I have not detained this House by making a speech for quite a while, but I could not allow this opportunity to pass without making my contribution, small and all as it may be, to this very important debate.
Listening to Deputy Allen and other Deputies who made reference to politicians and to politics, one would be inclined to think that there was no such thing as an honest person in politics or that a politician could not be honest. I am a politician and I am very proud to be a politician. I believe it is a very great calling and it is a calling of which we can be proud. What greater honour can be bestowed upon a person than to be elected to our Parliament by people who have confidence in us and who trust us to do our job here? For these reasons I feel that sometimes when we refer to politics and to politicians we are inclined to bring a very high profession very low and that, instead of trying to belittle the profession, we should endeavour to boast of it and to be proud of it.
The matter of the appointment of rate collectors is very important. I have been associated with a local authority for 14 years. At every meeting of that local authority some county councillor has remarked that they were wasting their time attending county council meetings as they had no power or authority except the striking of the rate and the appointment of rate collectors. Here, we have three amendments asking this House to take away from the elected representatives of the people the power to appoint rate collectors. I was present at many a meeting of the local authority of which I have the honour to be a member and I have voted on the appointment of rate collectors. I have voted for Fianna Fáil nominees and Fianna Fáil nominees have voted for Fine Gael nominees. There may be isolated cases. Every county in Ireland is not like Galway so far as the political framework there is concerned. We have many local authorities who are prepared to come together—Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour—and, when appointments such as this are to be made, they will appoint the person best entitled to the job and the best qualified.
One of these amendments asks that the appointment of rate collectors be left to the Local Appointments Commission. If the Local Appointments Commission had the appointing of the Deputies of Dáil Éireann I say that 75 or 80 per cent. of us would not be here and, in the event of the Local Appointments Commission having the appointment of rate collectors, I expect they would require applicants to have a university degree, a very good knowledge of the Irish language and, generally, very high educational qualifications. The result would be that the labouring man's son down the country—who would not have high educational qualifications but who would be looked upon by the people in general as very honest and very suitable for the post—would not have a hope of being appointed a rate collector.
If, as one amendment asks, this House agrees that the county manager will appoint the rate collector, it must be borne in mind and admitted by every Deputy that you have politically-minded county managers as well. It must be borne in mind by all Parties and it must be admitted that whatever the political mind of the county managers—and more than half of the county managers are politically-minded —if county managers set up the board to appoint rate collectors, they will put nominees on the board of their own, that is of their own way of thinking, their own colleagues, their own friends; and those people on the interview board will favour and appoint whomever the county manager tells them to appoint. Everybody knows, over the past 14 years, ever since the County Management Act became law, of instances such as that.
Deputies would be well advised to examine the duties that must be performed by a rate collector. He must collect the rates. He has the power and the authority to give time to unfortunate people who may not be able to meet moieties when they become due. The county manager has not that power; the county council as a body has not that power; but the rate collector himself can use his own discretion in giving time to a ratepayer. He will press for the collection of rates on a particular day as they become due, but if he does not like, he need not. The rate collector has another very important function—he can levy, he can seize, he can seize the last four-legged beast from some unfortunate person, in spite of his difficulties, the sickness, the bad weather and failure of the crops or other difficulties which may arise whereby he cannot meet his rates. A local rate collector will not do that, but if the appointment is made by the Local Appointments Commission and someone is appointed who has not an intimate knowledge of the local conditions, the financial circumstances of the ratepayer and the general financial conditions of all the ratepayers in his area, it would lead to very serious criticism by the local authority.
The rate collector has more power than that—he assists in the compiling of the register of electors. Assuming for a moment that in a country district you have an appointment made by the Local Appointments Commission, of someone who has not an intimate knowledge of the district, he can only compile the register on information passed on to him from somebody else. The collection of rates, the granting of time to unfortunate people who cannot meet their rates on the appointed day, the making out of the Electors List and the right to seize and levy, are very important functions held by rate collectors. It is most important that the right type of person should be chosen. There is no local collector who —when he comes, as one of the ordinary ratepayers himself, from a working-class family, who has an intimate knowledge of his friends and neighbours in the area—who is going to have recourse to the drastic action that a rate collector can take.
Therefore, I think this House would be very unwise to have rate collectors appointed by the commission. We do not know who they are. They may be politically-minded, for all we know. We do not know the inside workings of the commission. We have experience of many cases where accountants were appointed, secretaries of county councils, county medical officers, assistant medical officers of health, and where resolutions of protest were sent to the Department, because the local authority were of opinion that the wrong person had been appointed. It may or may not have been that the best qualified persons secured appointment by the commission, but it did not meet with the wishes of the elected representatives of the people in that area.
On the whole, this is a Bill to give back powers to the local authority, and this amendment is going the wrong way about it. It is killing the purpose for which the Bill was brought before the House. The only fault I find is that greater and wider powers are not given in it to local authorities and that the Local Appointments Commission and the county manager are not being deprived of making other important appointments which they can make at present. However, this House to-night will deal with rate collectors. Let us hope and trust that, in the wisdom of this House, the appointment of rate collectors will not be handed over either to the commission or to the county manager. We know very well that 90 per cent. of the appointments made by the county manager are most unsatisfactory and are the subject of criticism by local authorities.
On this question of men being appointed rate collectors because they are Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil or Labour, that is all ballyhoo. It may be so in a particular case where a political Party has a very large majority on a council, but there are very few councils in Ireland to-day where one Party has a complete majority. It would be very unwise of Deputies supporting the Government to give this authority now to the Local Appointments Commission or to the county manager, when for over 20 years the Opposition has enjoyed the benefit of such appointments.
I am not afraid to stand up in this House—I have always voted according to my conscience—as a member of the Party to which I now have the honour to belong, and to say here that in so far as the appointment of rate collectors in County Laois is concerned, we always considered first the financial circumstances of the applicant. I am glad to say, and I hope it will continue, that the last thing to be considered was his political outlook or Party affiliations. If the county manager had the appointment—and there are Deputies in the House who know that to be a fact—in cases where you have politically-minded managers, and that is over half of them, the first consideration would be the political outlook of the applicant. Therefore, I hope this House will reject these amendments and that the majority of the House will favour the retention by the local authority of this very important function, the making of these very important appointments of rate collectors.
We should not forget that the majority of local authorities are comprised of decent men, businessmen, farmers, professional people and labouring and working-class people, who know their job. In the case of an important appointment such as this, which they have had and which they hold, it would be wrong for this House to deprive them of the making of future appointments of rate collectors. I hope all Deputies will realise that it would be dishonest to deprive a local authority of that power. We know who the local authorities are who would be making these appointments. As Deputy Allen pointed out —I do not often agree with him, but he is right when he said it—the vote is open, the vote is public. In the case of an appointment by the Local Appointments Commission, no one knows what is going on, what is the consideration or the qualifications to be considered of the respective applicants. We do know at a county council meeting that the vote is open and public. It is the most democratic way in which the important appointment of a rate collector can be made.
I am certainly going to vote against these amendments, as I do not believe they are honest. I am going to vote against them because they are going to deprive me of certain powers and authority I have as a county councillor. I am going to see, in so far as my rights as a Deputy are concerned, that I am not going to be deprived of the right I hold to participate in the appointment of a rate collector in my own county or constituency. Therefore, I hope the House will reject these amendments and ensure that this important function, one of two which county councils have—the striking of the rate and the appointment of rate collectors—is preserved for local authorities.