asked the Minister for Finance if he will state the date on which the Civil Service Arbitration Board for the general revision of pay signed its report and the date on which such report was delivered to him.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Civil Service Arbitration Board.
The date on which the Civil Service Arbitration Board, or, strictly speaking, the chairman of the board, signed the report on the claim for a general revision of Civil Service pay was 24th May, 1951. On the same day the report was transmitted to the secretary to the Government who, on the following day, forwarded it to the then Minister for Finance.
Is it a fact that the evidence was taken and the arguments heard by this board on four days namely, the 3rd, 4th, 8th and 9th May, 1951?
The Minister made a statement on this matter on the 20th June, 1951, to which the Deputy can refer.
I am glad to know it.
asked the Minister for Finance whether, in the hearing before the Civil Service Arbitration Board in May, 1951, the official viewpoint was put forward that the award should not be retrospective.
In the arbitration proceedings on the claim for a general revision of Civil Service pay, the staff side claimed retrospective payment to the 1st November, 1950. They contended that this date was justified by reference, amongst other considerations, to the effective dates from which increases in outside employment were granted. They referred, in particular, to the increases for local authority employees which the Ministers for Health, Local Government and Social Welfare had currently announced they would be prepared to sanction with effect as from the 1st November, 1950. The official advocates argued that no claim for a general revision of Civil Service pay was sustainable at all and that, even if such a claim could be admitted, retrospective effect should not be given to the findings of the board.
Arising out of the reply to the two questions which the Parliamentary Secretary has just answered, will he now instruct his Minister to read these replies so that the Minister will see that the contention which he has been making against Deputy McGilligan is totally unfounded?
It is not unfounded at all.
It is certainly. The evidence was not heard until after the Budget. You have blown your Leader sky high.
The then Minister for Health, the then Taoiseach and the then Minister for Social Welfare had intimated that they were prepared to sanction the award with effect from 1st November.
Mr. Walsh
November, 1950.
They did that after the election was declared.