asked the Minister for Agriculture if he is aware that the Agricultural Wages Board have fixed minimum rates of holiday pay and half-holiday pay for male agricultural workers between fourteen and sixteen years of age, and also for female agricultural workers aged fourteen years and over; and if he will state the circumstances which warrant the fixing of minimum rates of holiday pay but not of minimum rates of wages.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Agricultural Wage Rates.
22.
I am aware of the provisions of the Orders made by the Board in the matters referred to by the Deputy.
I am advised that it is a matter for the Board to decide the manner in which they exercise the discretionary powers vested in them by the legislature.
Could the Minister say where the legislation states that they have such discretion?
I do not know what the Deputy really wants me to say or do in relation to all these Parliamentary Questions.
Just give me a straight answer.
The Acts are there and the Board is there. The Board has its legal adviser and I am not called upon, nor is any other Minister, to give interpretations such as those that have been sought in this matter over a very long period. I have been trying very hard to be courteous to the Deputy and, in fact, I have gone much further than that in trying to satisfy him, but here is a matter in which apparently the Board have discretion and every man and every board to whom discretion is given exercises that to the best of his or its judgment.
I quite agree that the Minister may consider he is conferring a favour on a Deputy by being courteous but I do not have to thank him or any other Minister for that. My question is simply for the purpose of finding out why the Minister says the Board can do one thing not prescribed in the Act and cannot do something else not prescribed in the Act. In other words, the Minister and the Board can do anything they like at any time.
The Act and the Board are there and the Board has its legal adviser. It is their duty to interpret the legislation that passes through this House.
Question No. 23.
I do not want to make the Deputy cross.
Do not get cross yourself, whatever you do.
23.
asked the Minister for Agriculture the precise provisions of the Agricultural Wages Act, 1936 which operate to reduce or qualify the obligation of the Agricultural Wages Board to fix minimum rates of wages for timework; and if he will state the circumstances under which the fixing of minimum rates are warranted, having regard to the definite obligation imposed on the Board by section 17 (1) of the Act.
I am advised that the obligations and discretions conferred on the Agricultural Wages Board are to be found in the Act as a whole and cannot be said to be reduced or qualified by any specific provision. The Deputy is not correct in reading Section 17 (1) divorced from Section 17 (2) and from the 1936 Act as a whole. It is a matter for the Board to determine the circumstances under which the fixing of minimum rates is warranted.
Surely the Minister will agree that the Agricultural Wages Act seems to be capable of interpretation any way anyone likes?