On 11th August last year, a disagreement was recorded at the general council. On 24th September, a statement of the staff case for arbitration was sent to the Minister for Finance and on 7th October, the chairman of the arbitration board was appointed, following correspondence between the official and staff sides. In that connection, perhaps, I should make the position in regard to the chairman of the arbitration board clear. It has been alleged here that the chairman was of my selection. That, of course, is a misrepresentation, a distortion of the true position. The chairman was not of my selection; he was nominated as a result of agreement between the staff side and the official side and it was on the basis of that agreement that he was appointed by the Government. As is usual, a number of names was submitted, was suggested by me, to the staff side. They were quite at liberty, if they so desired, to suggest any other names, any additional names, for my consideration. They suggested one person on that list. I accepted their suggestion and I communicated with him, but he was unable to act. They then made a second suggestion. I accepted that suggestion and in this case the person, who was acceptable to both sides, was in a position to act and did act. I wantto make the position very clear because it is quite untrue to say that the person was my unfettered selection. As I have said, he was nominated by agreement between the Minister for Finance and the staff associations and was then duly appointed by the Government.
On 22nd October, 1952, the staff statement, together with the counterstatement of the Minister for Finance, was referred to the Civil Service Arbitration Board. On 3rd and 4th November, 1952, public sittings of the Civil Service Arbitration Board were held and on 18th November, 1952, the report of the arbitration board was submitted to the Government. It has been alleged that there was undue delay, that we unreasonably protracted the proceedings, both at conciliation and at arbitration level. There is no foundation for that statement and the dates I have given disprove any such suggestion. They stand indeed in very favourable contrast with the record of our predecessors in dealing with the previous Civil Service claim.
In that case, the Civil Service staff associations were kept dillying and dallying at conciliation level and the proceedings were long drawn out. I suppose it would be wrong to suggest that certain sedative influences were brought to bear on the staff associations by members of the then Government, but at any rate there was a certain equivocal aspect of the preceding proceedings which was not apparent in this case. Instead of keeping the staffs talking for months, and then refusing to agree and sending the staffs further to the arbitration board, when it was clear, in the middle of August, that the financial out turn of the year was not what we had anticipated it would be, we informed the staffs that we could not agree and allowed them at once to avail themselves of the arbitration procedure.
The report of the arbitration board was submitted to the Government on 18th November, and, in accordance with the scheme, presented to Dáil Éireann on 18th February last. There has been again a suggestion that the Government in failing to come to an immediate and early decision, has insome way broken faith with the staffs and has failed to fulfil its obligations under the scheme. I do not think the staffs, as reasonable, sensible men, many of them accustomed to reading and construing documents, could conscientiously or sincerely support the allegations which have been made here in that regard. I take it that each and every article in the arbitration agreement carries equal weight and is binding on both parties, and that both parties are entitled to exercise to the full any rights which the agreement may confer upon them. The relevant article in this connection is article 19 which states:—
"Within three months of the receipt of a report from the chairman of the board, the Government will present it to Dáil Éireann or if at the expiration of three months the Dáil is not sitting, then on the first day of the next sitting. No such report will be published before submission to Dáil Éireann."
So that, on this question of undue delay in presenting the report to Dáil Éireann, the terms of the scheme are clear and definite, and it must be equally apparent to all concerned that the Government acted strictly within its rights and in the fairest and fullest sense of the agreement.
We received the report on 18th November, 1952, as I have told the House. Naturally, that report had to be considered by me, in the first instance, in the light of such information as I could get as to the probable revenue position at the end of the year and the probable expenditure which that revenue would have to cover. I had also to advise the Government, who, in turn, had to consider very carefully the advice I gave them as to what should be done in regard to the award. I do not think that anything less was due to the taxpayers and to the House than to give to that recommendation the most careful consideration possible. I am afraid I shall have to ask you, Sir, to adjourn the debate if Deputies persist in carrying on these conversations.
