asked the Minister for Finance if he will state why the Volume of Estimates for the year ending 31st March, 1952, has been issued without details of the salaries of the officers serving in each Department, and if he will explain how in each case it is possible to query the remuneration paid to any particular officer or check the totals payable under the salaries head.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Volume of Estimates.
The change to which the Deputy refers is the discontinuance of the practice of showing the cost of each particular grade in each sub-unit of a Department. There is no concealment of information as the standard salary scales for general service grades are shown in the preface to the Estimates volume and the salary scales of grades peculiar to particular Departments are detailed in appendices to the relevant Estimates. The numbers in each grade continue to be shown in the Estimates for each Department.
The change was made to expedite the printing and presentation to Dáil Éireann of the Estimates volume. The details previously given were a source of delay in its preparation and were of doubtful value; they did not show up the salary of an individual officer except where there was only one officer in a particular grade in a sub-unit of a Department, and his salary in any given year would depend on the point he had reached on the appropriate salary scale, allowances for children, or other circumstances of which a reader of the volume would not necessarily be aware.
In accordance with practice, a special note is appended to an Estimate where additional remuneration exceeding £50 in the financial year is payable to any officer from public funds. If an officer is entitled to an official residence, or to fuel and light at public expense, that is also recorded on the face of the Estimate.
I see. The purpose of this innovation, therefore, is to make it more difficult for Deputies, particularly Deputies who are in opposition, to criticise the Estimates as they are produced and to check them.
The Deputy has hardly listened to my reply. That is not the purpose or the effect of the change. The change was made, as I have said in my reply, to expedite the printing and presentation to Dáil Éireann of the Estimates volume.
That is the excuse.
There is as much information as ever there was but probably it will be as little availed of by the Deputy as ever before.