There is nothing more degrading than the over-zealous servant. Come now, do your duty by the boys but do not prostrate yourself altogether. I am asking the Minister for Finance whether he does not himself know that, in the British House of Commons at the present time, every rational member curses the day when the crank theorists were allowed to impose on the procedure of the House of Commons this device? Does the Minister for Finance himself at this moment not know that the only reason that this proposal receives even countenance by persons qualified to advise him is the vain hope that it will be a further clamp on anybody who wants to do anything?
Does the Minister for Finance know that the traditional belief of every Treasury in the world is that if you could tie sufficient balls and chains to everybody's leg the ultimate out-turn must be for the benefit of the Exchequer because, by preventing things being done, less money would be spent. As every Treasury believes that no Legislature is capable of adding two plus two, the only way to prevent Legislatures from bankrupting the country for which they are responsible is to tie them down and prevent them from doing anything. That, at least, will do something to arrest the chronic haemorrhage of public finance which is perennially deprecated in every Department of Finance the world over.
If this House wants to entertain thisproposal—and I think they are wasting their time in contemplating it because it is a bookman's proposal; it is made by a man who has never had a single hour's practical experience of public administration—I ask the House to adopt the rational course, that is, to refer this matter to the Committee of Procedure and Privileges of Dáil Éireann and invite that Committee to report back to the House on whether it thinks this procedure is consistent with the sovereign authority of the House itself. I very much doubt that it is. However, if they are prepared to consider it, what are the terms? Are the Estimates to proceed without reference to the deliberations of this body or is the disposition of the Estimates to await whatever advice this body considers it to be its duty to tender?
Does Dáil Éireann believe that it is desirable, from any point of view, to delegate in any part to a Standing Committee of this House the most important functions Dáil Éireann itself discharges and the fundamental duty that devolves on an honest Minister for Finance to face the Dáil and accept responsibility for the recommendations which he himself has made to his own Government and which he purports to make to Parliament? If that matter comes before the Committee on Procedure and Privileges of this House, with due notice that the precedents are consulted, and they decide that a very strong case can be made that the establishment of such a Committee is wholly at variance with the finance procedure which is very closely intertwined with the maintenance of the sovereignty of this Parliament, I think it can also be demonstrated to conclusion by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges of this House—and evidence can be brought before the Committee to demonstrate it outside the House—that if the aim is a reduction in the annual Estimate, far from having that result, this Committee will impose a substantial additional charge for there will have to be a considerable staff recruited to grapple with this Committee in every Department of State if its Estimate is to survive.
A much more effective method ofachieving the purpose which everybody familiar with public finance has close to his heart would be to allow an Organisation and Methods Division of each Department of State to function effectively—and the operative word is "effectively." There is in operation in most Departments of State and we put it there, effectively, an Organisation and Methods Division. One of the problems that exist at the present moment is that, under existing legislation, it cannot function because this House has put on the Comptroller and Auditor-General and on the Public Accounts Committee duties to dis-charge—and for the discharge of these duties Departments of State must maintain a system of accounts which make efficient operation impossible.
I believe that if this crass motion were referred to the Committee of Procedure and Privileges that Committee, being a rational body, would send back a recommendation that the overdue step should forthwith be taken, that is, that the Minister for Finance should convene a meeting of the Committee of Procedure and Privileges, of the Committee of Public Accounts, of the Comptroller and Auditor-General and of the officers of his own Department to examine, agree and recommend to Oireachtas Éireann the necessary legislation to enable public finance economically and effectively to be administered. Let this House not forget that, by our own act, the Comptroller and Auditor-General is a constitutional officer of the State; it is not in the power of the Government to discharge him. He is set there by the Oireachtas to act as an auditor between the Oireachtas and the Treasury itself. No Minister for Finance can direct the Comptroller and Auditor-General to do anything. The powers and duties of the Committee of Public Accounts of this House largely derive from the duties imposed by statute and the rights enjoyed under the Constitution by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. They should not be changed without the consent of the Comptroller and Auditor-General and of the Committee of Public Accounts and of the Minister for Finance and his advisers.
I believe that every responsible Deputy knows that there is a large volume of agreement already in existence between these three Parties and that they desire nothing more than the expression of readiness on the part of this House to give effect to whatever reforms they would recommend if they were invited to do so. I urge on the Minister for Finance, if he wants to press forward with this business, to ask the House to refer it to the Committee of Procedure and Privileges with the request that the Committee of Procedure and Privileges should, in addition to examining the matter, indicate proposals or further proposals which in its judgment would facilitate the administration of public finance. I am certain that, if that is done, useful work could be put in hands. I am equally certain that if this motion is passed we are simply putting on our neck a pestilential blister. We are putting on our Ministers, who are already overworked in this country, an additional burden that they ought not to be asked to carry. Lastly, we are creating a new series of duties which will evoke, for their effective carrying-out, a new army of bureaucrats whose duty it will be to steer these Estimates through this new Committee and preserve their Minister scatheless from criticism by it.
I know how easy it is to read a book. I know how convincing it can be to read a book. I know how disastrous it can be to spread the substance of a well-written theory on the Standing Orders of this House. No Minister for Finance in any Legislature in the civilised world has ever come into Parliament at 10.30 p.m.—at the end of a discussion on a Vote on Account which had gone on for two weeks—and asked it to make as radical a change in its Standing Orders as it could be asked to make—with no explanation, no suggestion of what function the new body is to carry out, and with the statement that he himself does not know what the ambit of this new body's discretion will be but that the best thing Dáil Éireann can do is to set up and see what it will try to do, with the assurance that if it tries to do toomuch we can spancel it when it gets under way. If Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party had any respect for their own Parliament they would censure the Minister for Finance for making any such proposals to Dáil Éireann.
I hope that the Deputies on this side of the House will contemptuously reject this proposal, not because we believe that a useful step cannot be taken in the ordering of public finance but because we know this is not the step. We know that we have a Standing Committee which could indicate expeditiously and readily to the House what is the proper step to take. I certify to the House that the Minister for Finance knows what requires to be done, but he thinks that, instead of facing that and simplifying our procedure by the course which I have indicated, if he gets a Committee of this kind set up it will furnish him with an alibi this year for the deplorable admission which he was constrained to make that he had a surplus of £9,000,000 but that his colleagues went and spent it on him, and then asks: "What does Dáil Éireann propose to do about it?"
