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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 19 Jun 1962

Vol. 196 No. 3

Courts (Supplemental Provisions) (Amendment) Bill, 1962—Committee Stage (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following amendment:
In lines 12 and 13, to delete "following subsections for subsections (1), (2) and (3)" and substitute "provisions below in respect of the remuneration of certain judges and justices for the corresponding provisions in the section".—(Deputy McGilligan).

There was agreement that the amendments Nos. 3 to 14 would be discussed with No. 3. Deputy McGilligan discussed a great deal of the matter on amendment No. 2. Most of the discussion has taken place on amendment No. 2 and I draw attention to this so that Deputies may not fall into the habit of repetition.

Sir, I should like to be very clear on this. I understood the amendment under discussion, and this is borne out by the Official Report, was related very closely to the question of retrospective payment as from 1st November last.

There was one amendment related to retrospective payment alone. That was amendment No. 2. Deputy McGilligan made the point on that amendment that he could not speak on retrospection without linking it up with some sum of money. I saw there was some force in that, and I agreed. Consequently, there was a good deal of "amounts involved" discussed in connection with amendment No. 2. Therefore practically all the case, pro and con increases for the judges, was discussed on amendment No. 2.

I was present during the entire discussion and, on a number of occasions, you referred Deputies to the point—you did it also before the discussion commenced—that the discussion of the general increases would not be taken under that amendment.

That is so. I endeavoured to confine Deputies to retrospection, but I am sorry to say I did not succeed.

They rambled over the whole field of increases for judges. They discussed the whole matter, pro and con increases for judges, on amendment No. 2. I am endeavouring now to limit the discussion so that we will not have useless and needless repetition. That is all I am endeavouring to do.

What amendment are we discussing now?

Amendment No. 3.

And amendments Nos. 3 to 14 are being taken together.

May I take it we are entitled to discuss the increases, but not retrospection, under amendment No. 3?

The only point I would make on that is that most of the case for and against the increases has been made on amendment No. 2, which overflowed from retrospection on to the validity of the increases.

If that were so, Sir, I do not think we would be finished with amendment No. 2 at all because——

Amendment No. 2 was decided by a vote.

I agree, but I personally confined myself to discussing retrospective payment vis-á-vis various Government Departments and with particular reference to making a comparison with the judiciary. I did not at any time discuss the general increases to the judiciary. However, if amendments Nos. 3 to 14 are open for discussion now, I should like to suggest that, having, the last day, dealt with the question of retrospective payment——

Retrospective payment.

I should like to support what Deputy McQuillan says. I was present and I understood the Chair wished us to restrict ourselves to discussion in relation to retrospection. There were many points in relation to the increases in general to the judiciary to which I did not refer at all in the discussion because I felt bound to keep the discussion to retrospection as far as our amendment was concerned.

I have no desire to curb Deputies unduly. I am merely pointing out that there was an agreement that the case for and against the increases to the judges would be made, it was said at first, on amendment No. 3, which included amendments Nos. 4 to 14. Deputy McGilligan then moved amendment No. 2 in relation to retrospection. He said he could not discuss that in itself, that there should be some sum of money attached to which he could refer. Retrospection was not a matter with which he could deal adequately. I saw there was some force in his argument and the debate then overflowed from retrospection on to the validity of the increases and the case was made, therefore, pro and con increases to judges on amendment No. 2. If the Deputy wishes to discuss it, I am not going to prevent him.

The only point about that is that Deputy McGilligan was in possession the last day when amendment No. 3 was discussed and he did bring in quite a considerable amount of detail in regard to the question of general increases on the amendments which we are discussing today. He moved to report progress on amendments Nos. 3 to 14.

The Chair assumes that Deputies do not want repetition.

Hear, hear.

I cannot be accused of repetition since I dealt solely on the second amendment with retrospection.

The Chair is anxious to help Deputies not to indulge in repetition. The Chair may be optimistic, of course, but I prefer to be optimistic at any time.

But not successfully.

As far as I am personally concerned, I did not even touch on the question of the general all-round increases. One of the things that has emerged so far in the course of the discussion on the amendment that has already been decided, and which follows from that into the actual question of the increases, is the fact that the Minister has disclosed that the purpose of the increases is to establish a certain social status.

I do not want to interrupt the Deputy again. We are now discussing amendments Nos. 3 to 15. Is that right?

Three to 14.

Three to 15, as a matter of fact.

All right.

No. 15 is included as well.

The Minister in the course of his opening statement sought to suggest that, because of the eighth round increase to other Departments of State, it followed that an increase should be granted to the judiciary. That was a new approach as far as the Department of Justice was concerned because up to 1959, the view had been taken by the Minister for Justice—I do not say by the present Minister, but certainly by the former Minister and, indeed, by the present Taoiseach also—that increases in the salaries and allowances paid to the judiciary should not be based on the cost of living and judges' salaries should not be subject to increases on the same lines or terms as those operating in regard to other sections of the community. The proof of my contention lies in the fact that since 1924 only a limited number of increases in salaries were granted to the judiciary. There was a space of from seven to ten years between the various increases which were granted. That clearly established the fact that the salaries of the judiciary were not to be tied in with any demand for an increase because of an increase in the cost of living. Whatever changes took place in the salary structure of the judiciary, those changes were meant to last for a considerable period of years.

We find now that the Minister has thrown that decision overboard. For the first time since the formation of this State, the Minister is prepared to have the judges' case for increases in salaries put forward on the same basis as the case made by the trade unions and by civil servants that an increase should be granted because of an increase in the cost of living. At the same time, the Minister is on record as suggesting that the increases given to the civil servants were not attributable to any increase in the cost of living.

To the higher civil servants.

To the higher civil servants. The increases to the higher civil servants, according to the Minister, were given solely on the basis of keeping up their status. Let us examine what that means, as far as the judiciary are concerned. As between 1st January, 1959, and to-day judges are being given increases ranging from £1,100 down to £600 per year on their already substantial salaries. Yet, we are told by the Minister that the main reason for what I describe as this fentastic increase in salaries is the status of the judiciary. I find it very hard to understand that argument and I am quite sure that the general public—they have not as much time as we have to give consideration to these matters—will find it much harder to understand why it is essential, in order that justice may be done, to give over £1,100 a year increase in salary to a man on the basis that his status will be hurt if he does not get that increase.

There was no suggestion here by this Minister that any member of the judiciary was feeling the pinch with regard to his living costs. There was no suggestion here that any member of the judiciary felt that the price of cigarettes, tobacco or clothes was excessive. There was no suggestion that the cost of the education of his family was a burden as a result of the increase in the cost of living. There was no suggestion by the Minister that consideration should be taken of the fact that first-class pension rights are attached to appointment to the judiciary, when he suggested that their status in the public eye would be lowered if they did not get this increase.

Have we come to the stage now that respect for an individual in the community, respect for his standing, for his character, for his wisdom, for his dignity, depends on what salary or emoluments he receives? Is that not a very low way in which to judge the dignity of a human being, to judge his influence or his incorruptibility purely on the basis of his income or his salary —because that is the basis on which £1,100 a year is being sought by this Minister in order to safeguard the dignity and the status of the judiciary?

To pursue that question to its non-sensical conclusion let us consider, for example, a certain gentleman who escaped from this country recently and who is, we understand, now sunning himself in Spain. I do not know, but my belief is that his status would be a very high one in the Minister's eyes if that person were judged on an income or salary basis. That is no proper yardstick on which to judge the judiciary.

The Minister has put a case here that you must pay the members of the judiciary very well: otherwise you will not get the best men. That suggestion has been trotted out here on a number of occassions. The Minister himself was asked here if he had met with any trouble or if the Government had met with much trouble when they looked around to select a man for appointment to the Bench. The Minister was not able to tell us that they had a dearth of applicants. The Minister told us that one man, in the income bracket of around £10,000 a year, declined to accept a judgeship. But we have no indication from the Minister that the reason he declined was that the salary or emoluments were not big enough.

Many a man might decline the honour of sitting on the Bench for various reasons: it might not be the income or the salary which would make the decision for him. We know perfectly well that there is no foundation at all for the Minister's argument. There is nothing factual in it when he suggests that there is a danger that we shall not get the best men unless we pay them these fantastic salaries. There is no foundation for that statement, first and foremost, because the system of appointment to the Bench does not ensure that the very best men get on it. Therefore, the Minister's argument falls to the ground. The method of appointment, as we all know, is purely a question of politics: it is not a question of the best man being appointed, the men who are appointed being the best friends of the Party that is in power at the time.

I do not suggest that bad appointments have been made. I do not suggest that at all. However, I do suggest that the method of appointment does not guarantee that the best possible men are appointed, irrespective of their politics. Therefore, there is no use in the Minister making a case to the House that money is the yardstick to be used and that unless we pay these very high salaries we shall not get the best men. We have no guarantee under the present system that we shall get them. The way to guarantee that we shall get the best men is a subject matter for separate legislation which I do not propose to discuss now: it is not a matter for discussion on this Bill.

Outside the incomes of leading members of the Bar, although a top class man in his profession might be getting from £7,000 to £10,000 a year as a Senior Counsel, is it suggested that a judge—a High Court judge or any of those men who are in the £4,000 a year category—is worse off with that salary and a good pension than the man who is getting, through his personal activities at the Bar, a salary or emolument to the tune of £10,000? Is it not a fact that, apart altogether from his salary, a judge or a member of the judiciary has other little aids? Is it not a fact that these can amount to over £1,000 a year or up to £1,500 a year on subsistence, travelling allowances, and so on?

Is it not a fact that the members of the judiciary cost a good deal more than their salaries alone? They have their batman. There is no end to the expenditure involved on escorts to greet them at every court when they go down the country. All that expense is not taken into consideration. It could, of course, all be regarded as part of a status symbol. If the Minister is worried about a status symbol, he has it there. Furthermore, there is the fact that in many parts of the country today we have the spectacle, when the High Courts are sitting, of from ten to sixteen Gardaí ranged up outside a courthouse at 11 o'clock in the day to greet His Worship when he arrives. These Gardaí must then hang around the town all day long until 5 p.m. to wish His Worship goodbye when he comes off his seat on the Bench. There is the status for you. There is the type of performance we have in the country.

In my view, the Minister will have to think up a better case than he has made so far to justify these outrageous proposals which he has brought before the House. Let us consider the pensions scheme alone. Deputy McGilligan has referred in detail to it and I do not propose to comment except briefly on it. Consider a man with a salary of £4,000 or £4,500, plus £1,000 a year on subsistence and travelling and the other perquisites that go with his appointment to the Bench and who has in addition to all that a substantial pension—possibly over £2,000 or £2,500 a year—when he retires. Has that man not security? Has he not a first class salary and a first class pension? Surely it is not suggested by the Minister at this stage that his status in society will suffer because the House refuses to give him another £1,100 a year?

Personally, I should like to hear the Minister again on this matter. I know now, at this stage, that there is a certain justification for giving consideration to the district justices. I think it is agreed by everybody in this House that they are the hardest worked section of the judiciary. I may not agree personally with all the pontificating that goes on by some district justices from time to time but, apart from that, we must admit that the burden of the heavy work in the court falls on the district justice. He must be an all-round man. He must be a humane man. He must be a man of understanding and he must have a knowledge of the law as well. The sitting hours of a district justice are much more onerous than those of judges of higher courts. On that basis alone, there is a case to be made for the district justices. At the moment, I shall not go any farther in that regard than to say to the Minister that the district justices should be considered separately and apart from Supreme Court judges, High Court judges and so on.

The Minister should give an account to the House now of the number of days sitting in the year that members of the judiciary spend in the course of their duties. It is very desirable that the House and the public should know how many days of the year a judge of the High Court has to work and how many hours of the day he has to work. The Minister should be in a position to justify the fact that these gentlemen are to get increases ranging from £1,100 a year down to £600.

I think a mountain is being made out of a molehill. As I see it, all this discussion is about £3,000 or £4,000. After income tax and surtax is taken out of it, the total amount would be only £3,000 or £4,000. To make so much out of the fact that a few individuals who have to administer justice are to get a few thousand pounds is going too far. Most of this discussion is being carried on because this is a good political card to play and the aim of most politicians is to get people excited over things like this. I am afraid that is the object of these objections. A few thousand pounds only are involved and we are paying it to a handful of people.

It has been said that these people ought to be well paid because they are subject to the ordinary temptations of life. Other people think that that should not have been an issue. Those men are human beings like the rest of us. They have certain responsibilities and a certain position to uphold and that is their job. They should be beyond temptation and that is the reason why we should pay them well. Anybody who reads the newspapers today will see that a judge in New York was sentenced to two years imprisonment for taking a bribe. Some time ago an American judge, Manton, also got two years. Lord Birkenhead, who was Lord Chief Justice of England, was always drunk.

Judges are ordinary human beings and we must pay them well. They have the ordinary expenses to meet. They probably have some staff, a chauffeur and servants and they will have to pay their staff extra, too. The members of their staffs will be looking for their share of the eighth round as well as everyone else. Judges are not able to live as other people live. If all the HEOs in the Civil Service go into a public house, nobody knows them and they can drink their glass of stout like anybody else. If a judge went into a pub, he might be known and might get a smack in the ear from somebody to whom he had given two years. These people have to live apart from everyone else and they have to pay for special service and that costs them a pretty penny.

All this talk about the salaries of the judges is just a cheap political card and I do not agree with it. Deputy McGilligan said that only one judge has ever been dismissed and he was only a district justice, but Deputy McGilligan is aware that solicitors have been dismissed and charged in court. These were legal men but they were subject to temptation like everyone else. It may be said that senior counsel have never been charged in court but senior counsel do not handle clients' money. If senior counsel handled clients' money as solicitors do, a good many of them might find themselves in Mountjoy, which proves that senior counsel are as human as solicitors. The only difference is that they are not subject to the same temptation.

People say that money does not count. It does count. A judge's wife might drink or gamble or his children might do so and then the judge might be subject to blackmail. I think our handful of judges should get more than they are getting. It is disgraceful to make any comparison between them and other men or to compare them with old age pensioners. It is cheap Party propaganda and a political card that is being played.

There has been a tendency in this kind of debate to create the impression that to do anything for a political reason is amoral or undesirable. We have listened to this kind of thing for years outside this House and it is one of the things that have marked the emergence of our democracy. One of the great sneers about the members of this House is that there is something wrong about politics or politicians. That stemmed from our early days when we were governed by an aristocratic minority and they resented the development of the democratic idea. They did not want us to set up our own Parliament and to deal with our own problems. They resented the fact that we should do it ourselves and so they sought to attach something disgraceful to politics and politicians.

I am a politician and I am very proud of the fact. Politics is simply the art of government. What we are doing here is putting forward ideas which we think are good ideas for the art of Government. There is nothing wrong with that I can see. There is nothing in it of which we should be ashamed. We should lead a crusade against this denigration. We believe in democracy. Admittedly, it is a very cumbersome machine but it has got some values. Certainly, I cannot see it being superseded by anything more valuable.

We say it is wrong that somebody should get £6,000 a year while on the other hand other people should be offered little more than 30/- a week out of which to pay their rent, try to clothe themselves, feed themselves and quite often pay for semi-necessaries, cigarettes, tobacco or buy an occasional pint or whatever it might be that they would want, in addition to any little entertainment to which they have a right. We think it is wrong for society to give a man over 60 years of age £6,000 a year while it gives others 30/- a week. Neither Deputy Sherwin nor the Minister thinks it is wrong. We continue to repeat that we think it is wrong. It is the sign of a sick society. It certainly is a sign of very decadent values to allow somebody to have more money than he can possibly use. He can sleep in only one bed and eat only three meals a day.

What society should we go by in this matter?

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

I was asking Deputy Dr. Browne what society should we use as a model in this regard.

The Incorporated Law Society.

I am concerned with a young society which would establish standards and values.

Could the Deputy not recommend somebody we could copy?

No. I am not conversant with all the societies in the world to be able to decide or declare what I consider to be a list of priorities. I know a lot about my own country and I know, I think, a fair amount about how our ordinary people live. The point I am making is this: it is perfectly reasonable for a group of politicians to point out the great discrepancy that exists between the highest economic levels in society and the lowest levels and how they are being made to live. It is perfectly fair to go along to somebody who has a family of four, five, six or seven children and say to him: "In our society it would be possible for you, if you had more money, to pay for a better education for your children."

In fact, there is a wealthy minority in our society who, because they have money, can send their children to secondary schools and universities. In that way they can prepare them to take over at the top. There are no rungs in any ladder for these people. They go into a soft, privileged society where, because of their position in that society, they will create their own families in their own image. Privilege will be perpetuated in that way.

It is perfectly reasonable to go along to those people and say: "We think this is wrong. We think society should not be organised in that way. We think there should not be this privilege." We think that every child born into any house has exactly the same rights as any other child if he has the educational and intellectual ability to benefit from higher education. We think it is perfectly legitimate to make an effort to abolish the great discrepancy which exists between the ways in which the two sections of our community are treated.

Equally, because there is a minority who have access to first class health services, first class hospitals, private hospitals, nursing homes, consultants and so forth, it would be wrong for anybody to say that we are merely making politics out of health when we say that the masses of the people should not have to shiver in dispensaries or wait in outpatients' departments in ordinary hospitals but should have access to better conditions. They have the same right to get treated early and get cared for early in the most efficient possible way.

I am not the Minister for Health.

I am trying to explain the weakness in the Minister's stand and the weakness in Deputy Sherwin's arguments.

The amendment deals with the question of the salaries for judges. The whole general structure of society cannot be debated.

I do not propose to discuss the whole structure of society. I am trying to point out to the House that it is perfectly legitimate to come in here and say we believe a particular thing because we hold a particular point of view. The Minister and the other Deputies have a contrary point of view. So far, they have made no attempt to justify seriously the continuation of this great discrepancy which exists and the increasing discrepancy which is proposed in the Bill. That is probably what we resent more than anything else. We and the Labour Party were accused of playing politics in this matter. The Minister also pointed out that he did not think £6,000 a year was an excessively high salary. He said we should not have the type of argument that £6,000 was an outrageous salary. I suppose that could be said to be true. It depends on where one is and on the value of money. In the wealthy American republic, even in Britain or some other European country where the judiciary have tremendous responsibilities, where the populations are very great and where complicated legal problems arise out of federal or other governmental systems, it is conceivable that £6,000 would be positively a modest salary——

Is not a man's life a tremendous responsibility?

Yes. What I am saying is that in those circumstances, there could be a case for a big salary. I think the Minister will not resent my saying this; there is a precedent for it. I will not go so far as to say that £1,000 is too much for any man, but I do say that £6,000 is too much for any man. Possibly I am wrong in that, but if so, I am in good company. I think £6,000 is wrong here, whatever about other countries, when it is taken in conjunction with the structure of payments made to others. I have no time for the status division and the absurd argument that the Minister made in that regard. I think the only use for money is to buy essentials and to give a reasonable degree of comfortable living. A certain amount of money will suffice for that and more than that would seem to be unnecessary.

In a society like that of the United States, where the cost of living is remarkably high and where salaries are very high generally, high salaries for the judiciary are understandable. Here, the position is that you are paying £6,000 a year to somebody at one end of the scale and 32/6 a week to somebody at the other. We were asked by the Minister not to make the argument that £6,000 a year was an outrageously high salary, that really it was only a small amount, but there was an extraordinary lack of open-handedness on the part of the Government in dealing with the ESB employees when they sought increases, not as status increases, or because they thought it would make them two inches taller, but because they wanted, perhaps, to give their children better shoes sooner than they could otherwise get them; because they wanted to give them better clothes or feed them better or because they wanted the child to continue going to vocational school instead of going to work after the age of 14. They might have needed money to look after their old folk better.

These are all vital and essential matters, not the needs of people in the £5,000 income bracket who want more money to go to Monte Carlo, or to go more frequently to the Park, or to Leopardstown. These are not status needs. One of the needs put forward was, I think, the visit to the cinema with the wife once a fortnight. But these people were not told: "This is nothing ; it is only £1,000 or £1,500 a year"—I do not think the amount involved was anything like that. They were not told by the Minister and his colleagues: "Do not let us fall for the type of argument that this is too big an increase." They were told you will get five years in jail if you persist in this demand. There was no easy-going throwing-away of money in that case; the Government could not afford it; the whole economy would suffer. The country was to be turned into a glorified concentration camp because these people had the temerity to say: "We want to feed, clothe or educate our children better." They were told to go back to work or they would go to jail for five years.

That seems to me to represent the two-tiered evaluation which goes on in the Ministerial mind. When the British were here we used to resent that. We were a dependent people and we resented the fact that the aristocracy lived in great luxury and the remain- der of the people in poverty and hunger. We resent it even now when it is our own people who are trying to perpetuate that two-tiered society.

The Government did not have the flaithiúil approach in the case of the ESB nor in the case of the Gardaí that they had in regard to the judges. I do not think any body is more comparable with the judiciary than the Gardaá because, as they have discovered in many states of the United States, if the police become corrupt it does not much matter what the judiciary are, whether they are honest or otherwise. No matter who is on the Bench it will not matter because the cases will not get that far. Yet when the Gardaí came along with relatively reasonable demands they were told "There is nothing in this——"

They got what they asked for.

We shall see how the Minister treats their demands.

It is conciliation and arbitration machinery.

Let us see what happens. There is a precedent for not accepting the awards of conciliation and arbitration. We shall see how the Minister treats them. Remember half-a-dozen of them were sacked.

They have conciliation and arbitration.

Then let us see how the Minister will treat them——

I have nothing whatever to do with it.

Then you will accept their recommendation?

Of course I will.

I am glad to hear it. That is the most important news——

And we accepted it at conciliation level last time without going to arbitration.

There are precedents for not accepting.

Do not talk nonsense.

It would not be the first time the Minister did not adhere to precedents. At the same time, these people had to make their protest and their fight but with the people here concerned it is completely different. We want to know what is the case for these people getting this fantastic salary and this unnecessary increase and we are given many arguments. Originally we were told they were not like the rest of men, that we must treat them separately from the remainder of the community; that they must get this lump sum increase, that the poor fellows were pulling the devil by the tail and that they were just getting in before the door closed on the eighth round of salary and wage increases.

They have jam on both sides. They have the independent award and they have the award related to the cost of living. Yet we find when any other section want an award made in relation to the cost of living, they have to make the case for it at conciliation or arbitration level. They have to go to the Labour Court. They have to prepare a most detailed statement of claim and justify their claim. Very often in industry, the result is strike action and eventually they get their increase. However, the whole thing is open and above board. They make a justification for any increase. CIE workers, local authority workers, civil servants have all come and made their case. These people are not asked to do that. The Minister resents the fact that we resent that fact, that we do not understand this attitude of mind which separates the population into a handful of lambs and a majority of sheep.

We do not see why these people should be treated in this privileged manner. We do not know what they have done to deserve it. In a republican and democratic society, everybody makes his contribution towards the continuation of the machinery of government. Society could no more do without the plumber, the carpenter, the bus conductor, the doctor or the architect than it could do without the judges. We do not think they are special people. They are certainly not people who should be looked up to. They do a job of work. The job which the Garda does at one end of the legal process, they do at the other end but there is very little difference between them. They all have the same human needs. They all want the same comforts. It should be our job to see that everybody gets them in moderation and not have one section deprived of them and another getting an excess of them. It is this schizoid approach to the assessment of the human needs in our society that we find incomprehensible.

The Minister deserted then the eighth round increase and eventually, after a certain amount of pressure, deserted the status symbol which was the most unbelievable argument of all. Imagine the type of trade union leader who would go to the Labour Court and say: " We want an increase in wages. We have no great need for it because we have a lot of money as it is. We are fairly well off. We are able to pay our way. None of us is hungry. We can pay our food bills, our clothes bills, our education bills. However, we should like this as a sort of status symbol." Do you think the Labour Court would listen to that kind of rubbish from any responsible trade union leader?

Does the Deputy know what happened on the eighth round?

This is the argument put up by the Minister.

I never did. I never mentioned trade union leaders going to the Labour Court.

Here is the record where the Minister says this is largely a status symbol increase, at column 779, Vol. 194, of the Official Report of 28th March, 1962.

I was talking about the income tax.

That is in the Official Report.

Do not deliberately misrepresent me.

The Deputy is a very new Deputy in this House and he must come to understand this is a Committee Stage of a Bill in which he does not have to make a running commentary on the other speakers' speeches. He has a right to make a speech himself when his turn comes and he can say what he likes.

The Deputy has made four already and he has repeated himself every time.

The Minister will get his chance. There is plenty of time. Apparently we shall be sitting four days a week soon.

The Deputy gives us a lecture on Christianity every time he stands up to speak.

It is about time the Minister caught up with it.

The Deputy seems to have difficulty proving he is not a Communist at other times.

If the Minister has anything to say, he ought to say it so that we can hear it.

I object to being misrepresented.

He will eat that as we made him eat so many of his arguments here. He went off the status symbol.

The Deputy is very tough. He is an intellectual wonder.

The Minister left the status symbol and said we should give them this lump sum which they must have because they are not like the rest of us. "Let us forget this fact that they have not made the case. Let us give them all these things. We want fair play for this downtrodden handful of unfortunate people who are just bearing up in the face of grave difficulties." My simple answer is: give fair play as long as it is fair play all round. We should like to see the Minister championing the cause of some of the other sections in our society. We should like to see them get fair play, for whom a much better case can be made than can be made by the Minister for his handful——

The last time the Deputy spoke, he said fair play was all nonsense.

When the Minister talked of the increase here, he said it is wrong to talk about this increase——

I did not say that.

(Interruptions.)

What the Minister said amounted to this: This is only a status symbol. In fact, most of the money goes back to the Exchequer anyway, that they make about £290 on their £5,000. The Minister seems to miss a very important point. When one is assessing the difficulties people face in a society such as ours, one must take into account that we have changed our whole fiscal system. It is a complete reversal of the old situation where the more you earned, the more you had to pay to the community in order to help the less well-off sections of the community. That system has been upended. Our system of priorities is such that the old age pension is at the top of the list for impositions of one kind or another. The unemployed person with a family, the unemployed single person, and then the whole way down the list; the lower the income you have, the heavier the burden you carry and, as you know, to the bottom of the list we put the judiciary.

The people who have the least penalties imposed on them are the judiciary and the wealthy business man. We have switched round the whole taxation system so that the more you get in income, the less you pay in income tax. The result is that you have to get your revenue by means of indirect taxation. We give a small increase of half-a-crown with one hand to the old age pensioner and we take it back with the other hand by increasing indirect taxes of one kind or another—postage, transport, telephone calls, beer, stout, tobacco, cigarettes, bread, butter, tea, sugar, and so on. All these indirect taxes bear most heavily on the old age pensioner, on the widow and her children, on the man with the large family. The larger the family, the bigger the burden.

This is a political view we hold unashamedly. We think it is wrong to do that. We think it is contrary to true social justice. We think the people who should pay the most are the people who have the most from which to pay. The Minister disagrees with us; Deputy Sherwin disagrees with us. They think the people who should be made to pay most are the people in the lower income groups. They must pay because they have got to pay every time they buy a loaf, smoke a cigarette, drink a pint, buy an ounce of tobacco, take a bus, post a letter, make a telephone call. The question of the increases given to the salary and wage earning classes is much more important to them than the increases paid to the judiciary.

I do not suppose a Supreme Court judge would know the price of a loaf of bread, or the bus fare from Grafton Street to the Pillar. He probably has not been in a bus for the past 15 or 20 years. Somebody franks his letters for him. Someone else makes his telephone calls for him. These people are out of touch with the things that have the greatest impact on the average person in our society. The Minister gives the net increase as £250, or so, but the judge in fact gets away very much more easily than the unfortunate person who gets a halfcrown increase on 30/-. So far, the Minister has not made any case at all for this. I think the amendment should be accepted.

I do not know whether it is the Opposition or the Minister who is making this problem appear to be so complicated. The attitude of the members of the Labour Party is clearly displayed in the amendments they have put down. They have asked that certain of these proposed increases be deleted. I should like to support Deputy Dr. Browne in what he says about the accusations that are so frequently made, especially on this measure, that anything we say is merely for the purpose of making political capital. That is a matter of opinion, but I do not think any one of us is immune from doing that when we get up to speak. It is all according to what one's interpretation of political capital is. Deputy Sherwin, in the latter part of his speech, said something to that effect.

It is a fact.

I am not denying it is a fact. Deputy Sherwin recently said his justification for voting for this Bill was the expectation, or hope, that the old age pensioners would get a substantial increase. On the other hand, we are told we should not mention old age pensioners at all in an argument of this kind. It is just not playing cricket; it is not fair to talk about old age pensioners in the same breath as people in the £6,000 per year class.

The Minister has not yet made a convincing argument as to why this substantial increase should be given. Frankly, we believe the salaries are too high. That is as simply as I can put it. As they stand, I believe they are sufficient for men with the responsibilities described here by the Minister, and by other members of the House also. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, the Minister has changed feet on several occasions in this debate in relation to the reasons he put forward in justification for these increases. The case cannot be based on cost of living. There is no doubt in the world about that because the cost-of-living index figure would not warrant anything like the increase proposed here.

The last increase these gentlemen got was in 1959. Since then, the cost of living has increased by something like four points. It has increased by 2.72 per cent. Yet, in this piece of legislation, the increases proposed range from 12½ per cent. at the top to 17 per cent. at the lower end. It is difficult to know, therefore, what the attitude of Fianna Fáil in this matter is because the Minister's predecessor came into this House in 1959 and his justification for the increase then was purely a cost-of-living one. I have no doubt in my mind that, on that occasion, that was the reason. The Taoiseach said in justification of these proposed increases that we must preserve the independence and integrity of the members of the judiciary. That is absolute cod. If we cannot preserve the independence and integrity of the Chief Justice, with his present large salary of £5,335, I do not think he deserves to be in the job at all. If, in 1962, we have to jack that up by £625 to give him £6,000 a year to preserve his integrity and independence, then I do not think he is any good to the country or to our society. In any case, who is to put a price on independence and integrity? Who is to determine what price the Chief Justice and the other members of the Supreme and High Court should get to enable them to keep their integrity and independence?

I heard Deputy Sherwin—I think it was Deputy Sherwin; I quote him only because I heard him make this argument, and I must confess again I only heard the tailend of his speech—suggest that these gentlemen might be subject to temptation. Those may not be his exact words but, so that they would not be subject to bribery, it is proposed now to pay one of them, in any case, £6,000 per year, and others of them £4,500 and £4,000 per year in order to keep them straight. Mark you, when these gentlemen are on the bench and have before them some unfortunate man who stole something, they never talk about the inadequacy of the man's wage, or anything like that. The forestry worker, the civil servant, the lower State employee, should, if that is the argument, also be paid in accordance with principles.

Whilst I do not condone it, there are some people who steal in order to try to supplement their family income. I do not say there is any justification in the wide earthly world for their doing that, but, if we are to pay members of the judiciary big salaries so that they will not be subject to bribery, or corrupted in any way, then I think we should extend that principle right down the line. As I said, State employees, whether civil or local, industrial workers, agricultural workers, and all other workers, should also be paid a salary carrying with it independence and integrity so that they would not have recourse to other means in order to supplement the meagre salaries and wages they have at the present time.

We were told by some other speakers here that the judiciary should be immune from improper influence. They have been, according to the Minister and the supporters of this Bill, on inadequate salaries now for quite a time, a matter of six months or 12 months or maybe two years. Is there any evidence that they have not been immune from improper influence? I think that is a pertinent question to ask. Since 1959, they have been in receipt of salaries ranging from £1,925 for district justices to £5,335 for the Chief Justice. If the argument is that they should be immune from improper influence, it is not illogical to suggest that they may have been subject to improper influence from 1959 up to the present time. I do not believe that is so. I do not believe we shall get better or wiser or more impartial judges by jacking-up their salaries to what is proposed in this Bill.

Other phrases were thrown about in this debate such as "a generous basis of remuneration". It is a grand phrase. In particular, It is a grand phrase in a society that cannot afford to pay more than 32/6 a week to the old age pensioners.

Which is much better than the Deputy did.

I repeat now what I have said on other occasions. The old age pensioners in 1955 were better off, on the amount of pension they were then receiving, than they are now——

They were not.

——in view of the fact that they did not have to pay the huge increases they must pay today for tea, bread, butter, sugar and flour.

I believe that to be true.

It is not borne out by the facts. The Deputy should know that the Minister for Finance answered that on the Budget.

The Minister for Finance did not answer that on the Budget.

Deputy Corish at least admits that he repeats himself.

Furthermore, I shall repeat another suggestion I made. It is that we were paying a lower percentage of tax in respect of social welfare at that time than we are now.

Deputy Corish is getting away from the amendment. He should address his remarks to the subject of the amendment.

The Deputy is repeating himself.

That comes well from the Parliamentary Secretary. Surely he must know that another Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Lenihan, recently read a statement twice in a period of ten minutes?

On this measure, the Minister has repeated himself.

I do not get a chance to do so.

I invited the Minister to speak three or four minutes ago but he said to me: "After you."

That was a matter of courtesy.

Deputy McQuillan is relieving Deputy Dr. Browne now for his tea.

I do not see how it is wrong or unfair to speak about the treatment meted out to other members of the community and to compare it with the treatment it is proposed to give to the members of the judiciary. Again, I do not think it is repetition for me to say that it is not fair that old age pensioners should be treated as they have been treated.

I cannot see how the question of old age pensions can relevantly be discussed on this amendment. The Deputy is not in order, on this amendment, in comparing the salaries of judges with old age pensions. Therefore, the making of a case that old age pensioners should receive an increase does not arise on this amendment.

May I put it in another way? If I were satisfied that forestry workers, road workers and other State employees and State pensioners were treated fairly, I should approach this amendment in a different way.

One of the arguments unduly used by the Minister in justification of his proposal is that there has been an eighth round of salary increases in the Civil Service: he referred particularly to the higher civil servants. So, we now have a position where the judiciary want to cash in on the work of the trade union movement. Deputy Corry laughs. I know Deputy Corry would not understand that. However, if he had been listening to his Minister when he was introducing this proposal he would know exactly what I mean. The Minister did give, as justification for his proposal, the ground that there had been an eighth round increase——

No, I never did.

He did not use the specific expression "wage increase" but the wage increase came first. It was termed "salary increase" for the Civil Service. The Minister justified his proposal on the ground that there had been an eighth round salary increase in the Civil Service—which, let me repeat, sprang from the eighth round wage increase negotiated by the trade unions. In any case, it would be well for the Minister to know that the eighth round of wage increases merely helped to provide a standard of living to those who had applied for it. The trade union movement agreed it was not related to the cost of living index figure and that it was merely an attempt to get for the workers— and I must say they were fairly successful in it—a better standard of living than they had hitherto been enjoying.

I do not think that the judges and justices could plead low living standards. I know Deputy Corry is very solicitous for the farming community and that he has been their champion, or has appeared to be their champion, in this House for quite a long time. I also know that on one occasion he blamed a Minister for Local Government in the inter-Party Government for, as he described it, imposing a wage increase on the Cork County Council.

I would query that statement.

I do not know whether I misinterpreted the Deputy. I heard him say about ten times that the then Minister for Local Government had sent down to the Cork County Council a list of salary increases which he said must be implemented. I think, therefore, Deputy Corry ought to have a look at this list and let us know whether or not these people are worthy of the salaries that are proposed for them.

In 1953, the Chief Justice had £4,850. That is not a bad income. Granted he is a man who makes very serious decisions. Granted he is a man who can determine whether or not some person lives or dies. However, £4,850 could not be regarded as a bad salary.

What did he get in 1948?

He had £4,600.

And he has now?

Wait. In 1953 he went up to £4,850.

In 1953?

Yes. Then, in 1959, the then Minister for Justice, Mr. Oscar Traynor, came into this House and proposed that he would get an increase of £485. He said the cost of living index figure had gone up so much that he felt these people, including this gentleman, should be compensated and, therefore, he gave an extra £485 to bring his salary, in 1959, up to £5,335. Since then, the cost of living index figure has increased by four points or by 2.72 per cent. So, the Minister for Justice, with the support of his Party, naturally, and with the support of some Independents, proposes to give him an increase of £665 per annum. He proposes to give him that from 1st November last and to make his new salary £6,000 per annum—

Less surtax.

Less surtax my foot. On that basis, we should be giving everybody a colossal salary on the assumption that he would have to pay back so much in surtax and income tax.

Chance the surtax.

I would chance it, anyhow. The Chief Justice, since 1953, in nine years, gets an increase of £1,150 per annum. I think it is too much for him, when one has regard——

I gathered that.

I do not know whether the Minister is trying to be cynical or funny. He should appreciate that it is not for me to tick him off. After all, he is the Minister for Justice, a Minister of State. This is the Committee Stage of the Bill. This is a democratic Parliament. I shall stand up and speak and compare one thing with another so long as I am within the Rules of Order of the House.

And as often as the Deputy likes.

And as often as I like. The Minister may be a very patient man, but unless the Government want to bring in a closure motion, we can keep them here on this Bill until next August.

That is perfectly all right but you keep saying the same thing over and over again.

I believe it.

Once is enough to say it. I get the message.

I want the public to hear it, too.

When the public hear it once, they know what it means.

They will be able to judge me on what I say. If they do not like it, they will put me out and if they do like it, they will keep me in.

The last argument the Minister put forward was in regard to the status symbol. If the Minister wants to correct the impression given by that argument, he had better do it pretty quickly. I got that message from his speech. Deputy Dr. Browne got it and the members of Fine Gael got it. Deputy McGilligan got it.

Deputy Tully knows exactly what I was talking about.

I read the debate. The Minister is now referring to an interruption but this was apart altogether from any interruption. He said it deliberately, if not calmly. If we are to pay the judges in this country a salary in order to give them a status symbol, it is time that we came to our senses and gave them what we regard as a reasonable salary. That is the salary they have at the present time.

I am at a loss to understand the attitude that has been taken up by a number of people on this Bill. Certainly I am puzzled at the approach to it of the National Progressive Democrat Deputies, Dr. Browne and Deputy McQuillan. In so far as they represent anybody in this House, they represent a minority viewpoint. The size of their Party is some indication of that fact and I would suggest to them that the independence of the judiciary and the place they occupy in our society is of greater importance to a minority rather than to a majority. The executive arm, the Government, would certainly be subject to very severe attack by Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy McQuillan if we were to go along the line of trying to reduce the status, the standing or the position of the judiciary.

They should not oppose any measure which is designed to protect the standing which the judiciary occupy in this community. In that regard, I think with Deputy Sherwin that an attempt is being made to make political capital out of the situation. I came in here in the conscientious pursuance of my duty. I am the Minister responsible for the courts and the judiciary and I came in here with a measure which I regard as necessary to look after and protect this institution of the State. I cannot help feeling that a great deal of the discussion here is not directed to the merits of this particular case at all but it is directed to the people outside the House and is an attempt to play Party politics.

Deputy Dr. Browne spoke at some length of the structure of our society and seemed to indicate that this is an indication of an inherent weakness of our society. I challenged him to quote some other society where this question of payment to the judiciary is dealt with in any other way and he failed to do so. He knows that no matter what country we may point to, the members of the judiciary are paid at a certain level and are provided with a certain position commensurate with their responsibilities, as far as is possible. I am simply trying to ensure justice for the judiciary. I think they are entitled to it.

Judges do not go on strike and cannot have arbitration and conciliation machinery. I said that was constitutionally impossible and Deputy McGilligan contradicted me. How could we give them conciliation and arbitration machinery when the salaries of judges are a matter for this House and this House might not accept the findings of the arbitration machinery? We have no guarantee that the findings of such machinery would be accepted by this House.

It is constitutional nonsense to advocate that they could have a scheme of conciliation and arbitration. They do not go on strike, or work according to rule, or write letters to the newspapers or have them inspired. They do not put down Dáil Questions here. Has anybody in this House ever seen a Question suggesting that their salaries should be increased? No matter what Deputy Corish says, they are a special group of people and their very job and the nature of their appointment are such as to prove that they are special and that they are entitled to special treatment. They cannot agitate for themselves or speak for themselves. It is my duty to look after them and the fact that they cannot agitate places on me all the more heavy obligation to do my duty with regard to them.

Somebody else made the point that this is a small country and that therefore our judges do not need to be paid the same as the judges of other countries, that they have not the same responsibilities as the judges in larger countries. I refute that argument entirely. It is just as important to ensure justice in the case of a small holding in Kerry as it is for the Supreme Court of the United States of America to decide an issue in the case of one of the mammoth corporations there. To try a man for his life is just as responsible a matter in this country as it is in the United States of America. I reject any argument that our judges have less responsible jobs than any other judges.

Who made that argument?

Deputy Dr. Browne did. Deputy McGilligan made a comparison with the salaries paid to the Supreme Court judges in the United States.

That means I said they had no responsibilities here. That is a queer version.

Many points have been made about the question of £6,000 for the Chief Justice. On that point, I want to say only that there are a number of people in different branches of our society——

Farming organisations.

There is an organisation in this country which is concerned with farmer's produce, at least one that I know of, where the principal executive has £6,000 a year. The farmers concerned think he is worth it and are prepared to pay it. There are other organisations. Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy McQuillan are two of the greatest admirers of our semi-State bodies. I have heard them time and again praise the activities of these bodies and urge that they should be extended. In these bodies, there are people in receipt of £6,000 a year. Does Deputy Dr. Browne or Deputy McQuillan think that the activities of these people are more important or responsible than those of the Chief Justice? I do not think so. I think —and the majority of responsible citizens will agree with me—that constitutionally and otherwise, the Chief Justice is probably the most important single individual in the country.

It was preached all over the country that nobody was worth more than £1,000 a year.

The Deputy has recently come in. We heard that several times already.

And you will hear it again.

Deputy McQuillan inadvertently accepted the whole basis of this Bill because, if I understand his attitude and the attitude of Deputy Dr. Browne, they suggested this matter should be dealt with on the basis of a Select Committee of the House. From that, I assume they approved of the Select Committee of this House which was set up in 1953 and which reported and established the salaries at that time and established the differentials at that time between the district justices and the various other occupants of the Bench, so that if Deputy McQuillan approves of the idea of this Select Committee and the relationship which it established and if he approves of the increase to district justices, surely, therefore, he logically approves of the corresponding and pro rata increases to the other members of the judiciary?

I mentioned here the question of getting the best men for the Bench. I think that in this country, as in any other country, the system should obtain whereby the aim and the object of any lawyer and the ultimate honour to which he can aspire is the Bench. Our system is to a large extent based on that proposition. If we were ever to get to the stage where a leader of the Bar or some leaders of the Bar find that the remuneration of a judge is not sufficient to attract them on to the Bench, then we are getting into a dangerous situation. I maintain quite seriously—and I know it to be a fact— that there are men today at the Irish Bar who, because of the remuneration paid to judges, would not accept a judgeship.

Were they offered it?

Deputy McQuillan endeavoured to suggest that there was only one. I know there are two or three, at least.

The Minister himself.

I know there are two or three who would not accept such a position. Surely that is getting to a dangerous situation? I do not suggest that is anything like the rule in the Irish Bar, but I say that there are two or three people at the Bar at the present time who would not accept a judgeship. Unless we make sure that the salaries paid to the judiciary are kept in line with corresponding incomes outside and at the Bar, then the position will get progressively worse and we shall have only mediocre or second-rate people prepared to take judgeships. I do not think that any responsible member of this House would want that situation.

People have talked here about the farmers. I do not think the farmers would recommend that situation; I think they would deplore it. When a farmer makes his will, he wants to know, in the event of any dispute arising, at least that the fate of his family will be decided by a competent judge—a man of integrity and standing.

He does not want to hear of the law at all, and he is a wise man.

I know he does not want to hear of the law at all or have anything to do with the law courts, but human nature being what it is, many of us do get to the law courts from time to time, whether we like it or not.

If the Attorney General does not mess it up.

The majority of them would like to know, when they do get to the law courts, that their cases and their fate will be decided by the best possible judges we can put on the Bench. That is the main criterion I have in mind.

I also mentioned the criterion of fair play. I think that is important. These salaries of the judiciary were fixed in the beginning of 1924 and pinned to certain levels related to certain salaries paid to the civil service right up to the present day. If these proposals of mine are accepted by the House, we shall preserve to a very very large extent the same parallels and relationships as were fixed back in 1924. People in corresponding positions will be paid correspondingly the same. That is what I meant by fair play.

I think I am entitled to ask the House to ensure that the judiciary for whom I am responsible in this way do get fair play. I do not think that is an inordinate thing to ask. I have asked the House time and again to compare like with like. Let us not compare the Chief Justice with the old age pensioner. Let us compare him with the chairman of some company. Let us compare him with the chief executive of some of our organisations. Let us compare him with our higher civil servants. These proposals are framed on that basis. Practically every section of the community moved ahead in a certain way as a result of the eighth round increase in wages.

In the main, the section of the community which is most relevant in regard to fixing of the salaries of the judiciary are the higher echelons of the Civil Service. I have drawn up these proposals and the Government approved of them on the basis that they are in proportion to what was received by the higher civil servants.

I do not want to deal with all the points made on these amendments, because, if I do, I shall be simply repetitious, as to a large extent they have been made over and over again, but I feel I am entitled to ask the House for support for this measure as I have proposed it and to reject these amendments because the increases which I propose for the judiciary are reasonable. They are in line with the higher echelons of the Civil Service with whom they have always been traditionally related. It is on that basis we have put them forward and I think they can stand up to any examination in that regard.

The question of a status symbol was mentioned and misrepresented. Deputy Tully and I were having a discussion across the floor of the House as to what effect income tax and surtax would have on these increase and Deputy Tully said: "So that, in fact, these increases are to a large extent status symbols." To emphasise the point that a considerable portion would go back to the Exchequer in the form of income tax, I said: "Very largely." The increases are not proposed as status symbols or anything of that sort. It is just a simple carrying out by me of my obligations to this very important section of the community and to ensure that they get fair play as compared with any other section.

I shall be very brief. I was interested in the Minister's comment about comparing like with like. I wonder if he considers it is the Government's policy to compare like with like. Recently, in my capacity as a trade union official, I negotiated an increase in wages for hospital employees. The county manager concerned made an order granting the increase because a similar type of increase had been granted to a similar type of employee working in the same town in a mental hospital. The Minister's colleague, the Minister for Health, refused to sanction the increase. He said the increase could not be granted, that they must be given a lesser sum. There is the Minister's "like with like". They were doing exactly the same type of work within a quarter of a mile of each other——

Surely that claim may not be argued on this amendment?

The Minister is comparing like with like. If he wants to claim that the Government want to give these increases because similar increases have been given under the eighth round to senior civil servants and that that is the practice through all the Government Departments, I think we are entitled to point out that what the Minister is saying is not the practice and that in fact his colleagues in other Departments are not doing that. I am sure he is aware that various types of civil servants and Government employees have not got the benefit of the eighth round increases. In fact, as recently as today in this House, a statement was made to the effect that the matter was still being considered in respect of people who are receiving a fraction of the salary paid to the judiciary; actually they are being paid less than the amount of the increase being offered by the Minister to some of the judges covered in the Bill. It is sheer nonsense to suggest that there is any element of fair play in this Bill. The Minister rightly instanced what happened as far as the status symbol was concerned but he agreed that the increases offered were mainly by way of status symbol. We all know what that is but what I cannot understand—perhaps the Minister would try to explain it—is how these can be back-dated if they are status symbol increase. How is it possible to have a status symbol made retrospective?

The Labour Party feel that the lower-paid district justices are being inadequately paid at present and we believe that they are really the people who are administering the law. We, therefore, have an amendment suggesting that they should receive a higher rate of pay but we cannot and we will not support increases that will bring the salary of any individual up to the level suggested in the Bill. The Minister referred to a particular person in a farming organisation who was receiving £6,000 a year. I do not know who he is.

I shall not tell the Deputy.

I did not expect the Minister would tell me but I can guarantee that if this person is receiving £6,000 a year he is working very many more hours than the judges are required to work.

Somebody interrupted when the Minister was speaking to say that some trade union officials were receiving £6,000 per year and a Deputy of the Independent benches also intervened, but I want to make it very clear that no trade union official is getting anything like £6,000 a year. That should go on the record.

I would not begrudge it to them.

Yes, they all earn it but they do not get it.

This matter can be reduced to quite a small compass. The Minister introduced this measure with the comparison made by him with the highest ranks in the Civil Service. Nobody in the Civil Service is getting £6,000 a year. Certainly nobody in the Civil Service is getting anything comparable to it with the same pension rights after service of a minor type— I do not mean minor in the sense of responsibility but in regard to the number of years served. So, that argument falls.

It does not.

The second point was that there are men at the Bar who are getting more than whatever these salaries are and that you must have the salaries high enough to attract the best people. What is the good of that if you are not going to offer the appointments to the best people? That is what has happened.

In the Deputy's opinion.

I repeat that my experience of the Bar runs over a considerable number of years now and I think I can state without anybody who knows anything about the Bar desiring to contradict me that in the present judiciary there is only one person who when appointed was leader of the Bar.

There has been quite a number of important auctions down the country since we adjourned this debate. I do not make this comparison in any defamatory sense but quite a lot of very valuable property was sold in Kilkenny and elsewhere in Ireland. People interested in some of the articles for sale said that they had not much chance as ordinary persons of picking up these pieces at a reasonable price because the dealers were there.

It was reported to me what it would take to buy special articles of virtu there. What fools we would think these dealers were if they were to send off one of their number and finance him to buy the finest articles in the sale and he came back home with two inferior articles. That is what is happening in regard to these appointments. The case was made on the Civil Service but we now have the change to the argument about people in public life, or in some way attached to State or partially-State bodies. I do not know who is getting £6,000 among those. At any rate, they are in a different category altogether.

The business world has been brought in. One always found a comparison made in the old days between the civil servant who opted for security with less emoluments and the man in business who went in for the rough-and-tumble of business life. He might succeed or fail but if he did succeed he was entitled to a bigger emolument. The man on the Bench is practically in the position of a civil servant. Generally speaking, it takes a long time to get there. Deputy Sherwin spoke about solicitors who have to be struck off the rolls because, in handling clients' money while not being able to make enough money honestly themselves, they sometimes become dishonest. I have not heard that argument made yet as an argument for giving solicitors bigger fees.

When I was Attorney General I used to be surprised and indeed made anxious about the number of cases that came on my desk from one part of the Civil Service, the Post Office. Very often prosecutions had to be taken against persons who had extracted money from letters they carried, letters that were sent but never reached the addressees because they were purloined on the way. Over and over again, when people were brought before the courts in these cases judges all round the country made the comment that it was rather scandalous to have people paid low wages when handling big sums of money. But I never heard that used as an argument for raising the postmen's pay. Yet it appears to be an argument for the Minister to use in this case. If we are to get on to an argument on that level—I think it is a disgusting business—that people have to be paid beyond the level of corruption, I wonder what is the corruption level for the civic guard or for the lower paid civil servant who may be in touch with the public through his station or his office? Are we going to search through criminal records to find out where people go wrong and then raise the salary to put these people beyond the chance of corruption? I do not think the judges would thank anybody——

The judges can hang you or sentence you to ten years, but the postman cannot.

This is trying a man for his life. I want to come to that. It is a shocking thing in any responsible House to have the argument made and relied upon that one must put salaries at a certain level in order to put the judges beyond the suspicion of corruption. I do not think they would thank you for an extra £1,000 a year based on such an argument.

There are many things not said but they are true.

I do not think that type of language used by the Deputy in regard to this type of person is responsible.

I have studied biography and I know what I am talking about.

The Deputy does not know these people. This idea that a judge cannot go into a licensed premises, cannot go to a race meeting, cannot mix with the crowd because he might be approached by any of them and that something may occur in his court—the judges are above that.

Nine out of ten, 99 out of 100. It is the odd fellow who can do the wrong thing. That is all I am talking about.

Since the State was founded in 1922, two people belonging to the judiciary removed themselves from office, but if they had not removed themselves, they would have been removed. In one case, it was a judge of the circuit court. A resolution was tabled to have him removed from office but he retired before the resolution could be moved. There was one justice in the district court who also went—two out of the whole lot since 1922.

Two found out, the Deputy means.

Two out of the whole lot and neither had anything to do with money.

There are always the people not found out.

Once you start that smear campaign there is no answering.

It is a point one must consider.

The point one must consider is in relation to the facts that are known. I point again to the fact that there were two people who fell under criticism and in neither of those two cases was money involved. It was a question of points of view, a question of conduct. A point has been made by the Minister that is supposed to be an answer to what I said in regard to the federal judges of America. I made a case and I want to make it again, that the Chief Justice of the Federal Court in America, the highest court, gets 500 dollars more than the other people in that court. We are giving our Chief Justice £1,500 more. Why?

To keep the differential you established.

In the Supreme Court in America, the Chief Justice gets 500 dollars, £150.

Come to the Select Committee established in 1953.

There has been talk about the eighth round of wages. We ought to go into what the judge gets. It is not a question of salary; it is not a question of salary plus his prospects of a good pension. It is a question of the other expenses he is allowed and they are formidable. I am not objecting to that but they ought to be taken into account. I have been told the comparison I made with the federal court in America is not properly made——

——because our judges try a man for his life. They do, too. Is that an argument for putting our judges on the same salary?

I said the degree of responsibility was the same.

For a life. The Chief Justice never tried a man for his life in this country.

I did not say he did.

The Chief Justice in this country has to say, mainly as the Court of Criminal Appeal, whether a jury acting under a trial judge, has been correctly informed.

It is a quibble.

It is a quibble to say that because, for instance, some judge or a judge of our High Court has to try a person for his life, he should be put on the same salary as a judge in America who tries a man for his life. That is nonsense. We do not operate on that basis in most of our calculations. I do not see why it should be brought into this. The judges here are a very important body in this State. They are one of the three groups that form the Government of the country. We are the legislative body; there is the Government Executive; and the judges are the third part. It is proper they should be paid an adequate sum. The question is: Is the sum proposed adequate or excessive? I think it is definitely excessive. I particularly think the differential sum between the Chief Justice and the judge of the Supreme Court is wrong.

That was fixed in 1953 by the Select Committee.

I do not believe I fixed it at any time and if I did, I was wrong.

The Deputy's Party participated.

I have a different point of view now.

The Deputy has the right to change his mind.

I believe in paying judges well but I also believe in selecting judges well. I would not mind putting up salaries if we could have the situation in which the best men were going to be approached. The Minister spoke about two or three people who were earning so much that they would not take the posts. Were they approached? Of course they were not.

Do not be too sure.

I gathered that from the Minister's phrase. He more or less created the impression in his opening speech there were two or three people who were offered a judicial post and would not take it because of the money they were earning. When the speech is analysed and after a couple of withdrawals, one discovers that one person was approached.

Does the Deputy deny there are others?

I am only on this point that I believe there are people at the Bar making more than the salary paid but I do not believe the people making these big sums are approached.

That is not the point.

Then what is it? We are going to fix salaries for the best men. If the best men were asked to take the posts, that would be all right, but we are not asking the best men. That is the bad part of the whole situation. It is a shocking thing. If the judges were appointed on a proper basis, I do not think there would be very much question of money involved. I still would feel the differential proposed for the Chief Justice and the others is too big. However, if merit was to be rewarded, then one might waive the point about the differential, but the fact is that we are doing what the dealers were doing in connection with the auction in Kilkenny, putting up the price for the best article but not getting the best article. We are not even looking for the best article. One question I should like to ask is whenever there has been a vacancy for a justice, has there ever been any difficulty in filling it? Never. There are good men who have not been approached in this regard and as long as the present system lasts, they never will. It is in that light I want this sorry question considered.

The Minister suggested that Deputy Dr. Browne and I should be among those who would want to ensure that the judiciary were well paid and that the best men were well paid. I am glad the Minister is interested in the protection of minorities. It is a new approach, in view of the fact that in the past two weeks, a motion was introduced by the Minister's Party specifically to remove motions from the Order Paper in the names of Deputy Dr. Browne and myself.

When the Minister is so anxious to help the judiciary and suggests we should be anxious to help them, when he states that we should be very anxious that this minority of judges are not, shall we say, forgotten because of the fact that they did not, as the Minister said, go on strike, did not write letters to the papers, did not get other people to write letters for them, did not indulge in protest meetings and, in general, did not make a nuisance of themselves, if that is the correct description, in order to get their rights. But the Minister would want to be very careful that that concept in regard to minorities cuts both ways. I hope the Minister will bear that in mind, as far as our small Party is concerned in this House. If he does what is correct in regard to our Party, then I will accept that he is sincere all round about the rights of minorities.

The Minister has suggested that what he is doing here is what we asked; in other words, he is basing the increases in the salaries of our judges on a recommendation of a Select Committee of this House. The Minister is doing no such thing. A Select Committee of this House was set up in 1953. It is no argument for the Minister to suggest now that the new increases he is giving are as a result of the findings of the Committee of the House set up in 1953. Apart altogether from that, the Minister should consider that, if he had set up a Select Committee of this House to deal with the question of judges' salaries today, he would not have had this prolonged discussion on this Bill and the judges themselves would not have been the subject of criticism to anything like the same extent as they have been so far in the course of this debate

On a point of order, might I draw your attention, Sir, to the fact that Deputy McQuillan seems to be repeating his speech at column 1747 of volume 195 of the Official Report of 30th May?

He is quite entitled to do that. I understand it is within the rules of order.

Repetition is not in order.

For the benefit of Deputy Lemass, I am merely answering points made by the Minister in his contribution here within the past half hour. I trust the Deputy will bear with me.

The Minister, in referring to the Special Committee set up in 1953, sought to suggest that it was as a result of the findings of that Committee that he decided in 1962 to give the proposed increases to the members of the judiciary. I will quote the Minister's speech in introducing this Bill at columns 696 and 697 of volume 194 of the Official Report:

In considering, therefore, what the new salaries of members of the judiciary should be, the Government have felt that without carrying out any formal revaluation of the work of the judiciary, there is scope on this occasion for increases which in some cases exceed to a moderate extent the improvements which would arise solely from the eighth round. In considering this matter, the Government has not lost sight of the fact that since 1959 schemes of reorganisation of the Circuit Court and the District Court have been brought into operation with resultant economy.

There we have the Minister, introducing this Bill in 1962, making no reference to the 1953 Committee. He states there was no need for a revaluation of the work to be carried out by the Government, that certain increases exceeded-mark you, exceeded-that which would be justified under the eighth round. He goes on to justify these increases on the ground that there had been certain reorganisation of the circuit court and district court. Surely the Minister could have saved himself a great deal of trouble at that stage by giving this House the benefit of the wisdom and experience of a Committee of the House. He did not decide to do that. I am sure he will be a wiser man the next time.

The Minister does not think it is fair to make comparisons with other sections of the community. I cannot understand why he himself is prepared to make comparisons with judges in America; his argument is that our judges, having equal responsibilities, should have the same rate of pay. I confess I cannot follow that argument at all. If the Minister pursues that line of argument——

That was not my argument. I did not make that argument.

The Minister made the case that a great deal of responsibility lies—I admit it does—on a judge in America if he is trying a man for his life. He suggested that Deputy Dr. Browne implied that judges in Ireland had less responsibility than judges in America. I do not think I am wrong in my interpretation of the Minister's remarks in that regard. At no stage did Deputy Dr. Browne suggest that judges here had less responsibility than judges in other countries. What he did do was to point out that, in comparison with other sections of the community in America, and other countries, what we are paying our judges here is far in excess of what judges get in other countries. Consider the position of the ordinary road worker. The Minister says we should compare like with like. The ordinary unskilled labourer here has a wage of £6 to £8 per week. The ordinary unskilled labourer in Britain is drawing £12 to £15 per week. Let us examine the salaries of the judiciary on that basis. In Ireland, judges' salaries range from £117 per week down to about £100 per week. On that basis, the Chief Justice is paid 18 to 19 times what an unskilled labourer gets per week.

What does an unskilled labourer get?

£6 to £8 per week.

In the Office of Public Works, for instance?

I am talking about the county council worker or the farm labourer. There are skilled workers in this country—shorthand typists, and others, who have spent years in vocational schools for the purpose of training—and many of them are in receipt of less than £7 per week. As a matter of fact, there is many a boy or girl in receipt of £4 per week. What would the girl's opposite number be getting in Britain? She would be getting £10 to £15 per week. Is a judge in Britain getting 18 to 19 times that amount of money per week over and above the unskilled worker?

The Minister knows perfectly well that is not true.

It is true.

If it is true, then I want the Minister to give us the figures before the end of this debate. I want him to show clearly that the judiciary has 18 times the £12 per week to £15 per week that the unskilled worker gets. Will the Minister produce evidence?

The opposition to this provision is brought about because of the lopsidedness apparent in the Government's policy. The Minister sought to suggest that, unless we pay these very high salaries, we will not get the best men. Deputy McGilligan has given one answer to that. I should like the Minister to clarify the position as far as his opening statement is concerned. He started off by saying that there were three or four members in the Bar with very high earnings, ranging from £7,000 to £10,000 per year, and that there were four senior counsel who refused to accept appointments on the Bench. As a result of a number of interventions, the Minister drew in his horns and said that only one such individual was offered a judgeship. I wonder if the Minister could really tell us now, of the men who he said are in the £8,000 to £10,000 category, how many were offered appointments on the Bench and turned them down on the ground that the pay and pension rights of the judges——

That argument has been made several times and the Deputy made that argument——

The Minister repeated it. The Minister, in his speech, was the first to point out that there were many other more attractive things besides the pay and pension rights. He said there is a qualification; there is prestige in being a member of the Bench, and that that compensates, to some extent, for the fall in income. We are not catering here for a fall in income but for an increase. As I have already suggested, the increase will range from £1,100 to £600 per annum. We have forgotten that the pension rights attaching to these increases will go up in proportion to the increases given in the salaries.

We have reached the stage now that the public is being asked to pay an increase to the judiciary that will leave them in the position of drawing £117 per week and when they retire, a pension in excess of £50 per week. Now, I think it is no harm to draw comparisons. The Minister wants like compared with like. It actually amounts to the fact that the very weak sections of the community—the people who are disabled; the old age pensioners; the widows—are drawing the most miserable allowances. They are expected to live and to keep their families on those miserable allowances. At the same time, at the other end of the scale, we have the position in which some of these unfortunate groups are drawing, inside an entire 12 months to keep them alive, what members of the judiciary will draw inside a week. There is a wrong scale of values.

Nobody in this House suggests that the judiciary should be badly paid. I think it is accepted all round that they should be well paid. However, I do not think anybody in this House has made a case that they are not well paid at the moment. If the only case that can now be made by the Minister is one of status, I think he will not get any acceptance of that. I recollect discussing this matter with a number of people outside this House. They listened to the Minister's statement on the wireless that only the best people must be attracted in as judges. When they found that the system of appointment was purely that of a Party selection, it became quite apparent to them that the best brains and the best men were not being selected.

I do not want to interrupt the Deputy. I clearly remember that argument being made before I left the Chair.

Maybe Deputy McGilligan made that argument——

The Deputy himself made it, in my recollection, before I left the Chair. The matter of status came up. The Deputy dealt with the matter of status. The House was clear, when I put it, that there would not be any repetition. All this matter was gone over on Amendment No. 2. It was gone over now, on Amendment No. 3. Clearly, it is repetition. If it is a new argument, that is all right but it is clear repetition, the same old thing all over and over again.

I do not want to——

Since I have come in here, I have heard the Minister using those arguments. Is a Deputy, although he has spoken before, not allowed to reply to what the Minister has said?

What arguments?

That could go on in aeternum. Surely, if a Minister says one thing and a Deputy gets up and argues in reply by repeating himself we shall never make progress on anything?

Has the Deputy not a right, when the Minister is speaking and defending a Bill on Committee Stage, to reply to what the Minister has said?

What did I say? The Deputy is replying to nothing I have said now.

The Deputy has no right to repeat arguments——

Even if the Minister repeats them?

The Minister did not.

The Minister has not any right to repeat arguments: neither has the Deputy. Before I left this Chair, Deputy McQuillan used this argument in respect of status. I listened to him with interest. I am listening to it again with not so much interest.

I do not propose, like the Minister, to repeat myself.

May God forgive the Deputy! The Deputy has spoken three times in this debate, at least, for every once I spoke.

But I did not say the same things, as the Minster did.

Deputy McQuillan would not say the things the Minister said.

I want to clarify the Minister's statement that we must compare like with like and that we must be fair. I have not dealt in any great detail with what I consider is fair treatment all round. I feel that I would be precluded, within the scope of this debate, from going into any great detail on the necessity, if we are to be fair to the judiciary, to be fair to other sections of the community as well. If I attempted to argue along those lines, I think the answer would be that it is a matter for another debate or another Minister.

Leaving out the old age pensioners, leaving out other sections of the community, let us consider those who are active and who are, shall we say, the breadwinners in families and who have, in their own way, the same responsibilities to their relations and their families as the members of the judiciary have to theirs. Let us see the deplorable gap that is there. In spite of that gap, we are met-every time an approach is made to a county council or to a semi-State body or to a Government Department-with nothing but indignation at the suggestion that an increase should be given, even though it is a case of genuine need. Yet the Minister can come in here and tell us that what we are giving to the judges is a mere bagatelle.

The amount of money is not the really important thing, whether it is £21,000 or £31,000 or, as Deputy Sherwin said, a few thousand. What is disturbing the public is the fact that the Minister does not seem to realise that he is creating in the minds of the public the impression that this is a privileged group who should not, under any circumstances, be put to the test of whether or not it is necessary to give them an increase, based on the cost of living; whether or not it is necessary for them because as a result of personal commitments or family commitments they are not able to carry on as they are but that the Minister feels that their duties are so responsible that their position would be hurt if he failed at this stage to give increases which he alleges have already been given to the higher echelons of the Civil Service.

The Minister's argument was that we should not agitate the public mind, when it was suggested that a number of Deputies and a number of papers would be inclined to criticise these increases, and that it was unfair of either the newspapers or the Deputies to criticise the proposed increases for the judiciary.

All of us, I presume, believe that this is a democratic country and that the people who control this Parliament, through the elections, are the members of the public. The ordinary man and woman in the towns and in the cities are our bosses. Surely the Minister is prepared to take into consideration the fact that, being our bosses, they are the people who must pay for these increases, whether they are £20,000 or £40,000 or 40 pence, and that these people, taking their own circumstances into consideration, feel that these increases are not warranted or justified? If Deputies like myself and others come into the House and make that argument, I do not think the Minister should give a lecture to us in the course of his opening speech, or deliver a homily in the middle of it, saying it is not fair or right on the part of Deputies to discuss this from the point of view of the ordinary man in the street.

What has the ordinary man in the street to think of? The person drawing £6 10s. 0. per week as a road worker with a family of six living in a county council cottage—I know of such people well and I could tell the Minister about any number of them in my constituency, with families ranging from two to seven—does not work for 52 weeks in the year as do the judges. If he does not work, he does not get paid, as the judge is paid. These people have no pension rights. There are pension rights for the judges. When the road workers in my county sought an increase, there was nothing but criticism and it was said that it could not be afforded. There were all sorts of lectures given by the county manager and the county managers throughout the country who got together to decide that these people were looking for too much.

What are the responsibilities of these men in receipt of £6 10s. or £6 15s. a week, working for 30 weeks out of 52, and who have to go on to unemployment benefit for the rest of the time? What are the commitments of such a man with regard to his family? Has he not to buy fuel? Has he not to pay for light? Has he not to pay one-eighth of his £6 15s. as rent? Has he not to buy food and clothing for his children? How does he manage? I do not know. Frankly, I cannot understand how any unfortunate farm worker or road worker or anybody employed today in one of the shops in rural Ireland can afford even to go outside the door on the wages he is getting.

Leaving those aside, let us take the other big element of our community, the small farmers, particularly in the west of Ireland, men with holdings under £20 valuation. The majority of these holdings are under £12 valuation. The figures given by the Statistics Office show that the greatest possible income those unfortunate farmers could make from holdings of 15 acres is about £200 per annum in the west of Ireland. They are expected to rear families on that income and they are the people who have to pay an increase of £1,100 per year on a status symbol basis to a judge.

Did the Minister get the advice of his Deputies, who are in touch with conditions in rural Ireland and in the towns, on this matter? The Minister wants to know why we are opposing this. There are the reasons we are opposing it. This is a Government who have gone stone, stark raving mad as far as expenditure on the wrong lines is concerned. They have the wrong priorities and the only way that can be brought home to them is by discussing it in this House ad nauseam. It is all right to say that the public have read all about it in the newspapers. We know that as far as the majority of papers are concerned, only a small fraction of the space is devoted to this important issue. The public have only a limited knowledge of the implications. Very few members of the public realise that we were asked, over a period of two years, to give to a number of individuals increases ranging from £600 to £1,100.

The justification given by the Minister who brings this Bill to the House is: "I must do that; the eighth round salary increase has been given to higher civil servants and as a sop to the status of these members of the Bench, I must do the same thing." I discussed the question of status with a number of people in the country on several occasions. The only time status, in regard to the position of the judiciary, ever came under consideration was prior to their appointment as judges, especially under the regime of the present Government. Prior to their appointment, very often their status depended on how well they were in in the particular Party. Once appointed, we have all accepted the fact that they have done their work in a fair manner. That does not get away from the fact that the system of appointment was completely wrong and when Deputies on both sides suggest that "it was done in your time and we are doing the same thing", it is no answer. Until this Minister—and he has the opportunity now—makes sure that the best men are put on the Bench, we shall have that situation.

This is one of the points that could be discussed by a Special Committee of the House, where the normal debating that goes on in this House would not take place. I am one of the last people who wishes to have a prolonged discussion on the issues of salaries. If the proposal of Deputy Dr. Browne and myself had been accepted in the beginning, there would not have been this discussion, so that as far as we are concerned, the Government have brought it on themselves. The Ceann Comhairle, and I accept his ruling, decided that the amendment dealing with the Select Committee of the House was out of order. We accept that, but the Government cannot hide behind a decision of the Ceann Comhairle on that matter because in the course of the Second Reading, prior to the ruling of the Ceann Comhairle, we asked the Minister to consider the desirability of setting up a Special Committee.

I cannot allow a discussion on procedure.

I am not going into it. I am only saying that it was completely in order for the Minister——

What is being discussed now is the increase in salaries.

While you were out of the House, Sir, the Minister sought to suggest that there was no need for this lengthy discussion and he suggested that a number of us were repeating ourselves. I suggest to the Minister that the discussion would have been greatly shortened if he had been prepared to take the action we suggested.

The one point emerging from discussion on this measure that warrants the greatest criticism is the suggestion that there was a price for the integrity of any member of our judiciary, that any member of the judiciary would be any less fair in his judgement in consequence of not having benefited by the eighth round increase.

Who made that argument?

It was made earlier in the Second Reading debate.

Who made it?

It was made by the Deputy on whom the Government rely for their continuance in office, without naming him. Surely the judge who takes an oath of office and who sees the oath being taken in his court every day of the week is fully capable of living up to the terms of that oath and I think it is grossly unfair to the judiciary to say otherwise or to imply it as the Minister has in this argument of his. I would ask the Minister now if, in retrospect, he wishes to amend one statement he made some time ago, to the effect that every section of the community has benefited by the eighth round increase.

I said practically every section.

The Minister said every section.

I did not.

My hearing is not that bad.

The records of the House will show.

The records were changed in this House before.

That is a charge against the officials of the House and must be withdrawn.

It was changed by the Minister for Local Government.

I will not allow that remark to pass. The Deputy will withdraw the remark that the records of this House were changed. There will be no explanation.

I will withdraw it, if you say so, Sir. I heard it, and let there be no laugh about it at all. The papers published it.

Deputy O'Sullivan is in possession.

And I trust he will not continue deliberately to misrepresent me.

I am not deliberately misrepresenting the Minister. One is inclined to place some faith in one's hearing.

Will the Deputy accept my assurance that that is what I said?

I accept it, but I say that my impression will continue to be that the Minister said it.

We shall see what the record says.

At any rate, it is quite obvious that when the Minister said practically every section of the community had benefited by the eighth round increase, he was aware that the judiciary were not the only section of the community who sacrificed the benefits of that round. There are people like shopkeepers in small towns who have not received any advance in their incomes and whose businesses are being practically wiped out. There is this section to which the Minister for Agriculture recently handed £100,000.

I was talking about salaries and wages and the classes to whom they apply.

Are they the only classes in the country worthy of the attention of the Government?

They were the only sections I was talking about.

Every section of the community pay taxes. One does not have to be a worker earning a salary or wages to be a taxpayer. There are the self-employed groups like small farmers and small shopkeepers whose incomes have been depreciated in the past year and who still have to pay their taxes.

Deputies did not get the eighth round increase.

No, they did not, but let us say there is a certain analogy between Deputies and the judges, in that the judiciary, like the Deputies, do not devote their attention entirely to financial gain. It is a natural thing for any member of the legal profession to seek to become a member of the judiciary and the attraction is not entirely monetary. There is recognition of that by all, even if appointments to the judiciary are not offered to the best people. The Minister said in relation to the degree of responsibility of the judiciary that we accept here that when a judge is giving a verdict, it is an equal responsibility, no matter who the person concerned is or in what country. However, it is a contradiction to say that that should be the measure of the amount he should get for bearing that responsibility, because the Minister said the remuneration was not sufficient to attract the best people to the Bench.

In a country with the resources of America, we all appreciate that the incomes attached to the legal profession outside the judiciary are fantastic. The last unsuccessful candidate for the Presidency of the United States is earning far in excess of what he would ever earn as President and surely, in such circumstances, to attract the best, to use the Minister's words, to the judiciary, one has to compete with what is earned by lawyers in the particular countries. It it therefore not comparing like with like, if you compare the income of a member of the judiciary here and in the United States without also comparing what is earned in private legal practice here with the fantastic incomes that can be earned in a country with the resources of America.

In those circumstances, the arguments the Minister advanced to support what the Government are doing fall to the ground and I feel very definitely that the Minister is not using a valid argument when he says that in order to attract the best people to the judiciary, the salaries should be increased to the level now proposed or that there should be retrospective payment of those increases to facilitate an individual who has retired from the Bench. It falls to the ground in face of the arguments advanced in opposition to the increases proposed by the Government at this time.

Deputy Dr. Browne.

The public trustee.

In relation to Section 15, I should like to say my difficulty is that since we are not members of the Labour Court and have not the competence of such people, we must find it difficult to decide on the adequacy or otherwise of the figures mentioned in these amendments. Our difficulty, of course, arises from the very obvious fact that the assessment of those increases in a precise way would be the job of people virtually professionals in that type of work.

Clearly, it would be impossible for us to decide whether, say, £5,335, on the case that is being made here, would be necessary to maintain the status symbol in respect of the judiciary or that it would preserve the integrity and the honour and the honesty of the judges or that it would give them fair play and bring them up to the level of the eighth round increase, or that it would ensure that the judiciary could look at their fellows, not straight in the face but down on top of their heads, since that is where they must look if they get this increase. It would be very difficult, therefore, to take any figure here as being the fairest one or say that it answers all the idiotic proposals put forward by the Minister in justification for the suggestions he has made in favour of these salary increases.

There is the suggestion that in Ireland we tend to look down on one another. It is very disturbing indeed to think that the Minister thinks like that. We are all creatures of our environment and education, and one wonders where the Minister learned to have this set of standards and values. The suggestion that the Supreme Court judge when he gets this award will look down on the fellow below him who gets less than he does, that the High Court judge will in turn look down on the circuit court judge, who will in turn look down on the district justice, and that this kind of thing runs the whole gamut of our society is a frightening and disturbing thought. Yet it is what the Minister seems to think. It is interesting to think that the Supreme Court judge might look down on the Taoiseach. In terms of income, he certainly looks down on the Minister for Justice as a less well-paid member of the Establishment. It is very disturbing to think that the Minister should have these very odd, upside-down values.

I have not, you see. I have already told them they are not mine.

I am going on the record here.

Read what I said.

I shall remind the Minister what he said. At column 779: "Do we not all know that a man's work or value is judged by what he earns?" That seems simple enough.

Does the Deputy challenge that?

I do not agree with that at all. I think the complete contrary is true. Would the Minister suggest, for instance, that a brothel keeper——

I do not know anything about them. I leave them to the Deputy.

As Minister for Justice, the Minister ought to. Would the Minister suggest that a brothel keeper making £30,000 a year was a much finer person than a Little Sister of the Poor, a Franciscan, a Carthusian or a Carmelite? Is that the Minister's standard of values? Surely the Minister's proposition is quite outrageous?

Do not deal in unrealities. Come down to the Bill.

I am talking about the Bill and the reason why we object to the Minister giving extravagant, exorbitant salaries to perfectly ordinary men.

What have Carthusians and brothel keepers got to do with it?

The case made here is unsustainable and unjustifiable. The ideal arrangement is the one we propose. Some independent body should have the opportunity of assessing the need here and coming back with recommendations—recommendations which would be accepted in a matter of seconds. There is no doubt about that.

I told the Deputy the Labour Party would not participate in such a committee.

We will do it now. I am speaking only for myself.

They will not do it now.

If the Minister would permit us to do it, we would do it now. The Minister is responsible. A number of his Deputies are very annoyed because they have to listen to a long debate. They would like the Dáil to be a rubber stamp. A number of Deputies are rubber stamps, but we think we have an important function to discharge to criticise legislation in the Dáil to the best of our ability and in the light of the political views we hold. That is what we are trying to do.

It is becoming a merry-go-round so far as this Bill is concerned.

If we felt the Minister had brought in fair proposals, we would not want to discuss the legislation. We have supported some of the Minister's proposals and we have supported some of the proposals in the Budget. We are not inalienably hostile to every emanation from the Government. We consider it on its merits and, having considered this on its merits, we think it is our job to try to convince the House—there will be a vote on this—and to try to convince as many Deputies as possible to share our views and to come with us into the Lobby.

The Minister tried to make a case here that the salaries paid in other countries, America, Britain and so on, were all justifiable and that a comparison between the amounts paid here was justifiable, too. Does the Minister take into consideration that the stratification of these societies is completely different and that certain priorities have in fact been attended to? For instance, he compared Britain and the salaries paid there. In fact, of course, the group we are concerned with, the underprivileged group generally—the social welfare group— are properly looked after in Britain. One does not have this great gulf between the standards of living, even though, in my view, Britain is a very imperfect society. However, we know it pretty well because we live so close to it and are able, therefore, to talk about it. In Britain there is not the difference between the facilities for educating the child of the working class person and those for the well-to-do that there is here. In Britain the child of working class parents has access to secondary schools and universities and in that way there is equal opportunity. That is not so here. The child of the working class person here virtually cannot get secondary school or university education.

The Deputy cannot ramble over the whole field of education.

The Minister has a number of delusions.

Leave me with them.

I am not worried about the Minister's delusions or alleged delusions. The point is whether these increases should be granted or not. The Deputy should confine himself to making an argument on these matters and not on the educational system in England versus the educational system in Ireland or the social system in Ireland versus the social system in England.

The increases for the judges have been justified by the Minister by saying in so far as that is what they are paid in other countries——

I never did.

——that if a higher salary is paid to a British or American judge——

I cannot allow the irrelevancy to be discussed on the mere plea that the Minister has done something.

Which I did not do in any event.

If it is irrelevant, it is irrevelant.

The Minister suggested that we were a minority here and that therefore we should concern ourselves with fair play for the minority. One of the odd paradoxes of life in Ireland is that the minority in nearly every case I know of is very well able to look after itself. Certainly in the higher group of the minority he is talking about, they are.

I mentioned the minority which the Deputy represented. That is what I was talking about.

This is a new twist to it.

Ask Deputy McQuillan. That is what I said.

The Minister said so many different things in so many different ways that I doubt if even the Minister himself knows what he said or meant to say.

I said that Deputy Browne and Deputy McQuillan as representatives of a minority should be concerned about the independence of the judiciary.

Which is a minority. The Minister suggested we should concern ourselves with protecting the rights of the minority.

Your own minority, the minority you represent. The judiciary is the best safeguard you have of such a minority.

The Minister has in fact made both points at different times. Let us deal with the last one first.

Surely you do not have to bribe them to afford protection to a minority?

I did not say that.

Is that not a most serious innuendo? I am absolutely dazzled by the curious character which has evolved during the debate. Listening to the Minister, I find it very difficult to believe that our educational system can have produced such a contorted, idiosyncratic type of individual, with so many upside down facets in his personality. That is the implication. First of all, the suggestion was that they were so high that you had to pay them high salaries; then, that their honour was at stake if they got medium-sized salaries; and then that their integrity depended on what you paid them. Now he is suggesting that if we speak against these people, they will, away in their eyries, read the Dáil Debates and say: "Browne and McQuillan: mark them", and that if we come in front of them in the district court, the high court, the circuit court or the supreme court, they will remember it against us. That is the implication of that fantastic innuendo——

It is fantastic to take that implication from what I said. I agree that is fantastic.

——that we should worry about what they think of the stand we take here. That is on a par with criticism of Deputies for the stand they take in regard to vested interests. In the House of Commons, people would be brought before the Bar of the House for trying in any way to influence the debates and decisions. We are completely independent here. We have the right of complete independence here and no one has the right to interfere with the speeches or the stand we take here. We must report to the Ceann Comhairle if anyone tries to influence in any way the decisions we take.

What is the Deputy worried about then?

I am worried that the Minister should take such an extraordinary view, that the judges would be influenced against the two of us or against the Labour Party because——

That is not what I said.

That is a reasonable implication of the Minister's statement.

The Deputy himself said it is a fantastic implication.

It is on a par with the status symbol—the Minister does not deny that—and with his statement that, "a question of prestige, honour and traditional integrity and respect of the judiciary is involved in this." Added to that is the latest offensive imputation against the judiciary. If I were a judge of the Supreme Court, I would certainly be very disturbed if the Minister or anyone else seriously suggested that I would take a look at a person in the witness box and decide: "I know him of old; he tried to cut my salary; he would not give me an increase." It is all very funny but that is the attitude of mind the Minister has now disclosed in his speeches here.

Surely a minority cannot determine its policy merely because it is worried about what a majority of the puppets —I am not suggesting they are, but what the Minister tells us are the puppets—might do. It shows another attitude of mind, a cowardly attitude of mind, on the part of the Minister. The Minister says: "You are only a minority. Take your particular point of view and when you are as big as us, you can hunt with the pack."

That is not what I said.

Deputy McQuillan has handed me a note of what the Minister said. That is the inference to be taken from the remark. If a minority is to be worried about a powerful majority merely because reprisals might be taken, that would create an extraordinary situation in our society. Surely the whole history of Ireland is a record of one minority after another thumbing their noses at a majority : the I.R.A., Sinn Féin, the United Irish-men?

The Deputy seems to be travelling very far from the point, which is whether or not the increases should be given. That is the net point.

I shall not pursue it.

The Deputy may argue pro and con that point.

I shall not pursue it but you must concede that on this matter, the hares which the Minister——

I shall not concede anything except order and relevancy.

Surely we are not going to run Parliament in a way in which we will have to be looking constantly over our shoulders to see what a powerful group outside might have to say before we make our decisions? We constantly discuss legislation here. It comes before us and we have to take decisions against powerful groups. The Minister is worried about minorities, but in the attainment of better health services, one finds oneself in conflict with the members of the medical profession, and surely that is not a good enough reason for refusing all advances.

We have reasonably and fairly shown in our statements here that the Minister has given this matter no serious thought at all. He has merely decided to advance these people, all close political associates of his, and with a high position in society. If he goes back on his arguments, he will find that he has not advanced one argument which has not been refuted. I ask the Minister to reconsider his whole approach and try to take the question of the judiciary away from the political arena where it is at present, and where he is really concerned to keep it.

Deputy McGilligan and Deputy McQuillan have pointed out that a completely different procedure has to be produced. The Minister has given no reason to believe that he has any serious intent to establish any such procedure. He must know that no serious or responsible Deputy could take these figures in this Bill and say precisely what is right. I simply do not know what the needs of a high court judge or a supreme court judge are outside the ordinary needs of myself in my own life. I do not know what their special needs are. I do not know why they need additional money to that which most of the rest of us have. No real justification has been put forward. It is unfair of the Minister to ask for this money particularly as there is a perfectly good precedent for establishing a joint committee of the Houses to make recommendations which we could then accept.

The Minister is very quick to follow precedent whenever it suits him, but when he is at a loss, he says he is not concerned with precedent. I do not know what happened when the previous Select Committee reported. I suspect it got a fair amount of support in the Dáil and did not lead to prolonged debate and controversy, because the people who got money from the Select Committee know well——

The Deputy knows I ruled the Select Committee out definitely, and he has tried by a side-wind to discuss it on several occasions.

I am sorry. This certainly leaves us in the position where we cannot give, as the Minister suggested, fair play to the judges. It is very difficult to know what precisely is fair play in regard to why people need money over and above a certain amount which people such as doctors, architects and engineers need to keep things turning over, to keep themselves well fed and clothe their children, educate them, and give them health services.

We are getting into the realm of fantasy, because why stop at £6,000? Why not £8,000, £9,000 or £10,000? There is no rationale. The Minister has brought this whole thing on his own head. He would be wise to reconsider the whole matter and kill the Bill.

I should like to ask the Minister, before these amendments are put to the House, whether there was any demand on this occasion by the judiciary or members of the judiciary for this increase. The Minister should answer that question because we know there were demands from other sections of the community for increases. In 1957—the Minister can correct me if I am wrong in this—the judiciary did approach the Government and requested them to give further consideration to increasing their salaries. That information has been given to me on very good authority.

These representations were made in 1957 by the judiciary or by the representatives of the judiciary. The Government took from 1957 to 1959 to consider the representations in connection with the allowance of the judiciary. As we all know, in 1959 there was a Bill brought into this House in which the Government gave a flat, all round increase of 10 per cent. to the judiciary. I want the Minister to tell me whether any request similar to that made in 1957 was made by the judiciary in 1961 or 1962. If not, how did the Government come to assess what the increase should be?

It is not every section of the community that gets an increase without demanding it. I do not think other sections of the State services and outside groups, the people catered for by trade unions, have ever been told by their employers at any stage that they were entitled to an increase in salaries and wages. What the differential is I do not know. I do not know why in 1962 people insist on describing the emoluments of individuals in different ways.

Surely the Deputy does not suggest that that argument has not been made before?

I have not heard it.

These arguments have been made all the time. It is not necessary that the arguments should be made in the same words. The Deputy has repeated the same argument made several times to my hearing in this House.

I should like to ask the Minister a question with regard to the judiciary and I do not propose to enter into an argument on the fact that few people get an increase in wages without making application for it and without taking forceful action to back up their case. The Minister should be in a position to tell us why it was not considered necessary by the Government to await an application or request from the judiciary in view of the fact that they did receive a previous application and they waited nearly eighteen months before they took action in connection with it.

On this occasion the increase came like a bombshell and, in addition, the Minister had the audacity to back-date it to 1st November. The Minister has changed his ground so many times that we should like if, at some stage, he would give us the real reasons that motivated the Government in giving this increase. If he has changed his ground from the position taken up in 1959, when the last increase was given, let us hear that finally from him. If he was prepared to stand over the decision of 1959, when it was stated, accepted and put to this House as having been carefully examined and decided by the Government, that any future increase to the judiciary should be on a long-term basis, how can he reconcile the change between 1959 and 1961? Has he forgotten the whole idea of the long-term basis? I should like him to answer these two points. Was there an application for the increase which the Minister describes as a status symbol?

Surely the Deputy is repeating what he has said?

I am summing it up. I know it is very difficult to extract anything out of the Minister.

Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand".
The Committee divided: Tá, 65; Níl, 42.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Calleary, Phelim A.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Colley, George.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Cotter, Edward.
  • Crinion, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cummins, Patrick J.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Davern, Mick.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dolan, Séamus.
  • Dooley, Patrick.
  • Egan, Kieran P.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Fanning, John.
  • Faulkner, Padraig.
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • Gallagher, James.
  • Galvin, John.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James M.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Haughey, Charles.
  • Hillery, Patrick.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Leneghan, Joseph R.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Meaney, Con.
  • Medlar, Martin.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Malley, Donogh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Sherwin, Frank.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Timmons, Eugene.

Níl

  • Barry, Richard.
  • Belton, Jack.
  • Browne, Michael.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Burke, James J.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Byrne, Patrick.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Clinton, Mark A.
  • Connor, Patrick.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Desmond, Dan.
  • Donegan, Patrick S.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Dunne, Thomas.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Everett, James.
  • O'Sullivan, Denis J.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick J.
  • Farrelly, Denis.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Gilhawley, Eugene.
  • Governey, Desmond.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • Lynch, Thaddeus.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Murphy, William.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Donnell, Thomas G.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Keeffe, James.
  • Ryan, Richie.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Tully, James.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Níl: Deputies Dr. Browne and McQuillan.
Question declared carried.

That discision disposes of amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6, 7, 11 and 12.

We start at amendment No. 8?

I understood that, according to Standing Orders, discretion lies in the House in regard to a separate decision when all these are taken for discussion together——

——and that for record purposes in the House, a division can be challenged on each of them separately.

The decision was against No. 3. The amendments mentioned fall and may not be put before the House.

Is that your ruling?

It is a ruling. It has been ruled thus on many occasions.

We then have left Nos. 8, 9, 10, 13, 14 and 15?

What about No. 16?

No. 16 is out of order.

Nos. 8, 9, 10, 13, 14 and 15 are still to be discussed?

No, not discussed. I recommended that agreement be reached that these amendments would be put without discussion and that a general discussion would be on No. 3. I am sure the House is willing to keep that agreement. I am putting No. 8.

Were you under the impression that agreement had been reached to take a vote on just one amendment, or is that your ruling?

The House agreed that a number of amendments which were discussed on No. 3 should be put separately and I am putting amendments now in accordance with what the House agreed on.

Not what the House agreed on but on which you ruled. I do not think there is any agreement.

My suggestion was agreed to. I am putting amendment No. 8:

In line 17, to delete "£6,000" and substitute "£5,335". — (Deputy Corish).

Question put: "That the figures proposed to be deleted stand".
The Committee divided: Tá, 66; Níl, 40.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Davern, Mick.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dolan, Séamus.
  • Dooley, Patrick.
  • Egan, Kieran P.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Fanning, John.
  • Faulkner, Padraig.
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • Gallagher, James.
  • Galvin, John.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James M.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Haughey, Charles.
  • Hillery, Patrick.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Calleary, Phelim A.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Colley, George.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Cotter, Edward.
  • Crinion, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cummins, Patrick J.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Leneghan, Joseph R.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Meaney, Con.
  • Medlar, Martin.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Mooney, Patrick.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Malley, Donogh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Sherwin, Frank.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Timmons, Eugene.

Níl

  • Barry, Richard.
  • Belton, Jack.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Browne, Michael.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Burke, James J.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Byrne, Patrick.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Clinton, Mark A.
  • Connor, Patrick.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Desmond, Dan.
  • Donegan, Patrick S.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Dunne, Thomas.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Everett, James.
  • Farrelly, Denis.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Gilhawley, Eugene.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • Lynch, Thaddeus.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Murphy, William.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Donnell, Thomas G.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Sullivan, Denis J.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick J.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Tierney, Patrick.
  • Tully, James.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Níl; Deputies Kyne and Tully.
Question declared carried.

I move amendment No. 9:

In line 20, to delete "£4,500" and substitute "£4,070".

Question put: "That the figures proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 66; Níl, 41.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Calleary, Phelim A.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Fanning, John.
  • Faulkner, Padraig.
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • Gallagher, James.
  • Galvin, John.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James M.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Haughey, Charles.
  • Hillery, Patrick.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Leneghan, Joseph R.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Colley, George.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Cotter, Edward.
  • Crinion, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cummins, Patrick J.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Davern, Mick.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dolan, Séamus.
  • Dooley, Patrick.
  • Egan, Kieran P.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Meaney, Con.
  • Medlar, Martin.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Mooney, Patrick.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Malley, Donogh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Sherwin, Frank.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Timmons, Eugene.

Níl

  • Barry, Richard.
  • Belton, Jack.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Browne, Michael.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Burke, James J.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Clinton, Mark A.
  • Connor, Patrick.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Desmond, Dan.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Dunne, Thomas.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Everett, James.
  • Farrelly, Denis.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Gilhawley, Eugene.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • Lynch, Thaddeus.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Mullen, Michael.
  • Murphy, William.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Donnell, Thomas G.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Keeffe, James.
  • O'Sullivan, Denis J.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick J.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Tierney, Patrick.
  • Tully, James.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Níl: Deputies Kyne and Tully
Question declared carried.

I move amendment No. 10:

In line 22, to delete "£4,000" and substitute "£3,575".

This is to give the President of the Circuit Court money to transact his business from Cyprus. Is that it?

Would not the Deputy love to be doing it?

It is a shocking position. He was able to stay 15 months away and get paid for it.

Question put: "That the figures proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 66; Níl, 40.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Crinion, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cummins, Patrick J.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Davern, Mick.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dolan, Séamus.
  • Dooley, Patrick.
  • Egan, Kieran P.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Fanning, John.
  • Faulkner, Padraig.
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • Gallagher, James.
  • Galvin, John.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James M.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Haughey, Charles.
  • Hillery, Patrick.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Calleary, Phelim A.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Colley, George.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Cotter, Edward.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Leneghan, Joseph R.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Meaney, Con.
  • Medlar, Martin.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Mooney, Patrick.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Malley, Donogh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Sherwin, Frank.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Timmons, Eugene.

Níl

  • Barry, Richard.
  • Belton, Jack.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Browne, Michael.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Burke, James J.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Byrne, Patrick.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Connor, Patrick.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Desmond, Dan.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Dunne, Thomas.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Everett, James.
  • Farrelly, Denis.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Gilhawley, Eugene.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Mullen, Michael.
  • Murphy, William.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Donnell, Thomas G.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Keeffe, James.
  • O'Sullivan, Denis J.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick J.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Tierney, Patrick.
  • Tully, James.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Níl: Deputies Kyne and Tully.
Question declared carried.

I move amendment No. 13:—

In line 26, to delete "£4,000" and substitute "£3,575".

Question put: "That the figures proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 66; Níl, 39.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Davern, Mick.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dolan, Séamus.
  • Dooley, Patrick.
  • Egan, Kieran P.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Fanning, John.
  • Faulkner, Padraig.
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • Gallagher, James.
  • Galvin, John.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James M.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Haughey, Charles.
  • Hillery, Patrick.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Calleary, Phelim A.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Colley, George.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Cotter, Edward.
  • Crinion, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cummins, Patrick J.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Leneghan, Joseph R.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Meaney, Con.
  • Medlar, Martin.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Mooney, Patrick.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Malley, Donogh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Sherwin, Frank.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Timmons, Eugene.

Níl

  • Barry, Richard.
  • Belton, Jack.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Burke, James J.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Connor, Patrick.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Desmond, Dan.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Dunne, Thomas.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Everett, James.
  • Farrelly, Denis.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Gilhawley, Eugene.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Mullen, Michael.
  • Murphy, William.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Donnell, Thomas G.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Keeffe, James.
  • O'Sullivan, Denis J.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, Richie.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Tierney, Patrick.
  • Tully, James.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Níl, Deputies Kyne and Tully.
Question declared carried.

I move amendment No. 14:—

In line 28, to delete "£3,250" and substitute "£2,835".

Question put: "That the figures proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 66; Níl, 38.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Dolan, Séamus.
  • Dooley, Patrick.
  • Egan, Kieran P.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Fanning, John.
  • Faulkner, Padraig.
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • Gallagher, James.
  • Galvin, John.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James M.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Haughey, Charles.
  • Hillery, Patrick.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Calleary, Phelim A.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Colley, George.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Cotter, Edward.
  • Crinion, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cummins, Patrick J.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Davern, Mick.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Leneghan, Joseph R.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Meaney, Con.
  • Medlar, Martin.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Mooney, Patrick.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Malley, Donogh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Sherwin, Frank.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Timmons, Eugene.

Níl

  • Barry, Richard.
  • Belton, Jack.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Burke, James J.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Connor, Patrick.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Desmond, Dan.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Dunne, Thomas.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Farrelly, Denis.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Gilhawley, Eugene.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Mullen, Michael.
  • Murphy, William.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Donnell, Thomas G.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Keeffe, James.
  • O'Sullivan, Denis J.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, Richie.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Tierney, Patrick.
  • Tully, James.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Níl, Deputies Kyne and Tully.
Question declared carried.

I move amendment No. 15:

In line 32 to delete "£2,850" and substitute "£2,500".

Question put: "That the figures proposed to be deleted stand".
The Committee divided: Tá, 66; Níl, 39.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Calleary, Phelim A.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • Gallagher, James.
  • Galvin, John.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James M.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Haughey, Charles.
  • Hillery, Patrick.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Leneghan, Joseph R.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Colley, George.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Cotter, Edward.
  • Crinion, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cummins, Patrick J.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Davern, Mick.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dolan, Séamus.
  • Dooley, Patrick.
  • Egan, Kieran P.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Fanning, John.
  • Faulkner, Padraig.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Meaney, Con.
  • Medlar, Martin.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Mooney, Patrick.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Malley, Donogh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Sherwin, Frank.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Timmons, Eugene.

Níl

  • Barry, Richard.
  • Belton, Jack.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Burke, James J.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Connor, Patrick.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Desmond, Dan.
  • Donegan, Patrick S.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Dunne, Thomas.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Everett, James.
  • Farrelly, Denis.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Gilhawley, Eugene.
  • Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Mullen, Michael.
  • Murphy, William.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Donnell, Thomas G.
  • O'Keeffe, James.
  • O'Sullivan, Denis J.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, Richie.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Tierney, Patrick.
  • Tully, James.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Níl: Deputies O'Sullivan and O'Keeffe.
Question declared carried.
Question proposed: "That Section 1 stand part of the Bill."

Now that the amendments have been disposed of we can see the scheme proposed by the Government in connection with the members of the judiciary. The one group we have not been able to discuss on the amendments are the justices of the district court. As the scheme goes, with the exception of the President of the District Court, which is a new position—a prefabricated job, as I said—and four or five other people specially picked to be Principal Justices in the Metropolitan District and others permanently assigned to the Dublin and Cork districts, the level of the district justices is £2,250. As money goes to-day, that is worth about 600 of the 1910 or 1912 £. We are putting most of the district justices on that level. We have had the argument laboured here in regard to those in the superior courts that we have to put them beyond the reach of temptation, that if we did not give the Chief Justice an increase of £1,000 or give the President of the High Court or the ordinary members of the Supreme Court £4,500, they might suffer through being open to corruption of different types.

That argument, of course, if there is any value in it, is effective mainly in regard to the district court. It has been said by cynics, and by people in the profession, that one gets law in the supreme court and the high court, and one gets justice mainly in the district court. The phrase has more meaning than the cynic would suppose. It means that rough and ready justice is given by those who preside in the district courts throughout the country. The ordinary people who are looking for justice get it also in the circuit court in Dublin, and I should imagine in Cork also. I mean that the flow of business there is such as demands the application of rough and ready justice in a summary way. Possibly the same applies in other towns where the circuit court judge has a big lot of business to do.

By and large, so far as the citizens are concerned, what justice means is what is developed in the district courts. As I say, one gets a certain amount of very refined law in the higher regions, but there is the point that no one dares go to the high court or the supreme court except an insurance company or business company, because they could not stand the charge put upon them. For the ordinary level of citizens, the courts that matter are the popular courts, the circuit courts in Dublin and Cork and some other centres, and more particularly the district courts which handle a vast amount of business through the cases they have to try. They are more in touch with the public than the members of the supreme court and the high court could ever hope to be.

Some members of the circuit court may occupy an intermediary position between the ordinary citizens and the higher level of people who can afford to pay the fees demanded in legal cases at the moment. Now, £2,250 is regarded as the proper sum for those who are the basis of the pyramid, the people on whom the whole legal structure is built. After all the arguments we have had about putting people beyond the reach of corruption, there is silence when we come to the lower level, that is, lower only in the hierarchy of the courts.

It cannot be said that it requires little experience. There is a vast amount of varied work that has to be done in the district courts which operate both sides, civil and criminal law. They are the people on whom the criminal administration is built. They either deal with cases summarily or they carry through the preliminary investigation which results in a person being sent for trial to some higher court on a criminal charge. So far as the criminal law is concerned in bringing an alleged criminal to book, in the main, it is the district courts that matter. They either carry a case to a conclusion in certain conditions or they regard a case as sufficiently prima facie that the person should be sent forward for more detailed investigation elsewhere.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

As I say, it is not a matter of slight experience being enough for a district justice or that he does a lesser number of types of criminal work, because the work is varied and every type of case crops up. It is not that crimes are specially localised. If anything, much of the work that the district court in Dublin is occupied with is of a local nature, that is to say, parking offences and motor traffic offences, which do not form anything like the same percentage of the work a district justice has to deal with in his area.

He has to be well aware and alert as to what is being urged in respect of crimes like petty larceny, greater larceny, assaults and attacks on members of the Garda in the discharge of their duty. A person to work efficiently has to be aware of all those things. In other words, he has to have the same experience of what crops up as criminal offences in a country district as in a city. If anything the city cases are multiplied, that is, there is statistical information with regard to the vast number of cases tried here. Parking offences and that type of thing, people who have no light on their bicycles, occupy quite an amount of the time of the courts in Dublin and do not occur in anything like the same proportions in the country.

District justices have to be alert and prepared for work on ordinary criminal matters. On the civil side, small debts and cases of that type crop up. District justices who are to work effectively have to be well equipped in experience and in law. They provide summary justice of a somewhat rough and ready type. By that, I do not mean any disparagement of them. They handle cases quickly, without there being bad defects in the system which they operate. They have to do the same class of work as is done in Dublin and they must be well equipped in learning and experience. They have the advantage that they know there is a court of appeal to rectify any glaring mistakes they make.

When one thinks of a district justice in the country being given £2,250, whereas the rest of them are raised above that because of their situation in the city, one must remember that the district justice in the country has to do a lot of travelling. I do not say that puts him out of pocket. He may get some extra emoluments for that, but his life is, so to speak, more ragged because he has to go from area to area. In some counties like Donegal and Kerry, he has to cover quite an amount of territory, which means he has not the amenities of life which his colleague in the city has. His children have to be reared and colleges or establishments have to be looked for because educational facilities must be afforded to his family. To my mind, a district justice in the countryside is handicapped in comparison with his colleague in the city.

I have argued on every occasion on which a Courts of Justice Bill was before the House that the real appraisal of the salaries should be concentrated on the district court judges, the people on whom we depend to the greatest extent.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

I have argued on many occasions that when the salaries of the judiciary are being looked at there should be more attention paid to those on the district justice level. The district courts are the courts that the people are familiar with and I have always felt that the status of district justices, so far as they can be raised by the matter of salaries, should be raised. We are lucky that we have found people willing to accept those salaries and who have given good service over the years.

We are now giving the Chief Justice £6,000 a year and he can look forward to a pension of £4,000 a year either at 65 or at whatever age he chooses to retire after 15 years' service. We are giving the President of the High Court extra money which I believe to be well-merited because of the administrative work he has to do. We are giving to the President of the Circuit Court money for administrative duties and an indication of those duties is that for 15 months he was able to perform them whilst occupying a post in Cyprus. He was supposed to be able to perform the duties from there.

We are also giving extra money to a new functionary called the President of the District Court, a post created by the Courts Act passed last year. There was no necessity for the post. The courts were able to carry on in an easy way under the Senior Justices and with the agreement of their colleagues. It was clearly a job and the salary has now being raised. We have seen that functionary in activity on only two occasions since he was appointed. Those were two changes he made. He transferred from the Children's Court a man who was very well liked there and who did not want to leave and who protested against going. Into his place was put a man who did not want to go there and who was doing very good work outside. The only activity carried on by this functionary has evoked two protests, two protests which were well deserved.

It is rather a sad commentary when the leader of the legal profession in this House comes and tells us that the result of all the actions of the legal profession in the House in the last 40 years since Deputy McGilligan first graced us with his presence is to put the High Court and the Supreme Court beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

It is a sad commentary that the result of the presence in this House of a large number of members of the legal profession is that we have the leader standing up and stating publicly that they have succeeded in putting the supreme court and the high court and all the other courts except the circuit court beyond the means of the ordinary citizen. I am asking the Minister for Justice to take careful note of that. I am voting for this Bill because I agree with the Minister for Justice and it is rather hard for me to do it. It is a fact that owing to the peculiar training those people get we must give them high salaries.

The first thing that happens when they have obtained their degrees is that their names are put into a hat and drawn out. One goes to Fianna Fáil, the next to Fine Gael and so on but none of them go to the Labour Party because there are no prospects there. That is the way they go and from that on they climb up on the political platform and make speeches. The pay for that is to get State briefs. Let us look honestly at the system as it stands. I have seen one of the best members of the legal profession in Munster, our present Minister for Industry and Commerce, and would he get a brief while those gentlemen opposite were in office? He would not. I know Deputies like Deputy Stephen Barrett whom I engaged myself on a few occasions with the Youghal fishermen and found him to be a first grade barrister. Is there any hope that we would get a State brief now? There is not a chance.

That is the way these people are trained from the root up. Then they become district justices or they may become judges. That is the plum job. You can always judge when a Party is going low and is not in office by the attitude of these people. The Labour Party has none of them because there is not much chance for them in it. I am examining the question honestly and that is the present position, as far as the law in this country is concerned. I know it is notorious that if you want to win a case in Cork and are up before a certain judge you have to have a certain senior counsel. That is well known to everybody. That is the position under which we are here now voting increased salaries. That is the sole reason I am voting for it. It is all right for Deputy Dr. Browne to come along——

Is it in order for Deputy Corry to state that there is a certain judge in Cork and it is no use anybody going before him unless certain counsel has been briefed for him?

It does not seem to be any reflection on the judge.

Does the Leas-Cheann Comhairle see no slur on the judge in that matter?

Deputy Dr. Browne comes along——

May I have a ruling? Deputy Corry has stated that there is a certain judge in Cork and that it is no use in any person going before that judge unless a certain barrister has been briefed on his behalf. The implication there appears to me to be that there is a bias on the part of the judge, which I do not accept.

I understood it to be a tribute to the counsel.

Is it not a reflection on the judge? It may be a tribute to the lawyer but it is a reflection on the judge.

That is a matter of opinion.

Sure, you have been attacking the judges all evening.

Will the Minister quote one word where the judges were attacked?

Not in their administration and the Minister knows that well. This is a specific charge.

I should like to have a ruling.

There is nothing further I can say. I accept Deputy Corry's remark as a tribute to a certain counsel.

Deputy Corry said that there was no use going before a certain judge, the emphasis being on "judge", unless he has a certain counsel briefed on his behalf. It is up to the Minister to refute that allegation against the judge.

I do not regard it as my function to refute anything. The remark made by Deputy Corry is either in order or it is not. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle, to my mind, is the person who decides whether it is in order or not. Deputy McQuillan earlier in the debate claimed the right to attack the judiciary in any way he wished in this debate.

You agree with what Deputy Corry said?

I have no function. I am not called upon to decide order in this House.

Deputy Dr. Browne spoke about the privileged classes. Only last week Deputy Dr. Browne alluded here to the agricultural community of this country as being a privileged minority.

That is not true.

That is not factually correct. They are in a majority.

Deputy Dr. Browne himself must belong to this privileged class he speaks about. I finished my education at 13 years of age and any further education I got I got it in jail. I am not a bit ashamed or sorry to say that. When we talk of privileged classes, I should like to refer to another point in connection with this whole matter. If I educated my son and made him a doctor and he wanted to get a dispensary, he would have to go before the Local Appointments Commissioners where he would have to be judged on his qualifications. If I wanted to make him an engineer he would have to go before the Local Appointments Commissioners and be judged on his qualifications but if he goes into the legal profession he need not be judged on any qualifications at all. That is the allegation made here a while ago by Deputy McGilligan. There is a privileged profession. From the day they become qualified they are totally dependent on political patronage. I do not wish to take up the time of the House on this matter. I have given my reasons for voting for the increases.

We are opposed to this section for many reasons which we made clear. Above everything, we are opposed to the Bill because in introducing it the Minister showed that he obviously had not given the matter very serious and careful thought before he brought it in. That was in contempt of the House. There is a precedent in his very short life as Minister even for this ill-considered superficial assessment of a situation as revealed in his débâcle of the Intoxicating Liquor Bill which was amended before he even gave us the opportunity of changing it in the House. Again, that was a superficial assessment of a very difficult problem in relation to recommendations made to the Government and the Dáil. He then ran away from them at the first sign of trouble. It is clearly a product of the mind of a person who took only the most cursory interest in his responsibility. Any objectively minded person reading this debate or listening to this discussion must be very perturbed by the thought that a Minister of this calibre, who holds a very serious and important position, should put forward a case here based on a dozen different grounds which varied from phase to phase in the debate.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

He seems to think it is unnecessary to give any thought to his proposals before he brings them in here and that it is perfectly all right for him to make some sort of dialectical contortion and shift from one position to another while at the same time steamrolling his proposals through the House. We are in the difficult position that we really do not know what will be the relationship of the judiciary to the other income groups in society. We had the position, as originally stated by the Taoiseach, that the assessment should be made completely independent of other groups and that this should be made irregularly——

I do not want to interrupt the Deputy but surely the agreement of the House was to the effect that all this discussion should take place on the amendments? The only sense of that was that the only discussion which we would now have would be on the matter that was not covered in the amendments, district justices' salaries. I take it that was Deputy McGilligan's understanding of it also.

The whole section.

The whole section which we are opposing.

I understand the Ceann Comhairle allowed the widest discussion on the basis that it would take place on those amendments. I think that was also Deputy McGilligan's understanding because in his discussion of the section, he confined himself exclusively to district justices' salaries which were not covered in the amendment.

Deputy Dr. Browne is entitled to discuss the section, but neither he nor any other Deputy is entitled to repeat what has been already said on the various amendments to this section.

It is rather interesting that just when I was talking about the Minister's misunderstanding of the situation in regard to very serious things such as the Intoxicating Liquor Bill and the courts of justice position he should again confess to misunderstanding what the position is before the House. The Minister has really a very bad record of misunderstanding in his short career.

Do not be rude.

We were once told this assessment had to be made in the case of the judiciary because of their special position and that it would be fairly generous as a reward for their unusual situation in society. A case could be made for that: it was made by the Taoiseach and generally accepted at the time. In the course of his speech here, when it was pointed out to him by Deputy McQuillan that this had been in fact the position, the Minister shifted to his new position to suggest that the judges were at the end of a queue for wage increases.

The Deputy has already covered all these arguments on the various amendments and to go over them again would be repetition which is not in order.

On that basis, the amendment should not have been accepted. The Deputy must repeat these arguments as would anybody opposing the section.

The Deputy may oppose the section without repeating arguments.

Is it not a fact that the amendments were taken in two groups for the purpose of facilitating discussion and that when the amendments are dealt with, there are various matters that could not be dealt with when as amendments they would be ruled out of order which, I presume, are in order for discussion when one opposes the section. On that basis, I suggest the discussion on the section should be of a wider nature than on the 15 amendments that have been dealt with.

I suggest that that is not the position, and that the understanding of the House is as I suggested. The Ceann Comhairle divided the amendments into two groups and allowed the widest possible discussion on all aspects of this matter on those two groups on the basis that the discussion on the section was to be covered in that discussion on the amendments.

Not discussion of the section.

The Minister is submitting that because the amendments are disposed of, the section should not be opposed on general lines. The section is now amended by the vote of the House——

It has not been amended. Will the Deputy get his facts right?

It has been discussed for amendment.

It has not been amended. Do not talk nonsense.

Will the Minister have manners——

It is difficult.

If not, we will have to ask the House to put manners on him. The section is now in its completed form and every Deputy is entitled to say whether, as it now stands, it should or should not pass.

Deputy Dr. Browne is entitled to discuss Section 1, but the Chair is pointing out that neither Deputy Dr. Browne nor any other Deputy is entitled to repeat arguments made when amendments to the section were under discussion. Deputies are entitled to speak generally on the section but there may be no repetition.

In reference to what Deputy MacEoin has said, I simply want to point out that I did not argue, or attempt to suggest, that Deputy Dr. Browne should not discuss the section. In fact I specifically pointed out that, in my understanding of the agreement, he was entitled to discuss district justices' salaries because they were not covered in the discussion on the amendments. I am reinforced in that opinion by the manner in which Deputy McGilligan spoke because in discussing the section, he confined his remarks to district justices.

Deputy McGilligan is not the judge of order; the Chair is the judge of order. I am glad the Minister has such faith in Deputy McGilligan. Why can the Minister not accept his advice in other respects?

Recommendations are made in this Bill to increase the salaries of the judges. This is a precedent which is being established by the Minister. It departs from other precedents in regard to suggestions made from time to time to increase the remuneration of the judiciary. The position is greatly confused by the Minister's actions. We do not now know what is to be the future line of action in deciding what these people should get when there is another proposal for an increase. If this Bill goes through, as far as we can see, it will be possible for the Minister to come here whenever he wishes and give any of the eight or nine different reasons that he has given, each more unsubstantial than the other, and bulldoze a Bill through the House with no more compelling case than he has made up to now.

The precedent had been established by the Taoiseach that these people should be treated differently from the rest of the community. That was accepted. The new departure is to suggest that it is necessary to give these people this increase because everybody else had got it. They had got increases as a result of arbitration or Labour Court awards or agreements between trade unions and employers. Essentially, there was this radical departure from precedent and there was a decision by the Minister to link up the judges with the general mass of wage-earners in the country. That appears to be a new situation.

The anomaly which the Minister has created is that he has come to us with figures which he puts down here and which, I think, we are completely incompetent to judge or to assess in the real sense of the word, or to say what are the merits or the justice of this proposal. We are incompetent to assess this proposal, just as it would be quite absurd for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to say here: "We are thinking of giving the postmen an increase. What do you think of this?", or for the Minister for Lands or the Minister for Industry and Commerce or for the Minister for Transport and Power to do so in the case of other employees. We are not the best body to decide on the merits of a salary claim. There was the other precedent established of the appoint- ment of a Special Committee which obviously had great merits, amongst the best of them being that it was a committee of experts competent to make a more just assessment, and probably another being the fact that the whole question did not have to be dragged through the House in the way this has been dragged through the House.

A new situation has been created and we do not know what the Minister's plans or what his attitude will be for the future. Will the public be asked for yet another increase for these people at some future time when it is decided they must have another increase consequent on a round of wage increases? Will they get remuneration both on the swings and on the roundabouts? Will they be paid at the time of an ordinary wage increase and will they also get the bulk increase to which the Taoiseach says they have a right at these various irregular times?

The disturbing thing about the whole Bill is that it was brought in here without any clear justification. We are in the difficult position of not knowing what is to be the future in regard to these people. The suggestion as to the only way in which they can maintain their independence and integrity seems to be particularly futile kind of argument. As Deputy McGilligan said, when talking about the district justices, it is difficult to know how you arrive at an assessment when you are deciding on degrees of corruptibility — corruptibility is permissible in the light of Deputy Corry's most succinct summing-up of one of the Minister's appalling justifications for the increase, that it was the only way of keeping the judges from being corrupted. How does one decide on the scale of charges for corruptibility?

That is very corrupt to attribute that argument to me when the Deputy knows I never made it.

The Minister did.

Deputy Corry said he agreed with the Minister.

I did not make the argument.

Deputy Corry said the Minister said it.

I wrote it down. It was too good to miss: "I agree with the Minister for Justice, due to their peculiar training, it was the only way to keep them straight."

Why does the Deputy attribute it to me?

Because Deputy Corry attributed it to the Minister. He probably knows what the Minister's policy is. The Deputy shares the Minister's policy and I take it the Minister shares the Deputy's policy. If the Minister wants to delay the House —I do not wish to—I shall read a number of quotations in which he has made it clear that the integrity of the judiciary depends on what you pay them.

Why does the Deputy attribute to me an argument I never made? That is dishonest; that is corrupt.

All right. At column 778, Volume 194, of the Official Report of 28th March, 1962, the Minister said:

The implication was made on a number of occasions today that the argument that you had to pay this salary to get good judges was not valid because you would get people anyway.

At column 780 of the same volume he said:

A question of the prestige, honour and traditional integrity and respect of the judiciary is involved in this.

This traditional integrity means that if you do not pay them they will not retain their integrity. Integrity is another word for honesty. If a person is dishonest he is corrupt. He is corruptible. Surely the whole logic of that, according to the Minister, is that if he does not pay them sufficiently they will be corrupted? They will lose their integrity.

This is repetition.

The Minister made a serious charge. He said I was misquoting him. I am not the only one who got that impression. His own colleague, Deputy Corry, came to exactly the same conclusion. How does one make this assessment of the different levels of corruptibility for these people?

Surely this argument has been put forward on each one of the amendments that have been discussed? It would be repetition to go over the whole ground again.

A point has been made by the Minister and we are trying to answer that point.

The Chair is not concerned with any point made by the Minister. I am just pointing out that it would not be in order to go over all the arguments that were put forward in the course of the amendments on Section 1.

The point was made by Deputy Corry and it seemed to support our point of view and I was merely dealing with that. Also at column 561 the Taoiseach said:

In any democratic society, judges occupy, and should be seen clearly by the public to occupy, positions of high authority, of independence and detachment. Independence in the sense that we use that term in relation to judges means something more than freedom from improper Government influence. It means putting them into a position in which they will be, as far as possible, immune from improper influence of any kind, and it is no exaggeration to say, in my view, that an adequate and, indeed, a generous basis of remuneration for judges is the basis of their independence. It has always been so regarded here. It is, indeed, so regarded everywhere.

Deputy Dr. Browne quoted that before.

I did not. Deputy McQuillan may have.

I am just drawing the attention of the Chair to it.

The Deputy repeated himself so often.

The independence of a judge presumably means that the judge makes a decision independent of outside influences, on the merits of the case before him. If he does not do that he is corrupted by outside influence. Interference with the independence of the Judiciary, according to what the Taoiseach then said, means interference by Government influence.

The Taoiseach never spoke in this debate, not once.

In 1959.

This is 1962.

The Minister should not remind the House of that. The Minister put that case forward anyway and it was understood by most of us here and by at least one of his own fellow Deputies, Deputy Corry, to be the case put forward. Once one gets into that kind of mess——

The Deputy is now even misquoting Deputy Corry.

——that kind of morass of paying people for their loyalty, paying people for their independence, it is very difficult to come to grips with that kind of argument because it is very difficult to understand the kind of mind that believes in that type of argument, or, indeed, the kind of mind that would put forward that type of argument at an arbitration court, and it is essentially the function of an arbitration court to decide.

Surely this argument has been put forward already on the various amendments to Section 1? I must point out to the Deputy that, if he continues, I shall have to ask him to resume his seat. The Deputy is entitled to speak generally on the section, as is every other Deputy, but there must be no repetition.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

As was pointed out by Deputy McGilligan, district justices represent to the mass of the people the only real courts to which they have access. On the whole, they find in the district court that cases are handled with courtesy and conscientious care. The general level of justice meted out is of a very high level. The odd thing is that this is all done in an apparently offhand sort of way without any need for all the paraphernalia associated with the higher courts and by men who are paid only moderately good salaries. As far as we can see these men carry out their jobs conscientiously. Generally speaking, there is a high degree of integrity. Yet, they do not seem to need the thousands of pounds —£4,000, £5,000, £6,000—which are asked for on behalf of these other minorities. Stranger still, the Minister is making no attempt to explain why it is possible to get incomparably good service from ordinary district justices for a relatively small amount of money, while, in the other courts, they need £5,000 or £6,000 per year.

On the whole, I think the Minister has brought in this Bill without bothering his head to give any serious thought to it or justify it to the House. He should take our advice. He should give the Bill to a Special Committee of the House constituted of all Parties. If that is done, I, for one, give an undertaking that, should an all-Party Special Committee of the House make recommendations, I will accept those recommendations without question.

I am really at a loss to understand how Deputy Dr. Browne can repeat at this stage this argument about a Select Committee. Judicial salaries were determined first in 1924 and the relationships between the different levels were settled. The salaries were related to other sectors of the public service, namely, the higher reaches of the Civil Service. A fundamental reappraisal of judicial salaries was carried out in 1953 by a Select Committee of this House constituted of all Parties, except the Labour Party. The Labour Party indicated that they did not want to participate in the work of the Committee. When the report of the Committee came before the House in the form of a Bill, it was discussed here as fully as if the Select Committee had never been set up. It is, therefore, absolutely pointless for Deputy Dr. Browne, or anybody else, to suggest that if we set up a Select Committee now, there will be no debate subsequently in this House. I am quite sure I am interpreting the mind of the Labour Party correctly when I say that, if such a Committee were set up, they would not participate in its work and would regard themselves as free to criticise whatever recommendations were put before the House as a result of that Committee. Let us have an end of that argument now.

The question as to why we are retaining the differentials was implicit in what Deputy McGilligan said. Why have we a differential between country district justices and metropolitan district justices? The answer is quite simple. When the basis was decided upon in 1924, the differential was brought into being. The Select Committee of this House set up in 1953 carried out a fundamental reappraisal of salaries, examined the differentials, and decided not to interfere with them. On two separate occasions, therefore, this differential was confirmed.

The Select Committee in 1953 examined this matter and decided upon the fundamental bases of the salaries. Because of that, I feel perfectly justified in coming along now and giving proportionate increases on the fundamental basic salaries decided upon in 1953 by the Select Committee. That type of fundamental reappraisal need be carried out only at long intervals. In between all that is necessary is to give the judiciary an increase on the basics proportionate to that of the rest of the community. That is the simple operation we are carrying out here.

Deputy Dr. Browne asked where are we as to the future? What guide have we as to the manner in which these salaries will be decided from now on? That question is very simple to answer. We have the bases settled in 1953. In 1959, we gave a percentage increase on those bases. We are coming along now in 1962 and giving a further percentage increase on the bases fixed by the Select Committee.

To what is the percentage related? Where does the Minister get his standard?

It is an increase proportionate to what has been granted to the higher levels of the Civil Service.

Up to 17½ per cent.

It is 12½ per cent. in the higher courts and 15 per cent. in the lower courts.

Seventeen per cent.

I am trying to outline for Deputy Dr. Browne the way in which I visualise this will develop in the future. The bases were fixed in 1953. There were two percentage increases, as it were, on those bases. If, in the years ahead, there is another general all-round increase in salary levels similar to that which took place in 1961, this House would presumably, in pursuance of its duty to the judiciary, decide to give another proportionate increase to the judiciary.

Alternatively it may appear after a lapse of time that the general levels fixed upon by the Select Committee of 1953 are out of date. I would not visualise that happening for some considerable time. It may happen, some time in the future, that the very basis of the matter would be regarded as inadequate or unsuitable. Deputy McGilligan said that is the position at the moment. He said the bases on which the salaries of district justices are related to those of judges of the higher courts is unreal and wrong but I do not agree with that. I say this matter was settled fundamentally in 1953 and that at the moment all I need do is to give proportionate increases. However, at some future time, it may be necessary to re-examine the basic relationship between the different offices and the relationship between those offices and society as a whole. If that time should come, then I fully agree that a Select Committee of this House should be set up to carry out that fundamental reappraisal. I do not think that that is necessary at this stage. All we need do at this stage is try to give the judiciary increases commensurate in number with those achieved in 1961 by the salaried classes with whom they had been traditionally compared, that is, the higher civil servants.

I just want to repudiate any suggestion that I ever at any stage argued or suggested that it was necessary to pay justices or judges at any level any particular scale of salary in order to keep them free from corruption. I have never used that argument in debate and I do not accept it as an argument.

I do not propose to repeat anything I said on the Committee Stage or on the Second Reading. I must say it is touching to hear the Minister talk about his duty or the duty of the Government towards the judiciary. I humbly suggest they have a duty to their other employees as well. They certainly have a duty to social welfare recipients. Nobody minds him giving an increase to the judiciary, if the Minister believes he has a duty towards them but the duty towards the social welfare recipients was not fulfilled first.

The Minister would not be responsible. That would be a matter for another Minister.

The Minister also said that after a fundamental reorganisation of salaries in 1953, the Government proceeded to apply percentage increases to the judiciary—which, he told us, was the justification for the increases ranging from 10½ to 17 per cent. in respect of those who are listed in this Bill. The increases have been related to the eighth round of salary increases to civil servants which arose out of the eighth round of wage increases. Has the Minister an idea of what the percentage increase in wages was as a result of the eighth round of wage increases? Seven and a half per cent. was the average increase gained in the eighth round of wage increases.

What about the Civil Service?

The Minister may take out individual increases within the Civil Service. I am telling him that the average increase in the eighth round was 7½ per cent. Here, we have the Chief Justice getting 12½ per cent. and others 10, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 per cent. increases.

I cannot quote here anything he said in regard to the independence and the integrity of the judiciary but the Taoiseach made the case on 29th October, 1959, in this House that we should pay these salaries in order that we might preserve their independence and integrity. I do not want to flog that argument except to say again that the Taoiseach used that argument here in 1959.

I do not think anybody in this House has wittingly criticised the judiciary for their behaviour on the Bench. I know that none of my Party did. However, I certainly do take exception to the proposals contained in the Minister's Bill. I think most of us will agree, and we do, too, that the district justices deserve an increase. I do not think anybody could say that the salaries of which they are in receipt at present are exorbitant. On the other hand, they seem to be hardworking and impartial men when they are on the Bench.

It is they who are getting the 17 per cent., which the Deputy is worried about.

Maybe they are like some of the workers, looking for a standard of living. I do not think it should be argued that a Chief Justice on £6,000 per annum is looking for that amount because he has a depressed standard of living.

I want to take exception to the behaviour of certain district justices. I do so because we now propose to fix their salaries for another few years. I said I regard them as fair, impartial and hardworking men. However, they have got into a certain practice recently and one which concerns a great number of people in this country and that practice was again employed yesterday in, I think, Deputy Dolan's constituency: I think he comes from Monaghan.

I am wrong. Anyhow, it happened in Monaghan. A district justice there told a defendant that he must either serve a month in jail or leave the country. Who is responsible for gentlemen who do that sort of thing? Is it the Chief Justice, the President of the Circuit Court, the President of the District Court or the Minister for Justice himself?

All three of us.

I take great exception to anybody appearing to banish Irish-men from this country. Some years ago, they were punished for offences— in many cases, minor offences—by being sent to Van Diemen's Land.

That does not appear to be within the ambit of the debate.

Perhaps the Ceann Comhairle would help me and let me know when I might raise this question. I have not been able to raise it on the Estimate or on Questions. I suggest that, now that we are fixing their salaries, we should be able to make some comments on what they do—not on the judgments they give but on the sentences they impose. Here, in County Monaghan and in various other parts of the country, they are forcing exile on poor people. We never see the alternative——

There is no provision in this Bill in respect of the conduct of the courts, no provision whatever. This is purely a measure to regulate the remuneration of the judges.

One of my reasons for posing this question now is——

I suggest the Deputy might consult me at some other time if the Deputy wishes to raise the matter. We shall be glad to give him any information or help we can.

I thought the best method of communicating matters such as this to the Ceann Comhairle was on the floor of the House. I think the Minister might take note of it. I am sure all the members of the House take serious exception to the practice of district justices forcing exile particularly on poor people who come before them. This was an Irishman, granted of no fixed abode, and, because of that——

I fully agree.

If I allow Deputy Corish to continue along those lines, I cannot stop any other Deputy from doing likewise. It is quite irregular.

Anyway, I agree.

Perhaps the Minister would do something about it. It is general in several counties.

Deputy Corish asked a specific question as to the increases achieved by the Civil Service. Between 1959 to date, the higher branches of the Civil Service generally have been granted increases which range from 12½ per cent. to 17 per cent.—almost exactly the same sort of percentage increases as we are granting to the judiciary in this Bill.

Perhaps the Minister would say what has been the average increase over the whole Civil Service?

I have not these figures readily available, but I am quite certain they would be in proportion to the ones I have mentioned. I have been at pains, I think, right through this debate, to emphasise that the salary increases decided upon for the judiciary were in relation to that class and that sector of the public service to which they have traditionally been related, that is, the higher branches of the Civil Service. The answer to Deputy Corish's question is that the percentage increases proposed in the Bill are practically identical with those achieved by that branch of the Civil Service.

Is the Minister aware that quite a number of State servants have received no increase, good, bad or indifferent?

That is up to you in the trade unions.

It is up to the Government.

I shall be very brief on the section. I want to appeal to the Minister and the Government to re-examine the pay of district justices in the country. The fact that a differential was set in 1924, in my opinion, is no justification for maintaining it at present. Everybody knows the circumstances that obtained in 1924 and everybody then going into the service was young.

There were some old stagers, too.

The picture of government was not as clearly defined as it is today. Therefore, I submit there should be no difference in pay between the district justices in the city of Dublin and in the town of Longford——

Does the Deputy want to bring them up or to bring them down?

Bring them up.

They have a tougher job in Dublin.

If I wanted to bring them down, I could put down an amendment but the Minister knows well that I cannot put down an amendment to bring them up. It would be ruled out of order immediately.

As a charge on State funds.

Apparently the Minister thinks that is a very wise interjection to make. He knows that nobody except a Minister can seek to move upwards but each and every one of us has a right to put down an amendment to bring down——

I did not really know which the Deputy was recommending.

In my opinion, as with Army officers, there should be no difference in the salary paid to district justices in the country and in the city. There is no difference in their appointments. In regard to errors, there will be errors and I suppose there are errors, but before any of us can criticise what the district justice is doing, we would want to know all the facts presented to him. It is very easy for us to criticise from a newspaper report.

I want to assert that the district justices and the circuit court judges are in very close touch with the people of the country and that they do impart justice and arrive at decisions which, broadly speaking, are correct. The number of decisions upset on appeal are few. Of course I am not satisfied that they always do the right thing but they impart justice and generally speaking give satisfaction. For that reason, I suggest to the Minister that on Report Stage he can move the amendment necessary to bring the district justices in the country up to the standard of the metropolitan justices.

The Minister made a statement that in 1953 a fundamental reappraisal took place on the whole question of emoluments, salaries and so forth of the judiciary and that all he had to do since was first in 1959, and secondly in 1962, to give a slight percentage increase for various reasons, one of them, in this particular case, being partly the eighth round wage increase and partly as a status increase. He is basing his case on the claim that there was no necessity for a further reappraisal since 1952. The Minister in his opening speech referred to the fact that there has been a reorganisation in both the circuit court and the district court work since 1959. In view of that reorganisation of certain circuit court and district court work, surely there was a case for a further examination before the Minister casually decided: "I will give an increase based on what I had fundamentally examined in 1953." Now, if there had been no change, if there had been no alteration or no action by his Department——

May I just interrupt the Deputy for a moment? The 1953 Bill provided for that reorganisation of the district courts and the circuit courts.

To answer that, may I ask the Minister a question? The question is whether or not in 1957 the Government were requested to examine the salaries and emoluments——

The Deputy put that question.

I did not intend to put it now except for the Minister's interjection. Surely if the Minister explains something, and I ask him to clarify a certain point, I should reply——

I think the House should be very anxious that there should not be any repetition. I do not see how one can again discuss——

I do not want repetition.

The Deputy is indulging in it now.

I certainly do not wish to do so. My comment came about simply because the Minister suggested that in 1953, when this fundamental reappraisal of the judiciary took place, provision was made for a rearrangement of the work that was being carried out and is being carried out in the circuit courts and in the district courts. The Minister intervened on that basis and I felt I was entitled to ask him again in the circumstances why it was found necessary if this had all been decided upon in 1953—the rearrangement of the circuit court areas and the district court work —to seek the increases in 1957? All I have to say on that point, the fundamental reappraisal that took place in 1953, is that in view of the increased work placed on the shoulders of a number of district justices, there was a definite case for them to receive far more sympathetic consideration than has been given to them under the terms of the Bill, in comparison with higher echelons of the judiciary.

Deputy MacEoin rightly made a case that there should be no differential between the district justices who dispense justice throughout the rural areas in the different provinces and their colleagues in, for instance, the city of Dublin. I suppose the Minister is going to tell me that the fundamental reappraisal made in 1953 has satisfied him that there is no need for a further investigation into the desirability—I shall put it that way—of deciding at this stage whether or not district justices outside the city areas are entitled to the same salary and treatment as their colleagues in the city.

Is there any doubt in the minds of Deputies that there is in this field a bias shown by the Government against those outside the city? It may be unfair to the present Minister to suggest he cannot see beyond the city of Dublin, but surely he has Party colleagues down the country—a big proportion of Fianna Fáil Deputies represent rural constituencies—who, if they were allowed to voice their opinions in this matter would support the view of other Deputies that the work performed by justices outside the city is just as important as that done in Dublin and other cities?

Justices in the rural areas have to be just as learned, as wise and as humane in their treatment of the public as those in city areas. Therefore is it not perfectly fair for me to ask the Minister why he did not carry out a fundamental reappraisal of the justices' salary structure in so far as it affected country areas in the light of what he himself described as the 1959 scheme of reorganisation of the circuit and district courts? Certain districts in the country were merged at that time and overlapping which occurred in the past was avoided. Economies were thus effected in the administration of the Department of Justice by a reduction in the number of justices.

I know the Minister had on his hands a number of temporary justices for a while and that he found it very difficult indeed to place them all, but if he had wanted a recommendation in that connection, I am sure Deputy Corry would have been only too glad to give it to him. Seeing that such reorganisation did take place and that the work of justices was consequently increased, the Minister had every justification for the setting up of a Select Committee—the type of committee he sought to throw cold water on here in the past few minutes—on the ground that when the other Select Committee was set up, despite the fact that it spent quite a considerable time on the examination of the various aspects of the judiciary's salaries and so forth, Deputies had the opportunity of a later discussion in the House on these matters. The Minister uses that now as an argument against establishing another Select Committee. He cannot have it both ways. He says he is basing these proposed increases on the fundamental reappraisal which took place in 1953 and says that in 1953 provision was made for what took place in 1959.

That is right. May I quote from the Report of that Committee?

The Minister may, if he wants to, but let me, first of all, put this to him: What took place in 1953 was a debate on the extent of the work of the judges and justices in the various areas and of the reorganisation that would be necessary. I accept that, but as a consequence was there a recommendation from the 1953 Select Committee to the effect that, because of the reorganisation, justices outside the city areas should be paid on the same basis as justices in Dublin?

Would the Deputy like me to explain it now, or later?

I am just putting these points now.

What I have to say is just on the facts of the situation. The Committee of 1953 issued a Report recommending certain increases and then went on to say:

While it recommends these increased salaries the Committee feels that it must comment upon the average annual number of hours of duty on the Bench by the judges and justices of each of the courts. The average is low when it is considered that all the posts involved are wholetime. Chief casual factors in the opinion of the Committee are the traditional short day, short week and long summer vacation of the judiciary. To make for the more economic and expeditious administration of the law, the Committee is of opinion that the courts, where necessary, should sit for longer hours each day, that as far as possible each judge and justice should sit on five days each week and that the summer vacation should be shortened and that, as a corollary and where necessary, areas of jurisdiction should be regrouped.

It then recommended increased salaries on the basis of this regrouping.

I am very grateful to the Minister, but that still does not clarify the point I am interested in. In that report, where is there any comment on the justification for refusing to put justices in rural areas on a par with their colleagues in the city in so far as remuneration is concerned?

It recommended a flat increase for both, thereby retaining the differential.

Now we have it. In spite of the fact that there was a reorganisation of the work both in the circuit court and district court, particularly in the rural areas, there has not been a definite recommendation to the Minister that the men who are in the rural areas should get the same salaries and emoluments as their colleagues in the city. I do not like this bias, and there definitely is one, against the men in the rural areas. We have it in many different ways as far as this Government is concerned. We had this penny budget last week, the idea being to pinpoint in the public mind that it was because of the dairymen down the country, who were looking for more money, that it became necessary to impose this extra penny per packet on cigarettes, the idea being to instil into the minds of city people that those in rural areas are always on the lookout for something.

The Minister, in his speech, did not give any indication to the House as to why the work done in the rural areas should be paid for at a lesser rate than that carried out in the city. I imagine that the Minister had this idea when he thought up this Bill, or when it was thought up for him: "I will have no trouble getting it through the House. Quite a large proportion of the Fine Gael Party are closely associated with the legal profession and the Bench, and if I produce fantastic figures in the House for salaries and emoluments, Fine Gael will back me up."

I believe that when this was discussed in the Cabinet, the Government decided to take a gamble. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice decided to take a long shot. They knew at the time—and it is running through the Minister's speech—there was likely to be opposition from the Labour and NPD group, but they felt that such opposition would not be strong enough because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would combine. They felt there would be no real opposition and it was intended to have this measure through the House inside of one hour. The Second Reading would be over and the Committee and Report Stages would be taken on the same day, the Bill would go up to the Seanad and the judges would be drawing their back pay up to last November. That is why I say the Minister treated this House very unfairly by coming along with this hasty, ill-thought out measure and using the excuse that he was basing his proposals on a so-called fundamental reappraisal which took place in 1953. The Minister cannot have it both ways. Each time this matter was discussed, his predecessor and the Taoiseach stated, both in 1953 and in 1959, that increases would be given only on a long term basis. What is a long term basis? Have we lost count of time?

Apparently.

If you are missing, we will count you again. Have the Government lost count of time since they cannot decide what is a long term basis? Does Deputy Meaney consider a short period of less than two years to be a long term period? There was an adjustment in the salaries of the judiciary amounting to about £1,100 inside that short space of time. I should like Deputy Meaney, a rural Deputy, to explain that to his constituents.

I shall not explain it to Deputy McQuillan because he would not understand.

I find it hard to understand what the Government mean by a long term period. According to the Minister, and I accept his word, there was a fundamental reappraisal in 1924. That lasted until 1947. To my mind, that was a long term period. In 1953, there was a further reappraisal. That was a five year period, a fairly long period. Then we had from 1953 to 1959, in my opinion, a reasonably long term period. But, all of a sudden, from 1959 to 1961, we threw overboard all the talk we had about long term periods. Is it not a fact that a short period of two years can now be described by the Fianna Fáil Party as a long term period? It is important that we know where we stand in this. As Deputy Dr. Browne said, where do we go from here? Is this present increase a long term one?

The Minister intervened here a few minutes ago and was very hot and bothered. He suggested Deputy Dr. Browne was putting into his mouth words he never said. Deputy Dr. Browne had quoted remarks of Deputy Corry in which Deputy Corry made it quite clear he was supporting the Government in giving this increase because he believed it was necessary in order to keep the judges honest.

To keep them straight, I think.

I shall accept the Minister's description. Deputy Corry said he was agreeing with the Minister——

In what he was doing.

Agreeing with the Minister. In view of that, he was going to vote for what the Minister put before him. Is Deputy Corry not an important member of the Minister's Party?

Generally speaking, he is.

It would appear so, that on an issue like this, what Deputy Corry says does not carry weight with the Party, that he is a bit of a maverick.

The Deputy is not quoting Deputy Corry exactly.

I shall quote the Minister instead. The Minister sought to suggest that at no stage here did he infer, suggest or try to put it before the House that it was necessary to pay the judiciary well to keep them honest.

It seems to me I heard that argument several times already.

You should have heard Deputy Corry, Sir.

It has been challenged on the record.

The fact that it has been challenged does not give the right to repeat an argument.

The Parliamentary Secretary read his speech for 20 minutes the other morning and nobody said a word. He made it twice, the evening before and the following day.

Repetition is not in order and is definitely disorderly.

At column 774 of the Official Report of March 28th, 1962, the Minister had this to say.

Repeating what I said is repetition.

I ask the Minister to stand over it. This is what he had to say:

We value our judiciary, their independence and integrity. Let us make up our mind that, if we want to keep them that way, we must pay them.

What does that mean?

It means exactly what it says.

Is there not an inference there that if we do not give this increase, we will be up against it and the judiciary will be open to influences of all sorts? That is the reason Deputy Corry said he would back the Bill. He said he agreed with the Minister, and the Minister's statement was to the effect that, unless we pay them well, we will be in a dangerous position as far as their independence and integrity are concerned.

Surely this is repetition since it has been said so often on the amendments to Section 1?

I am only quoting what the Minister said. He has denied saying it.

That is not the point. It is still repetition, and repetition is not in order.

It is very boring, to boot.

The Minister was also asked by Labour Deputies to set up a Select Committee.

The question of a Select Committee has been ruled out of order and may not be discussed.

It has been ruled out of order as an amendment but one of the reasons we are opposing the section is that the Minister did not set up a Select Committee. That is the only basis on which I refer to it. I have no intention of dealing with the amendments concerning a Special Committee which you, Sir, and the Ceann Comhairle ruled out of order. I accept that, for technical reasons and others, it was not possible to allow those amendments to be put down. When the section is opposed, as we are opposing this section, I believe it is the right of every Deputy to suggest that the Minister should have had second thoughts. He could have established a number of things as a result of having a Select Committee.

The Deputy will appreciate that in the appointment of a Select Committee, the function of the Dáil is to appoint on a motion.

One of the functions which such a committee could have had was to deal with the question of the emoluments of district justices. I appreciate the fact that a private Member of the House is not entitled to put down amendments that will increase contributions from the Exchequer. It is a very difficult matter to move amendments that would bring about increased taxation and it is very difficult to make a case for treating the district justices on a separate basis.

I should like to emphasise to the Minister that he should have re-examined the position of the district justices outside the city area. He has had the case of a number of justices put to him on the basis that the work they do is of equal importance to the work carried out in the city. It is time that we put out of our minds the idea that people out in the country, no matter what their profession or position may be, are not doing as good work as the people in the city. The Minister should re-examine the whole question on that basis.

I do not think there is much use at this stage in asking the Minister to reconsider the position as far as Section 2 is concerned. I believe his indiscretion in this regard came about because of his belief that there would be support from the major opposition Party in the House for whatever proposals he might bring in no matter how outrageous those proposals might be. In view of the fact that that gamble, or chance, did not come off does the Minister not realise that there is quite a large volume of opinion, more than is represented by the various groups in this House, against the proposals contained in this measure? In the light of the strong opposition shown in this House to-day and on other days by a large number of Deputies, if the Minister has the respect for democracy that he says he has, it is not unfair for me to suggest that he should have a second look at the matter. The Minister has changed his mind already and he knows that there is nothing wrong or undemocratic about a Minister changing his mind or altering his decision when all the various aspects of a case have been brought to his notice.

Dr. Browne condemned me for doing that on the Liquor Bill.

Yes, when you changed your mind before you came into the House. We are speaking about changing your mind after coming into the House.

You said I was a blunderer.

Of course you are. You could not make up your own mind and other people changed it for you.

You were very rude about it. I did it on my own.

Of course you did not do it on your own.

The Minister should not give any Deputy lectures on rudeness. This is a lively chamber; it is not a place where we all sit down to have tea.

Your colleague was very hurtful about it.

My colleague is entitled to tell the Minister where to get off. What I feel about a telling off is that if a man is able to give one he must be able to take one. That should be the case on both sides of the House in discussion. I have no objection at any time to an intervention by a Deputy when it arises out of a discussion on a measure like this where an intervention clears the air and shows an individual where he may have slipped up on some point. As a result of discussions on Committee Stages we frequently learn something and the measures before the House are improved.

I would appeal to the Minister at this late stage to withdraw the Bill in view of the big volume of opinion against it in the House and in his own Party. There is only one member of his own Party who had the courage to speak out his mind. That was Deputy Corry who refused to obey the Party Whip on the matter. There are other members of the Party who are against the Bill behind the closed doors of the Party room but when they come into the House they do not exercise their democratic rights. It is in Dáil Éireann that they should express their doubts and not march in here as a well ordered Party at the crack of the Party Whip.

The Minister has made some attempt to reply to the suggestions I made that he has confused the situation completely and erroneously in regard to the future attitude to be adopted by the people in regard to the remuneration of the members of the judiciary.

The future attitude does not arise on the section.

In so far as this section contains proposals which I believe were not justified by the Minister. The Minister is establishing a precedent in this Bill which I think is a very dangerous precedent. It is incorporated in the section. He is now dividing the judiciary into two in relation to a fundamental reappraisal of their position vis-à-vis one another presumably, and vis-à-vis other groups in society. He says we can carry on in both ways, that we may have another of these Bills, and that we may have to face a fundamental reassessment. He then dismisses the proposition that there should be some form of committee. There was such a committee and apparently its recommendations did not get a ready acceptance by the Dáil. He said there was no real point in establishing a committee. He made that point, but then it seems to me that he is creating a completely new situation in relation to the payment of the judiciary. A good case was made by the Taoiseach a short time ago when he said there should be these irregular fairly generous bulk payments.

Surely the Deputy dealt with that point on more than one occasion?

One moment, Sir. The Minister clarified a point arising out of that and that is what I want to deal with. It is not repetition, as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will see. If the Minister takes the view that we should depart from this bulk irregular payments proposal he is putting the judiciary in a completely new relationship. Is not that rather undesirable? Presumably the remuneration of judges will be related to the wage and salary increases made and gained as a result of trade union pressure, Civil Service union pressure and claims by various bodies, substantiated because well documented, or at any rate, put forward to the various councils or tribunals, arbitration boards and courts. Together these will create an end pressure which will result in a general increase, out of which general increase the Minister says he will be justified in giving the judges a further increase in order, as he says, to play fair with the judges.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

The Minister discards the old approach and feels there should be this dual approach to the assessment of the salaries of the judiciary. Looking back over the very recent history of the State—and when I say "very recent history" I mean the history of the past two or three years—the Minister must be aware of the fact that there has been quite a lot of contentious and at times apparently insoluble industrial unrest, and unrest in rural Ireland as well. In the circumstances, as he pointed out somewhere here, one tends to look to members of the judiciary—and to look to them with admiration—and to depend on them to do their duty—or some such phrase. They are the people who are above the ordinary standards of the rough and tumble of industrial, agricultural and political life, and in crises and serious situations affecting society they can go to the trade union leaders, the Civil Service union leaders or the various farming associations and agricultural groups.

When the Government are in difficulty they can turn to the members of the judiciary on the one hand and to the contending groups on the other hand and say: "We have a vested interest in this. We are the employers on the one hand and there are the employees on the other hand, the trade union leaders or whoever it may be, but we all have a vested interest in the end position in this case. Consequently we freely and fully understand that we would not be immediately acceptable to participate in whatever dispute there might be". Consequently it has been the habit in the State to turn to the members of the judiciary and ask one of them—or appoint one of them—to become a member of some sort of inquiry or commission which is to make a final assessment, a final arbitration or a final award, which I suppose would have to be accepted by all sides as a fair award.

Now, with the Minister's new approach to the question he is taking a particularly dangerous turn in his decision to link increases for the judiciary with increases upon which they may have to arbitrate, and the merits of which they may have to discuss if they are put in as the head of a court or an arbitration body, say, for a Civil Service group. If they make a decision which is a particularly undesirable one from the Government's point of view, if it is a decision in which a big award is made, if they are asked to sit on another court in which a proposal is made in relation to industrial wages——

Surely that has no relevance to Section 1?

We are now establishing a precedent wherein these people are withdrawn from an independent position and made to be a party to any wages or salary demands from other sections of society. There was a precedent last October or November when it was decided in a wage dispute to set up a court of arbitration the head of which would be a member of the judiciary. If that proposition had succeeded would it not mean that that man would be judge and jury in his own case? We are now linking the increases to the judiciary with payments in industry and payments in relation to the professions. In those circumstances I would ask the Minister to reconsider this whole position which is a most serious and undesirable development.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 20th June, 1962.
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