As the Minister has said, when the two Civil Service Acts were going through the House in 1956, it was visualised then that there would be a separate Bill in respect of the staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas and, of course, that is the reason we have this Bill before us this evening.
The Bill deals with perhaps three or four matters that require special consideration. It deals with, first, the appointment of the Clerk and Assistant Clerk of the Dáil and Seanad respectively, and second, with the appointment of the Superintendent of the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Captain of the Guard of the Houses. Thirdly, is there adequate consideration given in the Bill to the fact that a great number of the staff must necessarily function both for the Seanad as well as for the Dáil? Finally, there are provisions made in Section 25 or Section 26 for certain superannuation arrangements.
The whole purpose of having a separate Bill for the Houses of the Oireachtas staff, and having a separate nomemclature for them in calling them civil servants of the State rather than civil servants of the Government, is intended to ensure and stress that it is right and proper that this House and the other House, the Seanad, should be the masters of their own business. Therefore, I find it difficult to see why the Minister has taken the line he has taken in Sections 4 and 5 in relation to the Clerks and Assistant Clerks.
One must, of course, discuss this Bill without giving any consideration to the personnel who fill either of these posts as Officers of the Houses, or to the position of Ceann Comhairle or Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann. As the Minister has stated, he has merely re-enacted in statutory form what was an existing practice but what was, in my submission, an unsatisfactory practice. I have read Section 4 as carefully as I could and it seems to me that as drafted there— I understand there is another view but I disagree with it—the Taoiseach is merely to be a rubber stamp to appoint someone on the joint recommendation of the Chairman of Dáil Éireann and the Minister for Finance. I think it is a very bad principle that we should provide in a statute a method by which two people are to make a recommendation and, when they make their recommendation, that the Taoiseach must make the appointment; and to provide no means in this section by which there can be any, so to speak, arbitration in the event of differences between the two people concerned.
I think we all know that this led to an entirely unsatisfactory position in the past. It led to a situation in which the then Chairman of the Dáil and the Minister for Finance were not able to see entirely eye to eye, and it caused a great deal of unnecessary difficulty because there was nobody in the position that then existed who could resolve that difficulty as between them. Indeed, the Taoiseach under existing practice had no power to make any appointment unless a joint recommendation came to him. My reading of this section is that that same existing practice is now being adhered to, and I think that is a bad practice.
Quite apart from that, I think that the person who should decide who will be the Clerk or the Assistant Clerk of this House should be the Chairman of Dáil Eireann and not a member of the Government. The position of the Clerk and Assistant Clerk to the Dáil is one of vital significance, not merely to the Government of the day but to the Opposition of the day, whatever Parties may be in opposition. If the Clerk and Assistant Clerk are not freely available and easily consultable, then the whole work of an Opposition can easily be frustrated.
It seems to me that what we should do in this Bill is to make Parliament supreme over itself, and in relation to these two officers in each House, that it should be the Chairman of that House who would have the right to make the appointment to the posts. I agree, of course, at once that it would be only right and proper that before making any such appointment, the Chairman should consult with the Taoiseach, not in his capacity as Head of the Government but in his capacity as the Leader of the House. I think that it would be desirable also that the Ceann Comhairle should consult with the leaders of the Parties who have been recognised and designated in the Act of 1937.
I cannot conceive a Chairman making an appointment when he has had that consultation, if the Taoiseach, on the one hand as Leader of the House, and the Leader of the Opposition Parties on the other hand, put it to him clearly that the appointment that he intended to make was not of a person who was persona grata with the ordinary body of Deputies in this House.
Bearing that in mind and bearing in mind that it seems to me to be essential that Parliament should be supreme over its own working, I think that the method I have suggested would be far more satisfactory than the method in Section 4 and would, in addition, get over the difficulty of a clash between the Chairman of the Dáil and the Minister for Finance. If the Minister for Finance, as head of the Civil Service, wished in those circumstances also to be brought into consultation, as well as the Taoiseach, as the Leader of the House, I should not have the slightest objection, but I think that the principle must be established and should be kept that Parliament is supreme over its own workings and that it should be acknowledged and accepted that the appointment of the Clerks and the Assistant Clerk of each House are factors vital to the working of the respective Houses.
The same thing, of course, applies to Section 5 in relation to the appointment of Clerk and Assistant Clerk of the Seanad. There, I admit, you have not got the same definition as you have in the Statute of 1937, but the fact is everybody knows there is a Leader of the House in the Seanad and a Leader of the Opposition in the Seanad and it is quite simple to provide a method by which the Chairman of Seanad Éireann can consult with such persons as he deems to be for the time being the Leaders of the Government side of the House and of the Opposition side.
The Bill also deals with the appointment of staff to serve not merely the Dáil but also the Seanad. I think there should be more provision for consultation between the Chairman of Dáil Éireann and the Chairman of Seanad Éireann in relation to this joint staff. For example, that consultation could easily be introduced in the first line of Section 7—we can discuss this in detail on the Committee Stage—by providing that the Chairman of Dáil Éireann must consult with the Chairman of Seanad Éireann before appointing persons to be members of the joint staff. Some people take the view that consultation does not affect matters very much, but even though the Chairman of Dáil Éireann is entitled, after consultation, completely to disregard the wishes of the Chairman of Seanad Éireann, nevertheless, I think we must assume and work on the assumption that the Chairmen of each House will be reasonable people and that if there is that consultation, there will be an opportunity there for ironing out many difficulties and averting an impasse that might otherwise arise.
Of course, it would be unreasonable and unreal to have the staff segregated as between the Dáil and Seanad. The Seanad does not meet so often and there could be occasions on which reporters and members of the translation staff and so on could, and should be switched from one House to the other. I am not clear about this and I should like the Minister to clarify it: suppose a member of the joint staff is sent up to the Seanad to work there for a day, a week or a month, or for any period, is that member of the joint staff during that period under the control of the officers of Seanad Éireann or, although working in the Seanad, does he still remain under the control of the Dáil? It seems to me that it is essential that when he is allocated, so to speak, like that, he should be under the control of the Seanad rather than under the control—remote control in such circumstances—of the Chairman of the Dáil or the Clerk of the Dáil as being the equivalent, perhaps, of the Secretary of a Department.
I should like to make a suggestion to the Minister in relation to Section 6. I shall deal with it later in relation to the section. I understand that both the Superintendent of the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Captain of the Guard are due to retire more or less contemporaneously at a fairly early date. I wonder is there any real need for both posts? If both officers are retiring more or less contemporaneously at an early date, I think the posts could be amalgamated. What we want is one officer of that sort and perhaps a head usher. It would be a more satisfactory method of working and would get over one of the difficulties that has always existed in that there has been no avenue of promotion for ushers themselves. It should appeal to the Minister in that there would be some saving by such amalgamation and by the abolition of one of the offices.
In relation to Sections 25 and 26 dealing with superannuation, may I say that, in Section 26 particularly, additional superannuation terms are given to two officers therein named. I understand from the Minister—I acknowledge his courtesy in giving me the information for which I had asked—that in the case of the Captain of the Guard, the sole effect of this section is to give him the service for pension purposes he already had in the Garda Siochana before his retirement from that force, except perhaps for some little rounding-up to even the figure and that, in fact, there is virtually no added period if his previous service is taken into account in the amounts that are included in the section.
I understand that in the case of the Superintendent, the position is that additional pension concessions given to him are the equivalent of adding six years to his service. I raise no objection to either of these additions and so the Minister will not misunderstand me when I say there is a basis upon which I could raise such an objection. I want to be quite categorical in saying that whatever terms are being given in this way to those two officers should also be given to anybody else in this House who is in the same position. I understand there are other members of the joint staff in the building who will be retiring shortly on reaching the age limit and who will not, on their retirement, be qualified by reason of the shortness of their years of service, for their full pensions. Part of that, I understand, arises in the case of some people because, although they have been here since 1922 working in the service of this House, their services since that time are not counted for pension purposes.
Having regard to the vital necessity I have already stressed of keeping the Houses of Parliament supreme in their own right, I think that regardless of whatever steps may be taken in relation to other parts of the Civil Service, in respect of these officers of State there is a compelling case to be made that they are entitled to receive credit for pension purposes for all their service since the House was established.
I do not know how many members of the staff are involved but I think there is an obligation on us when we are enacting Section 26 for two particular officers, to ensure, at the same time, that the legislation we are enacting covers anyone else who might be in the same position and who would not be able to receive the full pension to which he would normally be entitled for his years of service without special legislation.
I appreciate, of course, that there might be certain members of the Translation or Reporting staffs who might have come in at a very late point above the ordinary age for entering the Civil Service. I can appreciate that there might be a case because, after all, the principle behind the addition of six years' service for the Superintendent is the principle that because he came into the service of the House in late years, he did not qualify for the full number of pension years and that is why they are being added.
I think these cases will have to be examined with great care. The House should be satisfied. I am quite certain the Minister will meet us on the point that if there are, and I understand there are, other people here who will have to retire at 65 without getting their full pension, they should be included in the arrangements which are made specially for two officers under Section 26.