There are three amendments. I am allowing two of the amendments to be moved because of certain circumstances in which the Bill was considered on the last occasion.
Committee on Finance. - Vital Statistics and Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Bill, 1952—Report.
I move amendment No. 1:—
In page 4, Section 6, between lines 4 and 5, to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
(2) No regulation made by the Minister under this section shall come into operation unless or until it has been approved by resolution of Dáil Éireann.
I regret that I was absent and unable to move this amendment on the Committee Stage of the Bill. I am grateful to you, Sir, for giving me an opportunity of moving it now. I do not think there is any great need to go over the ground again relating to the seriousness of the proposals in the section. I feel that the only protection the people of the country can have in this matter is that any regulation made under this section relating to births would be brought into the House for approval by motion. I know that the Minister will answer me by saying that, under Section 12 of the Bill, every regulation made by him must be put on the Table of the House. However, I know that regulations placed on the Table of the House are very often ignored or go unnoticed. I admit there are ample means by which Deputies can be informed of their existence. Yet, in the hurry and bustle of everyday life, many Deputies do not become aware of their existence, or get acquainted with them. Therefore, I feel that the regulations which the Minister proposes to make under Section 6 should be approved of by positive motion of this House and that the wording of the motion would be something like the one approving of summer time, for instance.
It is quite clear to me that the Minister has given way to the demand for the short certificate. Pressure has been put upon him by members of the House that the short certificate should be compulsory and that it should be the only certificate available. I am aware that a document has been circulated to Deputies and to the Minister saying that the short certificate should be the only one issued for every purpose except where a court order was sought to make the other one available—in other words, that it was going to be made impossible to get it.
By regulation, the Minister can do any of these things; he can say by regulation that the short certificate only will be available and that a court order must be produced in order to be able to get the long one, that the fee for the short certificate will be so much. The fee for the long certificate, as has been suggested here, would be very exorbitant. When he has the regulation regarding the prices of the long certificate made all he has got to do is to get the consent of the Minister for Finance that the money is sufficient. We all know that the Department of Finance will always approve of any step that brings in more cash. I stated here that where the short certificate was in existence in Britain and elsewhere the short and the long certificates are issued together. As a general rule the production of the short certificate is sufficient for all purposes, but the long one is available also. I do not want to go into the reasons why the long certificate should be available because I feel that I have brought to the notice of the Minister and the Government responsible for this Bill sufficient arguments to show the step they are taking is a rather serious one.
While there may be no conflict with the cannon law on the matter, I want to stress that when the British Parliament was passing the Act relating to the registration of deaths, births and marriages, it took the canon law as it stood and made it the statute law of Great Britain—and that continues there up to the present, even though they have the short certificate. Surely, however, legitimate children have some rights and are also entitled to protection? Arthur Griffith said long ago that the fundamental duty and responsibility of a father was not only to be charitable to those who required it, but that he should be charitable to his own. That argument holds good in this connection. I suggest we should not create a situation for one section of the community as against another. I admit that very great hardships are imposed on certain people, but I hold that the short certificate will not be a successful method of getting over that difficulty. I consider that this House should know positively what regulation the Minister is making under that section and that the Minister should be compelled to obtain the approval of the House for it before it is made operative.
As Section 12 stands, a motion can be put down within 21 days to have the regulation annulled. It might, perhaps, be argued in general that that method would meet the requirements of every other case, but I hold that it does not meet the requirements of this case. Therefore, I ask the Minister, in all sincerity, to accept my amendment.
I do not know exactly what case Deputy General MacEoin has made for his amendment. On a previous occasion he argued that we were moving towards a liberalistic approach in bringing in a Bill of this kind. He made it very plain in his speech to-day that he was quite satisfied that there was nothing wrong with the short certificate from the point of view of canon law. What he proceeded to argue was that, although the short certificate has been a feature of the British code, it has not been successful. I do not think that is true. So far as I can discover, the short certificate has been in use in Great Britain for some considerable time, and has been selected by many people for several purposes, and has been successful as far as it was designed to be successful. We know that in some instances, such as legal cases, where title is important, the long title will be necessary for the purpose of identification. Where there is a law case, the people concerned will naturally go as far as they can to find out whether the person concerned is the person who is entitled to whatever goods or property may have given rise to the particular law proceedings in question.
The short certificate does not appear to me to be a very big issue. It is very rarely that the Dáil asks to have a regulation approved before it can come into effect. The usual practice in relation to Bills of this kind which are not so terribly important is that the regulations will be laid on the Table. If a Deputy thinks that any particular Minister is going too far with a proposed regulation, he can challenge it and can have the matter debated by the Dáil, and put to a vote if he considers it wise and necessary to do so.
I find it difficult to understand why Deputy General MacEoin is making such a big issue of the short certificate. It must be obvious that the Minister is limited to certain items already in the register in respect of any changes which he may wish to make in connection with the short certificate. The items that are there already are: the date and place of birth; name; sex; name and surname and dwelling-place of the father; name and surname and maiden name of the mother, and the rank or position of the father. Therefore, when we come to consider whether or not we will make the certificate shorter, we cannot omit the name of the person concerned, because it would not be a certificate at all if we were to do so. The only thing that arises is whether or not we will include the names of the parents and the place of birth. These may be very important items from the point of view of the person concerned and they may be very important items from the point of view of the person who looks for a certificate. However, if they are important from his point of view, he can look for the long certificate, and the matter, therefore, does not arise as far as he is concerned. Viewing the matter in that light, I do not understand how such importance could be attached to it that the approval of the Dáil would be necessary before the regulation could be put into effect.
Deputy General MacEoin points out that the approval of the Minister for Finance is no great safeguard, because if the Minister for Health proposed to increase very substantially the cost of the long certificate the Minister for Finance would probably agree. I daresay that is true. In all probability, the only reason why the Minister for Finance asked that provision be made for his approval was lest the Minister for Health should reduce the price of these certificates. I suppose every Minister, in a case like this, must have some regard to what is a reasonable cost for a certificate, just like everything else. He cannot impose some outrageous cost for a certificate of that kind in order to achieve another objective. Naturally, it will be decided to charge more for the long certificate than for the shorter form and, to the extent to which that difference in price prevails, the short certificate will be asked for by most people where the short certificate will suffice.
I suggested on other stages of this Bill that the short certificate might be sufficient for educational requirements such as entrance for various examinations, and so forth, and that it might be sufficient in respect of some of the social welfare code where a person is asked to produce a certificate of age. Or in other cases where a person is looking for employment and is asked to state his age, let us say. I think it is only right that in a case of that kind that person should not be charged too much. Indeed, it would be wrong and unjust to charge too much for the short certificate. I do not think the Deputy is right in his fears that we shall have an exorbitant charge for the long certificate in order to make it impossible. I do not know why the Deputy has taken this matter so seriously. In the beginning he suggested it was something we should deprecate and that we were moving in the wrong direction from the moral point of view, as it were. I think he has dropped that now and his argument is more that it has not been successful in England. I do not know whether or not it has been successful there but if it is not successful here I suppose people will use the long certificate instead and we will not be any worse off then than we are at the moment if the short certificate is not a success. I would ask the House not to accept the pleadings of the Deputy that it should have the approval of the House before coming into operation, but that it should be accepted rather as a regulation as under any ordinary Bill by being laid on the Table of each House of the Oireachtas and, if not objected to by either House within 21 days, will be taken as approved.
Amendment put and declared negatived.
I move amendment No. 2:—
In page 5, Section 9 (4), between lines 3 and 4, to insert a new paragraph as follows:—
(c) the existing position in cases where the assistant register is a dispensary medical officer, as in cities, and not in receipt of any allowance for the former post, so that payments may be made to such assistant registers of allowances similar to those payable to registrars referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b).
As the Minister is aware, this amendment concerns the position where the assistant registrar happens to be a doctor and it only relates to eight areas and Dublin. In 1936 an allowance of £10 was made, £8 being for registration of births and deaths and £2 for marriages. It would appear that even in 1936 the remuneration of registrars was considered inadequate. Where an assistant registrar in these eight areas is a doctor, he is entitled to no part of this fee except at the will and pleasure of the registrar. No allowance is made when estimating his pension and I think, in equity, the Minister should agree that in these eight areas, where the assistant registrar is a doctor, the grant of £10 should also be made in the case of the assistant registrar.
Under the Act as it stands the registrar is the dispensary doctor. In the dispensaries in Dublin there is always more than one doctor; sometimes there are three. The practice has been that one of them—the senior man in all cases—acts as registrar. The dispensary doctor is bound to appoint an assistant registrar. In the country districts it is usually some lay person who resides convenient to the dispensary. In Dublin the practice is that the doctor appoints one of his colleagues in the dispensary as his assistant.
The object of this amendment is to ensure that both should be appointed joint registrars, as it were. I do not think that would make a great deal of difference because it is a well recognised practice—and I do not think any doctors would like a departure from it —that the registrar always appoints a colleague as an assistant, and they divide whatever fees accrue between them. Therefore, they are actually getting at the moment what they would get if this amendment were passed. The amendment indeed might give rise to a certain amount of trouble because there is always difficulty were there are divided responsibilities. I think it is better in a case like this to have one man responsible to the Registrar-General. I think it would be better if the amendment were not pressed. Things are working smoothly and efficiently and we have no guarantee that they would continue to work smoothly and efficiently if the amendment were passed. Considering that the doctors concerned would be in the very same position as regards remuneration, I do not think the amendment should be pushed.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 3:—
In page 5, at the end of Section 10, line 20, to add the following sub-section:—
(2) Where—
(a) on the commencement of this section a person holds the office of interim superintendent registrar for a district, and
(b) such person was, on the 13th day of February, 1952, neither an officer nor servant of a local authority nor in receipt of a superannuation allowance from a local authority.
sub-section (1) of this section shall, as respects that district, have effect with the substitution of "Where a person who on the commencement of this section holds the office of interim superintendent registrar for a district ceases to hold that office" for "Where a vacancy in the office of superintendent registrar for a district exists on the commencement of this section or occurs subsequently."
There was some discussion on the Bill in relation to the interim superintendents. Deputies may not remember exactly what the position is. The superintendent was the clerk of the old régime and where that position became vacant a temporary person was appointed until something like this cropped up to regularise the position. There are a number of these temporary people now acting. If the Bill were to pass as drafted these temporary people would vacate their offices and that would be the end of it. Some Deputies, in the softness of their hearts, thought we were about to do a grave injustice to certain people. On examining the position, I do not think we will do any grave injustice to the majority of those concerned. A number of them are working in the local authorities and some of them get nothing at all for this particular job, as a matter of fact. Some of them may get some of the fees but most of them are working under local authorities or are pensioned officers of local authorities. There are only two who are not and the amendment I propose will have the effect of allowing these two people, who appear to be dependent entirely on this particular job, to continue as interim superintendents. Otherwise, the section will operate so that the other temporary people will go as soon as this Bill is passed and no further temporary appointments will be necessary. The local authority will in future be the superintendent. The local authority is impersonal. I think this meets the wishes of Deputies generally since by this amendment we will not deprive any person of a job on which he is dependent.
I admit that the amendment goes part of the way to meet the arguments that were used on the section and, of course, it is an improvement but I do not know that it fully covers the sort of case I had in mind where a person had been appointed to this post in a temporary capacity and had been acting for say five, seven or ten years and then automatically goes out when this Bill becomes law. Of course, I have certain cases in mind but I would rather argueon the general principle involved. As the law stands at the moment, such a person holds office until he dies or retires voluntarily but under the new Bill he loses this appointment automatically. The case was made to me on his behalf by people who are not political supporters, that it would be a hardship on him. I did ask if the view of the local authority and his own views were conveyed to the Department and I was given to understand that they were. I am not fully briefed on the matter but I was asked to draw attention to it and to request the Minister to see that no undue hardship or no injustice was caused by the Act.
By way of analogy, I might mention that under one of the Courts of Justice Acts certain persons who were employed as court stenographers were knocked out of their posts automatically and although it was intended by everybody concerned that they should get alternative employment the fact remains that when the Act was put into operation they did not get such employment and they have been left out ever since. Although there were only two or three persons involved, these two or three persons had built up an expectation of earning a livelihood in that particular manner. It is a serious thing to knock a person out of a post in which it appeared to him at a certain time that he had fixity of tenure.
Similarly in this case, when the Bill goes through certain persons will, in my opinion, be prejudicially affected. Perhaps the Minister's amendment covers it; I am not going to argue that it does not but somehow I have the feeling that it does not. Take a case where an officer has been temporarily acting for the last six or seven years. The superintendent is seconded to another job. The officer is appointed when the superintendent is away at that particular post from which he may never come back. On the passing of the Act, because the person who is superintendent has not come back, the officer who has been acting for him temporarily goes automatically. There are two persons concerned in this matter, so far as I know. The case was made to me that it would be a very serious hardship on these two persons. As I say, I do not know if the Minister's amendment will cover these particular cases but the Bill has still to go to the Seanad and perhaps the Minister, if I send him the facts, will have the matter looked into meanwhile.
Very good.
Or perhaps the people themselves who are involved could make their case direct to the Minister. I think that would be better than having me do it. I suggest that the Minister should look into whatever representations are made to him.
Yes.
Amendment agreed to.
Question—"That the Bill, as amended, be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
Final Stage?
Now.
Is it necessary to take the Final Stage now?
The Minister has suggested that it might be taken if the House does not object.
I would prefer that the Final Stage should not be taken now unless the Minister is insistent.
Is it worth while to have to come back again for the Final Stage?
I might have more to say after the work at the crossroads is finished.
I see no good reason for putting it back.
I see a few good reasons. Could we not leave it over until to-morrow?
To-morrow at 6 o'clock then.
Final Stage ordered for Wednesday, 23rd April.