Might I intervene, somewhat unusually, at this stage in order to ask the Dáil to take another view of this matter? All this stems from the 1927 Medical Practitioners Act. When that Act was passed in 1927 public money was being devoted to or given over to the Medical Registration Council. It was for that reason that this heavy apparatus of State control was put down upon that particular body. Now we have got to the stage— actually that stage was reached a year after the passage of the 1927 Act in the case of the medical practitioners —when the provision of public money has ceased. It is quite right to say that the Dentists Act is the same as this; that again stems from the same circumstances as those relating to the medical practitioners. The Dentists Act was passed a year later and again there was provision for public money because for the first year during which the dentists were writing up their register staff had to be appointed ahead of their being entitled to get any revenue by way of fees. The same is true of the Veterinary Surgeons Act.
What the Minister has said is correct. To my mind the movement should be not to throw this back into the middle of 1927 but rather to bring the veterinary surgeons and the dentists into the new provision; that is to say, since they are not being provided with any public moneys they should be left entirely free. The situation that has developed since the 1927 Act is, of course, absurd: it means that there is some group of civil servants—as far as the present measure is concerned it is the Department of Health—engaged for the last 27 years in looking after bodies which should have been completely and entirely independent. They are not being provided with public funds and their duties are the duties germane to professional associations of responsible people. They should be allowed to do these things on their own, clear of governmental and Civil Service control. Two Ministers were in turn approached in connection with this particular point, and the Minister who was Minister for Health in January, 1948, wrote to the Medical Registration Council, to say that as far as he was concerned, he would give them an opportunity to put their house in order. In the latter part of that year, a general letter of application came to me as Minister for Finance, and I replied that as long as the legislation was there, various applications would have to be made to me, but I regarded them as the merest formality, and I hinted that I intended to change the law as soon as I could.
Section 19 of the Principal Act, into which the Minister seeks to put "the Minister", has to deal with the making of regulations by the council. Here are the things which the council is entitled to do. They may by regulation do each of the following things, and I suggest these are the things which a body like the Medical Registration Council should be entitled to do. The council, it can well be imagined, is a very responsible body, having, as it has, representatives from the National University, from Trinity, from the College of Surgeons and from the Apothecaries' Hall, two representatives from the Government and a certain number of people appointed by the profession. You could not consider a more sober body than one constituted in that way. They are entitled by regulations to prescribe all or any of the following things: (a) the procedure of the council at its meetings and otherwise; (b) the returns to be made to the council in respect of elections of direct representatives or of persons to fill casual vacancies by returning officers to such elections; (c) the maintenance and keeping generally of the register. Here the Minister creeps in because the Act says: "and with the approval of the Minister, the form of the register."
I put it to the Deputies here in 1954 to ask themselves what the Minister for Health or this Dáil would know about the form of such a register? Should that not be the function of the members of the Medical Registration Council? I suggest it is a peculiarly bad type of interference, to have this House interfering with the form in which the register should be kept. Yet that is one of the things for which it is proposed the approval of the Minister should be obtained. The Act also gave the council power to prescribe by regulation, the form and mode of application for registration in the register and the evidence to be given on such application of the title of the applicant to be registered and, in paragraph (e), the form and mode of application for the entry of additional qualifications.
Now we come to paragraph (f) and this is the place where the present Bill seeks to put in the Minister where he is not now. Paragraph (g) deals with the preparation, printing, publication and sale generally of the Medical Register and again it says: "with the approval of the Minister, the form of the Medical Register". Again I ask what has the Minister got to do with the form in which the council will prepare, print and publish the register? You have, then, in the next paragraph, power given to the council to make regulations prescribing the conduct of and proceedings at inquiries into the conduct of registered persons. I have left out (f). Paragraph (f) says that the council may prescribe, "subject to the provisions of this Act, the fees to be paid for the registration of persons and the entry of additional qualifications in the register". It is now proposed to put in the Minister there. Again I ask what has the Minister to do with this? It is said that he has a function because there is public interest involved in regard to fees. But remember these are not the fees that medical practitioners charge their patients. These are the fees to be paid to enable a person to get on the register. The only revenue practically that this council has is derived from these fees. It is the only revenue they got over the years, apart from some few investments from which they receive income by way of rent from certain premises. Ninetenths of the revenue they derive is by way of registration fees.
I cannot understand what is the necessity for having ministerial control over these matters. If there is any grievance in regard to fees for registration the members of the medical profession are the people who will see to that. They have control of that body which they exercise through the elections held every five years. I suggest there is no necessity for putting in the Minister here.
It is suggested in the amendment moved by Deputy Dockrell on behalf of Deputy Esmonde that the Minister should be cleared out of Section 19 of the Act. It has been said that the same provision applies in regard to other professions. I agree that it was necessary to put it in the Act of 1927 but the circumstances were then entirely different and the time has gone when such powers should be exercised by the Minister. It has been said that solicitors' fees have been prescribed as in the Bill which has just passed the Dáil. They may be but one of the things about which we were very careful in that legislation was to remove the Minister from it. It has been left to the Chief Justice and the Chief Justice ranks as part of the profession, though he may be said to belong to another side of it. I doubt if there is a modern example of this type of legislation in regard to this type of body in which ministerial control is sought to be maintained. It is a relic of the old days. I was responsible for the previous Acts and I know the conditions under which these provisions were inserted in 1927 and 1928. The circumstances which then prevailed have entirely disappeared. I think modern conditions dictate that bodies such as this should look after their own affairs.