We were discussing Deputy Allen's amendment and I was about to say that I agree with the amendment which proposes the selection by means of proportional representation of the estimates committee. I agree with Deputy Allen who suggests that it would produce the desirable effect or result. It is only a trivial matter and while it does tend towards the likelihood of a more representative committee, it does not rule out the Minister's proposal to have the committee selected on the basis of the electoral areas.
City and County Management (Amendment) Bill, 1954—Committee (Resumed).
The local authority would have that power under the section as it stands.
If the Minister assures us that the local authorities had that power——
I assure the Deputy of that.
——I am quite prepared to accept it.
If they want to use it they have it.
Otherwise the amendment would appear to commend itself as the most desirable method of selection. The amendment would ensure that this method would be adopted, but I take it from the Minister that under the Bill as it stands the local authorities would be free.
The local authorities will get all the power they want in this matter, up to a point.
I quite agree, but I can visualise the situation where, after the hustings and in the heated atmosphere of a new council, political Parties might be disposed to support their own nominees only. I have nothing further to say. I am rather satisfied if the Minister gives us the assurance that we have free choice. However, I think the amendment would rather ensure a better selection.
There was a system which we worked in the county council in Cork under which the members of the county council would group together according to the electoral areas and choose their own representatives on the different committees.
And I am ensuring now that not only will a group be entitled to select one representative but they may pick two in accordance with the electoral areas.
I do not think that is what Deputy Corry wants.
I want to see a system under which a representative of each electoral area would be appointed.
And I am giving you two, and the council can decide——
That is where we find fault with the system as it stands. I want to see protection and the protection is not there. I say there was a system, unless the law has been changed by the Minister, by which a group in a county council could select a member from that group's electoral area as a member of a committee. We had that to fall back on.
I do not want to be interrupting the Deputy, but a member of what?
Of any smaller body— any of the smaller committees that were appointed such as the board of assistance, the asylum committee, the sanatorium board, or the agricultural committee, where you cannot have all the members of the council. In this case it applies to the estimates committee. There was a system there under which any group of three or four members from a particular electoral area could come together and appoint one man of theirs to represent them on that board and there was no means of stopping that system.
That was a practice. It was not the law.
It was the law under the 1925 Act.
What Act?
The Local Government Act of 1925.
We are dealing now with the City and County Management Bill.
And under that Bill the Minister is leaving this matter open to the political Parties and any political Party, if they wish to do so——
They would not do that.
Deputy Corry should be allowed to make his statement.
The case I am making is that any political Party could appoint their own nominees. You had it in County Kerry if you want an example and I can give samples of it in other counties.
Give us the Kerry one. That was a good one.
It was a good one but it happened in other places. Immediately after an election, as Deputy Brennan has said, you have that heated feeling in the council where people are going to get their own back, so to speak. That goes on until 12 months later when things settle down. The system I have mentioned was in operation in County Cork. I know it because I invoked it below and the chairman of our council, Mr. Broderick, a fair-minded man, said that all the representatives of each Party would get together and that we would have a proportion of each Party—a proportionate number of members—on each committee. He insisted on that and carried it. The same might not happen in other counties and we are here to make law for all the counties, and I suggest to the Minister that on the Report Stage he should go back to the 1925 Act. It might be his own people he would be serving; it might be us; it might be the Labour Party he would be serving.
I am more interested in serving the taxpayer.
The point I am putting up is that the groups from the different electoral areas should be allowed to nominate their own representatives. In the particular case I mentioned, Labour had seven representatives on a county council of 46 members and I personally was anxious to see Labour represented on the committee, but under the kind of heated feeling that was there at that period the difficulty arose and we invoked that special section of the 1925 Act. I suggest that the Minister and his officials would look it up and bring it in here on the Report Stage as an amendment. I think it would ensure that all Parties, no matter how small, would get representation on these committees. I do not want to see any particular political Parties ruling the roost in local committees of this kind where the first interest should be that of the rate-payers. I certainly would make that suggestion to the Minister now.
As I have said I have an open mind on all this and if the Deputy will give way for a moment I will make this suggestion. I am willing to try to meet the suggestions of the House. I can appreciate the point of view put forward by Deputy Allen, Deputy Brennan and by the speakers on this side. I was going to make this suggestion and offer to consider it between now and the Report Stage. Would it suffice if the elected representatives of each electoral area elected the two?
You can do that under the 1925 Act.
This is a county management we are dealing with and it is a new body being set up. I would like to have the views of the House on this. It would be unlikely that a political Party would have a majority in all electoral areas and that would ensure that minorities would be elected to the estimates committee. I have an open mind on this and I am putting it this way. Supposing you have five electoral areas in a county. Each electoral area is going to elect two to the estimates committee, I think that number is accepted. Supposing we left it to the elected representatives from each electoral area to elect those two, would that meet the position?
In regard to the Minister's suggestion, let me take my own electoral area where at present you have three Fianna Fáil and three Fine Gael.
I hope you will elect one from each.
What is going to become, for instance, of the Independents? If there are three Independents out of 46 members, are they to have no representation on any board.
I take it they would be a fair-minded people who would elect the best representatives.
It is all very well to have high-flown ideas like that up here but when you go down the country it is a question of: "We have the whiphand and we are going to use it." I have met that kind of thing before. I am putting a fair suggestion to the Minister that will solve this difficulty in a fair-minded way. For instance, I mentioned that we had, I think, three Independents out of 46 in the Cork County Council. Those three Independents have not a hope of getting on the board of assistance, on the mental hospital committee, on the sanatorium committee or on the county committee of agriculture.
It is natural that if I am an elected representative in any Party I am going to try to act on it and so is every comrade of mine. The wrangling will be between us to know which of ourselves will get on it rather than anything else. I am speaking fairly and I am speaking from 30 years' experience of this kind of thing. Under the Act of 1925, any of those members could invoke the group system, under which, if there were three Independents, with members of Clann na Poblachta, Labour or Fianna Fáil, those five or six could come together in a group and appoint one of that number as their representative on any one of their committees.
Then they would be disfranchised.
No, they were then deprived of appointing anyone else. I remember an occasion when you could not get a Fianna Fáil representative on the county committee of agriculture even though we had a majority in the county council.
We are dealing now with the estimates committee.
It is no use allowing something to happen and then 12 months after being sorry about it. I am suggesting what is, to my mind, a very reasonable way out, and I think the Minister should accept my proposal.
That is not what the amendment suggests.
The amendment suggests proportional representation. It is not as good a plan as mine.
Yours is not before the House.
I am suggesting to the Minister that if he is prepared to bring in my scheme on the Report Stage then we can consider withdrawing the amendment. That is a way out of it.
I cannot see why those Deputies who are afraid of the methods which will be employed in giving representation on this committee feel so strongly about it. I consider the Minister's idea of two representatives from each electoral area as being an extremely fair one. When Deputy Corry appears in his remarks to be extremely concerned about the possibility of three Independents in, say, a large body such as Cork County Council with 46 members having no representation, I would remind him that what he fears could not happen under this idea of giving representation of two to each electoral area. I would point out—I am giving an example, I am not naming the occasion—where a Party conceded a seat so as to give representation to an Independent. What happened subsequently did not bring any joy to the hearts of the people who conceded the seat but, nevertheless, they made it possible for him to go on the committee.
It was adverted to here earlier this afternoon that here in this House it is possible for Independents to secure representation and, in fact, to be appointed chairman of some committees of this House. We know that in local authorities when we get away from the little bit of Party strife that obtains around election time there are more geographic boundaries than there are Party boundaries. Deputy Corry is quite aware, of course, that in his County of Cork, at least in two of the bodies, when it comes to—if I may use the expression—"ganging-up" it may be west of Mallow Bridge or it may be some other geographical division, but it is not——
A Deputy
Take Youghal Bridge.
Where some of the elected representatives are in favour of one thing and the rest gang-up.
The Minister has pointed out to his colleague, Deputy Brennan, the advantage of having representatives from different areas. When you give representation to each of the electoral areas then you guarantee that each part of the area which is concerned has representation on committees. I feel that it is a fair method, that it will prove well worth a try and in the long run will give to our local authorities a type of finance committee which will prove to be a useful one. Consequently, I feel that nothing definite has been put forward in favour of the amendment which could possibly improve on the suggestion put forward by the Minister. As he has pointed out they can apply all the principles of proportional representation if they so desire in securing the representation in each electoral area of the two representatives.
I am afraid, so far as I can judge from my experience, that it is not really possible to combine giving representation to each electoral area and proportional representation. You have to settle one way or another because I suppose it is a matter of arguing from the particular to the general. It is dangerous, but it is what you are doing. In our county council there are four, five or six—I think it is four in one, and in the others, six—in the county electoral areas. How are you going to elect two, proportionally, and give representation to the small groups? I do not know. If that is done, I think the two large groups will get all the membership if they bring it to the bitter end. I do not really think they will do that. It has never happened in our county and I think we can be as bitter as anybody else. The system has always worked out reasonably in practice. I am speaking as a member of a small group on a county council, and the big groups on both sides have been very liberal to the small group in giving it representation on committees. We already have a committee where each electoral area is represented by two members and there was never any difficulty about getting small groups represented on that.
Rightly so.
I think if we attempt to be too precise, as some of us argued from what we know of our own particular bailiwick, that inevitably some other bailiwick which has not quite the same set-up is going to be injured and I think the broadest possible terms are the best ones. If a county council desires, it can, under the present Bill, opt for the proportional representation system of election in the county electoral areas. Personally, I would be sorry to see that. I think it would mean squeezing out the smaller groups if continued to the bitter end. But at least there is an option there and if it was felt that it would give better results in any county, that county could apply it, but I think the direct vote and, if you like, a bit of bargaining—"you support me in that electoral area and I will support you in the other area"—works best. That is what happens, and it gives reasonable results. Any attempt to close it down and secure every nut and bolt will end only in a system which will not produce good results anywhere and will only embitter feelings. I think there is a natural inclination to find ways round legislation and the phraseology used and the tighter the Dáil attempts to frame things like this, I imagine the more industrious members of local bodies will be to find some way out which will suit their own ends. If it is left loose, a reasonable view will be taken of it in local bodies. As the Minister points out, if in the heat of the moment something occurs in a local body and one Party sets out to ride roughshod over everbody, well that, I think, will only last a few weeks. Personally, I do not think it would be as bitter and intense as all that. So far what heat there has been is usually cooled off——
After lunch.
——by the time they get on to lunch. A fair amount of calm is restored before they come to the appointments. Now, there may be a bit of hullabaloo on the first couple of appointments but very often the difficulty is to find someone willing to go on to these committees. Everyone will not dash madly on to committees and I have seen cases where it was necessary to bargain and to say: "Well, if you are going to bother with such an area, I had better bother with such another." Not everybody likes to spend a lifetime charging from one committee to another. Generally speaking, I would suggest that the legislation be left reasonably open so that it would meet the situation in the various local bodies.
There has been a good deal of discussion all around this amendment. I suppose it was an advantage to have it put down so as to provoke the discussion. What I was aiming at was to provide that when a council is elected as a result of any local election that council will provide machinery which will work smoothly. That was my only objective. I know from personal experience, and representatives of other counties know, that when an election is over, especially in the South where we are all a little more hot-blooded than the hard northerners who settle down on the night of the election when the ballots are declared, that a council does not start off so well.
I am glad you recognise that at last.
We know you are hard and cold like the country you come from.
Now, do not drag us into it.
But that is nothing against you. I will just recount my own experience five years ago when a county council was elected. A group of the councillors of which I happened to be a member had 49 per cent. of the representation and two other groups together had 51 per cent. On a committee of 16, the vocational education committee, they gave the 49 per cent. one representative, on the mental hospital committee, none; and on the county committee of agriculture, four out of 16.
Was there any history behind this?
No history at all. It was always fair representation.
Usually, there is.
No, it was always fair representation previously. I can prove that. Everybody got fair play and good representation. That is what happened. We read about other counties and without mentioning names——
Limerick?
Limerick, Kerry or Clare, where Fianna Fáil might get a majority or where some other group might get a majority, and they took all the committees. I think that is bad as a long-term policy and gives bad local government machinery. Everybody in the House will admit that, and if it can be avoided it should be avoided. But once an election was over, I never saw any friction in the council when it got going and settled down. There is no such thing as politics and the council works away without reference to anything of that kind.
At the first meeting of a council after an election you have the election fought all over again and if there is a majority of one on a council they take all. That is very bad and it is in order to prevent that that I put down this amendment. I was not too satisfied with it. I did think of putting in as an amendment here the formula set out in the Schedule to the 1925 Local Government Act for the appointment of boards of health. That was the formula I had in mind. In the first instance, each electoral area elected one representative and then these formed into groups and elected the balance. It was an involved formula but it worked out quite satisfactorily and gave representation to any group that had three or four members on the council on the board of health. That is the formula I had in mind to incorporate into this and to put it before the House. But many members might not understand it, members who had not been members of boards of health, and we might have discussed it for a long time here before everybody could be got to understand it. That is why I put down the formula of proportional representation by nontransferable vote.
That being simple.
I agree with Deputy Sheldon that, under the formula I have here, it probably would not give a representative to every district of the same number. It is possible to get them but it could happen that they would not get them. The "nontransferable" is the most simple type of proportional representation, according to anything I have read about it. That is why I mentioned "nontransferable." However, that does not arise. It is the principle that I want to embody in this Bill, if possible. The Minister has suggested that it is always feasible for any council, when setting up these committees, to adopt proportional representation, if they so desire. If there is a majority of one particular group on a council, and they want to fill the committees with their own nominees, they will not adopt it.
Once, on my own council, I tried myself but they refused to adopt it. I have in mind all the different committees—committees of agriculture, mental hospital committees, and so forth—and I believe some form of proportional representation should be in operation. If you have that system you will get the best type of committee and you will have less friction on the council. If the Minister will give an undertaking that he will consider this matter further and, if possible, provide some formula in that connection, I shall be satisfied and I shall withdraw this amendment now. If he comes back later and says that he cannot do as I request then I can put down an amendment on the Report Stage. Will the Minister agree to consider it?
I will agree to consider it but I cannot commit myself. I will consider this matter and any suggestion made in the House that I believe to be constructive.
All I want is a formula that will give fair play to the elected representatives. I should like the Minister to look up the formula in the Schedule to the 1925 Act and see if it can be made to apply.
I think it can.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 15:—
In sub-section (3), line 5, to delete paragraph (a).
The idea behind the amendment is that it is only after an election of councillors that you will elect the finance committee and not, say, next week when this Bill becomes law, just on the eve of an election. In my view, when you select a finance committee after an election the same committee should be left there during the lifetime of the council. It will take probably six to 12 months to train the members of the committee. There may be new men coming on that committee and it may even be a couple of years before they are fully efficient members of it. In the Bill, the Minister proposes to have an election of a committee immediately after this Bill becomes law and to have another finance committee elected after the coming election. I want a finance committee elected only after each local election.
Should the Bill become law before the local elections, if I am still Minister I will ensure that this particular portion of the Bill will not become law until after the election. With regard to the other point raised by the Deputy, it may be that political Parties may—as the Deputy mentioned earlier—procure a monopoly of membership on an estimates committee immediately after the election when tempers are frayed and the blood is up. However, if they can reappoint or reconstitute the estimates committee later on, or the following year, when tempers will have cooled down——
They will be the same the following year.
I do not think they will. As the section stands, they may revoke their appointment or they may leave them in office.
Surely this would arise under amendment No. 16 which is in the name of Deputy J. Brennan and who wants to make it an annual election?
I think we should take both together.
Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 may be discussed together.
I have given Deputy Allen an assurance that the section shall not commence before the local elections this year. The section states: "A local authority shall by resolution appoint a committee...." The appointment shall be made by the local authority as soon as conveniently may be——
I submit that that was designed with the intention that this Bill would come in much sooner before this House.
No. Paragraph (b) of sub-section (3) states that an appointment under sub-section (1) of this section shall be made by a local authority as soon as conveniently may be after each election or appointment of the members of the local authority, and (c) after any revocation by the local authority of an appointment under sub-section (1) of this section. Let me now refer back to sub-section (1). It is as follows:
"A local authority shall by resolution appoint a committee (in this Act referred to as an estimates committee) to fulfil the functions assigned to an estimates committee by this Act."
Sub-section (2) of this section states:
"A local authority may by resolution revoke the appointment of an estimates committee."
If they revoke the appointment, they may do it every year if they wish, and reappoint.
I think there is something to be said for Deputy Brennan's amendment, that is, that they should be appointed each year. A young man elected, say, in June next, might be too immature to put on an estimates committee but at the end of a year he might be a very desirable person to put on such a committee. Why should I dictate to the local authority as to when they should elect their estimates committee? There is the law. You have the appointment of it as often as you want to. I think that is the democratic way of doing it and, in view of that, I would ask the Deputy to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 16:—
In sub-section (3), paragraph (b), line 7, before "and", to insert "and at each annual meeting thereafter".
I should much prefer to see the Minister accept my amendment than rely on sub-section (2) of this section.
Surely the Deputy does not want me to dictate to Donegal County Council, for instance, as to how often they should elect their committee? From what I know of them, they are very capable of doing their own job.
Sub-section (2) of this section states that a local authority may by resolution revoke the appointment of an estimates committee. After all, to revoke a committee implies that, for some reason, they were not satisfied with their conduct during the year.
No.
They may say at the beginning of a term: "We will appoint an estimates committee to-day, but each year we will revoke their appointment and appoint a new one". I will not interfere.
I would make it statutory that the committee be elected each year.
I will give them as much authority as possible. I do not want to tie their hands in any way.
There is no reason why the same members should not be re-elected if found suitable but there are several reasons why it should be done annually.
You can do that if you like.
There is so much to be said in favour of the amendment that the Minister should consider accepting it.
You have that power. I am not interfering.
The power to revoke.
You have that power.
That implies that you are not satisfied.
If you say that, you are impinging on the good faith of the council.
That could be said of every sub-section of the Bill if we wanted to interpret it that way. This committee is the most important thing that has happened under this Bill.
Hear, hear. I am glad the Deputy recognises it for the first time.
I have said that it is the most important thing: I did not say it is the most beneficial thing.
Do not take away the good of what you have said.
Under this Bill, the estimates committees will be appointed by the local authority. For that reason, as well as for many other reasons, it is undesirable that one committee should remain in power for the entire duration of the term of office of the local authority. I can easily visualise a situation where a committee composed of certain members would not be acting in the best interests of the elected representatives as a whole and such a situation might only be discovered after the election of the committee. It would be well if it were laid down in the Bill that, each year, the committee would be elected at the annual meeting. Then there would be no doubt whatsoever about the position. It is quite possible that, because the Minister is leaving the matter subject to sub-section (2)—"A local authority may by resolution revoke the appointment of an estimates committee"—some councils may not decide to have the annual meeting and may learn later that they have not gone the right way about it.
As the section stands, they can revoke the authority of the estimates committee one week after the appointment but, as the Deputy wants it, they must remain in office for 12 months.
Yes. I am not asking for the deletion of sub-section (2). They still will have power to revoke but I am asking the Minister to make certain that it must happen each year and leave the power to revoke as well. They can revoke the committee the next day, if they wish, under sub-section (2).
Surely it would be superfluous.
There is nothing superfluous in that, in so far as the Minister states that it might be found necessary after a few months to revoke the committee, but it should be statutory that the committee would be formed each year at the annual meeting of the council and thereby give an opportunity for rotation of members to serve on that committee, to make better appointments, to fill gaps, to get the best type of worker. There may be people who will not pull their weight. There may be a committee who will not act in the best interests of the council, in the opinion of the council as a whole and, instead of some person at some particular stage in the life of the council stating that he is not satisfied with the work of the committee and thereby casting a reflection on it, the annual meeting would give a quiet opportunity to re-elect the committee without giving offence to anybody.
Furthermore, it will afford an opportunity to other members to serve on the committee and thereby gain the experience which they are entitled to have because, in my opinion, that committee is the council. The functions and powers which, under this Bill, are vested in that estimates committee mean that virtually they are the local authority and, for that reason, it is important that there should be rotation of membership and that a provision for annual re-election should be inserted in the Bill and that it should not be left to the rather vague sub-section (2).
It is not vague. It is very positive.
It says only that the committee may be revoked. I would prefer that the Minister would be more definite. I have discussed this matter with officials of different counties.
Did you discuss it with the council?
And with members of the council. I did not discuss it with the council as such.
I would prefer to take the advice of the council than the advice of the officials any day.
I can easily visualise a position where the estimates committee would be elected on the formation of the new council and all the executive work of the council will revolve around that committee. The people who are not on the committee will be put in the position of blaming those who are on the estimates committee for any ill-effects that accrue from their working over a period and those on the committee will be put in the position of defending themselves and you will have two sections in the council, one an executive council and the other acting only in an advisory capacity. That position should not be allowed to obtain longer than one year. Any member who has had experience of the committee may decide to resign from it and any member whom the council consider should be elected to the committee should be afforded the chance of being elected. All that could be done at the annual meeting.
That is there.
I am not satisfied that sub-section (2) is definite enough in that respect. The Minister states that councils may take it on themselves at the outset by resolution to revoke the committee each year, to have annual re-election of the committee, but I doubt if the section referred to explicitly gives that power to the council. That clause is absolutely essential, I agree, in so far as certain councils may at times find it necessary to revoke a committee—it might be found that the committee was not working to their satisfaction.
It should be made absolutely compulsory that the council would re-elect the committee each year and thereby prevent a situation arising where a certain section might hold on to the most important committee of the council, a committee which, from my reading of the Bill, is virtually the executive committee of the local authority and which will have all the powers that the local authority has and can make the council, irrespective of the other elected representatives on it, a good working council or otherwise. For that reason it is important that they should not be allowed to cling to that committee for the entire life of the council.
I must say that I profoundly disagree with Deputy Brennan. Deputy Brennan wants to impose on every local authority his views. If Deputy Brennan is re-elected, as I hope he will be, to the Donegal County Council, it is open to him, under the Bill as it stands, before the council elects the estimates committee, to say, "I want to warn you that every year I shall move to revoke this committee. You are not going to be there for five years," but, if the county councillors of another county are quite willing— Deputy Allen has already indicated that he thinks the estimates committee should last as long as possible—why should they be put to the farce, as it very often is——
Excuse me——
I shall not give way. I have been waiting to get in for the last 15 minutes.
On a point of explanation.
I see the Deputy's point of view. There is something to be said for it but I think it is unnecessary. He himself suggested that the only reason he is suggesting why the committee should be turfed out is that they are up to something or that some members are not pulling their weight. If a situation like that arose, it would be much better honestly to get up at the council and move to revoke the committee because it was not carrying out its functions rather than pretend that everything was all right but knock them out at the next election. I do not think that is fair. It would be much better to get up and say openly to the council: "This committee are not doing what they should do and for that reason I think it ought to be replaced." I do not see any reason why it should not be done in that way. It would be much better. These things should be made known to the public. If they have elected people who were bad, the sooner they find out the better. There does not seem to me to be any great argument there.
As to the annual election of an estimates committee rather than allowing it to last for several years, there are two points of view. I admit that if there is annual election, it is possible, if they are doing their work well, just to re-elect them, but I think the way it is in the Bill, that they are appointed and each council can decide for itself how long it wants the estimates committee to last rather than that they should be forced to re-elect every year, would provide the better system. There need be no bad odour attached to revoking the appointment of the estimates committee.
If there are members of any particular county council who feel that the committee should be annual, it is quite open to them after the election at the first meeting of the county council to say: "My view is that a committee of this kind should be an annual committee. I want to warn everybody now, that I will move to revoke at the end of the year and my proposed revocation does not necessarily cast any slur on the members of the committee; it is merely because I think this should be an annual committee". If any county council does not want to do it that way, I do not see why they should be made to do it annually. I think the Bill as it stands with the two methods open to every county council is preferable to all county councils being forced to adopt Deputy Brennan's point of view.
Deputy Sheldon does not foresee, as I do, the situation that would arise immediately after an election in which a particular political group may appoint a committee composed entirely of their Party. Possibly the situation might change the year after. As I said, this is an important committee and all the powers of this Bill really centre round it. Deputy Sheldon states there is nothing to stop some member putting a proposal that the committee be revoked each year. There is nothing to prevent any member proposing a direct negative to that and, by means of the same majority which selected the committee and brought it into being in the first instance, rejecting the proposal that the committee be revoked and reconstituted annually.
All the powers of the council will be focussed in this committee and I can foresee the members of a political Party wielding their power as a Party throughout the entire lifetime of the committee and negativing all proposals to revoke it. That means that the committee will remain in power, despite sub-section (2), for the entire life of the council.
It could be elected annually as well.
I am merely asking for a safeguard that that will not happen and that an opportunity at least will be given to have the committee reconstituted each year.
If the Deputy visualises a situation in which a political party has a majority——
I hope Deputy Allen notes that we do not hit it off in the North as well as he thought.
I am getting a bad opinion of the Northern representatives now.
Surely Deputy Brennan visualises that the same political party will have the same majority on the council at the end of the year and can re-elect the same committee. Membership of the council will not change drastically during the year and, therefore, I do not see that there is any argument.
Some of the members may repent.
Is the Deputy withdrawing the amendment?
I would like the Minister to give us some assurance that he will examine the position further. I know how an estimates committee works. I have been a member of such a committee for a long number of years, and so has Deputy Sheldon.
The Deputies do not see eye-to-eye now.
It is important that membership should rotate because there is a tendency to blame the estimates committee for everything that is wrong.
I am giving the Deputy freedom to elect the committee as often as he wishes.
Once a week?
Once a week if that is what he wants.
What the Minister wants to do under the Bill may be frustrated by its being made a strong political issue at the outset.
Why do you want me to tie your hands? I am trying to give the Deputy all the liberty he wants.
If it starts off as a political issue and a committee is elected on that basis, as it is likely to be when a new council is formed after the heat of the hustings, that same political issue may be maintained right throughout. Whereas, if it is an annual election the same heat is not likely to be engendered as at the outset because members will know there will be an opportunity for re-electing the committee each year. I am disappointed the Minister will not accept this simple amendment, but I will not press it.
It takes at least a couple of years for an estimates committee to know its job. Judging by the way things are going at present, members of all Parties seem to want to combine against the Deputy and they are watching him rather than watching one another.
That does not seem to arise on this amendment.
That is the way I look at it anyway. It takes a couple of years for members of an estimates committee to learn the ropes and find out the things that are being hidden from them.
Then the committee would not be much good in the first year anyhow.
I do not think there would be a mad scramble to become a member of this committee at all, such as some Deputies appear to think.
That does not arise.
I cannot see how the amendment could be effective. It would be just as logical for a member here going through the Book of Estimates as it would be for a member of a county council to say: "I am going to devote a fortnight or three weeks to examining the estimates." There will be no scramble at all. Deputy Corry's system would certainly not have to be invoked.
Members of my county council are getting nearly £10 a trip travelling expenses — 100 miles each way. That is more than the Deputy gets.
Travelling expenses do not arise.
The Minister should withdraw the entire section. It is impossible to visualise how these estimates can be attended to and it could have the effect of depriving a member of the right to break down these figures when they come before the council. The estimates meeting, in my experience, takes at least three days.
I think the Deputy is getting away from the amendment. It deals with the election of the estimates committee, either yearly or otherwise.
I thought there was a provision for the election of a committee each year. If it was elected in the same way as the mental hospital committee, or any other committee, that should meet the wishes of all concerned. Let the estimates committee be elected annually. It will be found very difficult to fill the vacancies.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 17:—
In page 9, sub-section (6), line 27, to delete "be twice" and substitute "equal".
The Bill specifies two members from each of the electoral areas. I do not think I shall press this amendment, even though I do not agree with that.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 18 and 19 not moved.
Question proposed: "That Section 7 stand part of the Bill."
The Minister and some of the members were inclined to come in here during discussion on the last few amendments and say that after an election the blood of local authority members would be more or less at boiling point. It seems to me now, from the attitude and the expressions of some of the Deputies, that the very fact of our moving for a division on the section has brought about the danger of their blood coming to freezing point at the thought of their losing another one of the plums that they are trying to persuade the Minister to give to the local authorities. A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I should like some guidance which might save a lot of repetition in this debate. As Sections 7, 8 and 9 are directly related and as there are no amendments to either Sections 8 or 9, could I at this stage include the three?
I am afraid the Deputy must limit himself to Section 7.
I was only looking for guidance in order to save repetition. As regards the section, it states that a local authority shall, by resolution, appoint a committee. Deputy Allen, and he is justified, tends to approach this section from the point of view of his own experience in his own county. So does Deputy Brennan, so does Deputy Sheldon and so do I. I think I am entitled to draw attention to the position as I see it. We are asked to set up this committee and in Cork alone, where there are seven distinct areas, it would mean this committee would have 14 members. In Cork this year the estimate was for over £4,000,000 and are any of the financial geniuses who are so enamoured with the idea of this committee going to tell us here that a financial committee of 14 members in County Cork can go through the accounts of the Board of Health, the Board of Assistance, the Mental Hospital Board and of the county council itself with its engineering sections and so forth, and are they going to be expected to give the returns which they are supposed to give?
What is this committee supposed to be? According to what the section tells us they are supposed to give the financial position of the local authority in such detail and at such intervals as the local authority may, by resolution, direct. Therefore, if the Cork County Council decided that the committee should give a financial statement as to its incomings and outgoings for every month of the 12 months, these 14 financial geniuses are supposed to trump up a statement in front of them and tell them the exact position and we all know that the figures in such cases must be good to satisfy some of the astute members of the county council. The 14 warriors will have to go and study all these figures.
What are the officials of the council for?
If Deputy Brennan wants to pontificate on this let him study the section and he will see that it says that irrespective of the officials, of the manager himself and of the solicitor, the committee must go through the figures. I believe there will be very few sincere members anxious to go on these committees. The wall-flowers—the members who never open their lips on a constructive issue that may come before the council —are the boys who will be anxious to be put on these committees, and in a county where the annual estimate is something in the region of £4,000,000, I can see these 14 warriors drawing in twice a week, every week of the year, and I can see some of them travelling as far as 60 and 70 and 80 miles to do that.
What are they going to do? Surely every member knows here in his heart that there must be some way of checking the accounts of the county council; surely we all know that anybody purporting to do what this committee will be asked to do must have some small knowledge of accountancy. What would Deputy Brennan or Deputy Allen or myself do if we went into a council office once or twice a week for an hour or two each day? We might have a pet subject of our own and maybe we would have some knowledge of expenditure dealing with our own locality, but that will not help us to get at the root of the problem of the finances of the council for the whole 12 months. The members of the council are entitled to put queries to us on all the problems that we are supposed to have examined.
If this section were not included in the Bill at all, it still does not prevent a county council from setting up an estimates committee to go into the estimates for a couple of weeks once a year with the manager and his officials, but the very wording of the section——it says this committee shall be appointed—imposes on the council the duty of appointing this committee. It imposes on the Cork County Council and on the other county councils throughout the country the duty of setting up a committee which may sit one or two days every week of the year. That is why we consider that it would be fantastic to place such a responsibility on the councils.
I would go so far as to say that if the councils were free in the matter and if it were optional and that if the Cork County Council had an option in the matter, irrespective of Party interests, when they reasoned the proposition out and when they looked about them to find 14 financial warriors, their tendency would be to bypass this committee and to decide not to pay expenses to these fellows for coming in and signing their names on a roll book.
I read this section originally in the Bill and at that stage I was personally rather enamoured with it. I felt that it was a proper provision to have in the Bill. However, we can all learn. I have learned in recent weeks as a result of further reading and I have changed my opinion. I would now urge upon the Minister to consider whether this section is desirable. When I say I have learned, I should like to mention that there is another Deputy in the House at the present moment—I do not know whether he will agree with me—who has had the same experience.
I am a member of a local authority and in order to examine the expenses and the income of that authority, certain decisions were made last year. One of the decisions was to have the estimated expenditure and income for the forthcoming year examined on a departmental basis by the financial committee. Subsequently the result of their examination came before the council. Many of us attended various departmental committee meetings and, on the facts and figures presented to us, we did very little. We noted that it was proposed to spend a certain amount under a large number of different headings.
We noticed that certain sums of money would be required to provide certain services. We noticed that under certain headings economies might be made but we did not do anything about it. We examined the situation and we passed on after spending, I think, under one departmental heading, that of housing, a total of at least eight hours' examination. After examining this particular estimate we then went through the finance committee but there we were meeting in the full glare of publicity. We proceeded to do there what we could have done in committee. We proceeded to reexamine the estimates which already had been examined and had not been interfered with. But on this occasion it proposed alterations in the estimates.
Therefore, I regretfully reached this conclusion that, aside from every other fact, if an estimates committee as such is appointed by any local authority they can spend hours and hours examining the estimates and examining the general position each year to see whether expenditure under all headings was justified, to see whether there was any possibility of economies, but when the report would then go to the council the situation would be re-examined and the members of the estimates committee might well find that after spending hours conscientiously trying to carry out the duties of membership of the estimates committee, the members in full council were going to decide——
That is not what Dublin Corporation told me recently. They told me the wonderful work the estimates committee was doing.
Might I remind the Minister that in opening I said that in recent weeks I had learned something.
It is so long since you said it I had forgotten.
It is only a few minutes. I have learned something in recent weeks. I was not aware of this particular peculiarity previously; I was innocent you might say and I honestly considered when I read the section of the Bill that it would be a good section, that it would be a useful and a wise section. But I had the experience, like some of my colleagues, of going at least on two afternoons and spending hours examining an estimate in detail, doing nothing about it and two weeks later going in together with the same colleagues and doing a lot about it. I am afraid the reason why action was not taken in the first instance is because each and every member was of the opinion that the estimates of expenditure and income were going to be subject to further examination, that that further examination would be a public examination and consequently if there was any value to be obtained by proposing alterations in the estimates it was better to defer action until the value could be obtained by proposing the alterations in the glare of publicity.
That is not so.
Deputy Briscoe may not agree with what I am saying.
You might say what is in accordance with the facts.
Of course the estimates committee may do their business in the open if they wish. They have an option in that respect.
However, as I said, I have put forth these comments as facts in the light of my own personal experience as a member of a local authority. On these facts I admit frankly that my view on this particular section has changed and I urge upon the Minister the desirability of taking another look at it.
This section is a section to which I referred when speaking on the Second Reading of this measure. Frankly I cannot understand the attitude of some members, even of my own Party; not that they were enthusiastic about it but that they did not seem to see in it the futility that I saw there. I was even trying to look around in my mind for some justification for its being there at all. I cannot understand the officials of the Department, the Minister and the draftsman making themselves responsible for a section like this and the only excuse I could think of was this amending Bill was going to be a bare kind of an affair.
I had the responsibility of preparing another more or less similar Bill and I thought it was a very skimpy looking article entirely and when I threw my mind back on the talk we had been listening to I was almost ashamed of coming to the House with an instrument that was so delicate. Then I said: "My successor must have felt just like me" and with the assistance of his officers he said: "We will get a section like this that appears to throw on a cloak of responsibility on proposals that were already there." The cloak is, as I tried to explain on the Second Reading, that a finance committee is to be set up and what you never heard of before in relation to any business concern—and I take it the work of a county council is as much a business matter as that of any commercial organisation—you placed upon this finance committee responsibility for the preparation of the estimates moryah in consultation with the manager.
And the officials?
And the officials, of course.
Ipso facto.
Just think of bringing together an estimates committee to sit down with the manager, wading through the different provisions that have to be made and making themselves responsible for the sheaf of estimates prepared, making themselves by their presence responsible for these estimates before their colleagues and the public! Even looking at it from the point of view of business, it is not done in any other commercial concern. Surely as I said on the Second Reading, it is the duty, the function of the manager or if not, it should be, because it is really the most important function that the manager of any concern must have, the preparation of the annual estimate.
I do not disagree with the setting up of an estimates committee by a local body because estimates committees have been set up for far longer than I can remember. Some local authorities do it still without any compulsion of any kind. Some of them do not do it and those who do not set up those committees do not set them up for some of the reasons that have been given by Deputy Larkin. What does this section boil down to? An estimates committee to prepare the estimates, and after all the rigmarole as to how this is to be done, if they do not do it the manager will do it, and those who drafted that section know as well as I do that it is the manager who will do it and who should do it. When the manager has done his work, it is a matter entirely for the county council to set up its estimates committee to examine the estimates if it so desires.
I was a member of a local body and we had no estimates committee at all, and I will repeat here the reasons why we had none. There are not, I suppose, a half-dozen experienced people in this House who do not realise that, not only in the area of which I can speak with some experience, but it also happens in every area where a local authority functions, that if you have a local authority composed of 20 members and you appoint seven as an estimates committee they spend a week, a fortnight, or a month as conscientiously as ever men did in examining the proposals that are submitted by the manager and his staff as to the amount of money they want for hospitals, roads, water, sewerage, housing, home assistance and so on.
They conscientiously sit themselves down for whatever time is necessary to examine in the most thorough way these proposals for local taxation and when they come back with the agreed recommendations to the whole body, is it suggested that the other 14 members of the council which elected them will accept the recommendations of these seven men? Not at all. They will have to get every one of the reasons that were given to the seven. They will have to get these stated by the manager or the secretary of the council or by some official of the council and there will have to be a public discussion and this will all be done in the full knowledge that the rate will have to be struck and that they are dealing with a public which has its eyes on them at this particular time. They know that to whatever extent they are anxious to remain in public life they depend on public goodwill and they know that the public does not take kindly to having taxation unnecessarily imposed on them, be it local or not.
Do they not know that in all this public discussion even the members of the estimates committee, if they hold themselves hard and fast through proposals that may afterwards be altered by the whole council, are exposing themselves to general criticism inasmuch as the electors will say: "If that committee or the members of it were to have their way we would have to pay higher rates"?
I do not want to be unduly critical of my successor. I do not want to attribute any ulterior motive to him. It is not a very serious one even if I did do it in this case, but I repeat my argument now because I find I have support from parts of this House where apparently the implications of this section were not detected at the time of the Second Reading. I could not understand why when the Second Reading went through, nobody seemed to take any notice of them, whereas it is clear that this section is completely window-dressing, just a massive effort to give this Bill a sort of respectable appearance. I am not saying that the Bill itself without this would not be a very useful piece of legislation and effect useful changes in the managerial system, but how on earth anybody came to think that this sort of section should be thrown into a measure like this I cannot understand. It never made sense to me and never can make sense. I believe that I would not make it a statutory matter by saying to a council: "You must have an estimates committee to examine the proposals of the manager," but here you have an actual proposal that they prepare the estimates.
I do not want to continue in my enthusiasm—not for the section—in my desire to pour ridicule on it because, as I have tried to say, I do not think if the Minister had some association during his period of public life with a county council or local body he would come into this House and take responsibility for a section like this—not that it is very harmful but because it is so absurd. I would not like to be associated with it or made responsible for it.
Deputy Smith endeavoured to amend the County Management Act. He introduced a Bill here some 12 months ago and I accepted every section in Deputy Smith's Bill and incorporated them into the present Bill, but I added to it Sections 2 and 4 and I added this section under discussion at the moment. We are discussing a Bill here for the past ten hours and during the greater part of that time Deputy Brennan has been the spokesman of the Opposition, and in the presence of Deputy Smith not more than one hour ago he said that this section was the most important section in the Bill. He said it was the main section in the Bill.
Deputy Brennan has considerable experience of local affairs and has served on an estimates committee. He is a man who appreciates the importance of the section. On the other hand, I do not blame Deputy Smith for getting up and criticising me for introducing this section which his own spokesman said was a most important section, despite the fact that there is incorporated in the Bill every section he had in his own Bill. Deputy Smith said that I would never dream of introducing it. I want to put this on the record. I was solicitor to a local authority for a period of 20 years, and I think I can claim to be familiar with the procedure adopted at local authority meetings.
I thought that lawyers would be on the right side.
There is one on each side. There is always one on the losing side.
I mean on the receiving side.
We had them on both sides, but unfortunately you departed from being an official and a member at the same time, not that I object to it.
Whether you win or lose.
We never win or lose. We only get paid for our services.
We are not discussing lawyers.
It seems that we are.
I was dragged into it. You have a couple of them on Youghal Bridge and you have not won much yet.
And you will never build it.
May I repeat what I said on the Second Reading Stage of this Bill? In the Dáil reports, column 705, 23rd February, 1954, I said:—
"Criticism has been made here of the proposed estimates committee. I found that one of the complaints which I received was that local authorities were ignorant of the financial matters of their councils during the year. They knew nothing about the finances until the estimates were produced by the county manager at the end of the year. This section will enable local authorities to keep in touch during the entire year with the financial position of their councils. It is ridiculous to suggest that under the section the estimates committee will be required to sit down and prepare the estimates. They will do no such thing any more than a Minister prepares the Estimates which he presents to this House. The estimates committee will have the assistance of the manager, the secretary, the accountant and all the clerical staff of the local authority. They will have that assistance just as a Minister has the assistance of the Civil Service in preparing Estimates. They will require to meet no more than they are meeting at present in some of these financial committees to which references have been made in this House. The estimates committee is being set up to give the local authority an opportunity of keeping in touch with the financial situation of the council during the financial year."
One of the complaints which I received from local authorities was this: "We know nothing whatever about the finances of the council until the annual estimate meeting when the county manager comes along and presents his estimates. But things have happened possibly nine or ten months ago in regard to expenditure. We know nothing about them. We might have discovered them at the time in the orders of the county manager, but he only gives us information about matters on which he wishes to give us information." My idea in setting up this committee was to enable the councillors to keep in continuous touch with the finances of their own council. They could meet once a month, they can demand the accounts of the council and keep in touch with its finances. Most Deputies here told us that in actual practice that was what was happening in their councils. But unfortunately there was no statutory power for the establishment of an estimates committee.
I was very impressed by what Deputy Desmond said with regard to Sections 7, 8 and 9. I am prepared, between now and the Report Stage, to consider making these sections optional. I am prepared to consider that, and if it is possible at all, I will make them optional for local authorities. That should meet any criticism that has risen.
I think the position was clarified for most Deputies here when the Minister suggested that he would consider making it optional with regard to the appointment of these finance committees. I was rather interested to hear the Minister say that, when he met members of local authorities throughout the country, one of their complaints was that they did not know what was happening until after the event took place. I was interested to hear that the Minister desires to keep them in touch with financial matters. If this finance committee is going to work as the Minister envisages, and will keep councils in touch with the spending, and give them, shall we say, the means of halting the county manager in the spending, then it is necessary for this committee to meet, not once a month, but daily, in order to carry out the idea the Minister has in mind.
When this Bill was going through the House on the Second Stage I made one criticism in connection with this section in a very brief contribution, because this section is the heart of the matter. I think the idea of this Bill is to give local authorities more power. This section gives more responsibility to the local authority, but gives them no more power. Up to this the position that had arisen was that county managers would present estimates to the county councils, and naturally the position with each member of the local authority was that he criticised any abuse that might be envisaged in the estimates. The county manager became an annual cockshot at the estimates meeting. This move by the Minister is a shrewd one. Local councils can no longer shelter behind the county manager's back—I was going to say skirts, because that would be the operative word.
Sometimes they hide under them.
It is the same thing. Under the section in connection with the finance committee the Minister is putting to the councils his ideas: "You are going to have a part in the preparation of the estimates, and it will be no longer possible, at the end of the year, to suggest that the local authority had not a certain amount of responsibility for the coming estimates." That may be desirable. It may help to cut out in future a lot of this unfounded criticism of the Managerial Act as such. I do not like the idea put across in this House that this is restoring power to the local authority. It is not. It is giving them more responsibility for spending during the year.
And it gives them more information.
The position is that a member of any local authority, under the Managerial Act as it is, is empowered to get any information at any time.
He is not unless he has obtained the sanction of the majority of the council.
If the councillors wish to get any information it is there for them. Under the Minister's new section there is no more power so far as the committee is concerned. It will have to get——
They may invoke Section 4, having found out certain information at the estimates committee meeting.
It is not making the position any easier for the rest of the councillors who are not members of the finance committee. They have to turn to the finance committee when they could have got this information, possibly, directly from the county manager if he was a reasonable man.
I was not here for some of the other contributions and what I am saying may have already been said, but, in case it has not, I should like to say that where a committee is set up—a committee of a council or any other committee—if it is to function in a business-like way, it is necessary that the meetings be held in private. If the meeting is held in public, there will be a discussion at that meeting which will be repeated at the later meeting of the entire body and all you are going to do is double the amount of time being taken up with council work, without bringing about any more efficiency. The only committee that I should like to see set up in connection with a local authority is a committee composed of all the members of the council.
Let all the members of the local authority be present. If the Minister is anxious to set up such a committee, let it be optional in that respect and let it also be optional, so far as the setting up of the committee is concerned. Let each local authority set up a finance committee, if it so desires. Evidently, in the beginning, it was considered a matter of great importance by the Minister to make the setting up of this committee mandatory.
In fairness, I said that I would welcome any suggestion I could get on the Bill.
I am not speaking in criticism of the Minister, but, when the Bill was being prepared, that section was considered to be of such importance that it was put in the Bill as a mandatory section.
And still is.
If it is, there must have been very strong reasons in the Minister's mind for making it mandatory. Many matters were discussed on this Bill since it came before the House and one of the arguments put forward by most Deputies was that freedom of action should be left to a local authority, but here we find a specific direction being given to a local authority in respect of a matter on which many of them feel very strongly at present.
I told you that I would consider leaving it optional.
That covers the point, so far as I am concerned.
It is quite correct, as the Minister said, that many members down the country were claiming that they wanted certain knowledge and I believe that the Minister, in providing Section 4, is putting these members in a position to secure that information. There is no need for me to say any more. If Deputy Allen or Deputy Brennan or a majority of their respective councils, wished to set up this committee in their counties and if they were really interested in local government, I believe it would not be right for us to deny them the right to do so. I am quite satisfied if the Minister is prepared to make this section optional. In a true spirit of local government, we can then approach the problem and I know how we will approach it in our county. I am prepared to withdraw the amendment.
I have a different mind on this from most members of my council. The Minister was not even correct when he spoke about a majority of the council. I am speaking from experience, because, within the past seven months, I proposed that a finance committee of the Cork County Council be set up and I was seconded by a Labour Deputy, Deputy McAuliffe. The chairman called on the advice of the legal adviser who told me it would be illegal to set it up.
So it was, but I am trying to make it legal for you.
Now, if the only job of a county council, when this Bill has been passed, is to pay out without knowing what we are paying for——
I am giving you that power.
——I think it is responsible for a whole lot of the extravagance as between the Department and the county manager and about which nobody else knows anything.
I am giving you the power you want to set up your committee under the Bill.
I will give one instance of the manner in which estimates are brought up. I saw an important estimate discussed recently, and, as a kind of experiment, I moved that the estimate be cut by £30,000 in one item alone. Another member proposed that it be cut by £20,000, and the assistant county manager accepted it. If neither of us had said anything a sum of £20,000 would have been paid by the ratepayers for fun. These are facts that can be borne out. That is the manner in which estimates are presented. I can take my mind back a long way. The first training I got in local government as such was on a finance committee of the Cork County Council, and it was a good training, a training which saved the ratepayers many thousands of pounds.
I never thought the Deputy benefited Cork in any way.
The Deputy is too thick to understand. That committee was able to carry on, was able to examine figures and ascertain exactly what was happening, and it was not necessary for them to meet every day to do it. We found one meeting a fortnight for the first 12 months sufficient and afterwards one meeting a month as soon as we had things cleared up. That committee was appointed after each election in the Cork County Council until the Management Bill came in, and it functioned well, saving the ratepayers a large sum of money.
The most amazing thing I have seen here is that the people who were growling about the Management Act are the people who want to leave everything as it is. Not alone would I suggest that the county council should have the power to set up such a committee, but I suggest that the power should also be given to the other autonomous boards in a county. I would suggest further that, if they wished, that finance committee should consist of all the members of the council and that they should set aside a finance day on which all the members of the council would consider financial business.
One thing on which I do not agree with the Minister is this basis of two representatives from each area. Each county councillor is elected by a certain body of ratepayers to represent their views and, instead of committees of eight, ten or 12 representatives, I would have the full council as this finance committee and then nobody could say afterwards that these four or five did it. We know that every estimate brought before a county council, a board of assistance or any other body at present is a padded estimate.
If the members of the council are not cute enough to cut enough off they have an excuse for spending more. I even saw a board of assistance having credit of £55,000 at the end of the year, a sum which should be in the ratepayers' pockets but the fact that the £55,000 was there as a credit balance left after the year was a temptation to spend more. After all, we got the money off them and we might as well spend it.
I am in favour of a finance committee—absolutely in favour of it, but I would suggest that if the Minister is going to leave it optional for the council to set up a finance committee or not we should also leave it optional for the council to have that finance committee composed of all the members of the council or whatever number they consider right. Why pick out of every electoral area two cockshots? If they do not turn up, all the better. If I had my way I would have one special day at least every month set aside on which the council would resolve itself into a finance committee and go into the finances of the council.
In my opinion, it would be worth it and it would save them a lot of money. I served on one from 1925 until the County Management Act deprived me of the power of being on it. I do not think the finances of any local authority have improved by getting rid of the finance committee and leaving the whole thing in the hands of officials. If we are going to have a country run by officials for officials, well then let us do it openly and get rid of the elected representatives. If we get rid of the elected representatives at all, let us get rid of them in the Dáil as well as in the county council.
I believe this discussion could be termed as being much ado about nothing because whether or not this amendment is accepted will make no difference.
It is withdrawn now.
I refer to this consideration the Minister is going to give that we should not have an estimates committee on the council as was suggested by some members in an amendment put down here. Are we not discussing Section 7?
All the amendments are withdrawn.
The previous speaker and those taking part in this debate on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party indicate very clearly the position they hold in that Party. They seem to have very little influence, indeed, because they have come into the House while we are discussing these amendments and have found much to complain about in the City and County Management Act. They now uphold the right of the elected representatives of the people to have a direct say in local government affairs. If that contention were honest, I would be entirely in agreement with them but these people were in office for 19 years and they were the people who withdrew the powers from the elected representatives of the people.
That is not so.
That is quite so. It was in the County Management Act of 1940. That is quite so, Deputy Briscoe.
Not at all.
It certainly is.
When was the first Management Act introduced?
The first Management Act was introduced in a very small way in 1929.
The matter before the House is whether or not Section 7 should stand part of the Bill.
With due respect, I am entitled to comment on the observations of the previous speaker.
The Deputy is travelling outside the scope of what is before the House.
Deputy Corry commented on the adverse effect on local government legislation if all the powers were handed over to officials and taken away from the elected representatives.
He confined himself as to whether or not there should be a finance committee or an estimates committee. That is what I suggest the Deputy should address himself to.
I have already stated that it makes little difference because the Minister is in agreement with the viewpoint of the Fianna Fáil Party in withholding any worthwhile powers from the elected representatives of local authorities. It is quite in order, in spite of what the previous speaker stated, for a county council to set up any sub-committee. They could set up a committee dealing with the estimates just as well as they set up special committees to deal with housing, health, roads or any other matter. We have all these committees in Cork.
This section does not give us any extra powers because we are fully entitled to question any expenditure the council makes at any time. If wanton expenditure has taken place in any county heretofore I believe the fault lay with the members of that particular body for not questioning that particular type of expenditure.
This Bill is, as I stated here on a number of occasions during the discussion on it, a worthless measure or very nearly so. This so-called estimates committee that we are now giving power to set up is of no value because we had power to set up such a committee before. I want to make that clear to the House despite the statement made by Deputy Corry.
And the Minister.
I never heard in the Cork County Council of any objections being taken by the Department of Local Government to the establishment of sub-committees.
Not an estimates committee.
But in view of the powers which the manager holds these committees are worthless and that is due to the Fianna Fáil viewpoint on local government administration. I am completely impartial on this matter as I am on every matter that comes before the House. Fine Gael is more or less following the Fianna Fáil set-up.
Be easy on them.
When Deputy Smith was Minister for Local Government he had little faith in local representatives. When I challenged him on this point in this House last week he got very huffy about the matter.
What Deputy Smith did or did not do has nothing to do with the matter before the House.
I do not want the Deputy to be hitting Fine Gael so hard.
Would the Deputy please confine himself to Section 7?
That is what I am doing, but I feel, from the statement made by Deputy Smith, that one should not address himself honestly on any question before this House. I know that the Deputy himself, to use a mild term,——
Deputy Smith is not under discussion.
He puts a twist on whatever statement he has to put before the House.
Deputy Murphy can make his contribution in connection with this section without any reference to Deputy Smith.
It does not matter if the Deputy hits me so long as he does not hit Fine Gael.
The Deputy is getting a hard rap from Fine Gael at the moment and he will get a few more after the election.
The poor, old, shivering creatures could not take it.
Am I not entitled to reply to interruptions?
I have very little sympathy with people who invite interruptions.
I will give Deputy Smith a short synopsis of his doings while he was Minister for Local Government.
That matter is not under discussion.
I claim that this discussion is a very dishonest one. We have statements made by Fianna Fáil that these amendments are opposing the rights of the elected representatives on local authorities. When that Party was in power, they themselves took away those rights from them and upheld the viewpoint that all important functions in a local authority should rest with the manager. Is not that the position?
Why do you not give them back, now that you are in power?
I am complaining of this measure. I made it clear that I am not going to do things in a secretive manner.
You are the Government now.
The secret was let out by Deputy Allen. We are dealing with all the amendments together.
No. The amendments have been disposed of. The question before the House is whether Section 7 stand part of the Bill or not.
I believe that any estimates committee or finance committee set up by a local authority should comprise the whole council. That is one point on which I agree with Deputy Corry, even though he does not make many worthwhile suggestions. I do not agree that such a committee should comprise one-third or one fourth of the members. If it is dealing with financial matters it should comprise the whole council—let it meet once monthly, once quarterly or half-yearly as may be required to deal with the business. This discussion is completely worthless so far as local authorities and the elected representatives on them are concerned. It gives them no power—good, bad or indifferent—that they have not got already.
I am rather amused at the manner in which this Section 7 is approached by various speakers. I am sorry Deputy Larkin is not here. We do not require this particular Section 7 in the City of Dublin, because so long as we have the managerial system—and it is subscribed to by the majority of the House, otherwise it would cease to exist—the manager must function in a certain way. Now, some of us have a great deal of experience of the financial side of a local authority. The manager is bound to be responsible for the "essential services" and the maintenance of them. He is not responsible for what one might call "policy spending". If a committee of the Dublin Corporation or of a local authority decides to spend more money on additional services—not, in the opinion of the manager, "essential services" but within the rights of the elected representatives to create and make provision for—and if that decision comes before the council and the council as a whole adopts it, then the council is responsible for it and not the manager.
Over and above these two different types of expenditure, one has to make provision for expenditure of what is called the "statutory demand" type. Deputy Larkin apparently admits he has learned a little in the last two weeks, but I would suggest that a little learning is sometimes dangerous. Consequently, I take it he made his intervention, having that little knowledge and that little knowledge being dangerous. The procedure introduced by the local authority this year to which he referred was quite simple. Previously the finance committee held a couple of meetings before the adoption of a rate. They attempted in maybe two sittings to plough through every item of all the different sections of the estimates and every member complained that they did not know as much about the financial spending side as they should.
This year I introduced a new method. I suggested that each committee should, towards the end of the year, have its own meeting to examine its own estimate and that they should satisfy themselves that they wished that figure to go forward—consisting, as I said, of the estimate of the manager under various sub-heads for "essential services" with, in addition, whatever they decided on on the policy side by a majority and having had sanction from the council for it over and above any demand from the city manager. It was agreed that then the chairman and vice-chairman of each such committee would meet together to get a full picture of the total required.
What Deputy Larkin has confused here to-night is this. He refers to the housing committee having its two-day session and going through its break-down of all the figures making up the total estimate. There was nobody there to reduce the expenditure, or at least those who were most vocal against reducing it did not realise that when the full total of all the different sections would come to be examined, some section would have to forgo some of the expenditure which the council themselves were responsible for. They could not be responsible for and could not reduce the bare minimum required by the city manager for "essential services".
The Deputy seems to be getting away from the section, which deals with the appointment of a committee and the manner in which that committee should be appointed. The Deputy is discussing the duties of the estimate committee, which is not relevant on this section.
What I am discussing is what has been referred to already by a previous speaker, who opposed this section for a different reason to that given by others; and it is to that reason I am referring. I want to point out that the elected representatives should not be saddled with the responsibility of making up estimates. They cannot do that. Each little section—from the lowest members up to the senior members and the head officials of the section—must come to the city manager and give a statement of their requirements; and for that type of expenditure the city manager is fully responsible and must be held responsible.
The Deputy probably was not aware that I have said I would consider leaving the appointment of an estimates committee optional.
I do not understand. First of all, I agree entirely with Deputy Smith that the section does not mean anything.
You disagree with Deputy Brennan?
I fail to understand how anybody can make two negatives out of one negative and think one has improved the situation, leaving something that is of no consequence optional, it making no difference whether it is accepted or not.
You had no amendment to the section. You had no intention of opposing it.
Deputy Desmond always intervenes to the effect that no one can speak on anything unless he has put an amendment down to it. I wonder would the Deputy like to be paid back in the same coin? He always speaks to amendments to sections to which he had no amendments. I am trying to make it clear that when you come to a meeting of the local authority to examine the expenditure, the elected representatives can only cut down on matters for which they are themselves responsible. There is no sense in suggesting that even if this is made optional it will have any effect because the areas that will not adopt it will be in no worse or better position than they are to-day. The county councils who may adopt it under the optional section will find themselves, as Deputy Smith has remarked, in the position that they can prepare estimates but that the manager can reject them. They can refuse to make estimates and the manager can himself prepare them.
Therefore, I think the Minister would be well advised to remove Section 7 from the Bill rather than make it optional. The position as it exists to-day from a finance committee point of view is that it has all the details and powers it requires. There is a big difference between a finance committee and an estimates committee. I agree with Deputy Smith that it is the manager who prepares the estimates, in the main; he prepares the vast bulk of them, together with his requirements and Statute requirements.
And the councils that did not accept it were abolished by Fianna Fáil.
So long as it was not your pals in Fine Gael, it was all right.
It was like the work of a tiny Hitler: it was like a dictatorship.
I am not at all against the present city and county management system. I want to see certain powers restored to local representatives. I do not want to abolish the manager but I want to make him more responsible to them, as elected representatives, and less responsible to the Custom House. That is the difference between what we are talking about. There is no use in saying that a dictatorship introduced the managerial system. If it is wrong, Deputy Murphy now has the means—as one of the majority that composes the Government—of abolishing city and county management. He will not do that. It is satisfactory for him to pretend that he is against it, that it is a horrible thing and that he blames Fianna Fáil for it.
He cannot have it both ways now.
He wants to have it six ways. Deputy Smith made the position quite clear. I am saying that a finance committee can get all the information it requires. In the production of the estimates, it can get from the manager a break-down of every item. What we want is that the manager should not have powers to take in additional staffs without consulting the local representatives, that he should not engage in this additional expense without their consent, but, once having got it, it is his business to prepare the estimate and it is nobody else's business.
I should like the Minister to consider whether making it optional meets the situation or whether, in fact, it does not make it more farcical. I have yet to see an Act of Parliament which has been thought out for the welfare of the community and which says: "This is what you will do but if you do not like it you need not do it." This is the first time I have ever seen an attempt in legislation—not legislation mandatory, not legislation putting obligations on people or authorities—to say: "You may do this if you like and if you do not like to do it you need not." I repeat, why have such legislation?
If the optional position is reached then I do not think, on examination and on getting to understand what it means, that any one of these sections will be adopted by a single county council. If, by any chance, I am wrong in that and one or two do, then you will find they will change from the position after the experience of a year or two. What does it mean? Do the Deputies know what it means? An estimates committee is not to be confused with a finance committee or the duties of a finance committee. An estimates committee has the responsibility of framing estimates for the requirements of the coming year. Having done that, how are they going to sit in judgment of themselves if they find that, in the preparation of certain estimates, the doing of a certain amount of work will have a very serious reaction on the rates?
The present position is that the manager must be responsible for the preparation of the estimates. In his estimates he must include charges that will come in course of payment in the following year for commitments which the elected representatives have, by way of policy, undertaken and he must make provision as best he can for the statutory requirements. Then, having done that, a finance committee of the whole council can judge themselves whether they agree with his management or disagree with his management. They can judge whether they wish to alter decisions previously made by themselves for added expenditure or whether they want to make representations to the central Government to lighten the burden of statutory payments which fall on them by Acts of this Oireachtas.
The Minister has had 20 years of close association with local authorities. I think he ought to realise that either this is a good section, and he is right and we are wrong, or that it is a nebulous and silly section.
I will leave that to the local authorities.
Is it a good thing to put into this Bill?
You cannot have it hot and cold.
That is how the Minister is having it.
For the benefit of the taxpayer.
It is not for the benefit of the taxpayer. It is just to cod people into believing that they have powers.
I have codded the Deputy into talking a lot of cod talk.
The Minister introduced a section in the Bill which is either right or wrong.
I do not go in for that dictatorial stuff at all. It has never been my policy.
The Minister introduced a section in the Bill which, if it is a good section, should become part of an Act of Parliament. However, if it is a section in which he has so little confidence that the only argument he is able to make in favour of it is: "I will allow it to be optional," then I say he should withdraw that section.
It is Coalition milk and water.
It is better than pure water. Milk and water is better than water.
We do not drink it over here.
That is quite evident.
Deputy Briscoe, on Section 7.
If the Minister confesses to this House, as he does, that his faith in this section is so weak that he is not going to leave to the House to decide whether it stays in or not— that he is going to leave it to the local authority——
What is wrong with that?
The Deputy made such a farce of himself on the subject of a finance committee as compared with an estimates committee that he should refrain from interrupting me now.
I was referring to a committee less than the whole House.
The Deputy did not say anything of the kind. When he reads his speech he will see that he said something quite different. He may have wanted to say that. However, the question is whether this is a good section or not. If it is a good section then the Minister should put it to the test of the House and the members of the House can show whether or not they agree with him. He should take the decision of the House on it. If, on the other hand, he is so afraid of it or so doubtful about the section that he thinks it is good policy to say that each county council can opt as to whether they will apply it or not, when it has been pointed out to him here in sufficiently strong language that it cannot be implemented—it cannot be implemented—
The Deputy has said that about ten times.
Ten thousand times?
About ten times, I said.
I am sorry. If one feels very strongly about a matter one has to try to argue it from as many angles as possible, even if each argument amounts to the same thing. I am asking the Minister to take the line that, whoever was responsible for this idea, it does not fit in. The manager should be responsible for the preparation of the estimates. I agree with Deputy Desmond on that. The local authority should be responsible for examining, scrutinising and adding to or taking from the estimates as they in their wisdom see fit. There are certain things they cannot do. Improvement of local affairs will take place only by the restoration of power to the local representatives, power under which the manager will be responsible to them for his decisions and will seek sanction from the elected body in a particular situation.
There is no use pretending that this particular section gives the local representative any additional power whatsoever, except an opportunity to make public confession that it is impossible for him or the local body as a whole to carry out this work because that is the work of officials. It is the work of officials who are supposed to be there every day on the job. Take, for instance, the lighting section of Dublin Corporation. The city engineer puts in an estimate of the cost. He says that there are so many lamps to be lit at £1 per lamp. If there is electric lighting in the area represented by Deputy Murphy, are we to ask him to go around the area with his colleagues to count all the lamps and then come back to the estimates committee and say: "We have so many thousand lamps to be lit. Therefore, we will require so much money?"
Is not that the responsibility of the officials? Is it not a silly suggestion that the local representatives should go around and count the number of houses from which the corporation take ash-bins and the number of lamps we light and all the other details of the services given by the local authority? I hope the Minister will go a step further and will say, on reflection: "I am prepared on Report Stage to remove Section 7."
In discussing amendments to this section earlier on I said that it was the most important section in the Bill. The Minister saw fit to quote me on that.
To compliment you.
I still say that it is the most important section in this Bill. I will go further and say that if the estimates committee visualised in that section were to attempt to exercise the powers conferred on them by the section they would usurp the entire powers of the local authority. That is exactly what the position is. In order to do that, they might have to meet three times a week. I agree with Deputy Smith when he says that this section is put in for the purpose of leaving very important powers in the hands of the local authority in the knowledge that it is not a practicable section, that it is a section which they could never fully operate. That is exactly what the section means. I can visualise the situation where two members from two electoral areas, having power to keep continually in touch with the expenditure of money on the council——
You are getting the whip now on the withers. That is what is wrong. You have to justify your hand and mend your hand.
If the Minister wants to speak——
Not at all. The Minister is only complimenting you.
I can easily see an estimates committee, where two elected representatives from each electoral area were members of this committee. I have discussed this with people before now, as the Minister knows. They can easily scratch one another's backs. Deputy Murphy can say: "If you agree to the expenditure of the £30,000 on the water scheme in my electoral area, Deputy Corry, I will agree to an expenditure of £30,000 on a sewerage scheme in your area". It is perfectly open to that. In fact, the estimates committee can exercise complete control over where and how and when the resources of the local authority will be expended. By every test, it is the most important section in the Bill but the Minister is careful to have a saving sub-section in which he says that if the estimates committee do not perform their duty, the manager will and the manager must.
That is exactly what is likely to happen. I can see councils trying to perform the duties and to exercise the powers conferred on them by that section. The Minister is now going to amend the section, to say that the council may appoint an estimates committee. As the Bill stands, he says the council "shall". He now proposes to change the "shall" to "may". There will be councils who will try to appoint an estimates committee to carry out the powers conferred on them in that section and I am perfectly certain that I would not want to be a member of that estimates committee because if that committee tried to exercise the powers conferred on them by the section they would require to meet in the council office at least three times a week.
The Deputy was most anxious to get on to it at one stage.
I defy any member of this House to take from the Official Records a single suggestion or insinuation that I was anxious to be a member of the committee. I was very anxious for one thing, and still am, to ensure that no member will monopolise membership of that committee because I am perfectly satisfied that he could use it or misuse it to conduct the affairs of the council in respect of his own area in a manner which would suit himself. That is the danger inherent in it even if it were practicable. I do not think it is practicable.
I want to make one reference to Deputy Murphy's last statement with regard to this section and the Bill generally. The Labour Party must be either one thing or the other in relation to this Bill. Deputy Murphy said that the Bill does not go far enough and he blames Fianna Fáil for the dictatorial powers under the managerial system. We have been listening to that for a long time now. Fianna Fáil has been blamed for the Managerial Act. We have listened in the past to Opposition Parties telling us about the powers taken away from local authorities because of the dictatorial attitude of Fianna Fáil.
I am afraid the Deputy cannot discuss the whole Bill on this section.
I am replying to Deputy Murphy in relation to the statement he made on this section. He condemned the attitude of Fianna Fáil and he is obviously going to proceed in that attitude of blaming Fianna Fáil for the Managerial Act, I want to point out to Deputy Murphy that this Act was agreed to by his Government, a Government in which his Party has four Ministers, one of whom is an acting member of a local authority. Nevertheless, he will now persist in going to the country and saying this Bill does not go far enough in amending the Managerial Act and that it is Fianna Fáil who are to blame for that. The Deputy cannot have it both ways. We must all agree that we have now reached a stage here where every Party is loud in its support of the managerial system.
I thought the Deputy was going to reply to some statements I made earlier in this discussion.
That is exactly the position so far as Deputy Murphy is concerned. He wants to adopt a dog in the manager attitude and continue blaming Fianna Fáil for all the powers local authorities have not got and, at the same time, he says this Bill does not go far enough. He has the ball at his feet so far as amending this Act is concerned. Every member of this House has now accepted the principle——
What I am blaming Fianna Fáil for is all the humbug they are going on with in this debate.
Did the Deputy put down any amendments?
Several of them; possibly the Deputy did not read them.
If this conversation is finished perhaps we could now let Deputy Brennan proceed.
If there is any humbug I would ask Deputies to consider the attitude of the Labour Party.
On Section 7?
On Section 7. The section is first opposed by the Labour Party and immediately the Minister suggests changing the wording the Labour Deputies turn turtle and withdraw the amendment after a very strong condemnation of the section when proposing the amendment at the outset.
We are not discussing the amendment now.
I consider this the most important section in the Bill and I consider it is the section whereby, if a committee elected under it endeavours to exercise the powers conferred on them, that committee in itself will be the local authority. I believe it will be impossible for any committee to exercise those powers.
With travelling expenses every day.
It is rather amusing to listen to a Deputy when he is under the Whip and compare that with his views when he is not under the Whip. Deputy Brennan came in here on the Second Stage and he made a very interesting contribution and one which, in my opinion, was an honest one. Here are a few of the things he said on that occasion:—
"There has been contention regarding the section which requires an estimates committee to be set up. Personally, I am not inclined to take the same view as some Deputies have expressed with regard to these powers. I agree that it is not necessary to have the section worded as it is but I do not take the view that the estimates committee will have to get down to it with their coats off to prepare the estimates each year. They will use the council's staff to prepare the estimates, as has been done in the past, and will go into them to see where they can be curtailed or increased and their word will be the last word so far as the estimates are concerned. That is my view about the estimates committee. At a glance one might think that it was imposing a burden on the committee which it would not be capable of performing and would not have the time to carry out.
I may on Committee Stage ask the Minister to amend that section somewhat. I do not think it is right that an estimates committee should be formed on the formation of a new council and allowed to continue until the expiration of that council's life. The estimates committee should be appointed annually and should be constituted each year at the annual meeting so that membership of the committee would rotate and members would have a chance of serving on the estimates committee. In that way all members of a local authority would have the experience of acting on the estimates committee."
I am quoting from Volume 148, columns 394-395 of the Official Report. Now, there is an honest opinion given by Deputy Brennan. He read the section. He discussed the estimates committee. He did not agree with the gentlemen who said one would have to spend all one's time on the estimates committee, and that it would have to meet every week. He agreed the officials could do the work and that very good work could be done by the estimates committee. He said he did not agree with the section and he would bring in an amendment.
He did bring in an amendment—the only amendment he did bring in—not to delete the section, but to have the estimates committee appointed annually. He made a very fine speech to-day in support of the section—a convincing speech, so convincing that I interrupted him on at least ten occasions to say: "Hear, hear!" But then the Whip came on. Deputy Smith entered the House and set the headline, and Deputy Brennan had to follow suit. The ex-Minister put the Whip on. Did anyone ever see such a complete switch over? I understand there is a road in Cork—Deputy Corry knows it well—from Cork City to Cobh; a predecessor of mine in the Department of Local Government once described it as the "politician's road" because there were so many twists in it. We have had a remarkable example of the "politician's road" this evening, one of the most remarkable I have ever come across for a long time, when my friend and colleague, Deputy Brennan, first gave his honest view— not only to-day, but also on the 16th February—and then, the Whip being put on and the spur dug in, he had to change course.
The whole of this evening has been spent discussing amendments to Section 7. Arguments have been advanced relative to the methods by which this committee should be elected, and all the rest of it. The Minister, who first insisted on this, now comes along and talks of twists and turns on the road to Cobh. The Minister, first of all, approved of the special method by which the committee would be selected and he spent to my knowledge, from six o'clock this evening until ten minutes past ten on that.
I was here at four o'clock to-day.
The Labour Deputies then said they did not want the section at all. The Minister gave a look round; Deputy Smith got up, and then the Minister gives a complete twist and says: "Let every council have it the way it wants it". It is the worst commentary on legislation I have ever heard in my life—and in my time I have seen a lot of queer legislation. The Minister says: "It is all right; do as you like lads". He brings in this section and he counts heads and he knows he is gonged. He says any council which does not want it can leave it. It is the worst piece of legislation——
It is nearly as bad as your own.
I am sorry for Deputy M. P. Murphy over there. I wanted to check on whether or not I was correct in my statement and that is one of the things I would like to hear from the Minister. If this section is taken out of the Bill and if the county council has any power to let the finance committee go into its finances— that is something I would like to hear the Minister answer before we decide here whether the section is going to be optional or whether it should be there at all.
The Deputy has no say; it is already decided for him.
I sympathise with Deputy Murphy. He does not know what happened at the time. I will make every allowance for him.
Is all that in Section 7?
I put down a motion in Cork County Council and Deputy Murphy opposed it, but as I said, I have every sympathy for his state at the time. The law adviser stood up when queried by the chairman and said it was illegal for us to appoint a committee to go into the council's finances. I want the Minister now to straighten out the twist. I want to know from the Minister if this section leaves it optional for the council or whether it gives power to the council to appoint such a committee at all.
Of course, the councils have the power to appoint finance committees.
We had the advice of our legal adviser that it was not legal to appoint such a committee. He was a fellow county man of the Minister whom the Minister sent down to us at the time; and this legal adviser, whom the Minister had sent down to us, informed us that it was illegal—that my motion was illegal and could not be taken.
And as a law-abiding citizen I hope the Deputy accepted his advice.
The Minister said a while ago that we had not the power. Will he kindly show me in this Bill where he has removed the power councils had under the 1925 Local Government Act? These are the things I want to know. I am trying to hold the Minister on the road he should go on. In fact we are all anxious to do that because the less politics there are in local government affairs the better for everybody, particularly for the ratepayers. Apparently all sides of the House are agreed now that we must have a manager.
It is a bit of a change too.
It is a good bit of a change, but if we are all agreed I would be anxious that the Minister, in bringing in a Bill of this kind before the House, would endeavour to act in a non-political way. I never heard of a Bill brought in and passed by the Dáil before which left it optional on any authority to do a certain thing for which provision was made in a Bill. I have never seen a provision before which was passed by the House and which could be ignored or adopted by the local authorities. What is the idea of leaving the local authorities in that position?
What happened to the Planning Act introduced by the Deputy? And what about the tender section in the Deputy's County Management Act?
The Minister is forgetting to ask me about Youghal Bridge.
I will leave that question to the Deputy.
And when I have done with it we will have a laugh. He is twisting this the self same line as he twisted between the Shannon and the Blackwater. I did not expect it from the Minister, I must say frankly. I did not expect that the Minister would come along here after solemnly bringing in a Bill and after spending four hours this evening endeavouring to insist on the constitution of this committee and prepared to go into the Division Lobby on the manner in which this committee would be constituted, and then come along and say that any council could take it or leave it.
What about the Planning Act?
This is the worst I saw yet.
We spent a long time here discussing this section and discussing the amendments on it, and I noticed one thing—that the people who were not in the House during the discussion came in here afterwards and made statements about the discussion which they had not heard. For Deputy Corry's benefit I should like to remind the House that the statement made by the Minister that he would leave it optional was made before Deputy Smith spoke. I should like to make that very definite and to point out that Deputy Corry's statement was not correct.
Deputy Tully will have to do a lot of doctoring on the Official Report to bring about that position.
I take exception to Deputy Corry's allegation that the Official Reports can be doctored and I do not think he should be allowed to have made such a statement. Having made such a statement I think he should be asked to withdraw it.
I did not say they could be doctored.
The implication in Deputy Corry's statement was that the Official Report would show that Deputy Tully was wrong.
What I meant to convey was that I did not think Deputy Tully would be able to change the period in which Deputy Smith spoke and the time the Minister made his statement.
The Deputy said the Official Report could be doctored.
I said he would have to do a lot of doctoring in it to say what he said.
The implication was that the Official Report would show when the Minister made the statement.
I think Deputy Corry is old enough and wise enough to know that such a statement could not pass unchallenged in this House.
I saw a lot like Deputy Tully coming and going here.
Let the Deputy be very careful now.
Let the Deputy mind the baby. He should be very careful in his position.
Deputy Corry made a statement——
If the Cork Deputies could restrain themselves Deputy Tully might be allowed to make his statement.
I was very interested to hear the few reasoned arguments put up on this section, particularly by Deputy Joseph Brennan, and I have no doubt at all that he was very sincere when he tried to give his opinion as to the best way of setting up this committee. I also heard Deputy Corry and a number of other Deputies, among whom was Deputy Allen, who is now not here, and now they suddenly turn round for a very obvious reason and say that the committee should not be set up at all but that the section should be thrown out of the Bill. I believe they are right that the section should be thrown out of the Bill.
Hear, hear!
But why did it take them so long to make up their minds about it? If they considered it should have been thrown out, why did they waste time putting down amendments suggesting something else?
To try and make it workable.
You are very naïve.
You think the manager should be thrown out but you are afraid to put it in the Bill.
Maybe when I am as long in the House as Deputy Corry I will take more definite steps than he did to have it thrown out. I believe the Minister is going a long way towards meeting our wishes. When he proposes to leave it optional I think he is already going a long way to meet the wishes of Deputies on the opposite benches. I would like to point out this one fact which is apparently being overlooked. Not one Labour Deputy spoke on the Opposition amendments because we believe they were a waste of time, and when we were speaking on our own amendments we were amazed to find such an interest being taken by people who did not seem to think it worth while to put down amendments themselves.
I understand the Minister has agreed to change sub-section (1) from being mandatory to being optional. I think a large part of the time of the House has been wasted in discussing this section. It is completely futile to create this type of committee if that is going to be left optional, in view of the provisions of Sections 8, 9 and 10.
I said I would leave Sections 7, 8 and 9 optional, that I would consider that between now and the Report Stage.
Let us get this clear. The law as it stands, as far as I know it and as far as the practice of county councils is concerned, is that if they wish they can have their committee, but every member of a local authority knows quite well that when they did, in fact, appoint committees to go into estimates, they discovered they had a rehash of the whole thing over again when the committee came back. It did not save any time because the committee's recommendations would not be accepted. Furthermore, there was strong objection taken by members of councils who did not happen to be on those committees to their duties being taken away from them and their being forced to accept the opinions of other people on the estimates.
This Bill and this particular section are supposed to be restoring power to local authorities but in fact this section proposes to take away the powers of a council and concentrate them in a committee. The thing is unworkable as I believe the Minister well knows. I was rather amused to hear the Minister belabour his colleague, Deputy J. Brennan, about the Whip being put on Deputy Brennan who, the Minister alleged, had changed his mind as between what he had stated earlier on this section and what he stated later. I think it is fairly clear to the House and the country that the whip was put on the Minister by the Labour Party to produce this document we have before us and no man in Ireland except the Minister could have done it so adroitly. He brings in a section like this meaning nothing, purporting to confer powers that are already there, dressing them up in this long way in this section, saying that this is restoring power to local authorities, and, in the very same section, saying that if any local authority does not like to set up this committee, that local authority can do what they wish.
The Minister may pretend there is something in this section but he knows himself he is purporting to give power that is already there. He knows that this is not going to make one iota of difference to any local authority in Ireland. He knows that the members of every local authority in Ireland will insist on having the few important days in the year on which they, as a whole body, go into every item of expenditure suggested by their officials, let it be the manager or any other official of the council, and they will endeavour to cut down their rate for the ensuing year. Reading this at a first glance it would appear perhaps that something is being done but that, of course, is not the case.
I do not accept what my colleague, Deputy Corry, says about the legal advisers in the local authority in Cork. Knowing the good Deputy Corry, I can quite visualise his bringing forward a motion down there purporting to be a motion to set up a committee but having a tail end to it that means something completely different. I do not accept as correct the interpretation of the legal adviser as given in this House by Deputy Corry. I am quite sure there is much more to it than Deputy Corry tells us here.
The Minister knows and I think the members of local authorities know there is nothing in the world to prevent them from doing as they have done in a number of councils, that is, getting a committee of the councils to examine the estimates. They discovered what I am telling the House, that it was a complete waste of time and that what was done in that committee would not be accepted by the majority of the council. If the Minister made the decisions of the estimates committee statutory and binding on the council it might be said that there would be some time-saving in connection with the matter. I cannot accept that either. If this section went through, No. 1, I agree with the Deputies who say it would not be accepted by 99 per cent. of every local authority, and No. 2, if it did go through, it would be cutting across the principles the Minister asserts are written into this Bill, that is, it would take away the power of the local authority as a whole.
As far as the Labour Deputies who have spoken on this matter are concerned if they say, as I heard at least two of them say, this section should not be there at all, the section should not be there. Let us cut it out if we feel the section should not be there. It is not long since we heard a lot of talk from platforms all over the country about savings in Government Departments and the tremendous whip-up there was going to be in every department of State. Here is a method of saving and I seriously make this contribution to the saving of the national finances. If the section is cut out there will be a saving of two pages in every statute that will be printed and in every copy of this Bill when it becomes law. The time of the printers will be saved, it will take less binding, and so on. Here is a method of saving, and it is as good a method as some of the methods I have heard suggested by the Opposition as to how they are going to bring down the cost of living and the cost of Government. I move to report progress.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 31st March, 1955.