I think the Taoiseach is departing from the line he took on the Committee Stage of this Bill where I found myself, surprisingly enough, in agreement with the Taoiseach. I understood the Taoiseach to say on that occasion: "You cannot provide against a situation of a running war between the director and the council." Such a situation has only one satisfactory way of resolving it, and that is that they should part company, because there must be mutual confidence. Just before the Taoiseach came in I was calling to mind circumstances which I believe the present Minister for Agriculture will confirm.
One of the reasons for the Managerial Act in local government was that the directors of institutions operated under the boards of health, with which I was familiar, were required to act under the direction of the boards of health and that resulted in the most absurd situations arising, with intolerably long agenda cluttered up with insignificant items, even to the absurd extent, I recollect, of an item seeking to authorise the reverend mother of the county home to buy a basin and ewer and, until a resolution was passed by the board of health, she could not buy it. Now, that was ridiculous enough, but it became an abuse when the agenda grew so long that month after month an item of that kind was never reached. To tell that tale here sounds almost idiotic, but the exasperation and the frustration that the director or controller of an institute or institution undergoes when he is told month after month by the secretary:
"Oh, they did not reach that; you will have to wait," is unbelievable.
I understood that sub-section (2) of Section 7 was concerned to give the director just that kind of discretion between meetings of the council, a discretion which would enable him to do the minor administrative work and take the minor administrative decisions appropriate for the effective implementation of the general direction of the council and I think the Government will create endless difficulties if they do not make that provision now. If I may say so, with respect, I fully appreciate that Deputy Vivion de Valera was trying to contribute to a helpful solution of the problem, but I think he allows his mind to get diverted by a queer kind of passion to realise in this connection the pure, austere theory of ultimate authority and sees ghosts walking in the possibility that there might be a clash between the council and the director as to where their scope of authority extends. I think the Taoiseach gave the right reply: "We cannot legislate against that and, if that kind of thing arises, then they ought to part and get a director and a council which will work together."
What troubles me about a thing like this is that, suppose these kind of difficulties arise, it is not the kind of thing in connection with which any Minister for Agriculture will want to come in here with a Bill to amend this Bill because this Bill is entangled with a series of agreements with the Government of the United States and understandings with a variety of other persons; and nobody will want to come in here with an amending Bill because it will be suggested that, having passed the principal Bill as the implementation of a more or less agreed scheme, they are now coming in here to do what lawyers call "heel-tapping" in trying to alter the basis of the original plan which reflected the agreement arrived at.
I do not think there is anything the Government can do at this stage because the House has passed the first amendment before I had the opportunity of discussing it. I put it to the Minister for Agriculture, to the Taoiseach and the Minister for External Affairs, who are all interested directly or indirectly in this measure according to their respective positions, that they should reconsider this. I am trying to make no capital out of this and I fully appreciate the difficulty of the drafting of this measure. I do most earnestly exhort the Government to look at this again and, if they share my anxiety, will they consider an amendment in the Seanad restoring this word "general"? I give an undertaking in anticipation that I will make no adverse comment upon it.
I have no reason to disguise that I spent a protracted time trying to make up my mind as to whether or not Section 7 should be in the Bill when I was in office. I finally decided it should not be. I had no great cause for complaint when the late Senator Moylan presented the Bill with Section 7 in it. I think the Government is making a really serious mistake in deleting this word "general" and I do earnestly press upon the Government to reconsider this matter before the Bill goes to the Seanad and, if necessary, amend it. If the Government does that, I will guarantee that every facility will be given here, when the Bill comes back, to expedite its enactment into law.
