Vol. 163 No. 5
I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £5,440 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1958, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Secretary to the President, and for certain other Expenses of the President's Establishment (No. 24 of 1938).
I take it this Estimate includes all the expenses which make up the President's establishment? At present, the public are being exhorted by the Government and by responsible people inside and outside the House to tighten their belts and spend less. As a matter of fact, it has been decided generally that Government spending all round should be reduced, if at all possible. That has been accepted here. But when we come to putting such an agreement into operation, we find it is a different matter altogether.
I do not know how true this Book of Estimates is but I presume it is correct. This year the total expenditure on the President's establishment, as outlined in the Book of Estimates, is £50,478. To my mind, that is pretty hefty expenditure in view of the general situation. A sum of £50,000 on the President's establishment, at a time when we are not even able to give reasonable employment in the City of Dublin, to me sounds very contradictory on the part of those people who maintain that their main interest is the working man.
In connection with the figure I mentioned, I note that the emoluments and allowances of the President himself are £11,500. I do not suggest for one moment that the President—a man for whom I have the greatest respect— utilises this allowance for himself. I understand it is for entertainment purposes for visitors from abroad and so forth. In my opinion, we are doing this thing on too big a scale for this small Republic. I believe that in this regard we are aping our neighbours, who can afford this pomp and luxury expenditure.
It would appear that our presidential establishment is modelled, in a smaller way no doubt, on the establishment we find in the neighbouring island, with the one exception that over there the person at the top is described as "Her Majesty, the Queen" and here it is "His Excellency, the President". Both have about the same amount of power, though I would say there is more power in the hands of Her Majesty, the Queen than lies in the hands of our President but the same type of pomp and ceremonial goes on in each establishment. I do not think it was ever envisaged here that an Irish Republic would go in for this type of ceremonial. The upkeep of this establishment is costly and the expense in connection with public works and buildings is considerable. The whole set-up is one that should be examined. If only for the sake of setting a good example, there should be a cut of at least 25 per cent. in the expenditure for the coming year on this establishment.
There is one point I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister. I understand that the President keeps horses on behalf of the Irish people. Just as her Majesty has her horses in Britain, our President has his horses here and runs them at Leopardstown and other racecourses. If he is to have horses for that purpose, I suggest it would be no harm at this stage to revert to the old style escort the President had here, a horse escort. If it is logical to keep and run horses in the name of the Irish people, surely it is rather contradictory to have the President followed all over the country by a motor-cycle escort? We are noted as a country famed for the breeding of first-class horses, and here we have the President himself utilising a motor-cycle escort and a car escort, composed of imported commodities, when he could be utilising Irish thoroughbreds for escort purposes. This use would give first-class publicity to the fact that we have such horses.
My suggestion to the Minister is that the question should be re-examined. If it is found that we must keep racehorses to enter in the "National" and other races, then let us keep horses for ceremonial escorts of this kind. I would ask the Minister to do that or, if it is not possible for him to do so, to bring the matter to the attention of the occupant of this post in the hope that he himself will take the necessary steps to restore the practice that obtained hitherto. I understand the majority of those people who admire the establishment in the park are disappointed, and have been disappointed over the years, that this change was made in connection with the ceremonial array and escort. It is desirable that their wishes in this regard should be met. I hope every effort will be made drastically to reduce the expenditure in this establishment. It is no good asking people to reduce expenditure, unless the people at the very top are prepared to set the good example.
I am afraid I have not very much to say to the points made by Deputy McQuillan. The big item in this Estimate, of course, is for Board of Works expenditure, both on new works and maintenance of the President's establishment, both of which would be regarded as capital expenditure. I have pointed out that the President's salary is £5,000 and the allowance for entertainment is £6,500. I suppose if we want the luxury of having a Head of the State, we cannot do it for very much less than that.
With regard to the horses to which the Deputy referred, the horses produced by the National Stud are run in the name of the President. He has no further interest in them except that his name is being used. I do not know if he has better information about the horses than anybody else before they run.
Is there any possibility of getting an answer in regard to the point about the escort?
I must say I agree with the Deputy, but the difficulty arose when the Army decided not to keep cavalry any longer. The cavalry formed the escort and I do not know how this escort could be provided now that the cavalry has gone.
