I would like to ask is a new principle being imported in Section 14. There is a well-established principle that members of these boards shall not be members of the Oireachtas but we appear to be carrying that a step further when we say: "Where a member of the Board is nominated either as a candidate for election to either House of the Oireachtas or as a member of the Seanad Eireann"— I do not know what the meaning of that is; it seems to be tautology—"he shall thereupon cease to be a member of the Board." Is that not a new principle?
Committee on Finance. - Export Promotion Bill, 1959—Committee Stage.
Sections 1 to 13, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 14.
Question proposed: "That Section 14 stand part of the Bill".
It is a comparatively new principle. First of all, to answer the suggestion of tautology in the wording, as the Deputy knows, a person may be nominated a member of Seanad Éireann by the Taoiseach. I think that is the distinction there. With regard to the provision which Deputy Dillon has referred to as a new principle I think it arose first in connection with the E.S.B. Bill. We had a case in point in the House and it was decided then to follow the principle adumbrated in the E.S.B. Bill in new legislation setting up companies of this kind. This provision is consistent with that principle. That is all I have to say on it.
I am a little bit puzzled about this. I remember that before Deputy Maher got elected here, it seems that he inadvertently disqualified himself and ought not to have stood for election but the general impression I got was that we all determined to put the telescope to the blind eye. I believe he incurred appalling penalties and that everybody agreed that this was fantastic. Far from deciding to follow that I thought we decided, by our inaction in that case, that we thought that was an unreasonable provision and that a man ought to be allowed to try his hand and, if he failed to get elected, he could resume the even tenor of his way but that if he got elected he would have to resign. Is there any other Act of the Oireachtas in which this provision appears?
I am afraid I cannot say if there is any other Act but there is a distinction here between the members of the Board and staff. The same principle does not apply to the members of the Board as to members of the staff under Section 14 subsection (1), but it is felt that, by and large, it is better to keep active politicians, so to speak, off these public Boards. If a member of the Board feels he ought to enter politics, I think at that stage he is committed in politics as much as if he is, in fact, a member of the Oireachtas.
Coming from the Government benches this is indeed a new principle.
Surely this is a very dangerous principle. There is a good deal of ignorant tripe talked in this country and in certain other countries by people who really do not understand, or perhaps do not like, the functioning of Parliamentary democratic Government. In this type of tripe it is sought to attach to the name of politician a derogative sense. I am utterly refusing to subscribe to the supposition that because a man is prepared to spend his life in public service as a politician—which next to the priesthood I consider to be the highest vocation a free citizen can have—he has thereby disqualified himself from functioning on a public board. Infinitely, I prefer, and I trust much more readily, a man who has the moral courage to come out in public and declare himself to me as an honest supporter of Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party or Fine Gael than I am inclined to trust that modern pest, the hurler on the ditch who is prepared to spend his life telling everybody who is in the dust of the arena how things ought to be done but grows old in apprehension of soiling his own lily- white hands by undertaking the ardours of public service without reward.
I deprecate the suggestion that because a man offers himself as a candidate at an election he thereby disqualifies himself from functioning on a board of this kind. I do not think it is practicable for a man to serve on a board of this kind and serve in the Oireachtas at the same time but I do not think that we in this House should be made parties to the proposition that if people differ profoundly in politics it is impossible for them intelligently to collaborate in any sphere. I think that is all cod and those of us who have experience of politics know that it is not true. We know by our own experience that there are committees of which the public hear nothing sitting continually in this House doing public work on which all Parties in the Oireachtas are represented and they are collaborating quietly to get public business discharged.
I could sit on a Board of this kind with a member of the Fianna Fáil Party or the Labour Party and transact the business of this Board without eschewing my political convictions or expecting them to do the same. In practice it is unlikely that a member of one of these Boards would feel constrained to offer himself as a candidate at an election but I think it is wrong in principle that this House should say that to do so automatically disqualifies him from continuing to be a member of the board. I would ask the Minister to consider that question.
The Minister says that after the incident associated with the election of Deputy Maher to this House when it was suggested his association with the E.S.B. disqualified him from being a candidate, the view taken was that all subsequent legislation should follow legislation enshrined in the E.S.B. Act. I was a member of the Government for a considerable period after that incident transpired and I do not know of any case where we adopted that principle. Deputy Norton and Deputy Mulcahy were associated with me in the Government and I do not think there is fresh in their memory any decision in which we adopted that principle.
I am pretty certain I am right, because I am virtually certain I would have opposed the decision with all the vigour at my disposal, as I think it is bad in principle. I do not honestly think it will make very much practical difference, but I refuse to subscribe to this detestable doctrine that those who bear the heat and burden of the day in public life are in some way inferior to the contemptible minority of our community who are always ready to tell everybody else what they ought to do but who are never prepared to come down into the arena and undertake the work themselves. Therefore, I would ask the Minister to reconsider the matter.
I think the provision in the 1927 Act, which caught Deputy Maher offside so far as membership of this House is concerned, was an archaic provision and ought to have no place in legislation in the 20th century.
So far as even a candidate is concerned.
Yes. It would prevent him from being a candidate. I think that provision was a weird, out-of-date provision and ought never to have been passed through a democratic assembly. As a matter of fact, trying to remember what I can now of 1927, I think I opposed that at the time it was going through the House.
The new provision contained in the last E.S.B. Bill is a very substantial improvement in the situation which existed up to then. It is possible now for persons who are officers or servants of the Board to stand for election to either House of the Oireachtas and, if elected, then they are seconded to their public service in either House of the Oireachtas, but they are not required to lose their jobs in the body which employed them prior to their standing for election. They are seconded to the public service by reason of their membership of either House of the Oireachtas. If at a subsequent date they desire to go back to their employment with the authority concerned, they are free to do so, without being obliged to relinquish that employment, as they were prior to the last E.S.B. amending Bill. I think it is a good provision. It is not desirable, in a small State like this, especially, that we should automatically debar from either House of the Oireachtas those who are employed in State and semi-State organisations throughout the country.
I think the Minister ought to urge upon his colleagues that, where this situation is not taken care of in respect of other State bodies, a general and omnibus Bill should be introduced to extend to the employees of all State and semi-State undertakings the liberties which have been given in the recent E.S.B. Act and which are being given now to officers and servants of the Export Board. It is a reasonable provision. In fact, I see no reason why the same provision should not be extended to employees of the public service.
There may be need for putting some control over certain high ranks in the service, who are engaged in particular jobs, but I see no reason, as a general principle, why a person employed in the public service should not be allowed to stand for election to the Oireachtas and, if he is elected, to regard himself as seconded to another branch of the public service, namely, the Oireachtas. In that way, he could serve there as long as he enjoys the confidence of the electorate, with the right to go back to his former employer if ever his title deeds to sit as a member of either House are withdrawn by the electorate concerned. That is a good principle and a democratic principle. All the necessary safeguards and checks could be taken to require the person to leave the employment for the time being whilst he is serving in the Oireachtas. Generally speaking, it is a democratic development which has much to encourage it.
I travel as far as Deputy Dillon does, too, in the matter of members of the Board. Under this Bill, if a member of the Board is nominated for election, he is obliged to retire from membership of the Board before he knows whether or not he has been elected to the Oireachtas. Of course, if he is nominated by the Taoiseach he is a certainty and he will not have to worry about the election, as he can be taken as having passed the post. However, in the case of a person who allows himself to be nominated for election to the Dáil or Seanad, under this Bill he is required to retire before he knows the result of the election. I think we are excessively cautious. It would not be unreasonable to say to these people: "Well and good, you can stand for election to the Seanad or Dáil, but you must understand that you will have to relinquish your position as a member of the Board if you are elected." Until the person is elected, I certainly would give him a right to remain a member of the Board—on the understanding, of course, that the legislation is drawn in such a way that if elected he would be obliged, at least during his membership of either House, to stand down from the Board.
Again, I do not see why many prominent, capable, trustworthy and in some respects brilliant, people who serve the State on these boards are deprived, so long as they are giving that service, from ever entering the Oireachtas unless they resign from the Board. I do not think it is incompatible with membership of the Board that they should aspire to membership of the Oireachtas. Many of them may say: "I do not want to carry my enthusiasm for public life so far that I must resign from a State body until I know whether or not I am elected." We can easily have safeguards and checks to cover that point. If one allows a person to stand for election whilst retaining membership of the Board, one would expect him to be fairly prudent and circumspect as to the language which he would use and the kind of matters on which he would talk in the course of the election. There again, I see no difficulty in a prudent person standing for election for any Party he likes, so long as it is made clear to him that if elected he must resign from the Board during the currency of his membership of either House.
In any case, I want to say that this section is a decided advance on the previous position, that is, the position prior to the recent amendment of the E.S.B. Acts. This is a provision which should be extended. It certainly should be extended by the Minister to all the other boards under his control or for which he is responsible. The better method of dealing with the whole problem would be to introduce a blanket Bill which would cover all State and semi-State bodies, which would give employees of those bodies the facilities given now to E.S.B. employees and which, under this Bill, will be given to employees of the Export Board.
The previous provision was contained in the Electricity Supply (Amendment) Act of 1958. Section 9(1) of that Act is on all fours with Section 14(1) of this Bill. Therefore, the principle has been adopted in the House.
In an E.S.B. Bill.
The E.S.B. Bill, 1958. It is exactly the same Section. Section 9, subsection (1). I agree with the principle outlined by Deputy Dillon that because a person is actively engaged in politics, he should not be considered in any way inferior to those who are not so engaged. However, I should not like to go as far as Deputy Norton suggested in regard to permitting public employees to become members of the Oireachtas and to have them seconded, so to speak, for the period of their membership.
But the Minister is doing that under this Bill.
I am talking about civil servants.
It is done in all the free democracies of the world.
Under this Bill employees of the Board are entitled to become members of the Oireachtas.
In Belfast, civil servants can stand for election.
Insofar as the point in this subsection is concerned, may I say that I will have a look at it for the Report Stage?
Thank you.
As we are leaving the Report Stage aside, would the Minister leave it until next week? There is not that very vital urgency about it.
Possibly, this is the only point involved.
Considering the principle involved, we should like to have everybody satisfied.
Very well then.
We shall give the Minister his Bill before we rise anyway.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 15 to 17, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 18.
Question proposed: "That Section 18 stand part of the Bill."
I do not know whether this Board has within its scope of responsibility the possibility of any sort of trading transaction, but I want to direct the attention of the Minister to a practice growing up of casually appointing the Comptroller and Auditor General as the appropriate auditing authority for State and semi-State undertakings, some of which have trading functions. I want to suggest to the Minister he should look into this matter because I yield to no one in my admiration of the Department of the Comptroller and Auditor General, with which I worked closely as Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts. I recently retired from that position on conclusion of our labours of last year. However, I may resume at an early date.
I want to make it quite clear that I regard the Department of the Comptroller and Auditor General in every respect admirable for the purpose for which it was set up, but it is wholly unequipped to deal with commercial audits. I think there is a complete misapprehension growing up in this House through the archaic use of the word "auditor" in the title of the Comptroller and Auditor General. "Auditor" in the context of his title is quite a different thing from what is publicly understood to be an auditor, and the personnel of the Department of the Comptroller and Auditor General have no training in commercial accounts and no means of preparing them in a form to make them comprehensible to anybody who expects to find the ordinary kind of information normally to be found in commercial accounts certified by commercial auditors.
It may be that the Department of the Comptroller and Auditor General is the appropriate authority to deal with the accounts of a Board of this character if this Board is to have purely civil service functions to discharge. I invite the Minister to examine that question in respect of Section 18 and also to bear this in mind. Hereafter, if by Statute we propose to set up bodies which have trading functions, or if in any other circumstances we desire to avail of the services of an auditor to provide the Oireachtas with mercantile information in regard to accounts, would the Minister encourage his colleagues, and indeed the Oireachtas itself, to open their eyes to the fact that the Comptroller and Auditor General is not equipped to provide that service and that it is an illusion to believe that the word "auditor", in his constitutional title, can be interpreted in the ordinary mercantile meaning of that word?
I shall do as the Deputy suggests. As far as this section is concerned, I do not think his argument affects the situation because the new Board will have no trading or commercial functions and it would not be difficult in any way for the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General to examine the financial statement and present it to the Houses of the Oireachtas.
Perhaps this refers more directly to Section 16, but, on Section 18, could the Minister say if the £1,000,000 referred to in Section 16 indicates a fresh start as soon as this Bill comes into operation?
As I said, any sums of the current year's provision not expended will revert to the Exchequer, and they will start with a clean sheet on foot of the £1,000,000.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 19 to 24, inclusive, agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.
Report Stage ordered for Tuesday, 21st July, 1959.