Does amendment No. 38 cut across amendment No. 40?
Local Government (County Administration) Bill, 1950—Committee Stage (Resumed).
It does, and it is not moved.
Then we will take amendment No. 40.
I move amendment No. 40:—
In sub-section (1), line 10, to delete "executive" and substitute "of all the".
I think there is no necessity to explain this particular amendment which has for its object the formation of executive committees consisting of all the members of the council instead of a number of members of the council as is proposed in the section. Every argument that can be adduced in favour of this amendment has already been adduced. The Minister has indicated that if it is the desire of the House that the executive committee should consist of all the members of the council he will accept that decision. I think the Minister must know now as a result of the discussion here yesterday that it is the desire of the House that these executive committees should consist of all the members of the council. I do not want to sit down without mentioning what I might term the stronger points in favour of the amendment. If those executive committees are to perform very important functions and are limited to a small number, say, one-third of the council, it certainly will mean that two-thirds of the council will be deprived of the right of participating in the discussions and decision on matters for which they were elected by the electorate in the local elections. To that extent the Bill, as now drafted, cuts across in a fundamental way the principle of democracy. The Minister has said that not only now—not only since he became Minister but for many years—it was his desire and the desire of the Party to which he belongs that democracy should be restored to the local authorities. Democracy cannot be exercised if individuals elected to local councils are deprived by an Act of the Oireachtas from participating in and deciding serious issues that affect the people whom they represent.
There are many other arguments in favour of this proposal. Those arguments have been advanced already in the course of the discussion which is to some extent becoming disentangled now. Consequently I move the amendment, which I know has substantial support and which will revolutionise the Bill and guarantee to local authorities complete control over the administration of their own affairs. We are now amending in the Bill—sub-stantially amending—the Management Acts as originally introduced. By the adoption by this House of the amendment that I propose the most objectionable features of management, whether given to a manager or a small committee, will be eliminated and full powers will be given to the elected representatives of the people.
I find myself in disagreement with Deputy Cowan on this amendment. I put it to the House and to the Minister that the drainage committees which now operate under the county councils have full power to do a lot of business in a short time.
What committee did the Deputy mention?
Drainage committees. I further submit that the working of the old boards of health and the sub-committees under them, where their powers were not restricted, was a success. If you constitute the whole council into a committee the work will not be done as expeditiously as it would be done by having smaller committees. Democracy is safeguarded in the Bill by the proportional representation system of election. I therefore find myself—speaking for myself—in opposition to this amendment, and certainly if there is a vote in the House I will vote against it.
While I think there is a good deal in this amendment which can be commended, I do not think the mover can justifiably claim that its acceptance by the Minister would revolutionise the Bill. It seems to me that the proposal in the Bill is to constitute executive committees. As it stands, it would have very little difference in effect in its working out from the proposal made by Deputy Cowan except in this regard, that unattached members of county councils, corporations or local authorities of any kind who could not command voting support on a county council might find themselves without representation on these executive committees. Everybody who is a member of a local authority is aware that committees of this kind are filled largely on the basis of certain political party affiliations. If the Bill is left in its present form, there is the danger that those who would not have any party affiliations, members of local authorities, might find themselves, while desiring to be members of executive committees, unable to gain election to these committees. It is certainly undemocratic from that point of view.
There is also a good deal to be said for the point of view put forward by Deputy Kennedy that small committees get more done. That is quite true. If we are to safeguard the principle of democracy—and it is upon that principle that this Bill has been introduced—democracy must permit the distribution of authority amongst all the members of the council. There is undoubtedly very much to be said for the amendment. I understand from the mover's remarks that this is a matter upon which the Minister is prepared to accept the view of the House that it is not a fundamental issue, but one in respect of which care should be taken to see that every element of the local authority will get representation. The only way in which that can be done is to constitute the committees of the entire members of the county council. In my view, the amendment has that much in its favour.
Most of the arguments advanced from this side of the House yesterday would favour the principle of Deputy Cowan's amendment. Our attitude was that we were opposed to the principle of these executive committees in the first instance. If you have committees with executive authority we feel that the whole council would be the best body to have. Take the case of the boards of health long ago. They were usually composed of ten members who were responsible for the administration of home assistance, but the ten members of the board of health never administered home assistance. When the board of health met, the ten members, in order to get through the work, had to divide themselfves up into three sub-committees. There was a housing sub-committee, home assistance sub-committee and a general hospital sub-committee. These were the three sub-committees. The average attendance at a board of health meeting would be about eight out of the ten. Occasionally, you would have the ten members. There would be two sub-committees with three members each and one with two members. You had two members of a council consisting of 27 members in my area administering home assistance for the county, while the local knowledge of the other 25 men who were drawn from different parts of a large rural area—probably 60 miles by 40 miles—was never called on, with the result that many difficulties arose and there was friction amongst members of the board of health.
You had also this dangerous situation, that two members of a council of 27 were determining how £20,000 a year would be spent and the feeling was growing that it was an undesirable procedure which should not be allowed to continue. That was probably one of the reasons why boards of health came to an end. In respect of housing, a committee of two or probably three determined very serious and far-reaching matters—the repair of all houses, the money to be spent on them and probably much bigger questions. All members of a council in a rural area are equally interested in the problems that come up and all should get an opportunity of expressing their opinions on them.
In these circumstances you will get better and sounder work done. There will be less danger of cliques and less danger—I do not like to use the word —of corruption. Human beings are human beings, and we had very little of it in the public life of this country. The suggestion was made in the past, but with the whole council administering public funds, there will be no danger of that. Very strong arguments could be put forward against the idea of small committees administering public funds, and I feel fairly strongly on this point from experience and knowledge. It is unsound in the long run, and if there is anything which may lead to abuse by local authorities in the administration of public funds, it is the small group. The work can be done by a sub-executive committee as provided in this Bill. Such a committee can have three members, and it is even provided here that one member of a county council can constitute himself an executive committee.
The counter argument can be put up that the present county manager is doing that in the secrecy of his office, if you like, with his officers and advisers, but there is a safeguard in regard to the county manager which would not exist in the case of members of local authorities. He is a highly paid officer in a highly responsible position, and it will be found, by and large, that the administration of public funds by the manager has given general satisfaction to all sections. There was no suggestion of abuse or unfair play and no suggestion that if any group got on the council, they would use their influence there to further the interests of a particular political party. With the whole council working together, there is a safeguard. There is then the other objection that, even on a system of proportional representation, desirable members of a council, who were elected as independent members and who would be first-class administrators, have little or no chance of getting on these committees.
They are certain to be kept out.
They might not deliberately be kept out, but it will be the concern of all the political groups to get as many of their own members on as possible. That is a very natural interest and it cannot be avoided, but it may result in very desirable administrators, elected as independents, having no part whatever in the administration of the affairs of their county. I believe these executive committees should consist of the whole council. I agree that, with a small group of three or four, you get through business much faster and possibly more efficiently.
They are often not so efficient.
They are more liable to make mistakes than the larger number.
Mr. Hitler, for instance.
The more heads you have, even though they be sheeps' heads, the better. We are all concerned with getting a machine which will be as near perfect as we can make it, a machine which will run smoothly and give rise to the least possible abuse in its working. At present, areas are selected and designated local electoral areas, and, under this, even on the proportional representation system, you could have large parts of a rural area with no representation on any of these executive committees. That is quite a possibility. It might be that the members there would not have the time to attend many meetings in a month and it might be, on the other hand, that they might not be selected by their particular Party groups. A man in a particular area might not be selected by his Party group for membership of one of these committees. I can see nothing wrong with these executive committees consisting of the whole council. The whole council system has operated for the past six years and all the business has been done, whether the council consisted of 21 or 26 members, the usual number on a council, though there may be larger numbers in the Cork County Council. The whole council carried out all the business and got through it reasonably expeditiously. Everyone had an opportunity of expressing his views, and, even though the numbers may look somewhat large, it is sounder administration in the long run, and it gives more satisfaction.
And the member sees with his own eyes what is happening.
He knows what is going on. It is a peculiar thing that, in the past, where you had ten members out of a county council of 27 on the board of health the remaining 17 had always to inquire from their colleagues what they were doing in the matter of housing, sanitation and so on. They had no power to make any representations, other than the fact that they were their colleagues and they could tell them about things that needed to be done; but they did not know what was going on at the meetings of the other body. The majority of the county council had no knowledge other than what they read in the newspapers or could glean from their colleagues of the work being done by the board of health, and that was a bad system in the long run.
I disagree with the principle of these executive committees, but that principle has been accepted and we must try to make the best of it and try to get to run smoothly and give more satisfaction. If over half a council is to have no knowledge of what is going on, they will be Pooh-Bahs in future— the men who are not members of these executive committees. I cannot see that the council will have anything really serious to do except strike a rate. They dare not put on the agenda anything to do with housing because they know that the chairman will rule housing out of order at the meeting of the county council. Any health matter could not be raised at a general meeting of the county council, under this Bill—and that would be undesirable. I do not believe those who have worked on local authorities will be satisfied unless the full membership of the council are members of these executive committees.
Mr. Desmond rose.
Deputy Desmond realises that amendment No. 44 is practically the same as this?
Yes. It is quite clear up to a point how Deputy Allen has approached this. Naturally, our views are the same. If it is worked on proportional representation with a council of 21, seven would be on one particular committee. That would mean that those seven men plus the council officers, might spend a day discussing particular matters; but in turn, under the democratic principles of any Bill, their decisions would have to be referred back to the general meeting. After seven members spending perhaps the best part of a day discussing this matter, the other 14 would be entitled to go over it again when it came back. That would be duplicating the work. Also, there is no guarantee that any decision arrived at by the seven wise men on the executive committee would be agreed to by the majority.
Furthermore, assuming that there are 21 on the council, even with two executive committees of seven each, that would make 14 members; and there are still seven on the council who would not get any representation. It is only natural to assume that they would claim the right at the ordinary meeting to go over the whole proceedings and ask for another day. We would have a retrogressive manner of dealing with local affairs if we have these separate discussions. In Cork at the present time, there are 21 members on the South Cork Board of Health, in which I am interested. At a board of health meeting those 21 are automatically members of the board of health and decide on any representations to be made to the manager. All the decisions we make become final at the meeting and we do not have to refer them to anyone else, as all 21 are automatically on it. That means more efficiency and gives more satisfaction.
If under this Bill there were an executive committee in North Cork for health matters, their decisions or recommendations would have to be referred to the county council. Why should we, from a different part of the county, be made waste time dealing with a parish pump 80 miles away? I would ask the Minister to realise that, if this Bill is to be really successful, we must be satisfied that every member will have the full right to discuss matters on these executive committees.
It is only right to leave all heat out of this discussion, as one can get nowhere by that. I will be frank on this point. If there are four or five Parties and a couple of Independents on a council, this Bill could mean that some Parties may be denied representation on an executive committee. In fairness to those elected by the people to represent them, and also if we are to take the most important aspect, that is, to make a success of local government, we must see that while matters of national importance may have to be dealt with here in the Dáil we can settle our own affairs in our own counties. The principle behind amendment No. 44 is the same as in the other one. I would ask the Minister to realise that it is absolutely necessary to see that every member of a council has a right to sit on an executive committee dealing with council matters, so as not to duplicate the work by having recommendations from a committee of one-third of the council referred back to the general council, which would mean added work and unsatisfactory results in the end.
Has the Minister made up his mind since last night as to what the quorum of an executive committee of the whole council should be? Secondly, has he made up his mind as to what the quorum of a special executive committee will be, as a result of the executive committee being composed of the whole council?
Listening to the point put forward by Deputies Desmond and Allen, I bring to mind the working of the old board of health in Westmeath. There were two sub-committees acting for the board of health, and they met respectively in Athlone and Mullingar. One in the south of the county consisted of all the councillors for the southern divisions and the other consisted of the members from the northern divisions. They dealt with housing, sanitary provisions, water and repairs to houses. The board of health never questioned their work but automatically sanctioned whatever they did. I make the suggestion to the Minister and the House that we might find a via media out of this by making certain divisions of a county, to deal with particular matters appertaining to that end of the county. To particularise, if the whole southern end of Westmeath had to spend half a day discussing Athlone health affairs, well, they would not be there after a while; whereas if the meeting were held in Athlone and consisted of the members from Athlone, Moate and that district, they would get through the business more quickly. In the following week, the northern members could meet and discuss matters for that portion and they would achieve something. I put that forward as a suggestion to the Minister and the House.
The object of executive committees of any kind is to help to speed up the business being conducted at the meeting. I dare say that in the drafting of this Bill the Minister was full of good intentions. As he explained in the White Paper, the terribly overloaded agendas that carry on from one council meeting to another, with matters which could never be reached, create a problem not alone for the councillors and officials but also for the Minister and his Department. There were many occasions in connection with my county when the Department of Local Government here would like to see certain matters decided, but we could not reach them sometimes for a period of six months, because of the system of debate carried on in the county council. I suppose it was from that problem that the Minister got the idea of executive committees.
Personally, I am a believer in such committees, as I have been long enough on a county council to realise that at least one-third of those who have been elected by the votes of the people do not take the interest in council affairs that the other two-thirds may take. It may be because of their inability to take part in the debate or to understand as well as their fellows what is being debated, but my experience is that a third or at least a fourth of every council would be just as well off if they were not there at all. However, these people are elected and being elected have the right to talk and discuss what is on the agenda as much as the others. I believe that if a proper executive committee could be selected you would have a better and a more efficient type of administration, while if every county council could elect a chairman who was able to keep order you would have no need for executive committees at all. If, for instance, the chairman of a county council could rule with an iron hand and keep in the mind and mouth of every councillor only the exact items on the agenda the work would be done more quickly, but we all know what happens at county council meetings.
I hope that on the Mayo County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association you do better than that.
You do better than Dublin where they cannot be trusted.
We can win on the field. My objection to executive committees as they are constituted here —and I find myself in agreement with Deputy Desmond—is that there is very little use in having an executive committee of one-third of the members of the council if their findings can be rehashed at a meeting of the whole county council. If that is true—and I think it is as I have studied this as well as I am capable—it is foolish. The committee must have the same power as the old board of health or as the committee of agriculture at present.
They have power.
No, the matters can be raised at general council meetings. On the county committees of agriculture one-fourth, a half or two-thirds are members of the county council but the others are men who are not elected by the votes of the people.
They are fully democratic.
All the same they give very good and efficient service. The county committee of agriculture is very important in County Wexford where Deputy Allen comes from and in Mayo where I come from. They are an important corner of county administration and can give satisfaction and service. I am a great believer in executive committees because of their efficiency and because it may be possible to keep out the group of councillors who take no interest whatsoever in debate and fail in many cases to understand what they are talking about and have interest in nothing except seeing their names in the local paper.
Do not run down your own colleagues.
I am speaking with an open mind. Some of my own people may be guilty and there may be some guilty members in the Deputy's council.
There are not.
It might be worth the Deputy's while to come to a meeting of Mayo County Council and see who are the guilty parties. They are on all sides and Deputy Allen cannot deny that.
No, they are not.
Because they want to see their names in the paper the next day they start an argument with the chairman or with the county secretary.
A lot of Deputies do not want to see their names in the papers to-morrow morning because they are not here.
Is Deputy Cowan going to do his stuff again?
Either have the executive committee's findings final or take all the members of the county council into the committee but do not have them rehash the things the committee has done.
Deputy Corry rose.
Before Deputy Corry gives us words of wisdom, and I know we will have words of wisdom from him——
I have called Deputy Corry. Is it a point of order?
I am calling for a quorum.
Notice taken that 20 members were not present; House counted and 20 members being present,
I am supporting this amendment though I cannot understand how Deputy Cowan put it in as he has no interest in it——
He has a great interest.
——seeing that Dublin County is not considered by the Minister for Local Government to be worthy of self-government.
They are all Corkmen.
There might be enough Corkmen to form one-third.
Deputy Corry rose to speak on the amendment. He might get to it.
With regard to the two executive committees which the Minister intends to form under Section 16, I would like to point out that when a representative is elected on the county council in Cork he is supposed by his constituents to look after their interests in every phase of county council work, let it be housing, water supplies, public assistance or hospitals. I have a very definite objection to any disfranchisement of any number of those members. We might be said to have the most unwieldy county council in Ireland, seeing that we have 46 members, but those 46 members can get through their work in any one day very successfully. There are separate days for home assistance work and boards of health. The second of these two executive committees is supposed to deal with health matters, but we have in Cork three separate areas with three separate area charges. You have a separate area charge in North Cork for housing, water and sewage purposes on one-third of Cork County.
You have a separate area of charge in the South Cork area in the same manner, with the exception of home assistance for which we are, to our sorrow and woe, coupled with Cork City, and you have a separate area of charge for West Cork. You have these naturally formed three separate executive committees there concerned with water, sewerage and housing. There would be a very definite objection to a South Cork man interfering with the North Cork people. They would have the very definite objection that somebody was stepping into vote on something for which he was paying nothing. That is the position there. As regards roads and general administration, each councillor, as I stated at the start, is elected by the people to do his part. He is entitled to have his voice heard and to vote on how the money subscribed by his constituents is used. For that reason I have a very definite objection to any reduction by any means of the whole of a county council—the dividing up of it into executive committees of any description. I have pointed out that in regard to the housing, water supply, sewerage and so forth you have a natural division which can be made by the county council itself without the assistance of the section in this Bill which says that the executive committee can transfer its powers to any portion of it. The executive committee of all the members of the council—which meets on roads and other administration— can transfer its powers on housing, sewerage and water to the South Cork area, to the North Cork area, to the West Cork area who have to pay the piper themselves for anything they do in a separate area of charge.
I maintain that to have an executive committee of one-third to do the other work is going to ruin the whole business. I am very grateful to the Minister for leaving this more or less an open question. I appeal to the Minister, as one who wants to see this Bill workable and a success—if we can make a success out of it—to give serious consideration to what I am saying. After all, we have been on local bodies and we have had experience of them. I have been a member of the Cork County Council since 1924. I have had pretty long experience of local government all down the years from 1924 until 1951.
I have had experience of what happens in those bodies there. I know the amount of soreness that exists even where we have a decent broad-minded chairman and a decent broad-minded attitude, when we cut out the proportion of members on each committee according as they were elected by the electorate. For instance, if Fianna Fáil had so many, they got so many. If Labour had so many, they got so many members. Similarly with Fine Gael, the Farmers and the Independents. It is worked that way in a broad-minded system. I know the soreness that occurs even amongst Parties. Take, for instance, two members of a Party are picked out to serve on a board of assistance as against five or six others that should have an equal right to serve on it and who represent as many ratepayers and people who have to pay as the others. I know well the soreness that occurs. I appeal to the Minister, if he wants to make a success of this Bill, to accept the amendment. I appeal to him not from any political viewpoint whatever, but solely for the good and for the working of this Bill in the future. Let us try it out. I think he would have a far greater hope of the success of this measure by doing that than by splitting up and disfranchising two-thirds of the electorate as he is doing as the Bill stands at present.
I should like to ask the Minister to accept this amendment. I do so for the very same reasons which were given by various other speakers. If there should be a very big number of Independents on a council, due to the very fact that they are elected as Independents, they cannot combine to elect or select a member to represent them. In the case of political Parties who return, say, two members, the Independents and the small political Parties can be deprived of any representation even under this particular system. It is essential that all the people elected by the public should have an opportunity at least of putting forward their views. I am quite well aware—and it is another reason why the Minister should agree to this amendment—of the fact that under Section 38 any number of people not elected on these executive bodies can use the county council as a means to endeavour to see that the council will compel these executive bodies to carry out a particular function. As I have said on another occasion, this Bill will lead to a rehash of everything discussed at these executive committees, with consequent delay and loss of time.
Minister, accept it now.
I am speaking, I think, at variance with most of the views expressed by Deputies on this side of the House in relation to Section 17. A remark made sotto voce by my colleague, Deputy Corry, recalls a statement which he made when he was speaking to this amendment to the effect that a West Corkman would not be allowed to interfere with the affairs of an East Corkman. I wish that that applied to the interference of Cork members with Dublin hospitals.
We have had a trial of the small-mindedness of the Dublin fellows.
I think that this amendment may appeal to the majority of the House but, if I may, I speak as a townsman who has had no actual experience of county council administration though, strange to say, I have had quite a considerable amount of experience both as a servant of a local authority and as a member of a local urban authority in regard to the way in which business can be conducted.
Are they the urban authorities from which it is not considered worth removing the county managers?
I bore with Deputy Corry when he was talking and I trust he will try to be forbearing towards me. The principle as to whether we should or should not divide the executive functions between several groups of the council rather than to have every member of the council participating equally in the executive functions of all committees is governed, I think, by the fact that there will be a change in the present administration. If we had the present system of county management, where all the executive functions were to be vested in the county manager and were to be discharged by him, then perhaps the necessity for having the personnel of the county council divided, as is proposed under Section 17 of the Bill, might not be so great. If in fact these committees are to be truly executive bodies, which I doubt —I have already expressed that doubt on Second Reading—I fear that experience will show that it will not be possible for them properly to discharge those executive functions and that ultimately those who are in favour of the idea of an executive committee will perhaps have to fall back on some such solution as is proposed in the Bill. That is merely looking at the problem from the point of view that the committees in fact will be executive committees.
There is another consideration which I think members have lost sight of, that, as executive committees, they will be serving two Ministers. The county council has now become the executive body very largely for the Minister for Local Government on the one hand and the Minister for Health on the other, and, indeed, to a large extent, for the Minister for Social Welfare, as Deputy Allen has reminded me, in relation to the provision of home assistance. That will make it somewhat difficult for members to keep in mind their responsibilities to the respective Ministers in relation to two parts of their functions. Psychologically speaking, I think they would be more conscious of the fact that they had responsibility, say, to the Minister for Health if they were serving on the health executive committee only and that they would be more conscious, perhaps, of their responsibilities to the Minister for Local Government if they were serving on the general executive committee of the council.
Nobody can say which of the systems, in fact, will work the better. There is no principle involved. It is merely a question of expediency as to which we think is likely to work out the better in the end.
There is, too, some merit in the provision which the Minister has included in the Bill whereby one-third of the membership will not be on any committee. I am talking here, perhaps, not very accurately, because, in fact, I have proceeded so far on the assumption that a member of the council could be a member of only one committee. Much of what I have said would be completely nullified if certain members were to be members of every committee or if a member was to be a member of two committees. On the assumption that there would be a fair division of the work and responsibilities of the council over the elected body as a whole, there is something to be said for having one-third—at least, it need not be one-third, it might be one-fourth—but for having, at any rate, one section of the council not completely enmeshed in the interests, concerns and functions of one or other of these committees because they will be able to stand back and look at the problem as a whole from the point of view of the people who are very often forgotten about when we are dealing with local administration, that is to say, the ratepayers. They would be, if you like, in the position of a composite Minister for Finance. They would be able to look at the financial implications of the proposals which, say, the general executive committee was pressing forward and at the proposals that the health committee was pressing forward.
Again, I would like to say that everything I am saying may not prove by experience to be correct, but one can visualise a situation where it would be useful to have one-third of the members, as I say, more or less taking a detached view of the operations of the other committees and, if you like, exercising a certain amount of financial supervision over them. When the time came to strike the rate, naturally, they would all meet as one in the general body of the council but there would be in the general body of the council a section of members who could act as detached and impartial critics of what the other two committees were doing.
May I put it this way? It has been argued here that every member of the general body is entitled to sit on every committee of a local authority. I do not think that that is realised in practice. There are, I think, committees on which only part of the membership of the council sits. There are other committees that are composed partly of a selected number of members of the council and of persons who have been co-opted for special purposes. I do not think it has been alleged, so far at any rate, that so far as these composite committees are concerned, or so far as these committees which consist only of a fraction of the elected personnel are concerned, there is any discrimination against one area in favour of another.
I said that I had perhaps more extensive experience of local government than many people are aware. If I may just mention a personal aspect of the matter: My father was one of the first Nationalist members elected to the Belfast Corporation in the year 1897, on the passage of the old Local Government Act, and he remained there and served on that body for over 20 years. In Belfast at that time there was this idea of executive committees. There was a police committee, which looked after street lighting and that sort of thing—not after the police—an electricity supply committee, which managed the affairs of the electricity supply undertaking; a libraries committee, which looked after the libraries; a gas committee which looked after the municipal gas works; a tramways committee, which looked after the tramways; and a number of other committees, including a general purposes committee, which dealt with matters outside these things, and a finance committee. A member, if he was an ordinary member of the council, could be a member of, at most, two of these committees. If he happened to be chairman of one of these committees, he was a member of the finance committee. There was an organisation based upon this principle of having executive committees of the general body and it was not necessary that every member of the corporation should be a member of every one of these committees. In fact, it would not have been practicable.
I will concede at once that you cannot argue from urban experience, and particularly from experience in the local administration of a very large city like Belfast or Dublin to, say, the position which exists in Deputy Corry's satellite areas of County Cork because, as we all know, Cork extends practically across the whole of Ireland, just as we saw Cork extending along both sides of the House in a division here this evening.
Nearly up to Belfast.
If you had more Belfastmen down here, this would be a very much better Assembly.
From what I saw of Belfast, they were not worth much.
I was saying that one is not, perhaps, justified in arguing from an experience limited to urban areas and large municipalities; one is not, perhaps, justified in piling up such experience and saying that things would work out the same way in regard to county administration. Perhaps they would not. I think that, after all, there may be something in allowing the proposal of the Minister—at least to consider it with a more open mind than it has been approached so far.
I am not going to say that I am prepared to be a thick and thin supporter of this section. Since we are all concerned with county administration. I suppose I would have to bow to the weight of numbers and apparently, so far as members of the House on both sides who represent rural constituencies are concerned, they would rather have every member of the elected body a member of these executive committees. All I can say is, in so far as I have any wisdom or experience of them, that time will show that is not a very wise thing.
This particular discussion has served a very useful purpose because it has shown to some of us who are new members in the House, members for the past three years at least, a new side of Deputy MacEntee and, if I may say so, a more persuasive side than he usually displays. I think he is pretty well surrounded at the moment by Deputies who do not just accept the point of view that he would like to put before us, and it is good to see him accepting that position in the gracious way in which it was done.
I will say to the Minister that this proposal will, to a large extent, decide the form in which the Bill will be finally passed. The general viewpoint is that we are at what one might term an experimental stage. Now, local government is all the time a living, growing thing. Since 1898 it has, right up to date, gone through many phases. We had the county management phase which, looking at it from a logical point of view, seemed to be a very sound way of doing things. I think the more one considers it, the more, one can see in that particular proposal. However, the general viewpoint has been away from that and now we want to try something else.
I agree with Deputy MacEntee that what happens in a large city can hardly be applied to conditions in the country, but in the Dublin Corporation, which has had a long existence, before I went into it, which was only a few months back, they had decided that all the committee work, the principal committee work, should be done by a committee of the whole house. They tried out the small committees and they found that was not successful and they are now operating—they have been for some time—a committee of the whole house. That is, in relation to finance, housing, public health, town planning and, in fact, all the vital committees are committees of the whole house. They went through the phase that Deputy MacEntee mentioned in regard to Belfast and while at the moment there are in the Dublin council some members who think it might be better to get back to the idea of the small committee, there are on the other hand members who think it would be better to have the big committee.
We are at a completely experimental stage. This is not the last Local Government Act that will be passed. The general desire seems to be that we should give a trial to the executive committee consisting of the whole council. I would press the Minister to accept that without placing on record what I might refer to as the official objections to it. It may be in three, four, or ten years' time the Dáil will be discussing some new Local Government (Amendment) Act and by that time experience will have shown that this idea of an executive committee of the whole house does not work out so well. In view of the fact that on all sides of the House there is a desire for it, at least let the Minister say: "I will give it a trial."
There is no use in comparing the experience of a member of a corporation—God help us—with that of a member of a county council because it is a different body altogether. Down the country we have an old saying. When we meet a particularly narrow-minded creature we say: "You have a mind like a member of the Dublin Corporation." God knows it is true.
With regard to the statement made by my friend, Deputy MacEntee, I would like to point out that I have had experience as chairman of a board of assistance. I think I did my work there fairly well, on a board where you have the conglomeration that Deputy MacEntee has alluded to. We have the Minister for Social Welfare, the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Health, but they did not stop us from doing our duty and doing our work well. Even when Deputy MacEntee was a Minister and tried to pull a pretty quick one in the line of the extra half-crown on the old age pensioners and the State's liability for that, I think Deputy Hickey will bear me out when I say that it did not take us too long to put our finger on the sore spot and make the Minister pay up.
It might have been a rather sore matter with him at the time, but he had to put his hand in his pocket and fork out what the law allowed us. The putting of a member of the board of health on one side, a member of a board of assistance on the other and a member of the county council as well, did not prevent me placing my finger on that little manoeuvre of the Minister's and bringing it out in the light of day. We succeeded in getting a couple of thousand pounds that the unfortunate ratepayers would be hooked for otherwise.
We also have had experience of this matter of the small committees. I do not think there is any member here— I do not think there is any Cork County member, anyway—who can take his mind back to the time when we had county boards of health, composed of eight members, running the health matters of the county, something the same as is intended in this Bill. I hold that there was not a more unpopular body in Cork County nor any body that did more injustice to the ratepayers of particular areas than that particular county board of health whilst they were in power until, thank God, we got means of removing them.
I am speaking here with 27 years' experience as a member of a local authority. That is a fairly long spell. I have seen them come and go and I can speak here honestly from my personal experience. I am anxious now to have this matter finished if we can. I made an appeal to the Minister here to-night and I repeat that appeal honestly. I say further that I saw his predecessor, God rest his soul, cut out from bodies on particular committees on which he with his voice and experience, would have been of great assistance to us. I say that here fairly and above board. He was cut out from these bodies just because the Labour representation was not big enough to enable his to get in. That is the situation that is going to be created by this fraud of a one-third game. Drop it and drop it quickly.
As has been emphasised by various speakers this is a very important point in the Bill. The discussion, certainly, has been of a very helpful character, conducted, as it has been, in an atmosphere in which there has been a perfectly free and frank exchange of views, irrespective of Deputies' political affiliations, as to what would be the most successful method of appointing committees from the county council. I am very glad that the discussion proceeded along these lines. I indicated already that I had no bias whatever in the framing of this measure and that my only object was the restoration and preservation of the principle of democracy, to which reference has been made by Deputy Cowan and other Deputies, and to secure the efficient working of that democratic instrument. In carrying out the transition from one system to another, one is obliged to have regard to many points. At the outset, as has been mentioned by Deputy Cowan and Deputy MacEntee I should say that my experience of the working of committees on local authorities was gained in a corporation and I do not think that such experience would be much help when discussing the constitution of committees for a county council. I have, therefore, to eschew any knowledge I have gained from the working of committees under the corporation, as being quite distinct from what one would have to deal with in the case of a county council.
One of the points which it was urged should be borne in mind, if we are to aim at efficiency, was that the councillors will be drawn from a widespread area in counties such as Cork and Limerick and that much essential work will fall to be done from day to day—that is, work which was done formerly by the manager, these executive functions. These functions must be carried on from day to day. Apart from that, the council, as a whole, must meet periodically to carry out the scheduled functions which cannot be delegated to anybody else. There are also the executive functions. I am still of opinion that the scheme envisaged by this Bill could not possibly function without at least two committees. They may have a third committee if they wish, but they want at least two committees to deal with general matters and health matters. As was mentioned by Deputy MacEntee, these councils will be functioning under three different departments—Social Welfare, Health and Local Government—and it is therefore necessary to segregate the work, where possible, so as to secure the expeditious discharge of its functions by the council. The question is what is the most effective way to do that without sacrificing the principle of democracy.
It has been stressed by a number of Deputies that people who were elected by the votes of the people and who are members of the council would be disfranchised because they did not happen to be on one of these committees. I do not share that view, and it is an aspect of the matter that has been over-stressed. There is protection afforded by the proposals in the Bill, inasmuch as a third of the members will be dealing with health and a third with general matters. Some Deputies went so far as to say that one man could run the show and reach a decision himself on these committees. That, of course, is not so. The only instance where one man could make a decision on his own would be on a question concerning home assistance. It might be that he was the only member present at the committee when the question arose of granting home assistance urgently to some poor person and he would decide that home assistance should be given. In no other instance can one man make a decision.
The smallest committee that can be set up will consist of seven members out of a council of 21 and the biggest will consist of 16 members, where you have 45 or 46 members as in Cork. With the operation of proportional representation, one would naturally be inclined to believe that there was sufficient safeguard in this democratic country for the protection of elected representatives but there is the further safeguard that they are going to be elected for 12 months only and at the end of that period their work can be reviewed. Another fact which should be borne in mind is that some members might have no desire to be on those committees. Then a man who would not be lucky enough to get on either of the two committees which I have already mentioned would have several other committees on which he might expend his energies and they are by no means sinecure committees. They are committees such as the rates committee, the agricultural committee and the library committee, all of which deal with important questions that come within the purview of the council.
We have a rats' committee in Cork.
I think some Deputies fell into error in interpreting certain provisions in the Bill. Some Deputies said that when the business was done by a small committee, there would be a complete rehash of that business when it came back to the county council. That is not quite correct. What would happen is that the committee would report back to the council in the same way as a committee of this House reports back to the Dáil. The committees would carry out the functions entrusted to them by the council, and the only occasion on which there would be any likelihood of a serious discussion at the council meeting of any of the matters already decided by the committee, would arise if the council thought that the executive committee was discharging their function in a manner that did not meet with their approval. They are entitled as a supreme body under this measure to say if they are not satisfied: "We are going to withdraw your powers in regard to that" but the particular function that had been discharged, would be discharged beyond recall.
That is the only method of carrying out the work, but I suggest that there is not very much likelihood of having a rehash of the business already discharged by the committee at the county council meeting, thus cluttering up the machinery of the county council with work already assigned to the executive committees. That is the reason I was so strongly opposed to the suggestion of Deputy Childers that we should have advisory committees instead of these executive committees, who will have authority to conclude any work entrusted to them. If, however, Deputies feel that there is any danger of overriding the authority of the council as a whole, I can assure them that we shall maintain the council's supremacy. These will be merely committees of the council, and they will refer back to the council, just as a committee of this House refers back to the Dáil any Bill submitted to them. Whether the committee will be a whole house committee or a small committee, they will still refer back to the parent body, the county council.
I shall conclude on the same note as that on which I started. I do not want to interfere with any democratic principle good, bad or indifferent. I have an open mind on this matter, and I am delighted with the discussions and the interchange of views that have taken place between Deputies, many of whom have experience of county councils. If the House is of opinion from their knowledge that the work of the county councils would be better transacted by having the whole council as executive committees, I am prepared to accept that as a perfectly free decision of the House. I shall be glad to accept the decision of the House and put it into operation, whether it directs a small committee or a whole house committee. I want to get the instructions of the House on this matter. Whatever the House says, will be put into effect, and whatever consequential amendments are necessary will be made on the Report Stage.
Is the Minister then prepared to accept the views of the House as expressed in amendment No. 40?
I am prepared to accept the decision of the House on it.
Is it agreed to accept amendment No. 40?
Yes.
Amendment agreed to.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.