures put forward by the directors of Córas Iompair Éireann in the early part of 1948, before ever there was a change of Government, the company was losing money at the rate of £20,000 per week. While we are all entitled to our own views with regard to Córas Iompair Éireann, and while we are all equally entitled to express them, we should not cloud the issues and we should not seek to apportion blame to those who had no share in its decline. The directors of the company had no function to fulfil; they had no executive authority and they had no right to force any views as to the policy of the company. We cannot hold them up as having any share in the things that have happened to the company.

It has always been an unfortunate disadvantage in endeavouring to semi-nationalise a public company that results ensure which do not fit in. One of those results is, of course, the fact that there are shareholders' directors having no statutory function of any kind. That is one of the disadvantages of attempting to compromise between a nationalised undertaking and a public company. If that was a fault, then it was a fault in the Transport Act of 1944. Let us recognise, however, that in 1944 a well-run, solvent transport undertaking was amalgamated with an undertaking which had been in difficulties for a great number of years. With the amalgamation of the Dublin United Tramways Company and the Great Southern Railways, the Dáil put a half-cloak of nationalisation on two public companies, amalgamated into one, leaving the financing of that undertaking to be met by the shareholders of both companies, but leaving the direction of policy and all the executive functions to a Government-appointed chairman. I do not think that was fair to the shareholders. Certainly it was a type of compromise which had all the possibilities of failure attached to it.

We are now discussing the affairs of that company some six years later. We know that the entire concern was a failure on all grounds and for a variety of reasons. But I do suggest that we should be fair in apportioning blame and I do not think it is fair for any Deputy to attack the payment of compensation to these directors on the ground that they did not carry out their duties, because they had no duties to carry out. Deputy Collins has asked: "Why pay them"? Perhaps it is a border-line proposition either way as to whether or not these directors should be compensated. I would ask the House to approach the matter from this point of view. The section covers the directors of both undertakings now being amalgamated under the new Córas Iompair Éireann Company. I do not think there could be any objection, certainly not any well-founded one, to the payment of adequate compensation to the directors of the Grand Canal Company. That company is certainly a solvent undertaking, largely in the position of the former Dublin Tramways Company, and it is a company in respect of which no criticism could be offered here. Therefore, with regard to those directors, I am certain that no Deputy in the House would voice any objection to the provisions of this section. As to the directors of Córas Iompair Éireann, we must recognise that under the former Transport Act a precedent was, in fact, established with regard to compensation for directors. I may be wrong, and if I am wrong, I am sure Deputy Lemass will correct me, but, as I understand the position, the directors of the dissolved boards six years ago were certainly given the opportunity and I think it was availed of in practically every case of going on the board of the new transport company.

Mr. Lemass

They had to be elected by the shareholders.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Whether they had or had not, that, in fact, was the result.

Mr. Lemass

There were more directors than vacancies, so some of them had to go.

Mr. Davin

That was squared between them.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I am sure. With regard to these particular directors, we must recognise that they are entitled to say that under the settled conditions in the country now by reason of the change of Government; under a more reasonable chairman—I am merely saying what case they are entitled to urge—certainly under a new policy in Córas Iompair Éireann, where expert advice is sought and taken, they are entitled to look forward to better times in the years that lie ahead. They are entitled to make the case that, as directors of this concern, they have gone through their bad years and are entitled to expect better years ahead. This Parliament is stepping in now, by means of this Bill, to dissolve that undertaking. I do not think we can regard it as being in the same position as a public company going into liquidation. It is not the same as that. Here we are, under this Bill if it becomes law, by force of law dissolving that company, wiping it out of existence. We are providing, as we must provide, that all employees and officers of the company who find their positions abolished must get compensation. It seems to me to be a well-established precedent not merely in these two Transport Acts that were discussed, but, generally speaking, with regard to all legislation in this Parliament, that if by our legislation we adversely affect the office, earnings or emoluments of any person, due and proper compensation is provided. Realising the powerless position of these particular directors, realising that the only purpose for their existence was to act as trustees of the shareholders—they had no other function; they could exercise no other function—and realising also that whatever salaries or fees these men earned were the salaries and fees which were duly and legally voted to them by the shareholders of this company, I would urge that we must take the view that they were entitled to expect continuance of that situation— putting it at the very lowest—for another year or so. We are interrupting that expectation by our legislation and I think we have a duty to provide compensation for them.

I think the principle is exactly the same as if we were discussing three or four lowly-paid earners. No matter how low their earnings or emoluments might be, no matter what the position might be, the principle is the same and it does not vary as to the personalities we are discussing. Therefore, I should like to express my disagreement with what has been urged by a number of Deputies and my support of the provisions of this section as it stands.

Mr. Morrissey

I have no intention of following Deputy Lemass's line. He assured us that he had no personal interest whatever in this matter, that he was not concerned about the fate of this amendment in so far as it affects the directors. For one who is entirely disinterested from every point of view, he certainly worked himself into a rather sensational theatrical display last night. He granted in his best form. He introduced the usual number of red herrings and irrelevancies. There are one or two points which he made with which I must, however, deal. He accused me last night of having made a scapegoat of the former chairman. He accused me of having subjected the former chairman of the company to a campaign of abuse and vilification such as has seldom been seen in this country. Deputy Lemass knows quite well that that statement was absolutely untrue. I did not attack the former chairman. I did not utter any term of abuse of the former chairman. I did not in any way try to vilify the former chairman.

Mr. Lemass

I did not say you did. I said the campaign was directed against him under the Minister for Finance.

Mr. Morrissey

But the Deputy worked it in. Do not always run away when we are fastening you down. Deputy Lemass said: "The Minister looked for a scapegoat. He found him in the former chairman"—and, immediately following that—"and he was subjected"— by the Minister, of course——

Mr. Lemass

The Minister for Finance was identified in my mind with that campaign.

Mr. Morrissey

Do not always be changing.

Mr. Lemass

I shall quote the Minister for Finance later on.

Mr. Morrissey

The Deputy made that speech last night for one purpose and for one purpose only, namely, for publication at full length in to-day's Irish Press.

Mr. Lemass

It was not.

Mr. Morrissey

He made it in the knowledge that those who confine their reading to that newspaper would read that statement in full and that that statement would not ever be overtaken —he would take jolly good care to see that it would not ever be overtaken. One has only to read that newspaper's version of last night's debate to realise it—and also to see the space given to the pros and cons of the case. I want here and now to brand that statement as untrue. I want further to say that if I wanted in any way, or if I wanted to go as far as I could go and can go, fully to expose the previous board and the previous Minister, I could do it and I still can do it.

Mr. Allen

Why not do so, then?

Mr. Morrissey

I might take the Deputy at his word.

Mr. Lemass

What is stopping you? The Minister is always threatening to do things.

Mr. Traynor

Let us have the issue made clear.

An Ceann Comhairle

This section deals with retiring directors.

Mr. Morrissey

With respect, I have not wandered one inch for every mile that Deputy Lemass has wandered.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister should not misunderstand. I pointed out that this section deals with retiring directors.

Mr. Morrissey

I am entirely in the hands of the Chair.

Mr. Lemass

The hand-grenade has not got a detonator yet. The Minister is always threatening to expose.

Mr. Morrissey

I can expose more——

An Ceann Comhairle

Not on this section.

Mr. Morrissey

Yes, Sir. It is perfectly relevant.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is for me to judge when I hear the purport of it.

Mr. Morrissey

Certainly, subject to your ruling. Let me say, first, that the former chairman told Deputy Lemass before he ceased to be Minister of the condition of Córas Iompair Éireann.

He informed him of the very grave situation in which the company was in 1947. The Deputy will not challenge that.

Mr. Lemass

No, of course.

Mr. Morrissey

He informed the Deputy in 1947, very early in 1947, that very heavy losses were inevitable. Deputy Lemass made the case—it is all so childish that I am not going to deal with it at length—that it never lost any money until 1948-49.

Mr. Lemass

I said no loss that could be attributed to the management.

Mr. Morrissey

Nonsense. The Deputy was approached early in 1947, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, to sanction increased charges to an extent that would enable the company to earn an additional £1,000,000. He sanctioned them and the charges were increased but notwithstanding that they were increased to a sum estimated to bring in an additional £1,000,000, they lost another £1,000,000 in 1947.

Mr. Lemass

You had the bus strike. That was where they lost it.

Mr. Morrissey

He can explain away every £ of the loss in 1948-49——

Mr. Lemass

Did they not lose £1,000,000 over the bus strike?

Mr. Morrissey

They did not. The Deputy may again, solely for the purpose for which I have stated he made his speech last night, go on repeating that this Government is responsible for the position and the condition of Córas Iompair Éireann. Nobody believes that. The Deputy does not believe it himself. He knows it is not true. I have been challenged to give the reasons why I——

Mr. Lemass

Put the section in the Bill.

Mr. Morrissey

——put the section in the Bill. I gave the reasons last night but it is a rather extraordinary thing that Deputy Lemass never went off the handle until I said I was going to leave this matter to be decided by the House.

Mr. Lemass

How will the Minister vote?

Mr. Morrissey

The Minister is putting the section and the Minister will vote for the section.

Mr. Lemass

Why the change?

Mr. Morrissey

My goodness, listen to him talking about change after the speech he made here last night. I should like to know what happened Deputy Lemass between 9 o'clock last night and 4 o'clock this afternoon. There was certainly a change, a revolutionary change, in the Deputy's attitude. The Deputy talks about decency and consistency. What was responsible for the Deputy's complete about-face since last night? Did some of the back benchers say that they would not vote for it?

Mr. Lemass

On the contrary. What I said last night is on the records of the House.

Mr. Morrissey

Faith it is and, mind you, you will be reminded of it fairly often. The Deputy comes in here to-day. He will not vote for the section, he will not vote against the section and he will not vote against the withdrawal of the section. He has no interest——

Mr. Lemass

The Bill is yours. What do you want the Dáil to do about it?

Mr. Morrissey

I am putting the section to the House.

Mr. Lemass

Do you want to carry it?

Mr. Morrissey

I am prepared to vote for it. Will the Deputy vote for it?

Mr. Lemass

Certainly, if the Minister will give me one good reason why I should, I will vote for it.

Mr. Morrissey

I shall not spoil that observation by even attempting to reply to it. I am supposed to be the Minister who is always threatening exposures but I am driven to read what I am going to read now, because I know if I do not read it, I will be subjected to the jibe for whatever length of time I am in this House. I only warn the Deputy not to be so foolish as even to think, when I am finished reading this, that this is the last bomb to which I could apply a detonator, as the Deputy calls it.

Mr. Lemass

That is a squib, not a bomb.

Mr. Morrissey

If this is a squib, I can assure the Deputy it is a very expensive squib. From the year 1929—I make this relevant because this was a matter in which the directors who appear in this section were primarily concerned——

Mr. Lemass

Will the Minister say what he is reading?

Mr. Morrissey

I am going to give the facts and the Deputy can challenge them if he wants to. I am reading from notes.

Mr. Lemass

His own notes.

Mr. Morrissey

I am reading from notes which I have here—facts which I have gathered.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister is not reading from any official public document?

Mr. Morrissey

Does the Deputy want to stop me?

Mr. Lemass

I want to know from what he is reading, and I want to get my rights as a Deputy protected by the Chair. If the Minister is quoting from an official document, it must be placed on the Table of the House.

Mr. Morrissey

If it is an official document I would not have the slightest hesitation in having it placed on the Table of the House.

Mr. Lemass

It is not an official document?

Mr. Morrissey

I am not going to tell the Deputy whether it is or not.

Mr. Lemass

Will the Minister say who wrote it?

Mr. Morrissey

I am going to give the facts to the House and if the Deputy wants to challenge them he knows how. The Deputy knows what they are and he is running away from it now.

Mr. Lemass

I have not run away from anything. I only wish to know what the Minister is going to quote from.

Mr. Morrissey

If you are not running away you are getting your foot in for the race.

Mr. Lemass

What is it? Is it a document the Minister wrote or that civil servants wrote or who wrote it?

Mr. Morrissey

It is a collection of facts. Those are the facts.

Mr. Derrig

Assembled by you.

Mr. Lemass

Assembled by the Minister.

Mr. Morrissey

I told the Deputy before that his little funny tricks will not cut any ice here.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister will not say what he is quoting from.

Mr. Davin

"Truth in the News."

Mr. Morrissey

Would you ever think that these are the same gentlemen who were challenging me a short time ago to give the facts?

Mr. Traynor

On a point of order, I think the procedure normally is that when a Minister or a Deputy purports to quote from anything, he has to give the reference for that quotation. That is all that is being asked for here. It may be necessary for me, for Deputy Lemass or for some other Deputy who is interested to look up these documents or extracts. Surely it is the normal procedure to give the reference?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Yes, but the Chair has no knowledge whether the Minister is quoting or not.

Mr. Traynor

He said he was going to quote.

Mr. Morrissey

I did not.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not know whether he is reading his own notes, from a statement he has prepared or quoting from some documents or whether it is an official document. If it is an official document it can be placed on the Table of the House.

Mr. Morrissey

I said that I am not going to say whether it is an official document or not. I can give Deputies the facts and am going to give them.

Mr. Lemass

On a point of order, the Minister has said he is going to give the facts. He has declined to say whether it is an official document or not. There is a ruling that an official document, if quoted from, must be tabled. The Chair will insist on this rule being observed?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Yes. If I am aware that it is an official document, I will have it laid on the Table of the House.

Mr. Morrissey

If the Deputy says he does not want me to read it, I quite agree.

Mr. Lemass

No. We want to know what the Minister is reading. Is it "Comic Cuts"?

Mr. Morrissey

Mind you, it may be comic. I can give the facts of this without referring to any document, but in fairness to those who are concerned and with a view to putting the facts as accurately as possible and for no other reason, I prefer to read it. If the Deputy objects to that——

Mr. Lemass

I have not objected to the Minister's reading anything—provided I know what it is.

Mr. Morrissey

Surely, all the Deputy is concerned with is knowing what is in it, and I am only too anxious to tell him what is in it, if he will allow me.

Mr. Lemass

Who wrote it? Jimmy O'Dea?

Mr. Morrissey

That sort of little cheap jibe could come from any jackeen from any street corner in Dublin.

Mr. Lemass

Will the Minister assure me he did not write it?

Mr. Morrissey

Unfortunately, these particular contracts were not written by Jimmy O'Dea. If they were, they would not cost the people half as much as they have cost, and they certainly will not provide as much amusement for the people of this country or the members of the House as Jimmy O'Dea would provide for them. In the year 1929, the former chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann, Mr. Reynolds——

Mr. Traynor

What year?

Mr. Morrissey

The year 1929. It is all part of the programme, all part of the contract.

Mr. Traynor

What contract is this?

Mr. Lemass

If we are going to discuss Mr. Reynolds personally, I think we should do it on the relevant Schedule to the Bill which provides for the payment of compensation.

Mr. Morrissey

The part played by his fellow-directors in this story surely arises here on the section—and, mind you, playing a very important part in it.

Mr. Traynor

What part had Mr. Reynolds to play in 1929 with Córas Iompair Éireann?

Mr. Morrissey

I am not surprised to note that the Deputy is wondering. I was wondering myself, but unfortunately from 1929 on it does figure in this matter.

Mr. Traynor

Córas Iompair Éireann?

Mr. Morrissey

Yes.

Mr. Lemass

Which was formed in 1945.

Mr. Davin

Would the Deputy allow the Minister to proceed and then ask questions?

Mr. Lemass

The Chair is the judge of relevancy.

Mr. Morrissey

I will establish the relevancy of this, if the Deputy will allow me. The Deputy is himself responsible for this and nobody but himself. From the year 1929, Mr. Reynolds was chairman of an omnibus company called the General Omnibus Company, Limited, which was the holder of a road transport licence under the Road Transport Act. He held this until the 11th November, 1934, on which date the licence and business of the company were compulsorily acquired under the Road Transport Act by the Dublin United Transport Company. The Deputy will see the link-up with all this in a few moments. On the 13th January, 1936, Mr. Reynolds was appointed general manager of the transport company and at a later date became a director of the company. That company was abolished by the Transport Act of 1944, on the 31st December of that year. On and prior to that date Mr. Reynolds was employed by the transport company under an agreement of the 22nd April, 1941, which provided for a salary of £2,500 per annum free of tax, and provided that on his ceasing to hold office he would be entitled to a pension of an amount determined by the date of his ceasing to hold office. The material pension provision is that on ceasing to hold office between the years 1943 and 1946 he should be entitled to a pension of £750 per annum. Prior to the abolition of the company, the board made a decision, on 12th December, 1944, by which the company bound themselves by agreement to pay Mr. Reynolds a pension of £1,029 per annum, this figure being arrived at by grossing the pension of the £750 per annum to make it payable free of tax.

That particular minute further recites an agreement to commute the life pension of £1,029 and states the capital figure, by reference to certain life tables, at the sum of £16,388. It further recites Mr. Reynolds's wish to be compensated by the company and not under the Transport Act of 1944, and the decision is recorded that he should be paid the capital sum of £16,388.

In December, 1944, and for approximately two years prior to that, Mr. Reynolds, in addition to his post in the Transport Company as managing director, was chairman of the Great Southern Railways Company at, I understand, a salary of £2,500 per annum. Both of these posts ceased, of course, on the establishment of Córas Iompair Éireann, January 1st, 1945.

On 28th December, 1944, the Minister for Industry and Commerce appointed Mr. Reynolds chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann for five years. Chapter VI of the Transport Act, 1944, provides for compensation for officers and servants of the dissolved companies and Section 43 provides that the managing director of the dissolved company shall be deemed to be an officer of the company. Mr. Reynolds was, therefore, entitled to compensation, which was to be determined on the provisions of the Fifth Schedule to the Act. That Schedule provided that pensionable service should include service with any former transport company and service (being service which is recognised for the purposes of a superannuation scheme, within Section 44, or an existing superannuation fund) with any former road transport licensee. The compensation to persons with not less than five years' pensionable service, under Article 3 of the Schedule, was to be an annual sum not exceeding two-thirds of the annual remuneration and emoluments on the date of abolition of office and, subject to that limitation, to be calculated at the rate of 1/60th of such remuneration and emoluments for every year of pensionable service, with an addition thereto of years based on a scale. In particular, the officer with 20 or more years of pensionable service would get an addition of 10/60ths.

It appears that Mr. Reynolds asked to have his compensation assessed under these provisions, notwithstanding his prior arrangement with the Dublin United Transport Company and I am informed that his service was calculated as follows: General Omnibus Company—that is what brings in the 1929 that Deputy Traynor could not understand—service, 1929 to November, 1934, six years; Dublin United Transport Company service, 13th January, 1936, to 31st December, 1944, nine years; total service, 15 years. That is to say, his service combined between the General Omnibus Company and the Dublin United Transport Company was 15 years.

Under Article 1 (2) of the Fifth Schedule to the 1944 Act, pensionable service may be increased by the addition of such number of years as may seem just, where a person was taken into the employment of any former transport undertaker as a specially qualified person at an age exceeding that at which transport service usually began. I am informed that, under this provision, seven years were added, giving a total service of 22 years. Under the provision above quoted— that is, where I mentioned earlier about the 20 years—this would entitle a further 10/60ths to be added, giving a grand total of 32 years' service, and justifying compensation at the rate of 32/60ths of the annual remuneration. It was estimated that the salary of £2,500 per annum free of tax was equivalent to £4,000 per annum and that, accordingly, the annual sum would be 32/60ths of £4,000, which is £2,133 6s. 8d. It was agreed that this annual payment should be commuted for a capital payment on the same basis as the Dublin United Tramways Company pensions had been commuted. Under the same life tables, the multiple was 15,9265. The capital sum was therefore 32/60ths of £4,000 by 15.9265, equalling £33,976.

Mr. Hickey

Was he paid that?

Mr. Lemass

That is the question— a fair question. Answer it.

Mr. Morrissey

I am going to answer it. The Deputy ought not to be so impatient. I understand that, credit against this being given for the sum paid by the Transport Company of £16,388, a balance due of £17,588 was arrived at. All these calculations were, apparently, made by the manager of the company and submitted to the board meeting. This is where the board comes in and this is where I establish the relevancy of all this. On the 10th January, 1945, a few days after their being appointed, the board decided at that meeting to grant the chairman a personal allowance of £4,000 per annum from the 1st January, 1945, not carrying pension rights. That was in addition, of course, to the £2,500 which had been fixed by the Minister. And further, that the compensation payable as above—that is, the balance of the £17,000 odd—should be payable only in the event of the chairman dying or losing his office within ten years of the date of his appointment, that is, his appointment as chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann at £2,500 a year plus the special salary of £4,000 a year voted to him by the directors whom we are discussing here now. That balance was to be payable only in the event of the chairman dying or losing his office within ten years of the date of his appointment and, in those events, to be payable on a diminishing scale by one-tenth for each year.

At the general meeting of the company held on the 28th February, 1945, and adjourned to the 7th March, it was proposed that the fees to be payable to the board of directors should be £8,500 and that the directors would determine themselves how that £8,500 should be distributed amongst them. It was agreed at that meeting of the board of directors that £2,500, in addition to the £4,000, would be allocated to the chairman, £1,500 to the gentleman described as the vice-chairman and £900 to each of the other directors.

Mr. Hickey

That means that the chairman was getting £6,500 a year?

Mr. Morrissey

Yes; and, in accordance with the contracts entered into with the former chairman, on the assessments of years and the tables which I have outlined, we found last year, when Mr. Reynolds left the company, that under that arrangement in respect of the £17,976, or whatever it was—the £16,300 odd had been paid over before —the unexpired portion of the ten years in respect of that £17,000 to which Mr. Reynolds was entitled under the contract entered into between the company and himself was £10,500 and that £10,500 had to be paid and was legally due to Mr. Reynolds and was paid in addition to the £16,000 odd.

Mr. Lemass

What £16,000 odd? I will deal with it later. I take it the Chair will now rule all this in order.

Mr. Morrissey

I think I can put it completely in order.

Mr. Lemass

I am quite satisfied that it is in order. It is the opportunity that I have been waiting for for a long time.

Mr. Morrissey

If I had known that, I would have obliged the Deputy long before this, and if the Deputy is waiting for any further opportunities there are a few more that I will provide him with also.

Mr. Lemass

You are welcome.

Mr. Morrissey

If the Deputy can question any statement I have given there, any figure I have given there, any fact I have given, he is welcome to do so.

Mr. Lemass

I intend to do so.

Mr. Morrissey

Yes, but I hope not in the Deputy's usual reckless and irresponsible way, making a statement to-day, prepared to run away from it to-morrow when he is nailed on it. If the Deputy tries to controvert one of the statements made here, he will have to produce the proof.

Mr. Lemass

I will produce as much as the Minister has produced. What is the Minister reading now? Will he answer now? I bet he does not.

Mr. Morrissey

You are not going to get away with a red herring. The minutes and the contracts. I grant you this, there are not as many documents or as much documentation available for this as I would like to see.

Mr. Lemass

There is full documentation.

Mr. Hickey

It must take the staff a long time to count all the thousands.

Mr. Morrissey

The Deputy, on one side, says of course, there is no proof, there is no documentation, now he says there is full documentation. Those figures did not arise in my head. Those are not figures of imagination. I grant you, they are hard to credit. I grant you that. Very hard to credit.

Mr. McQuillan

It is not a fairy tale, all the same.

Mr. Morrissey

It is a very expensive story. I can now say in reply to Deputy Lemass that it was not written by Jimmy O'Dea. I suggest the Deputy ought to contain himself.

Mr. Lemass

I am delighted that this chance is offered.

Mr. Morrissey

The Deputy has every appearance of delight.

Mr. Lemass

I am only impatient for the Minister to finish.

Mr. Morrissey

Impatient, straining at the leash. I would advise the Deputy to do what I have to do occasionally, count ten. I made the case for the section last night. I am putting the section before the House.

Captain Cowan

You have destroyed the whole case for it now.

Mr. Morrissey

Does the Deputy realise how really truthful I was when I said I was coerced into bringing this section before the House?

Mr. Lemass

By whom?

Mr. Morrissey

By the Deputy.

Mr. Lemass

I "un-coerce" the Minister. He can now take it away again.

Mr. Morrissey

I hope that I will not have so many of the Deputy's precedents to follow, or rather, I hope I will not be so foolish as to be led away by the Deputy's precedents. That is the story, a story that Deputies insisted on getting, a story that it is no pleasure to me to relate.

Mr. Lemass

Try to stop your tears.

Mr. Morrissey

I am not dropping any tears about it and I am not making any apology for it and I am not taking any lecture from Deputy Lemass on the decencies of public life or public debate. I am not going to allow the Deputy to get up here and rant and prevaricate and misrepresent at his own sweet will. I am not going to allow him to charge me with always bluffing and never producing anything in support of the bluff. The Deputy can get away with that for a long time, as he has got away with it for a long time, but there is a limit to what one is going to accept from a member of this House who should have a far greater sense of responsibility than he has. So far as the section is concerned, I am putting it before the House. I am not withdrawing the section—I am recommending the section and I will vote for the section.

Mr. Traynor

And you will keep the Whips on?

Mr. Morrissey

I am not going to coerce any Deputy—he can vote any way he likes—not even for the purpose of saving Deputy Traynor's face.

Mr. Lemass

If that is the best case the Minister can make for the section, he and Deputy O'Higgins alone will vote for it.

Mr. Morrissey

I am not surprised at that.

Mr. Lemass

If any Deputy heard the Minister advance a single solid argument in favour of the section, it must have been one that I overlooked. The only argument for the section the Minister attempted was that he was coerced by a precedent in the 1944 Act to insert it here. I framed the 1944 Act and I am not coerced into voting for it and I do not intend to vote for it, unless the Minister makes a better case for it. As matters stand now, I will vote against it, if it goes to a division.

We have heard the Minister about Mr. Reynolds and for the first time this House has got an opportunity of hearing the facts concerning Mr. Reynolds. I am very glad that that opportunity has arisen, because a number of very mean insinuations and half truths have been circulated by Deputies opposite on various occasions concerning him. Mr. Reynolds, as the Minister rightly said, was one of the pioneers in road transport services here. He founded the General Omnibus Company in partnership with Mr. McCarron whom the Minister recently appointed as chairman of the air company. The General Omnibus Company was perhaps the most successful of the non-statutory companies that operated at a time when there was no control over the operation of road passenger service and everybody was free to engage in it. Subsequently legislation was enacted by the Dáil which restricted the right of carrying on road passenger services to the statutory undertakings. Mr. Reynolds, at that stage in his career, first came up against the power of the Legislature. He had built up, by his energy and the energy of his partner, a very considerable enterprise, a very profitable enterprise, but the Legislature, in what they considered to be the public interest, put him out of business.

Mr. Davin

Who was the original owner of that company?

Mr. Lemass

I would not know.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It does not arise on this.

Mr. Lemass

The General Omnibus Company, under the provisions of legislation, was compulsorily acquired by the Dublin United Tramways Company and Mr. Reynolds and his partner, like others, were deprived of that occupation which they had established for themselves. However, because presumably, he was successful in the management of a road transport undertaking, he was invited by the directors of the Dublin United Tramways Company to become manager of that concern. Deputies, I think, must refresh their memories a little concerning the circumstances of that period. The Dublin United Tramways Company was a private concern.

Captain Cowan

Was there not a matter of compensation between the Dublin United Tramways Company and the bus company they took over?

Mr. Lemass

Certainly; determined by arbitration.

Captain Cowan

A substantial sum.

Mr. Lemass

It is no business of ours what it was.

Captain Cowan

It affected the appointment.

Mr. Lemass

It had nothing whatever to do with his appointment as manager of the tramways.

Mr. Davin

You as Minister at the time know the amount of compensation.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister had nothing to do with it. Deputies are either anxious to get the facts or they are deliberately trying to shut their minds to the facts, so that they can carry on this campaign of insinuation against a private individual in which they have been indulging.

Mr. Hickey

I do not think that a fair remark.

Mr. Lemass

Is Deputy Hickey anxious to get the facts?

Mr. Davin

He knows the figures.

Mr. Lemass

Will I be allowed to speak without interruption on the facts?

Mr. Hickey

It is an unfair statement to make.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Lemass is entitled to make his statement without interruption.

Mr. O'Leary

Let him tell the truth.

Mr. Lemass

We will let the general public decide between myself and Deputy O'Leary on that issue. The Dublin United Tramways Company was a privately-owned, independent concern, not subject to Government supervision or control and not assisted by the Government by subsidy or in any other way. They were entitled to appoint whom they liked and to pay him what they liked. They chose Mr. Reynolds and appointed him their general manager, and subsequently appointed him managing director at a substantial salary. A salary of £2,500, free of tax, even at the lower rate of tax operating before the war, was a substantial salary. We are not concerned with that. That was their business and I think the directors of that concern were always of the opinion that it was a very good appointment for them. Certainly, in the ten years during which Mr. Reynolds was managing director, that concern was brought from a condition of semi-bankruptcy into a highly profitable state, and that extraordinary improvement in the company's position took place simultaneously with the notable improvement in the conditions of employment of the workers in the concern and a reduction to the public in the cost of transport in the Dublin area.

Mr. Hickey

Is the Deputy suggesting that the Dublin United Tramways Company was a bankrupt institution?

Mr. Lemass

It was nearly so when Mr. Reynolds was appointed.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

It had a monopoly then.

Mr. Lemass

The particular point we are concerned with here, to meet the clear implications of the Minister's observations, is that Mr. Reynolds's appointment as managing director of the Dublin United Tramways Company was under a contract which provided also for a pension, a pension to be paid to him on his retirement and proportionate to the length of his service. I do not know if Deputies opposite regard it as an offence for Mr. Reynolds to accept an appointment of that kind involving the payment of a pension on retirement.

Mr. Hickey

You know very well we do not.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister seems to think so. When the Dublin United Tramways Company was being absorbed, again under the compulsion of legislation, by Córas Iompair Éireann, one of the matters that had to be settled by the company before it was absorbed was the liquidation of its responsibility to Mr. Reynolds in respect of his pension rights. Mr. Reynolds's appointment as managing director of that concern had been terminated by legislation and he was entitled to get from the concern the pension which he had earned or the capital sum which would buy a similar pension under a life annuity arrangement. He was also entitled under the terms of the legislation which abolished his employment, which deprived him of his means of livelihood, to compensation calculated in his case on exactly the same basis as that applying to every other employee of that concern who lost his employment in consequence of the enactment of the legislation.

We have, with the obvious approval of every Deputy in the Dáil, enshrined in this Bill precisely similar terms to deal with the possibility of people being disemployed in consequence of the amalgamation which this Bill will effect. That compensation for loss of employment to which Mr. Reynolds was entitled and to which every other officer of the company who lost his employment was also entitled, could, under the legislation, either take the form of a pension or of a capital sum sufficient to buy an equivalent pension under a life annuity arrangement. The Minister has told you that the amount of that capital sum was estimated. There was deducted from it the equivalent capital sum which Mr. Reynolds had received in discharge of the liability of the Transport Company in respect of pension and there was left a sum of £17,000. That was the amount of the compensation to which he was entitled because of the abolition of his highly remunerative post as managing director of the Dublin United Tramways Company. It would be equivalent to a pension of £500 or £600 a year. Mr. Reynolds did not draw it. Was that fact made particularly clear by the Minister, the fact that Mr. Reynolds did not get that money, that he elected not to take it? He was, prior to the legislation, asked by the Government to take over the chairmanship of the Great Southern Railways Company because the management of that concern proved unequal to meeting the transport problem occasioned by the war. I am sure that there is no necessity to remind Deputies that of all the problems that arose for us during the war, the most acute and serious were associated with transport, whether internal transport or external transport.

The task of keeping essential internal transport services going during the war without adequate supplies of fuel, without a possibility of replacing worn-out or damaged equipment, in all the well-remembered circumstances of these years was carried by Mr. Reynolds. I know that he does not want thanks for the work he did, but I think it would be ungracious for me, as ex-Minister for Supplies and ex-Minister for Industry and Commerce, with public responsibility during that period, not to say that it could not have been performed without Mr. Reynolds, and I am quite certain also that everybody concerned in the administration of the public transport services will concur in that statement. However, if any Deputy has any doubts about the opinions that were held of Mr. Reynolds during that period, I will refer him to the Dáil records and the tribute paid to him by the present Minister, by Deputy Davin, by the present Minister for Finance and by many others who now sit on the far side of the House and who certainly were not under any political obligation then to pay any tribute to him. We asked him to take over as chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann when that concern was established. Subsequent to his appointment as chairman, as I understand it from the information given to me, the shareholders' directors approached him and asked him to act, not merely as chairman but as the equivalent of managing director. The Minister said that subsequent to his appointment they voted him a personal allowance. That is a rather simple way of describing a procedure by which an individual who already carried a very heavy burden of work and responsibility was asked to add to it.

Mr. O'Leary

What was he paid?

Mr. Lemass

I will tell you exactly what he was paid. He was asked to add to that burden and accept still more work and responsibility during the difficult years of building up what we hoped would be the transport organisation of the future. They offered to pay him for that and I will tell you what they offered to pay him. They referred to the sum of £17,000, which was due to him because the employment which he had got on his individual merits as managing director of a transport company had been abolished by legislation and which he had not drawn. It was suggested to him that instead of drawing that sum of money he should take it in salary for this extra work and, in fact, the aggregate amount of money paid to Mr. Reynolds as additional salary for this as managing director during all the years he held that appointment was less than the amount he could have got in one lump sum in 1945 for doing no work at all.

Mr. Morrissey

That is not so.

Mr. Lemass

That is true, even if you leave income-tax out of account.

Mr. Morrissey

No.

Mr. Lemass

But if you take income-tax into account, the difference would be much greater because his salary was subject to income-tax and surtax and the lump sum would not have been subject to tax at all. However, the agreement with Mr. Reynolds was that he should take this additional work and responsibility for a period of ten years and his agreement to forego the compensation to which he was entitled under the 1944 Act was conditional upon his appointment in his new post lasting for ten years. Therefore, the agreement provided for the gradual disappearence of his claim to this money by so much every year reaching zero in the tenth year. In fact, as we know, Mr. Reynolds ceased to have any connection with Córas Iompair Éireann after four years. When the Minister for Finance came to this House and said that the Government had to pay Mr. Reynolds £10,000 to get rid of him, did any Deputy understand from that statement that what, in fact, he was receiving, the £10,000, was what was left of the compensation to which he was legally entitled under the 1944 Act for the abolition of his post as managing director of the Dublin United Tramways Company? Was there in that phrase an attempt to suggest an avaricious individual holding office under contract and determined to stay in that office despite the wishes of the Government until he was bought out and that he settled for £10,000? Was that not the picture conveyed, the picture it was intended to convey? I challenge the Minister: is it not true that as soon as it became clear that there was a substantial difference in outlook between himself and Mr. Reynolds as Chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann that Mr. Reynolds said to him: "You can have my resignation any time you ask for it," and that he got it when he did ask for it?

Mr. Morrissey

I am glad to get an opportunity of confirming that statement. That is quite true but it is not true that the £4,000 was an addition for taking on extra work.

Mr. Lemass

It was, of course.

Mr. Davin

Is it not true that he offered Deputy Lemass his resignation in 1944 when he got the wind up?

Mr. Lemass

It is not.

Mr. Davin

The Deputy said it in this House and he can look it up.

Mr. Lemass

In 1944 a dirty campaign was launched by the Deputy's colleagues and the individual concerned said, as I told the House, that he was not a politician, that he was not thick-skinned enough to withstand all the insinuations and allegations that were being directed against him, and that he would sooner get out of the post.

Mr. Davin

Did he or did he not, or will I have to look up the record?

Mr. Lemass

Go and look it up. It is quite true that you can get men of high ability for these executive positions in State concerns, but you cannot if you are going to permit them to be subjected in this House to the type of attack that was directed against Mr. Reynolds. I warn those who profess to be interested in the extension of State activity, in public utilities or in any other field, that if they continue these tactics which they started—Deputy Davin knows his responsibility in that regard—inevitably a time will come when only the second-raters and the third-raters will be attracted into these executive posts.

Mr. Hickey

I am afraid that we are overrating a lot of the experts that we have in this country in transport and in other things.

Mr. Lemass

I do not care what you overrate. I am only concerned with getting certain facts across. The Minister said it was not true that the chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann undertook extra duties in acting as a whole-time executive director. He did, of course. His original warrant of appointment, which I signed on behalf of the Government, did not oblige him to give his whole time to the affairs of Córas Iompair Éireann.

Mr. Morrissey

Whatever time the work of the company required.

Mr. Lemass

The work which the position of chairman of the company required, but, over and above that work, he took on the day-to-day executive direction equivalent to the work of a managing director. As I have said, when one speaks of the salary paid to him in that regard one has to take into account that, in consideration of that salary, he surrendered to the undertaking the pension to which he was entitled under the 1944 Act, or the £17,000 to which the Minister referred, which was the capital equivalent of that pension.

Now, it is true that, in transport undertakings, salaries in the higher executive posts run considerably higher than it has been the normal practice to establish in the Civil Service. I would say, as far as Mr. Reynolds was concerned, just this: that, after the establishment of Córas Iompair Éireann, the amount received by him as chairman in the position to which he was appointed by the Government— plus the amount paid to him by the company because he undertook the extra duties to which I have referred at the invitation of the stockholders' directors—was no greater than he had been receiving as a private individual before the enactment of legislation and is no higher than is at present being paid in the nearest corresponding position, that which is being paid to the chairman of the Northern Ireland Transport Board.

Deputies can have any view they like as to the value of an individual's services. I have a very high opinion of the personal capacity of Mr. Reynolds. I know, however, that the heavy burden he carried during all the war years seriously undermined his health, and that towards the end of the period when I was Minister he had on more than one occasion to relinquish his duties and recuperate in hospital. Some Deputies asked yesterday how the term of deputy-chairman arose.

Mr. Allen

The Minister.

Mr. Lemass

I think I am correct in saying from recollection that it arose during these periods of absence of the chairman through illness when the other director of the concern took over the duty of presiding at board meetings. It may be that Mr. Reynolds's health has been so undermined that he could not now attempt to continue to carry the same burden of work and responsibility; but it is rather discreditable to this Parliament and to this country that a man who carried such a heavy burden so successfully should, at the end of his period, relinquish it in the manner in which Mr. Reynolds did.

There is in this Bill adequate provision for his successor. I am not objecting to that. If his successor elects to retire after the Bill is enacted he is guaranteed by legislation a substantial pension. But Mr. Reynolds is now out of transport in circumstances which closes to him any reentry into the business in which he was an expert without a pension and not a penny compensation paid to him in respect of the termination of his post in Córas Iompair Éireann. He is not asking for it, and I am not suggesting that he should get it, but I do ask this: that, having given that service and having had that service terminated, he should be allowed to go back into private life without being followed by this vendetta which appears to have no other purpose behind it than a belated attempt to justify the policy of the Government by putting upon his shoulders a blame which is not his.

I am sure every Deputy will have noted that, despite all the attacks that were made upon him and all the statements which were circulated about him, he has not chosen to reply. He, I know, will not be pleased with me for replying on his behalf here to-day. He is quite satisfied to have given the best service he could to the country in a time of difficulty, and, if a change of Government or some other circumstance denies him the opportunity of giving service in the future, he is quite prepared to stand down, if you let him stand down. Why was he dragged into this discussion?

Mr. Morrissey

You dragged him in.

Mr. Lemass

I did not.

Mr. Morrissey

You are the only person who mentioned his name.

Mr. Lemass

I mentioned it incidentally. I said that if Mr. Reynolds was going to be discussed I would refer to matters concerning him on the Fourth Schedule to the Bill.

Mr. Morrissey

You said more than that.

Mr. Lemass

I did not even consider it relevant to the section. However, we have had this account of his career in transport, this rather biassed account of his career, given by the Minister. It was all intended to convery that he was a grasping individual and that he has retired now with the proceeds of several claims to compensation adequately discharged. He was, it is true, paid a large salary by the United Transport Company. He was paid no more for rendering the same service to Córas Iompair Éireann. The pension which he earned in the Transport Company has been met by the grant of a capital sum. The compensation which he was entitled to because legislation abolished his employment has only been met in part because the total claim was reduced in consequence of the agreement which he made with Córas Iompair Éireann to work for the money instead of drawing it for not working. He is now out of transport without a pension. He has now to find some other means of livelihood. Is there any reason why this campaign against him should be followed to the extent that it is now almost impossible for him to apply his talents in any other direction without those associated with him feeling that they are drawing upon themselves and their enterprises the vindictiveness and hostility of the Government? The Minister has said his say and I have said my say. Will we leave it at that? The facts are on the record and that is all I want. I am prepared to leave it at that if there is general agreement that these attacks upon people who are not here to defend themselves will be discontinued and that we confine ourselves in future to matters which are relevant.

Mr. Morrissey

I hope the Deputy will.

Mr. Lemass

The matter which is relevant now is Section 59. I do not know what the Minister is going to do.

Mr. Morrissey

I have told you and if you do not know now you will never know.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister is not enthusiastic for the section. He has not given any good reason why anyone should vote for it. I know of no reason why the Dáil should insist on the Minister getting a section which he apparently does not want.

Mr. Davin

Deputy Lemass has not challenged the accuracy of the figures or the facts given by the Minister in his carefully prepared statement. That being so, I would be interested to know whether Deputy Lemass still believes that Mr. Reynolds and his company, that is, the General Omnibus Company, having been bought out lock, stock and barrel under the 1932 Act brought in by Deputy Lemass when Minister should, in addition to getting compensation up to the six-figure mark for his company, also get credit for a five-years' service for pension purposes between 1929 and 1934.

Mr. Lemass

The provisions of the 1944 Act relating to calculation of compensation on the loss of employment were not designed for Mr. Reynolds. They are of a general application to every employee of the old Great Southern Railway and of the Dublin United Tramways Company. It is not my recollection that when the Bill was going through Deputy Davin was trying to reduce the right to compensation and, so far as I know, the provisions were ultimately agreed by the Dáil.

Mr. Davin

That is clearly no answer to my question. The Minister has read out a carefully prepared statement which Deputy Lemass did not challenge at any period of his speech and, if it is correct, the meaning of it is that the General Omnibus Company was bought out in 1934, lock, stock and barrel, at a six-figure compensation. I can give the figures.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy may know them; I do not.

Mr. Davin

The figures were given to me by a colleague of Mr. Reynolds.

Mr. Lemass

The colleague was Mr. McCarron, chairman of the Air Company.

Mr. Davin

Has any case been made for giving a lump sum compensation to buy out a man and his company, all his assets, and at the same time give him credit for five years for pension purposes in addition to that?

Mr. Lemass

That is not true.

Mr. Davin

You did not challenge the statement.

Mr. Lemass

Whatever was paid the General Omnibus Company was relatively no more than was paid to the other companies acquired and was the price paid for the transfer of their business to the Dublin United Tramways Company and was determined by an arbitrator.

Mr. Larkin

He was the owner of that company.

Mr. Lemass

He was one of them. He was the manager.

Mr. Davin

I am not going to be brushed aside by that kind of evasive answer. According to the statement and I know it to be a fact, Mr. Reynolds was in the service of transport in this country from 1929 to 1948, 19 years, and within the meaning of the speech delivered by the Minister from carefully prepared notes and not challenged by Deputy Lemass, he is getting credit for pension purposes for 32 years instead of 19.

Mr. Lemass

Will the Deputy vote with me to amend this Bill where the same provision applies?

Mr. Davin

I am not going to go further into it except to ask Deputy O'Higgins, who did not hear the statement of the Minister before he spoke, and any other Deputies who may agree with him, whether they, in the light of that kind of activity by these directors, would consciously ask the taxpayers to put their hands in their pockets and give sums amounting to £13,000, or £14,000 by way of compensation to the directors who are being provided for under this section. That has to be collected from the taxpayers as part of the £4,000,000 loss which we have asked the taxpayers to find in an Act passed a few weeks ago.

I do not think Deputy O'Higgins, if he had heard the Minister's statement, would have made the ad misericordiam appeal that he made for payment of compensation to these directors. I agree that he made this case and that there is something in it, but the facts are not similar. Deputy O'Higgins said that in Deputy Lemass's Act and perhaps in the 1924 Act, which the present Minister for Finance was in charge of, there is a precedent. But there is no comparison between the conditions under which directors were declared redundant or lost their positions in 1924, under the original amalgamation Act, or under the 1944 Act with the conditions under which these directors are about to disappear. The directors in those days handed over companies which were fairly well managed; they were not bankrupt. These are different from the conditions under which these directors are disappearing from office by the will of the majority of Deputies who voted for the Second Reading.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

The directors of the former companies had powers.

Mr. Davin

Deputy O'Higgins made the point that he was not sure—I shall help him to make up his mind finally on that—whether they were an advisory board or a board with complete power. I shall quote from the Section 83, page 25, of the Report in which Sir James Milne said:—

"There can be no doubt that the wide powers vested in the chairman have largely nullified the authority of the board of directors."

It goes on to say:—

"The Hon. W. E. Wylie, K.C., vice-chairman of the board, made it clear in his speech to the stockholders on the 28th June, 1948, that while the present chairman had always shown the greatest consideration and courtesy to the other members of the board and all matters of importance were fully discussed and debated, the board was only an advisory board and had to concur in measures in the interest of public policy without regard to the special interest of the stockholders."

Why did not these directors, who thought they were entitled to draw £900 a year, go before the shareholders at the meetings in 1946, 1947, and 1948 and tell that dreadful story which is recorded in that section of the Milne Report; tell the shareholders that they were only "yes men" without power? As the Minister stated, they brought a report before their shareholders in one of these years in which they certified, under the signature of their chief executive officer and accountant, that there was a loss amounting to £811,000. Why did they not say then that they had no responsibility to the shareholders for the loss, that it was the chairman-dictator put there by Deputy Lemass who exercised full authority under the powers conferred on him by the 1944 Act?

I was one of the Deputies who had to go to the country and fight a general election on this question because Deputy Lemass and his leader, Deputy de Valera, lost their tempers in this House when they were defeated by two votes on the Second Reading of the Transport Bill. They refused to accept the democratic decision of the majority of Deputies and took the matter to the country. The only issue between the majority of Deputies in 1944 and Deputy Lemass and his colleagues was the question whether full power should be given to one man. It is on the records of the House that I stated that if the man concerned, Mr. Reynolds, or any other man, was recommended to the House by the College of Cardinals I would not give him the power which Deputy de Valera and Deputy Lemass put into his hands on that occasion. But the people were not allowed to consider the real issues at stake. Other issues were dragged into the discussions in the country at that election and the Government came back here and, under false pretences, gave to the chairman the dictatorial power which has brought the company to bankruptcy.

Are Deputies on any side of the House satisfied to give the generous compensation proposed in this section to a body of people who approved of the contents of the document read out by the Minister this evening, knowing that compensation amounting approximately to £14,000 is to be given to professional directors, some of them with ten, 12 and up to 14 directorships? They are going to take that money out of the pockets of the poor taxpayers.

I refuse to believe, in the light of the information given to the House— and that is only part of the story—by the Minister for Industry and Commerce here this evening, that those of you who realise your responsibilities to the taxpayers, after having voted £4,000,000 away because of the inefficiency and incompetence of these gentlemen, are going to add to the bill by giving these generous compensation terms. I understand from the Minister that there will be a free vote on this matter. I hope you will vote according to your consciences and cut this section out of the Bill.

Captain Cowan

I have been absolutely bewildered here this evening by the statistics and the facts that were read by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. That state of bewilderment was not in any way clarified by Deputy Lemass's defence both of Mr. Reynolds personally and of the statutes that placed Mr. Reynolds in the position he was in.

I think it will come as news to the people of this country that Mr. Reynolds was appointed as chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann with a salary of £2,500 a year and that he was not expected to do anything else for that £2,500 except to act as chairman.

Mr. Lemass

The same applies to his successor.

Mr. Davin

Not under this Bill.

Mr. Lemass

Under this Bill also.

Captain Cowan

The other directors, the stockholders' directors as they are called, called on him to do some additional work and for that they paid him £4,000 a year.

Mr. Coburn

A personal allowance.

Captain Cowan

In other words, for the period in which Mr. Reynolds was chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann he was in receipt of a salary of £6,500 a year. I think Deputy Lemass was very foolish, when he was carrying the burden of two Ministries during the emergency, that he did not throw them over and go up to Kingsbridge and take a decent job at a decent salary of £6,500.

Mr. Lemass

I often thought that myself, but there is some attraction about this place—you cannot tear yourself away.

Mr. Davin

At least he would do much better than some of the people he sent there.

Captain Cowan

It strikes one as strange that a Minister can have all the responsibilities he has, including the burdens that had to be carried by the previous and the present Minister in regard to transport, and yet he is paid only one-third of the salary that the chairman gets, and apparently, even though carrying out the statutory duties of chairman and carrying out the other duties imposed upon him, he is still only part-time, because he an have quite a lot of time to spend in other ways.

Mr. Reynolds undoubtedly must have been one of the greatest men that this country has produced, one of the cleverest and one of the ablest men that this country has produced, because in 1929, when at that stage certain buses had entered into competition with the Dublin United Tramways Company and the Great Southern Railways, and when it was clear at that time that there must be statutory intervention——

Mr. Lemass

In 1929? It was not clear in 1929.

Captain Cowan

In 1929 it would be clear to a far-sighted individual that there must be statutory intervention.

Mr. Lemass

There was a refusal of statutory intervention, even when it was asked for.

Captain Cowan

Nevertheless, to a far-sighted man it must have been clear. He builds up his bus company and it ran for five years and was purchased, as Deputy Davin says, for a six-figure sum.

Mr. Lemass

I do not think that is true; I am quite certain it was nothing like that.

Captain Cowan

Well, then, it was a five-figure sum—I heard £80,000 mentioned.

Mr. Davin

Was it not £120,000? Can the Deputy contradict that?

Mr. Lemass

I will not contradict it, but the record is there representing the price paid for the undertaking.

Mr. Larkin

All these figures at that time were handsome figures.

Captain Cowan

Deputy Davin mentioned £120,000, and he is usually well-informed in these things—£120,000, of which Mr. Reynolds is supposed to have received £80,000.

Mr. Lemass

No, I do not think so. He was only one member of the company. I do not think that is correct.

Captain Cowan

Perhaps that part of it is not tremendously important, but the fact was that he was able to build up to a six-figure compensation in five years. That shows that he was a very able man.

Mr. Lemass

It was a very large and expanding enterprise.

Captain Cowan

Yes. I understand his method of introduction to Dublin United Tramways Company showed again an extraordinarily clever individual. Dublin United Tramways Company apparently could not pay him in cash or, even if they could, he preferred to get stock. He was enabled to get into Dublin United Tramways Company and become the manager.

Mr. Lemass

I submit that we are going perhaps too far.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am just watching Deputy Cowan. I am not going to allow him to proceed much further.

Mr. Lemass

These are statements nobody can contradict, but they are matters of no concern to the Dáil. I stated that he was appointed manager by the board.

Captain Cowan

I wanted to show how he got in.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The whole history of Mr. Reynolds does not arise on this section. A good deal more has been spoken on this section in regard to Mr. Reynolds than should have been spoken, much more, but once it was started I found it difficult to restrain Deputies. I must warn Deputy Cowan that every activity indulged in by Mr. Reynolds is not relevant to this section.

Captain Cowan

In other words, you are warning me not to follow the Minister or Deputy Lemass?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am not. I watched Deputy Lemass and the Minister carefully. As I have said, some things were said which could not possibly be described as relevant, and now Deputy Cowan is widening the scope of the discussion, and it is already too wide.

Captain Cowan

Very well, I will narrow it. I will follow Deputy Lemass again to the extent of saying that Mr. Reynolds was the most able man produced in this country in recent times.

Mr. Lemass

Bar the Deputy.

Captain Cowan

He managed the Dublin United Tramways Company with great success.

Mr. Hickey

Not a very difficult job because there was no opposition.

Captain Cowan

He managed it with great success and he wrecked the Labour movement in the Dublin United Tramways Company in his spare time.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That has nothing whatever to do with the section.

Captain Cowan

We have a strike at the moment resulting from that.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I will not allow that. Deputy Cowan will confine himself to the relevant matters on this section in so far as they have been allowed by the Chair. He may go so far but not further.

Captain Cowan

I take it I am entitled to refer to the fact that he became Chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann, which is something we are discussing here. That was pretty good work and it goes to prove his tremendous ability. I am not clear on one small point. The Minister referred to £33,000 of which £16,000 is to be paid to the late chairman. The suggestion from Deputy Lemass is that that £16,000 was received over a period of four years.

Mr. Lemass

That is not correct; £16,000 was the mean of the pension rights he acquired with the Dublin United Tramways Company.

Captain Cowan

Was he paid the £16,000?

Mr. Morrissey

Yes.

Captain Cowan

And he was also paid £10,000 on retiring.

Mr. Morrissey

£10,500.

Captain Cowan

That is over £26,000. I am entitled to say, within the rules of the House, that he was an extraordinarily successful man for himself.

Mr. Lemass

Does the Deputy appreciate the fact that that represents a much smaller pension than Mr. Courtney could get at the end of this year after one year's service.

Mr. Morrissey

That is not so.

Mr. Davin

That is misrepresentation.

Mr. Lemass

Is it not true?

Captain Cowan

If he had been a Minister of State, instead of being Chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann, he would have a miserable pension of £500 a year.

Mr. Lemass

What the capital value of that is in my case it is hard to say. I will live to 100.

Captain Cowan

We hope so.

Mr. Morrissey

Not if you stay in politics.

Captain Cowan

I can quite understand his getting nine years for the period he was in the Dublin United Tramways Company, for pension purposes. I can understand that there is some statutory authority for the seven added years, but I am in a difficulty as to where he got the other ten years.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not discussing how this figure was arrived at and it is not within the competence of this House at the moment to discuss that matter.

Mr. Lemass

If the Deputy reads the present Bill he will find exactly the same provisions in it, word for word.

Captain Cowan

As Deputy Davin says, 19 years have been converted into 32.

Mr. Davin

Nineteen years actual.

Captain Cowan

Nineteen years actual have been converted into 32 for pension purposes. Now I agree that we are going outside the scope of the section in this discussion.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is surely a concession.

Captain Cowan

We are going very far outside the scope of it. I am glad to hear Deputy Hickey say: "Hear, hear."

Mr. Hickey

I am tired of listening to it.

Captain Cowan

It is encouraging. The Minister related this to the section on the attitude of those directors who voted £4,000 a year to the chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann, immediately Córas Iompair Éireann was established. That is one of the ways in which he related it. Under this section of the Bill we propose to pay £14,000 to those particular directors.

Mr. Morrissey

£10,200.

Captain Cowan

£10,200 to the railway directors. One of them, who described himself inaccurately as deputy-chairman, is to receive under this Bill £3,000. That is the Rt. Hon. Mr. W.E. Wylie, K.C. It is an extraordinary state of affairs that in 1950 an Irish Parliament should vote £3,000 to the Rt. Hon. W.E. Wylie, K.C. The Rt. Hon. W.E. Wylie, K.C., has figured in Irish history over a long period of years.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are concerned only with these men as directors.

Captain Cowan

There are men in this country who worked and fought hard to establish this Legislature and, while they were doing that, they were prosecuted by the Rt. Hon. W.E. Wylie, K.C.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will discontinue that line of argument. In this connection we are concerned only with people who gave services to a certain firm. We are only concerned with the fact whether or not they will get certain superannuation in respect of those services. That is the purpose of this section. The Deputy knows that.

Mr. Lemass

1916 service did not help Mr. Reynolds much, did it?

Captain Cowan

I think it helped him.

Mr. Lemass

It did not even procure for him the charity of the Deputy's silence.

Captain Cowan

I think it has helped him somewhat. I am being asked now to vote £3,000 to the Rt. Hon. Mr. Wylie, K.C. Am I to forget everything I know about that gentleman over a period of 34 years? I certainly will not vote to give £3,000 to the Rt. Hon. Mr. W.E. Wylie, K.C., and I hope no other Deputy will vote to give £3,000 of the Irish taxpayers' money to the Rt. Hon. Mr. W.E. Wylie, K.C. I think the Rt. Hon. W. E. Wylie, K.C., has done very well out of the public transport of this country and out of the other national concerns with which he is connected.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again later.