Vol. 217 No. 11
I move:
That a sum not exceeding £340,000 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1966, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Houses of the Oireachtas, including certain Grants-in-Aid.
Can the Minister give us any indication when the new building will be ready and when it will be possible to go into occupation of it? During the course of the building and during the course of the changeover, as the Minister will appreciate, many services inevitably fall very far short of the standards which are desirable. Consider, for instance, the inconvenience involved by the blockage of certain corridors for building purposes. There has also been great pressure on the telephone switchboard and various other difficulties, all of which we hope will soon be resolved.
I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that the people here in charge of the General Office, the Editor of Debates, and so on, have been working under great difficulty since the printers' strike. I hope that when this new building comes into use, they will have proper accommodation and that it will be equipped in such a manner that their business can always go on and that the reports of the Dáil Debates will always be available to us. I am not raising the issue that, since the printers' strike, the Dáil Debates have not been available. I fully realise that a wonderful job has been done by the staff of this House and I and my colleagues can say that they deserve the thanks of every Deputy.
Hear, hear.
There are two points which I should like to raise. Deputy Sweetman referred to the high pressure on the switchboard. I am sure he will agree with me that, in the presence of that phenomenal pressure that does exist on our switchboard, we get a service that is wellnigh incomparable.
Hear, hear.
I am often astonished at the way they deal with the mass demand made on them. Another matter which I wish to mention and which was raised with another Minister concerns the pensionable status of certain of the Oireachtas Staff, mainly ushers, I think, who were left in the position that the early years of their service in this House were deemed to be unpensionable years of service.
I imagine it is true to say of us all here that we desire that a discretion should be exercised in this matter to provide that these public servants would not be deprived of the pensionable rights they would enjoy had their early service been recognised as established. I can quite understand that the Minister is ready to say that he personally would be sympathetic but that if a precedent of this kind were once established it would create chaos and confusion in the Civil Service. That is not so because when I was Minister for Agriculture I had an exactly analogous problem on my hands relating to the poultry instructress supervisory staff. I found that three old ladies, who had spent nearly 40 years in the service of the Department, were going out without any pension because, through one of those anachronistic arrangements dating back to the days of, I think, Sir Horace Plunkett, they were treated as unestablished civil servants.
I forget whether it was Deputy Sweetman or the then Deputy McGilligan whom I approached but I put the case before him and said it was intolerable that these ladies should be launched out, in the autumn of their days, with no provision made for them. It was determined that their service would be regarded as established service and they all got their pensions. I admit that there were only three or four of them, which was a very small number, but the Minister for Finance of the time took a reasonable view and said that, whatever the arrangements might be, we could not allow that to happen and what was necessary was done. Those ladies have all lived to bless the prudence of the then Minister for Finance.
I am not suggesting that the present Minister for Finance is cold-blooded or indifferent to problems of this character but I urge upon him that I believe every Deputy, as well as he, would wish to see this matter attended to. It cannot make much difference to the revenue of the State but it could make a considerable difference to faithful servants of the State and of this Oireachtas. I would ask for the sympathetic consideration of the Minister for Finance in relation to that problem.
I shall take the points as they were raised. Deputy Sweetman referred to the completion of the alternations now going on in Leinster House. As the House is aware, the Press block was the first to be completed. That was completed last February. The new office-restaurant block and the installation of mechanical and electrical services is proceeding satisfactorily. The block will be ready for occupation in January next. It was hoped to have it ready for the Autumn session. Perhaps it is due to the building strike that it has been put back a couple of months. I did not quite grasp the import of Deputy Lynch's point.
They are only using Gestetners inside there. There should be a better way.
I see. To make better provision in the event of another printers' strike?
I would ask the Minister to consider that.
As Deputy Lynch said, I do not think we could fault to any extent the service we have got in the past couple of weeks from whatever facilities are available.
But the records are not available to us.
That is a very big job. However, I know it is very important in relation to certain matters that come before us that the preceding week's debates be available in some printed form. A reasonable attempt was made to provide these debates in printed form. I know it hindered a lot of Deputies in dealing with certain measures, particularly the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill. It is a point worth looking at. If anything can be done without undue expense, certainly I will be favourably disposed to doing something about it.
In regard to Deputy Dillon's point, this is something that has been raised over a number of years. I do not think the analogy he drew is a proper one. As far as I could understand his case, the poultry instructresses he had the Minister for Finance for the time being look after were not, I gather, in receipt of any superannuation allowances.
The case of the members of the staff here who had long service, some of which was unestablished, is on the same basis as unestablished service of other persons working in the Civil Service complex. I do not think it is correct for Deputy Dillon to suggest that, if we deal with this class now in a preferential way, we are not going to create a precedent.
I do not know to what extent Deputy Sweetman received representations from people that they should get more favourable recognition for unestablished service as far as pensions are concerned. I certainly got many, even before I became Minister for Finance, from all kinds of public servants who had unestablished service, followed by established service. This is a matter governed by the Superannuation Acts and they give the same treatment for pension purposes to the people Deputy Sweetman has in mind, that is, that their established service can be recognised fully but only one half of their unestablished service. As far as I know, that is common right through the public service.
There is one matter in which certain long serving members of the staff in Leinster House have preferential treatment. Where they have, on reaching the age of 65, over 16 and under 26 years pensionable service, then they are given a notional increase in pensionable service up to 26 years in order to improve their superannuation payments. That is a preferment these officers enjoy beyond the general run of civil servants and public servants.
Would the Minister give an assurance that when any Bills have been signed by the President in present circumstances, some type of copy of that Bill will be available to the public? For example, the Finance Act will be required by the public immediately it is enacted. Something will have to be done, whether by way of sharing the typing around other Departments or not, but typescript copies of the Acts as passed must be available for the public.
I will see if that can be done.
It must be done. If it cannot be done, steps will have to be taken to ensure the Act does not come into force. Otherwise, people would be breaking the law without knowing it.
