Amendments Nos. 22, 23 and 24 were being discussed together and progress was reported by Deputy FitzGerald.
Private Members' Business. - Higher Education Authority Bill, 1970: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Final Stages.
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
In subsection (1), page 3, line 41, to delete "amounts" and to insert "a total amount", and to delete "institutions of", and after "education" to add "and research".
—(Deputy FitzGerald.)
The Minister was actually in possession.
Thank you, Deputy.
I want to hear the Minister. I have ulterior motives.
The discussion on section 12 has taken up a very considerable amount of time and for that reason I shall confine myself to stressing once again what is basically involved. In accordance with the provisions of subsection (1) of this section two global amounts will be shown in the Book of Estimates by way of Grants-in-Aid, one for current expenditure and the other for capital expenditure. Therefore the word "amounts" must remain in the subsection.
When I introduced the amendment to subsection (2) I stated that I was doing this because it might be felt that under the original draft the discretion of An tÚdarás would be unduly inhibited. Again let me repeat what is visualised under subsection (2). There will appear in the Book of Estimates, by way of appendix, for the information of the House, a statement showing how the global sums have been arrived at. I have already explained why I believe that this should be so. This will take the form of showing the current and capital sums proposed for each institution of higher education. An tÚdarás will be empowered to make payments of these sums in such manner and subject to such conditions as it may think fit. I am convinced that without this latter power An tÚdarás could not perform one of its main tasks which is to assist in the co-ordination of State investment in higher education.
As part of the co-ordination process it will be necessary for An tÚdarás to allocate moneys for specific purposes and it must at the same time be given the necessary power to ensure that such moneys are expended for the puposes for which they were provided. There could also be a situation in which moneys would be provided for a specific project within the total sum proposed for any of the institutions. It might happen that progress in relation to that particular project within the year was such that the expenditure was considerably less than had been expected. It might happen at the same time that progress on an approved project in some other institution was greater and the expenditure higher than had been anticipated. In such an event An tÚdarás should have the power to allocate the money not expended on the first project to meet the higher cost of the second project.
As I see it, the amendments which Deputy FitzGerald has been trying to formulate would reduce the power of An tÚdarás so drastically as to make the suggested amendments wholly unacceptable. Incidentally, in the course of the discussion Deputy FitzGerald stated that he had never heard of a situation in which a breakdown of a Grant-in-Aid would be shown in the Book of Estimates. I have here a copy of the British Supply Estimates for Education and Science. From these it can be seen that the current grant for institutions of higher education in Britain is by way of Grant-in-Aid and that the distribution of this Grant-in-Aid as between the various institutions is shown in an appendix to the Estimate. Of course, I have already mentioned this previously. It is also true that the same applies in some instances to some of our own Estimates.
Having listened to all the arguments, and we have had a very considerable discussion on this whole matter, I must hold that the section, with my own amendment, should stand as it is set out in the Bill.
First of all, I must apologise to the Minister for being up to one minute late and congratulate him on the promptitude with which he started the debate. I may have missed something as a result but I have not heard from the Minister anything to refute the points that were made. It seems to me that he is, on the one hand, saying that An tÚdarás must be given certain power to act flexibly and, on the other hand, he is saying they must be tied down by the Book of Estimates to the amounts allocated to particular bodies. Either the annotation in the Book of Estimates is binding or it is not. That is to say, either they are bound to allocate the money in these proportions to these bodies or they are not. If they are so bound then it is the Minister who is removing their flexibility; if they are not the exercise is both pointless, and, on the face of it, misleading. I am not clear—perhaps the Minister could guide me—as to whether it is intended that these annotations in the Book of Estimates should be binding. Is that the case?
To what is the Deputy referring? Is it the appendix?
The proposed appendix which would indicate the manner in which the total sum is to be allocated to different institutions. Is that to be binding?
I have, in the change I made in subsection (2), given power to An tÚdarás to make certain changes in allocation. I have gone into certain instances when this would be likely but in relation to the vast bulk of the money there will not be any change.
Either they have power to take the money from one institution and give it to another or they have not.
They have, of course, but——
In that case what would be in the Book of Estimates would be potentially misleading because it would purport to indicate to whom the money is allocated when in fact it could go somewhere else. I do not think there is any precedent in our Book of Estimates. The Minister refers to what happened in Britain. I was talking about this country. He did say there are instances in this country too, but are there instances in this country of allocations of grants-in-aid? First of all, what are the allocations and, secondly, are there cases where the money is allocated and then can be re-distributed in defiance of the allocation shown in the Book of Estimates? I am not aware of such a precedent but I am always willing to learn from the other side of the House. Would the Minister like to tell me in what cases money is allocated in a grant-in-aid in the Book of Estimates for a particular purpose but that that can be varied by some outside body? What precedent have we for that?
The ones in relation to this country are grants, simply grants, but what I am concerned with is the fact that in Britain there are Grants-in-Aid—I do not think the Deputy was referring to this country when he spoke originally—where the amounts for the individual institutions are made available in an appendix to the Book of Estimates.
I want to be clear on this. The Minister is now saying there is no precedent in this country for the sub-allocation of a Grant-in-Aid. It is only grants that are broken down, not Grants-in-Aid. Am I right in that?
I am not too certain about that.
That is what I understood the Minister to say and he can produce no example to the contrary. Secondly, is he saying that in Britain there is an annotation in the Book of Estimates allocating money to a particular institution and that this can be re-allocated by some other body subsequently without informing Parliament? Is that the case?
The total sums are shown in the same way as we are showing them and then the amounts for the various institutions are also shown. I am informed that they can be changed.
Despite being in the Book of Estimates? I have to reflect on the practice of the British Parliament but I think they have departed from proper parliamentary procedure in this and I do not see why we should follow them in that respect if this is the case.
It is essential in our case if An tÚdarás are to carry out their functions in assisting in the co-ordination of State investment.
Can the Minister explain how it is essential to assist An tÚdarás to carry out their functions when it appears, on the one hand, that the freedom given to An tÚdarás to allocate their resources is limited and, on the other hand, that we are told to ignore that limitation? This seems an utterly pointless procedure that cannot lead to any useful results. Can the Minister state in simple language why something is put into the Book of Estimates as an allocation which, in fact, may not be the way in which the money is spent and which potentially may mislead Parliament when the money can be allocated in a different way? The Minister must have some reason for doing this. He may defend it as a practice——
I have already explained my reason.
I have not heard it. Unless I missed it at the beginning, I have not head from the Minister any reason for putting it into the Book of Estimates. If An tÚdarás are to be free to use the money in accordance with their decisions there can be no purpose in putting into the Book of Estimates an allocation which may mislead the public and Parliament as to how the money will be spent. Can the Minister give any reason for including it in the Book of Estimates?
I shall speak on this matter again.
The second point is that, while An tÚdarás should have the power to earmark capital expenditure, it is wrong that they should be in a position to bind a college as to the way in which it spends its current funds. If the university or college finds that during the course of the year the balance of its requirements is somewhat different, it should be free to change the money around marginally to meet that situation. The idea that it must refer back to An tÚdarás in regard to every minor change appears to be completely wrong, if that is the intention. If it is not the intention, the Minister should make it clear that An tÚdarás are not to have the power to impose conditions with regard to expenditure of current sums, but only capital sums.
I have not heard from the Minister any explanation why he wants An tÚdarás to have this excessive power to lay down conditions on the expenditure of current sums which would infringe completely on the autonomy of a university in a manner without precedent. At the present time when a college or university puts in their claim to the Minister he decides what money to give them, except for the historical anomalies of payments in respect of agriculture and veterinary medicine and a small sum in respect of the Irish language—which anomalies have arisen because of past arrangements in respect of particular institutions. Apart from these there is no precedent. The global sum which is voted in our universities is available for them to spend in accordance with their requirements. They make a case for the money they require, they get a proportion of this money and they make use of it as they require during the course of the year. If the university decides to spend the money in a different way from what they expected when they submitted their claim, the university is free to do so. It is not necessary that they refer back to the Minister for permission to employ a person to teach Italian rather than French when the need arises. The Minister has not justified such a striking and totally undesirable departure from the present practice which confines the earmarking of grants to capital grants. If the Minister has reason for making inroads into the autonomy of the universities in this very sensitive area he should inform the House. In the absence of an adequate explanation we have no alternative but to press the amendment. However, I am willing to hear the Minister on this matter if he is prepared to answer this specific question. There is a danger of Members on this side of the House talking of one thing and the Minister answering on a different point. I should like to hear the Minister give specific answers to these specific questions.
Perhaps I might briefly revert to what I said on the previous day. I mentioned the method by which An tÚdarás would arrive at the amounts for each of the various institutions—that, having had discussions with the Minister and receiving information from him regarding the amount available, An tÚdarás would go back to the institutions and discuss with them the re-allocation of this money. I pointed out that they would not have to return to the Minister to have any further discussions but that they would inform the Minister as to the amount that would be made available for each institution.
I spoke for a considerable time today and I pointed out that there could be—and it has happened—instances where certain moneys were provided for a specific project within the total sum allocated to a university or an institute of higher education. It might happen that the progress in relation to that project within the year was such that expenditure was considerably less than had been expected. At the same time, it could happen that the progress on a project in another institution would be greater and expenditure higher than had been anticipated. In such instances An tÚdarás would have the right, according to my amendment, to allocate the money not expended on the first project to meet the higher cost of the second project. This is one reason I consider they should have the right to transfer moneys.
Generally speaking, so far as the recurring grant is concerned, it is not expected that there will be any significant variation between the amounts which will be published in the appendix and the payments actually made by An tÚdarás to an institution. It is not true to say that the amounts published in the appendix of the Estimate would mislead the public. It must be stated that the great bulk of the payment must relate to the everyday expenses of the institution and that any variation between the amount that appears in the appendix for an individual institution and the amount ultimately paid would not be significant in relation to the total payment. The variation in relation to capital possibly might be more significant since greater or lesser progress in relation to a large capital project might have a substantial effect on expenditure. However, in relation to current expenditure there would be very little change.
At the same time, I am convinced that An tÚdarás should be in a position to transfer moneys in this way and also that they should be able to ensure that moneys that have been allocated or earmarked for a specific project should be spent on that project. It is not true to say that there has not been in the past any earmarking in relation to current expenditure or to current grants. Such grants already contain elements that are earmarked. For example, as I said on a number of occasions already—I do not think I need to keep repeating this because if we do not agree on it we simply do not agree on it—specific sums are earmarked for temporary building, for adaptation work, or for equipment of laboratories, and these are paid only when vouchers for expenditure are made available. However, again the difference between the amount which will appear for each individual institution in the appendix of the Book of Estimates will vary very little from the amount which will be spent on that institution.
The Minister, in saying it will vary very little, is making it clear that An tÚdarás will in practice have very little autonomy.
The Deputy wants to have it every way.
What we are concerned with is the autonomy of An tÚdarás and, as far as practicable and desirable, the autonomy of the universities and other institutions of higher education. As regard the autonomy of An tÚdarás the Minister was saying that, although it must have power to transfer payments from the capital side if it was a question of slower progress on one project than on another, except for that and a very minimal adjustment on the current side, An tÚdarás will not have the power to allocate the total sum voted by the Dáil but will be bound to expend it, in principle, along the lines set out in the Book of Estimates.
The whole purpose of setting up An tÚdarás is to get away from the present situation where the Department of Education are fulfilling this function of allocating funds between different institutions. That is why An tÚdarás was proposed. That is why it has been supported by the university institution and the various teaching bodies. That is why it has been supported by the Opposition here in this House. To say An tÚdarás will have to clear the allocation with the Department and will only be able to depart from that minimally on the current side and on the capital side in respect of such matters as different rates of progress on different buildings is to defeat the whole purpose and intent of this Bill, and this is something we cannot accept.
It was the Government's intention, as originally stated, that An tÚdarás would be an autonomous body. It was vital that it should be so. The present situation in which a Government Department are directly involved in negotiation with individual institutions is unsatisfactory. It impinges on the autonomy of these bodies to be so directly under the control of the Department. In recent years there have been increasing in roads on the autonomy of these institutions as the Department have sought, directly or indirectly, to earmark different kinds of expenditure and to play a direct role in such matters as the determination of fees and salaries.
It is because of the dangers of this situation and precisely for that reason that An tÚdarás were thought desirable. Most of us, perhaps, unwisely in the light of past experience, took the Government's statements at their face value. We thought the intention was to create an autonomous body, to take this matter out of the hands of the Department and to create a situation in which this body would determine what were the needs of university institutions and other institutions of higher education, would put their claim to the Government and the Government would allocate whatever proportion of that they felt able to do in view of the current economic circumstances and An tÚdarás would then have the function of distributing that money. If, of course, the money given by the Government was exactly that sought they would, in the ordinary way, allocate it in accordance with the submissions made; it would be illogical to do otherwise. But if the Government were unable to provide the full sum, then An tÚdarás, and only An tÚdarás, would have the function of deciding who would not get their full amount. In that way the buffer to preserve the autonomy of the universities of higher education from Government interference would operate.
That was the clear intention, and once you get a situation where, in fact, that does not happen and where when the Government do not provide the full amount sought it is the Government who determine who gets the money and not An tÚdarás, An tÚdarás become merely a channel for pushing money through and simply an extra stage in the whole process. There are other functions which An tÚdarás may usefully perform. Their sole function is not the putting forward of claims for money and allocating the sums involved but it is their principal function; indeed, but for that requirement, but for the need for this buffer to preserve the automony of these institutions I do not think An tÚdarás would ever have been set up or if anyone would have thought of setting them up, because the other functions they have to perform, while useful, are not all that vital; they are not ones for which most people would have thought it necessary to establish such an institution.
The Government, have, therefore with the decision which appears to have been taken, which we have slowly dragged out of the Minister in this House, undermined the purpose of setting up this body, undermined its autonomy. I do not know if this was intended. I do not know from where it originated, but I do not believe it was the Minister's original intention. It seems to me that at some stage in the last couple of years a good decision was taken by the Minister for Education to take this matter out of the hands of the Department and to establish an independent body and that in the years in between the Department have gradually clawed back from subsequent Ministers the power which the decision of an earlier Minister took away from them.
The alternative explanation is one which I am loath to accept in the present circumstances and in relation to the present Minister, that is, that we were all along deceived as to the purpose of this body, that it was never intended to be autonomous. I do not think that is the case but that an honest decision was taken to set up an autonomous body, that it has been sabotaged, that the Minister would appear not to have appreciated the significance of this and to have, to some degree, fallen for it. In that I am disappointed. I can only hope that given the opportunity to rethink this, the Minister will see the force of the argument I am putting forward and will agree to look at this matter again.
What is the purpose of having a body to perform this function if it is not allowed to perform it. If, in fact, the ultimate allocation between the authorities is determined by the Department what is the body for? What is the vital necessity of having it? I am puzzled that the Minister should lend himself to that. I can only think he did not fully understand what was involved and ask him very seriously to reconsider it. I am prepared, because I am anxious to get results here rather than score points, to withdraw the relevant amendment if the Minister will say that, having heard the arguments, he is prepared to reconsider the matter having seen that the proposal he is making is one which, in the light of further consideration, is producing a situation different from what was originally intended. If the Minister did not intend to undermine the autonomy of An tÚdarás I think he can see now how this is being done. If he is prepared to have a look at this between now and Report Stage I will certainly withdraw the amendment, but if he says there is no question of that, then this is a vital element in it; if he is determined to push this through and to hang on to this power for the Department and to take away from An tÚdarás the function of allocating those funds, then we have no alternative but to press the amendment.
The second point—and there are two aspects of the problem facing in two different directions and we have to consider them separately—is the question of the autonomy of the universities vis-à-vis An tÚdarás. The Minister has not given any convincing reason for wanting An tÚdarás to have the power to impose conditions and earmark current moneys. All the examples he has given are in respect of sums which are, in fact, capital sums. He may well argue, and correctly technically, that some of them are not treated as capital for budgetary purposes, that the sum paid to universities in respect of equipment, for example, is a current item financed out of taxation. That is a very interesting technical budgetary point and economists could debate whether it is justified or not. It is just a piece of cautious budgeting. The fact is that the sums that are earmarked for equipment, adaptation and the rest of it are all capital sums in relation to capital activity, whether it is buying capital equipment or whether it is adapting capital assets, buildings. He has not been able to mention any other case in which at present there is power to allocate genuine current sums, that is, the lump sum grants which are given to universities and which they are free to use in accordance with their own needs having made their case and got the money.
Clearly, therefore, unless the Minister is prepared to accept our amendment or another amendment drafted for this purpose—I am never wedded to the particular form of my amendment —which limit this earmarking to things that are capital in character, whether or not they are capital from the point of view of the Book of Estimates, again we have to press the issue.
I have mentioned the fact that there is a separate earmarking for agricultural and veterinary medicine but this originated from the historical situation of the money coming from a different Department. The Minister has said that this is to go and that in future there will be one payment from the Department of Education. Therefore, the justification for that, if ever there was a justification, no longer exists, and as the only other instance he can give of a case in which it would be desirable to allocate current expenditure or in which it is now done is an instance that relates to current expenditure which is capital in form, I feel our amendment must be pressed. However, if the Minister is willing to say that he sees our point but that our amendment, because of the reference to capital expenditure, is so worded that it might not take in the particular items he is thinking of, I am more than willing to consider an amendment of his that would extend it into the field of equipment and adaptation if these are, for technical budgetary reasons not covered by the phrase "capital expenditure." I would have thought myself they are covered by it. I would have thought myself that there is a clear distinction between the classification of items in the Budget and the Book of Estimates, which is an internal Government administrative matter, and a legal interpretation of expenditure in relation to an institution such as a university. To my mind, money spent on equipment or adaptation is clearly, in law, capital expenditure, however the Government classify it in the Book of Estimates, which is irrelevant from that point of view. If the Minister does not agree or if he has already got legal advice that my phraseology does not meet this point, we can look at it again but as he has made no case whatever for giving to An tÚdarás power to allocate genuine current sums, and as he has not been able to show that this is in fact the practice now, I can see no reason for introducing a practice that would diminish the autonomy of these institutions vis-à-vis the authority from whom they get money just as I can see no case for diminishing the intended autonomy of An tÚdarás vis-à-vis the Department of Education.
On the whole, I support Deputy FitzGerald but I do so with certain reservations. I find myself in some slight difficulty here. Unlike my colleague, Deputy O'Donovan, who no doubt will participate in this debate in a few moments——
Indeed I will.
——I, on the whole, welcome the establishment of this authority and when the Minister says that Deputy FitzGerald is trying to have it both ways, there is some grain of truth in this as regards amendment No. 22. However, I think that both sides are trying to have it both ways, the university on the one hand and the Department on the other. We are confronted here by two negative propositions. In saying that, I am not suggesting that Deputy FitzGerald's proposition is one of these but that of the universities as against the Minister's. Broadly speaking, it seems to be that the position of the university spokesmen is that if they have to choose between dealing with the Minister on the one hand and the authority on the other, they will choose the authority. If they could possibly get out of dealing with either, so much the better.
They would be right.
They would not be right. However, the Minister's point of view seems to be that where he can diminish the autonomy of the universities, vis-à-vis, for example current expenditure, he will take the role of dignifying and establishing the function of the authority but where, in turn, it suits him to reserve to himself certain final decisions, he will diminish the status of the authority and if, for example, the Minister accused Deputy FitzGerald and myself of being inconsistent in having advised him to accept the authority's recommendations on teacher training, he is in the same position himself. He is accepting the autonomy of the authority where it diminishes the authority of the university and he is rejecting the autonomy of the authority where such autonomy diminishes his own autonomy. He is having it both ways too.
On subsection (12), amendment 22. I was at a loss as was Deputy FitzGerald to understand the Minister's distinction between what actually appears in the Book of Estimates and what is actually done. It seems to me that the Higher Education Authority are to possess a remarkable degree of autonomy to fiddle the accounts which will already have appeared before the House. In endeavouring to have it both ways, the Minister says he does not anticipate that there will be any major variances on current expenditure. He speaks of the possibility of a project varying in success from one university to another and being changed. Can he really argue that something termed a project fits within the context of what he describes as current expenditure? I agree fully with Deputy FitzGerald; all the examples that the Minister gives in relation to the manner in which projects may exceed or fail to reach their predictable expenditure, for instance, laboratories and temporary buildings, would seem to me to fall within the realm of capital expenditure rather than current expenditure. For that reason, I support amendment No. 22 but I support more particularly amendment No. 24.
Let me make it quite clear that I do not seek to diminish the power of the Minister who is the spokesman for the community in this regard. He is the person who must find the money in consultation with the Minister for Finance and a three-tier arrangement by which the Department and the Minister would determine the overall budget that was available for higher education would be perfectly satisfactory to me and on a second tier where the Higher Education Authority would determine the divisions, on both the capital and current level, between the institutions, the authority rather than the Minister, would be acceptable to me. I do not think that the authority should go so far as to determine the divisions in current expenditure. This is a kind of three-tier procedure which, unlike many of my academic colleagues, I would accept. I agree with what Deputy Tunney said when he spoke on the last occasion on which this Bill was being discussed, that, in effect, ultimately the fiscal buck rests on the Minister's desk. This is as it should be but the details of expenditure should be only supervised broadly by the authority and should be supervised in detail in relation to current expenditure by the universities themselves.
I have before me the report of what the Minister said on the last occasion on which the Bill was discussed and I quote:
First of all each institution will make its application to An tÚdarás in an agreed form. An tÚdarás will then have discussions and consultations with each of the institutions concerned. It will then make its recommendations to the Minister and more than likely have discussions with him. When the capital and the current amounts which the Government would find possible to make available have been determined An tÚdarás will be notified. It will then be for An tÚdarás to have further discussions with the institutions wherever such may be necessary in order to make whatever changes in priority they think essential. When these discussions have been completed An tÚdarás will notify the Minister as to the amounts it proposes for each institution.
This is not a three-tier process; rather it is a six- or seven-tier one. The universities talk to An tÚdarás; An tÚdarás say "no"; the universities say "maybe"; An tÚdarás say "perhaps". They agree on a figure—X—which they take to the Minister but he says "no"; An tÚdarás say "maybe"; the Minister says "perhaps" and An tÚdarás says "why?"; An tÚdarás go back to the universities and say "the Minister says `why?' " and the universities say "not bloody likely" and the universities go back to An tÚdarás who agree on a figure Z. An tÚdarás then go back to the Minister and the Minister says not Z but A, so that it is a seven-tier process.
The Minister has to go to the Department of Finance and they have to go to the Government.
The Deputy is making a complicated process out of what is a very simple matter.
The Minister does not understand academics if he does not foresee this happening.
I can sympathise with the Minister in not understanding academics. I am not sure that I understand them myself. The only way in which this process can be shortcircuited is to make certain that effective budgetary control, at least at capital level, rests in one particular spot and the spot where Deputy FitzGerald and I would like to see it rest is with An tÚdarás. The only alternative to making it legally stated that this is the way it is going to be, is, in my opinion, that this whole process will be shortcircuited by one form or another and that in fact while the elaborate machinery contained in the Bill maintains a superficial uncomplicated structure of university education, the sensible university politician will ring the private telephone number of the Minister and make sure that his representations are heard in a direct rather than in a filtered form.
He might also telephone the Taoiseach.
I shall not be available for such calls.
The point I am trying to make is that if Deputy FitzGerald can be accused to some extent of trying to have it both ways the Minister can be much more stridently accused of trying to have it both ways. I have seen this attitude in relation to amendments put down by Deputy FitzGerald, for example, to insert the word "reasonable", but the Minister invariably took the line that we know they are going to be reasonable so we do not have to say so. In the same way he says here we do not anticipate variations in current expenditure but that we anticipate them only in capital expenditure and that it is not intended to go as far as to make it specific in the Bill to limit the authority to the Higher Education Authority vis-à-vis the universities.
I do not go along with those who would like to have as an ideal an authority autonomy vis-à-vis the Minister and a university autonomy vis-à-vis the authority. It is ultimately, in terms of broad fiscal policy, on the desk of the Minister for Education and the Minister for Finance that the buck remains. What Deputy FitzGerald and I are suggesting is a more clearly defined three-tier process. We are not denying to the Minister the right to determine the overall expenditure for higher education. We are not denying to the authority the distribution of finances as between specific institutions. What we are objecting to is that the Minister should retain his overall authority to divide within his total Budget as between institutions which would seem to nullify the point of having the HEA at all. Deputy FitzGerald and I are at one in feeling that the HEA is given excessive authority in respect of the current aspect of expenditure towards universities. I do not know whether Deputy FitzGerald intends to press these amendments or not but if he does not get the kind of assurance that he is looking for from the Minister —and I think for once we are being extremely reasonable, neither of us is splitting hairs—then if he does not press for a division on these amendments I will.
Not to worry.
I want to approach this matter in a slightly different way from that of my colleagues. We are talking about money. One can make any abstract argument one likes but that, in fact, is what we are doing. It is extraordinary that ever since the universities left the careful hands of the Department of Finance, and they were very careful about money, there has been nothing but argument, trouble and difficulties. I want to go back to what Deputy Tunney said about my remarks. He said that I was illogical, that I wanted a Committee of the House to oversee bodies like the IDA, Bord Fáilte, Aer Lingus and so on. So I did but what was wrong with that? In such circumstances here I would again have a committee which would look after an tÚdarás because that would be the body that would come to the committee. The great objection I have all the time to this is that it reduces the autonomy of the universities. In that connection I did some research this morning. Let us for the moment forget about the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons and the new third level education bodies and let us think of the old established bodies. There are two kinds. We have Maynooth and Dublin University both of which, by the way, are in this. I may be wrong but I understand that the Hierarchy are the trustees for Maynooth College which means that, in fact, it is entirely self-governing.
In the case of Dublin University they were kind enough this year to publish a very fine annual calendar and under the heading "Constitution of the College and University" it states:
The board is the principal governing body both of the college and of the university and its consent is required for all enactments, changes or appointments of any consequence. In matters of property and finance, discipline, domestic arrangements, administration and relations with outside bodies, the authority of the board is subject to the statutes absolute.
In other bodies disciplinary matters and the like are in charge of the registrar.
The Deputy should read the statutes as well.
Thank you very much, but we have not got all the year to talk about this. We will only take until the summer. It goes on:
In strictly academic matters, that is both in relation to teaching, examinations, degrees and the appointment of academic staff, it can act only in conjunction with the University Council Divinity School, Council of Senate of the University. It consists of the following members——
And this is coming to the nub of the matter—
the Provost, the seven Senior Fellows, the Bursar, the Senior Lecturer and the Registrar, whether they be Senior or Junior Fellows—
There was a famous Paris revolution some years ago when the juniors took over these appointments—
four representatives elected by the junior fellows from among themselves; two representatives elected by those professors who are not fellows—they may be chosen either from among themselves or from among the junior fellows.
In other words, it is an entirely internal kind of thing. I could understand why you might have to have a body like An tÚdarás to look after that kind of concern. I am all in favour of university institutions being entirely independent but I can understand why another person might want to have An tÚdarás. Let me come now to the three colleges of the NUI. Let me start with the smallest, University College, Galway. The governing body consists of the President, four members elected by the Senate of the National University of Ireland, four members elected by the academic council of University College, Galway, four members elected by the graduates of University College, Galway, seven representatives of local authorities—six of the local county councils, including the County Clare, in that spectrum —and one by the Borough of Galway; three nominated by the Minister for Education, strangely enough—and I notice a vacancy among them in the calendar I saw; I do not know if the Minister has still allowed it to be there—and finally three are co-opted. This country is a democracy and that is as good an example of democracy as I have ever come across.
Let us move to Cork where there are slight differences. The President is appointed by the Government, not by the Minister for Education, two elected by the Senate of the National University of Ireland, six elected by the academic council, which consists of the professors and lecturers, four elected by the graduates of University College, Cork, and three ex officio. Who are these ex officio people? They are the three mayors of the southern cities, Cork, Limerick and Waterford. Finally, five are elected by the county councils of Munster, excluding Clare, which is in with Galway, and four are co-opted.
Now we come to the institution which is as large as all the others put together. In University College, Dublin, the governing body consists of a President, four members nominated by the Government, three appointed by the Senate of the NUI, six elected by the academic council, which consists of professors and statutory lecturers, six elected by the graduates of UCD, the Lord Mayor of the city of Dublin, a member nominated by the County Council of Dublin and eight elected by the General Council of County Councils and four co-opted. It amuses me when I think of the regional health boards, legislation for which has just gone through the House. Why are we not consistent? Why is one Minister legislating one way and another Minister legislating another way? We all know the great care that was taken to keep the control in the hands of the representatives of the local authorities in connection with those regional health boards. Going by the newspapers, I see that there has been a tremendous rumpus going on and there was great interest among Deputies as to who would be put on these boards. There was great canvassing of opinions and so on but when we compare this situation with the other one what do we find? We find, again in relation to money, that this year about £10,200,000 has been voted directly for universities. This year there has been a marginal improvement in the amount given to UCD. Let me get back to the question I raised and on which the Minister threw cold water with one sentence: "We all know that some faculties are more expensive than others." Does he know that? I have been at many universities and each faculty is as expensive as you want to make it.
The Minister gave a very bad example when he took engineering. I shall give the Minister some free information. Engineering could be a very expensive faculty if up-to-date machines were bought but if the Minister goes over to the basement just behind us he will find steam-engines of 1911 there. A student with whom I was friendly who was doing mechanical engineering told me: "These old engines are completely out of date." They do theoretical work to a very high standard. The Minister took a very bad example when he mentioned the engineering faculty in relation to expensive faculties in this country. Any faculty could be expensive. This is what I object to in the present set up. The position will become worse.
Coming back to the general question, the Industrial Development Authority is to be voted by Grant-in-Aid this year according to the Estimates volume we got yesterday, £23 million. It is quite independent; it consists of a chairman and five other directors none of whom is elected. They have not this broad representation I have indicated. They are more like Trinity College than University College, Cork. They have the right to spend £23 million. The Minister may say they will have to come to the Government but the Higher Education Authority went to the Government in the last 12 months seeking £24 million for a long-term capital programme. I got this information in the newspapers, not officially. To the best of my recollection they were told by the Government—the Minister can correct me if my information is not accurate but it is not very far out—that all they could make available was £14 million. Is that wrong? Has the Minister an answer? If the Minister will not listen, I shall go back on it.
I have listened very carefully but I missed the final point.
That can happen. I shall let the Minister off the hook this time and that is the second time in this debate. What amount of money did An tÚdarás—as I pronounce it; the Minister pronounces it slightly differently, nearer to what I should like to call it, An tÚdar-ass—ask from the Government for long-term capital development for the university institutions? According to the newspapers they sought £24 million and the Government said: "We cannot give you that: all we can give is £14 million."
That is not what the Government said.
What did they say?
That £15 million would be sufficient to do the work that An tÚdarás had hoped to do for £24 million, which is quite a different matter.
And we are putting this group of "eejits" over university institutions—
I think the Deputy should calm himself.
I am quite calm.
We have already shown in the Department that it was possible to cut the estimated cost of the regional technical colleges by £2 million. Therefore, we have a very worthwhile body in the Department looking after these matters. They are very skilled and highly efficient and they are able to give a very close estimate of capital costs.
This is the second time the Minister has given himself away in this debate. I made a note the other night when he spoke about no change being made in the present position. I attached a special meaning to this and the Minister has come out with it openly now: his men know everything better than everybody else. That is what he has told me. The Minister does not appear to appreciate what he has said. I could use an expression about these people that would not pass the Leas-Cheann Comhairle but in fact An tÚdarás were told: "We have men who can do for £15 million what you thought would take £25 million." If that is so let us hand the universities and students entirely over to the Department of Education. I suspect that is partly the game here. The Minister may not understand it that way. I defend my attitude absolutely; it is perfectly right: there is no comparison with Great Britain, with the universities grants committee. In England there is an enormous number of these institutions, some as old as Oxford or Cambridge or Durham and others built only the day before yesterday such as Nottingham and North Staffordshire or the University of Lancaster which have only recently come into existence. I wanted to put these words into the Minister's own amendment which I would then accept; "shall have regard primarily to the number of students pursuing studies leading to a degree in that institution".
All our universities are alike subject to two considerations. All are fundamentally liberal arts institutions with UCD being rather more technological than others. Still sticking to my figures, the grant for the coming year for the agricultural faculties, the Faculty of General Agriculture in UCD, the Faculty of Dairy Science in Cork and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in UCD and Trinity, is practically £1.5 million. How many students are there? In each institutions you must take out first-year students because they are catered for in the Faculties of Science and, give or take a few, the figure is 600 students, allowing a margin for error. Therefore, every student is costing £2,500 a year at least. I object to this kind of thing. You have the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries with these special faculties attached to it scooping all the money. You have a staff/student ratio—I do not know what it is in Trinity—in UCD now rapidly approaching one head of staff to every four students. At the other end of the spectrum you have the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Commerce in UCD which varies with one head of staff per 30 students and in the case of commerce per 36 students. Yet, the Minister talks of one being more expensive than another. Of course, if you do it that way it is more expensive but that is not the kind of thing I believe in. In my opinion a Faculty of Commerce is more important than a Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. I am not saying that because I am attached to the Faculty of Commerce. I am only marginally attached to it now; I am primarily attached to the Faculty of Arts. The most important faculty in any university institution is the Faculty of Arts and anyone can disagree with that opinion if he likes. The Minister has more or less said I was a "bad hat" for talking about composition, but we are putting a Bill through this House with An tÚdarás already in existence. It is already there. There is a pretence. Nach mbeidh na daoine céanna ar An tÚdarás? Nach mbeidh siad go léir ann? Sin é mó thuairim. Will they not be exactly the same people?
Ar mhaith leat na daoine céanna a bheith ann?
Anois, mar is eol don Aire, ní maith líomsa an tÚdarás seo in aon chor agus ní bheadh an tAire i n-ann daoine ar bith a chur ann a shasódh mise. Bhain mé úsáid as an bhfocal, "Quisling" Nár bhain? Yes. I stand over it—Quislings—some of them.
Shame.
Yes—shame—I know. We are paid here to speak the truth as we see it and I at any rate will speak the truth. I would accept the Minister's amendment if he would put in those words. I am looking for equality of treatment right through the university system but perhaps I am asking too much. How could I expect them to fix up this figure of £2,500 per student in the faculties associated with agriculture in the next year or two? Certainly I would not care to do the job myself although it could be done by transferring staff to other faculties and so on.
Deputy FitzGerald made a very good remark when he said, and I am quoting him as best I can, that he wanted to take this matter out of the hands of the Department. I am with him 100 per cent. I believe in the complete independence of university institutions, but I would not like them to be as autocratic as our neighbours in College Green.
Rubbish.
Oligarchy.
That is the word. They had a palace revolution. I remember an old colleague of mine being horrified at this palace revolution when the senior members were thrown out by the juniors, but it was only a palace revolution and they became themselves again.
The staff are much more content with the arrangement than the Deputies are.
With what arrangement—the board?
Yes, the board.
With the board? There is no doubt about it, loyalty in an institution is a wonderful thing.
There is a high degree of internal democracy which is more than can be said for the Deputy's institution. If the Deputy is seriously suggesting to the Minister that in this day and age the presence of county councillors and bishops——
We have no bishops.
Galway has.
If the Deputy were to advocate the representation of trade unions I might be prepared to listen.
My recollection is that a bishop was recently replaced in Galway but that is the only thing I know about bishops. Is there any bishop on the body of UCD?
No.
How long since there was a bishop?
Not in our lifetime.
I do not remember any. All our university institutions are much the same, but the one which is most expensive and has the least grant per student is UCD because it is more technological than the others. In the Faculty of Engineering it has mechanical, electrical, chemical and civil——
And agricultural.
——and agricultural engineering whereas Trinity College has a civil engineering faculty —an excellent civil engineering faculty it has been as many of the jobs done in the country bear tribute to.
An excellent electronic engineering section too.
That is the most expensive of all, is it not?
Yes.
Are there not methods of getting machines free from companies if one is known to favour the use of some particular approach? Our chances of getting anything done in this House by arguing with the Minister are nil, but that is no reason for keeping our mouths shut.
I was a much more reasonable man earlier in the day.
I do not mind a man who brings in a Bill of this kind becoming more unreasonable the longer the discussion on it goes on. I think it is right and proper that he should become more unreasonable the longer it goes on because he should be made to suffer. We are doing our duty.
I cannot say I am suffering particularly.
The Minister may be suffering in other ways.
It is true that the Minister has his own sufferings at present, and perhaps it behoves us not to make life too difficult for him. As I have said already I have let him off the hook a few times during the course of the discussion.
As a young man I spent eight years at some of the best universities in the English-speaking world, and I am not going to admit other people know more about universities than I do. I have been teaching in UCD for 20 years and I am not going to admit that other people know more in general about universities than I do. Why should I admit it? I would be admitting I was some kind of stupid ass if I admitted any such thing.
Never admit anything.
That is rule number one in politics. I had to learn that the hard way but other people learn it by instinct from their mother's milk. I appeal to the Minister to think this over again. I would be prepared to support the Minister's amendment if he inserted the words I have indicated instead of throwing them out as he did on the last occasion with the phrase, "We all know that certain faculties are more expensive than others." The great complaint at Oxford University in recent years particularly by the physicists has been that they do not get enough money because classical philosophy and classical languages still have control. I must say, if I were giving people control of universities, I would give the control to classical philosophy long before I would give it to experimental physics.
I do not propose to accept this amendment. We have discussed this at some length and I have explained as clearly as I possibly could what I have in mind. I can only hope that those who are interested will read what I have said. It is understandable, I suppose, that I should feel a little muddled having listened to the various speakers on the opposite side debating this particular matter. Deputy FitzGerald has been trying to have it both ways. When he was not satisfied with the powers I propose to make available to An tÚdarás, he immediately claimed serious interference with the autonomy of the universities. When this particular argument was answered he immediately took the opposite stand and said that An tÚdarás would, in fact, have no autonomy at all.
How is that the opposite? I am concerned that both bodies should have the maximum autonomy. That is entirely consistent.
Not in this particular instance. The fact is that I am not interfering with the autonomy of the universities. The fact also is that An tÚdarás is an autonomous body. I have pointed that out on many occasions. I have explained the modus operandi from the point of view of the dealings of An tÚdarás with the institutions of higher education and with the Minister.
The Deputy quoted what I said in relation to the modus operandi. He quoted correctly so far as he went, but he then played on the word “proposals” as if there were some sinister significance in it. I should like to re-state what I said to show clearly that An tÚdarás will be an autonomous body. I said at column 2104 of volume 252 of the Official Report:
It is on this the main argument hinges because it has been suggested here, and I do not know why, because I certainly did not suggest it, that, after An tÚdarás has been notified of the amount which is, in fact, available, not only will they have to have discussions with the institution concerned as to priorities and so on, but they will have to come back and ask the Minister's approval for the particular priorities. This will not be so. The fact is that they will simply notify the Minister of the amounts for each institution and any democratic assembly is at least entitled to that information.
Deputy Thornley suggested that the proposed methods of operation would be very much more complicated than those which are at present in operation. In fact, that will not be so. I have already explained that the institutions will make their applications for finance to An tÚdarás, An tÚdarás will consult with them before making its recommendations to the Minister, the Minister will have consultations with An tÚdarás in relation to priorities, and so on, and when the total amount of money available has been determined, An tÚdarás will go back and consult again with the higher education institutions and it will not have to come back and consult further with the Minister. It will simply inform the Minister as to what the various allocations are and these will be put in the appendix to the Book of Estimates. An tÚdarás will be an autonomous body and it will not interfere with the autonomy of the universities. It should not be necessary to explain that again. I am providing here the proper procedure and I do not propose to change it.
Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 55; Níl, 38.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Lorcan.
- Andrews, David.
- Blaney, Neil.
- Boylan, Terence.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Browne, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick J.
- Carter, Frank.
- Carty, Michael.
- Colley, George.
- Collins, Gerard.
- Connolly, Gerard C.
- Cowen, Bernard.
- Cronin, Jerry.
- Crowley, Flor.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Noel.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Dowling, Joe.
- Faulkner, Pádraig.
- Foley, Desmond.
- Forde, Paddy.
- French, Seán.
- Gallagher, James.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gogan, Richard P.
- Healy, Augustine A.
- Herbert, Michael.
- Hillery, Patrick J.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Hussey, Thomas.
- Kenneally, William.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lalor, Patrick J.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Lenehan, Joseph.
- Lynch, Celia.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- Meaney, Thomas.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Moore, Seán.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Connor, Timothy.
- O'Kennedy, Michael.
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Malley, Des.
- Power, Patrick.
- Sherwin, Seán.
- Smith, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Timmons, Eugene.
- Tunney, Jim.
Níl
- Barry, Richard.
- Burke, Joan.
- Byrne, Hugh.
- Clinton, Mark A.
- Conlan, John F.
- Coogan, Fintan.
- Cooney, Patrick M.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Creed, Donal.
- Crotty, Kieran.
- Desmond, Barry.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, John.
- Dunne, Thomas.
- Enright, Thomas W.
- Finn, Martin.
- FitzGerald, Garret.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Fox, Billy.
- Governey, Desmond.
- Harte, Patrick D.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Kavanagh, Liam.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Lynch, Gerard.
- McLaughlin, Joseph.
- McMahon, Lawrence.
- Malone, Patrick.
- O'Donnell, Tom.
- O'Donovan, John.
- O'Hara, Thomas.
- O'Reilly, Paddy.
- O'Sullivan, John L.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Thornley, David.
- Timmins, Godfrey.
- Tully, James.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Andrews and Meaney; Níl, Deputies T. Dunne and Thornley.
Amendment declared lost.
I move amendment No. 23:
In page 3, lines 44 to 46, to delete subsection (2), and to substitute the following:
() Any payment to an institution which An tÚdarás makes out of the amounts that it receives under the foregoing subsection shall be made in such manner and subject to such conditions as An tÚdarás thinks fit.
I should like to explain why we are opposing amendment No. 23. We regard this amendment as an improvement in the existing position as set out in the Bill. Unfortunately, for technical reasons beyond my immediate comprehension, if amendment No. 23 is passed, amendment No. 24 cannot be taken. As amendment No. 24 is very important and is preferable to amendment No. 23, in order to get this amendment taken we will have to oppose amendment No. 23. Therefore, although amendment No. 23 is an improvement on the present Bill, we are opposing the amendment.
I endorse the remarks made by Deputy FitzGerald. The key amendment is amendment No. 24. I am extremely unhappy about opposing amendment No. 23 but I gather that if we do not oppose this amendment it passes and amendment No. 24 falls. If we oppose amendment No. 23 and if we are defeated, in turn amendment No. 24 falls as well. This is an unfortunate set of circumstances but when I vote against amendment No. 23 what I shall be doing, in effect, is voting for amendment No. 24.
Hear, hear.
May I ask the Minister to deal with the point I made. I know he dealt with it in a throwaway sentence the last time but I think he should deal with it in some detail.
I have already dealt with it.
With respect, the Minister dealt with it in a single phrase.
That is not so. I dealt with it at some length. The Deputy was not present at the time, but he will find in the Official Report that I dealt with the matter.
I have been here all the time since this matter was raised.
I replied to the Deputy at the beginning of one particular session and the Deputy came in some time later.
I was not here for the Second Reading of the Bill. Is the Minister telling me that he dealt with it during Second Reading?
No.
I do not think he is. Of course, I cannot compel the Minister to deal with it.
Is amendment No. 23 agreed?
I should like to speak on this amendment. This amendment is an improvement on the Bill but if the words "shall have regard primarily to the number of students pursuing studies leading to a degree in that institution" were put in at the end of the amendment it would be much improved. I now give notice that I will put down that amendment on Report Stage.
Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 55; Níl, 39.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Lorcan.
- Andrews, David.
- Blaney, Neil.
- Boylan, Terence.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Connolly, Gerard C.
- Cowen, Bernard.
- Cronin, Jerry.
- Crowley, Flor.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Noel.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Dowling, Joe.
- Faulkner, Pádraig.
- Foley, Desmond.
- Forde, Paddy.
- French, Seán.
- Gallagher, James.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gogan, Richard P.
- Healy, Augustine A.
- Herbert, Michael.
- Hillery, Patrick J.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Hussey, Thomas.
- Kenneally, William.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Browne, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick J.
- Carter, Frank.
- Carty, Michael.
- Colley, George.
- Collins, Gerard.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lalor, Patrick J.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Lenehan, Joseph.
- Lynch, Celia.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- Meaney, Thomas.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Moore, Seán.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Connor, Timothy.
- O'Kennedy, Michael.
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Malley, Des.
- Power, Patrick.
- Sherwin, Seán.
- Smith, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Timmons, Eugene.
- Tunney, Jim.
Níl
- Barry, Richard.
- Burke, Joan.
- Byrne, Hugh.
- Clinton, Mark A.
- Cluskey, Frank.
- Conlan, John F.
- Coogan, Fintan.
- Cooney, Patrick M.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Creed, Donal.
- Crotty, Kieran.
- Desmond, Barry.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, John.
- Dunne, Thomas.
- Enright, Thomas W.
- Finn, Martin.
- FitzGerald, Garret.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Fox, Billy.
- Governey, Desmond.
- Harte, Patrick D.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Kavanagh, Liam.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Lynch, Gerard.
- McLaughlin, Joseph.
- McMahon, Lawrence.
- Malone, Patrick.
- O'Donnell, Tom.
- O'Donovan, John.
- O'Hara, Thomas.
- O'Reilly, Paddy.
- O'Sullivan, John L.
- Pattison, Séamus.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Thornley, David.
- Timmins, Godfrey.
Tellers:- Tá: Deputies Andrews and Meaney; Níl: Deputies Byrne and Thornley.
Amendment declared carried
Amendment No. 24 not moved.
Question proposed: "That section 12, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
Might I inquire whether it is possible to put down an amendment in respect of that matter on the Report Stage?
Yes, the Deputy may do so.
While the Minister's amendment has effected some improvement we are very concerned about the consequences that flow from the Minister's refusal to accept our amendments. In respect of amendment No. 24, this is a matter we will take up again on Report Stage. I hope that in the meantime the Minister will consider whether there is not some validity in some of the points we have made that even if he does not feel able to accept the full burden of our contention, he will consider looking into some of the points and adopting a more welcoming approach to our amendment when we come to Report Stage.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 13.
Question proposed: "That section 13 stand part of the Bill."
I do not understand this kind of thing in a piece of public legislation:
An tÚdarás may institute and conduct studies on such problems of higher education and research as it considers appropriate and may publish reports of such studies at its discretion.
Surely if it is a public institution, as it is, it should either publish them or not publish them? Surely you are not going to have the kind of action they have in police states and publish certain things, and not other things as you see fit? In other words, if you do not get what you are looking for, you keep it quiet. If the Minister were to take out the phrase "at its discretion" I would have no objection. I do not understand what the purpose of this is. Do not forget that this is public business. An tÚdarás is not the private property of anybody. It may be the private property of the Department of Education, which is obviously what is being attempted right through this Bill, but it is a bit blatant here.
It is certain that the membership of An tÚdarás itself might not include all the expertise necessary on all the various aspects and problems which arise from time to time and the authority will require a provision in order that it may commission experts to carry out studies and inquiries at its discretion. The authority would be most likely to commission studies of this particular kind and to have them carried out by other agencies. I do not think there is anything in this section that is not particularly clear.
Would the Minister refer me to any Act which contains the phrase "at its discretion"? If he can do so, I will agree that he is right but if he cannot, he is talking rubbish.
It would be a tall order to expect that information off the cuff. I do not see any reason why it should not be in this even if it is the case that it is not in any other legislation.
There is no limit to what Ministers will tell the House nowadays. They are incapable of realising the picture they are painting of themselves. If this legislation is normal the Minister should have no difficulty in referring to a similar phrase elsewhere. I have never seen it before in any Act.
Is section 13 agreed?
I certainly do not agree with it. What I have been saying for the past few minutes is that I do not agree with it at all. We may be in a hurry here but we are not in that much of a hurry. This section says:
An tÚdarás may institute and conduct studies on such problems as higher education and research as it considers appropriate and may publish reports of such studies at its discretion.
In other words, if it does not like them they can keep them secret but if they suit, they will be published. Is that the meaning of it?
No, it is not.
Would the Minister then tell me what is the meaning of it?
It could quite possibly mean that in some matters which might be of a comparatively minor nature it would not be necessary to publish them. If these words, "at its discretion", were not included, it would be incumbent on the authority to publish everything whether it was of a minor nature or otherwise.
Would it not meet Deputy O'Donovan's concern in the matter if it were worded slightly differently? The Deputy's suspicions are aroused by the fact that the question of publication is brought in as an afterthought, as it were, at the end of the clause. If it were the wording that An tÚdarás would conduct studies for publication or otherwise I do not think any suspicion would be aroused. There is a suggestion of a post hoc decision on the question of publication after the authority have seen what is in a report.
I do not see what difference it would make.
I am only trying to help.
I see the difference. The Minister cannot quote one example of such phraseology in any other Act but he was quick enough to introduce to us this evening a book from England——
It is a very useful book.
If the Minister wishes us to continue this debate on the basis of there is there is not, I am prepared to continue on those lines and we will see which of us will make the better job of it but in the meantime we must discuss it on the basis of rational thought and on the basis of what words mean. The authority can publish at is discretion.
Is not that a sensible position?
It is not. In the first place why would it conduct research on problems of higher education unless such problems were serious? The Minister said that it might find it necessary to conduct a research on some minor matter but I would not refer to that as research. For example a fellow might put his head in his hands for a night or something like that but I would not regard that as a matter for research. Maybe some of the troubles of the present Government are caused because of their failure to put their head in their hands for a night. I am letting the Minister off the hook on this occasion but one of these days I shall not be so easy in dealing with Ministers. I shall put down an amendment for Report Stage.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 14.
Question proposed: "That section 14 stand part of the Bill."
Amendments Nos. 25 and 26 have been ruled out of order.
I move amendment No. 27:
In subsection (3), page 4, line 10, to delete "with the consent of the Minister" and to insert "for causes stated".
The amendments put down here are all of a piece. I regret that some of them are thought to be out of order and I shall explain the reasons for my regret when we come to the section. At the moment, I shall confine myself to amendment No. 27. In this particular instance there are two problems in relation to subsection (3). One is that the autonomy of An tÚdarás is impeded or affected by the fact that it has not even the power to remove any member of the staff without the consent of the Minister just as it has not the power to appoint any member of the staff without the consent of the Minister. In the case of appointments the withdrawal of approval by the Minister might conceivably lead to appointments being made that would not otherwise be made. This creates hypothetically a charge on the Exchequer and so we are precluded from amending it but, when it comes to the removal of someone, such removal cannot put a charge on the Exchequer but would remove a charge from the Exchequer and, therefore, this amendment is being allowed to stand. It seems to me to be quite undesirable that in any of these instances the autonomy of this body should be interfered with in this extraordinary way. It is remarkable that throughout this Bill the autonomy of the authority is impeded and affected adversely by the particular wording used.
Hear, hear.
One of the simplest things that any State body can do is to dismiss a member of the staff but, yet, uniquely, this body cannot even dismiss a member of the staff nor indeed appoint any member or decide on the terms of his conditions. Here, there is extraordinary interference by the Minister's Department. Not only will they intervene considerably in the manner in which funds are to be spent but there will be intervention in the internal affairs of the authority.
The second aspect of this with which we must concern ourselves is the protection of the autonomy of institutions and the rights of individuals. For that reason I am concerned also that this body should not be able to remove a member of the staff with or without the consent of the Minister except for reasons stated. There is no protection in this for the individual concerned other than the Minister's consent being required but I would not have considered that to be much protection for the employee. It is important that any removal of a member of the staff of this body should be for causes stated. That is why the amendment proposed is one which performs a dual function. By deleting "with the consent of the Minister" we extend the autonomy of the body and by inserting "for causes stated", we ensure the protection of the individual. I would ask the Minister not to suggest once again that I am facing both ways. I am facing in the same direction all the time. I am concerned with protecting the rights of the individual and the autonomy, on the one hand of the universities and secondly of An tÚdarás. This amendment fulfils this dual function.
I regret to say that this is an amendment which I cannot support. Anticipating the remarks of the Minister I do think that Deputy FitzGerald is making a considerable mountain out a molehill here for two reasons. First, specifically, "the consent of the Minister" reduces the Minister to a passive role. At least he is not in a position of himself seeking here to remove an officer or servant; the initiative rests with An tÚdarás. The phrase "for reasons stated" is virtually meaningless. If I were an officer or servant of An tÚdarás and I became a notorious alcoholic would that mean An tÚdarás had to inform the nation that the reason I was pensioned off was that I was a notorious alcoholic? I do not think the amendment makes much sense and I think the Deputy is trying to have it both ways.
Stabbed in the back. Just to clarify a point. The phrase "for causes stated" is one which had a particular function because it is a protection of the individual because once a body have to state the causes then they have to justify them in a court if necessary. If there are no causes stated then they are able to dismiss a person and they cannot be got at so easily by that person for unjust dismissal. The phrase has a legal force of some consequence. The causes do not have to be stated to the nation but to the individual.
I would tend to look at this matter in a somewhat different light from Deputy FitzGerald. I feel that "with the consent of the Minister" is a measure of protection for officers and servants in that decisions to dismiss them must be referred to the Minister for his consent. In that way I am endeavouring to protect to the greatest possible degree the rights of the individuals concerned. With regard to "for causes stated" this is not necessary in the Bill. In fact I would be inclined to think that something like this should be, or rather could be, covered in the contract of service with An tÚdarás.
Could be but need not be.
Well, say, should be.
If it should be why not say so?
On the whole I am with Deputy FitzGerald but I disagree entirely with his wording "for causes stated". It could be a single cause. I think "for cause stated" is the usual phrase. The point is that as it is it gives a blanket power. Under the Constitution each Minister of the Government appoints his own civil servants but they can be removed from office only by the Government. In this case all that is required is "with the consent of the Minister" and both Deputy FitzGerald and the Minister are right that that is a passive role, so to speak. At the same time I feel there is a blanket power there.
I have not thought about the wording of this but I am quite clear about the idea I have in mind. It is that they should state to the person concerned why he is being sacked. He should be entitled to get a statement "You are being sacked because...""You are being sacked because you are continually drunk", since that has been mentioned. Essentially we have to go back to the point that this is a board, using that word in the sense that Deputy FitzGerald will understand it. A board have their rights and duties laid out in the Act which constitutes the board. We can call it An tÚdarás or anything else. In this case the document setting up An tÚdarás will be an Act—much later than April of this year I hope— and the Act must set out all the rights and duties of the authority. This is quite common and it is not something which I have just made up.
I will have a look at this again before the Report Stage so that if the Minister is not prepared to say that he will have a look at it I will be able to put down an amendment to say what I think should be said. This is absolute; there is no qualification whatever. We have all sorts of qualifications in the Bill, with the consent of the Minister, with the approval of the Minister for Finance, and all this kind of thing interleaved through the Bill, and yet we come to this which really involves the removal of a person from An tÚdarás. I grant that the Minister has to give consent and that is the only safeguard.
This is the reason I am anxious to keep it in the Bill, that it is a safeguard, and—
I agree.
——with regard to the "causes stated" aspect of it that should be covered in the contract of service. It would not be at all proper that the reasons why a person was dismissed should be made public. If I were to insert this in the Bill it could happen that questions would be asked and, while this also could be a protection in some instances, generally speaking the vast majority of people concerned who would be justifiably dismissed would certainly not want to have the causes published.
A question can be asked anyway. The Minister can be asked a question in this House: "You gave your consent and why was the man dismissed?" The Minister, of course, can refuse to answer but he is not going to safeguard himself from having a question asked. However, I will put down an amendment on Report Stage.
Would the Minister be prepared to consider an amendment which confined itself to inserting "for cause stated" or words to that effect? I do not understand the Minister's point that if it goes in then it will be made public. This would not follow at all. In all kinds of contracts there is a provision that dismissals must be for cause stated and this does not imply that this is made public. I wonder if the Minister has any reason for suggesting that interpretation.
I would feel that certainly there would be the risk there that it could be interpreted as something which it would be proper to make public. I do not feel I would be entitled to take that risk. I feel that this should be covered in contracts of service and not inserted in the Bill.
Would the Minister look into the question between now and the Report Stage as to whether something could be put into the Bill that cause should be stated in the contract without giving any right of publication? I am not sure if the Minister has any grounds for his fear——
Why does the Deputy suggest we should put it in?
So that all contracts will, as the Minister thinks desirable, contain such a provision. If we do not put it in the Bill there is no guarantee that the authority will ensure that such provision is in these contracts. The purpose of legislation is to require things to be done which we think ought to be done.
Surely the resort lies in the individual employee's hands? If he is so stupid as to accept a contract which can cause him to be fired without cause stated, then bad luck to him. If he has any intelligence he will not take the job on those terms. I think really you are trying to dot the i's and cross the t's of human relations which the Deputy will agree is quite impossible in legislation.
I never expected to hear such a sentiment expressed on those benches. We all know that there is not full employment in this country and people are forced to accept employment on unsatisfactory terms because of the fact that there is inadequate protection due either to inadequate trade union action or inadequate legislation. The whole purpose of legislation is to protect people in this way.
This refers to people proposing to take employment with the Higher Education Authority. Please keep this in perspective.
"Any officer or servant." The doorkeeper could be employed on contract and dismissed without cause stated. We are not talking here about the secretary of the body who has £3,000 a year or so but about every employee of the body. The Deputy's approach, apparently, is that there should be no protection for these people, no requirement by Parliament that they should be protected from dismissal without reason.
There is no certainty that either the Deputy or myself must be given cause for our dismissal from our respective universities. The Deputy is splitting hairs.
That is a matter currently under negotiation. We spent the afternoon at it.
Is amendment No. 27 withdrawn?
In view of the fact that Deputy O'Donovan has made a point about the plurality of causes and in the hope that the Minister will look into whether safeguards should be introduced in the Bill, I shall withdraw it at this stage.
I shall put down an amendment in any case.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 28 is out of order.
Question proposed: "That section 14 stand part of the Bill."
I want to speak about subsection (4) of the section which runs as follows:
Subject to subsection (5) of this section, there shall be paid by An tÚdarás to its officers and servants such remuneration and allowances as, subject to the approval of the Minister given with the consent of the Minister for Finance, it determines from time to time.
I want the Minister to confirm whether my interpretation is correct or not. I want an answer which I will understand. I think there is £35,000 or so in the Estimates for this body this year. Does this subsection mean that every appointment of an executive officer, a doorkeeper or messenger will have to be—I think the Minister will confirm that every appointment will not have to be sanctioned?
That is correct.
We have got that. I do not understand this. May I ask if I am to understand that the new Department of Public Services, or whatever it is called, will work side by side with the Department of Finance and that the Minister for Finance will be Minister for Public Services? Is it in that function he will operate here and not as Minister for Finance as we have always understood the words? What is involved here is that every type of appointment will have to get the approval of the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Finance. The overriding power remains with the Minister for Finance. An official in the Department of Finance can write to an official in the Minister's Department saying: "I am directed by the Minister for Finance to say that he does not consent to such and such conditions." That can only be rectified by the Minister for Education writing to the Minister for Finance who will send for the file and they will then clean up the matter. This gives rise to a great deal of paper work which serves no useful purpose.
I regard this as one of the most objectionable sections of the Bill. The body we are setting up is one which should have a considerable measure of autonomy but one finds that it has virtually no power to do anything without the approval of the Minister. If it wants to appoint a messenger or doorkeeper, first it must go to the Minister and get his approval under subsection (1) to making this appointment because they "may appoint such and so many persons to be its officers and servants as, subject to the approval of the Minister, it from time to time thinks proper". They cannot take a decision to appoint a messenger without the approval of the Minister. They must then go to the Minister to get approval of the terms and conditions of this messenger's appointment. Having got that they must then clear with the Minister, who has to clear with the Minister for Finance, the remuneration of this messenger involving two Government Departments. Again, if he is dismissed the Minister is also brought into it. Is there any semi-State body in the country whose autonomy and authority is so circumscribed?
I do not think so.
I have not heard of one. There may be some bodies that are integral parts of the public services but which are technically autonomous such as the Revenue Commissioners——
Or are archaic, formed before the system solidified. This could have happened in the earlier years.
I think you will find they are an integral part of the public service. You can talk of the Revenue Commissioners because they are run by the Commissioners and not under the direct authority of the Minister as being separate from the Civil Service but they are an integral part of the Civil Service.
I am thinking of the time when the semi-State bodies were few and before a system had been set up.
The first one set up was the Agricultural Credit Corporation, then the Dairy Disposals Board, the Pigs and Bacon Commission, the Electricity Supply Board. I cannot recall any body of which this is true. So great is the autonomy of one of the first of those bodies, the Dairy Disposals Board set up in 1927, that until the Companies Act of 1963 they did not even have to submit a profit and loss account or report to this House. We never knew what profits they made. This was how keen on autonomy they were in 1927. I doubt if in the early days provisions of this kind appeared in any of the legislation. I have worked in a State body. It would be utterly inconceivable that in a body like Aer Lingus the terms and conditions of staff, the remuneration and appointment of staff would ever get near the Minister for Finance or that he should have anything to do with it. While we may argue that Aer Lingus is a commercial body in that it derives its revenue from commercial sources and not just Grants-in-Aid, when one looks at bodies like Córas Tráchtála and Bord Fáilte, is it suggested that they must get the approval of the Minister for every appointment and for the terms and conditions and remuneration and the right to dismiss somebody? I have not the Bills dealing with these bodies before me but I very much doubt if there is any such provision in them. Here we have a body which, above all those bodies, should be autonomous, a body which is set up for the purpose of hiving off from the Government this activity of supervising and organising higher education, of trying to secure and protect the autonomy of these institutions from direct Government intervention and which, above all, therefore must be autonomous. That was the original intention before it got into the hands of the Department. Yet, we have this body set up and of all the bodies for the Government to pick on they pick on this one from which to take away every scrap of autonomy. They cannot move an inch without the approval of the Minister. They cannot decide to appoint a messenger, they cannot decide his conditions of service, they cannot decide his remuneration and they cannot without the Minister's approval dismiss him. Would the Minister like to say why he decided in this instance to take away all autonomy in staff matters and have this body under the tight control of his Department in respect of all its staff? Nothing said either in this debate or prior to it has suggested any good reason for this course of action. I should be glad to hear the Minister on that. I do not want to waste the time of the House by continuing along that line until I have heard the Minister's views.
If the Deputy's interpretation of the section were a fact I suppose we could regard this as a rather peculiar situation but it is not. Again, the Deputy is endeavouring to cross all his t's and dot all his i's. The position is that the Minister's approval is required only for the type of post and the number of posts, but not for the individual appointments. Once a decision has been made in relation to various categories of posts and positions then An tÚdarás will make the individual appointments themselves. Where the costs of such posts have to be met out of public funds there has to be some co-ordination is achieved is to make the creation of the posts, the conditions and so on subject to ministerial approval. I do not see anything peculiar about this. It will be accepted there is a need to preserve some degree of uniformity in the matter of salaries and allowances throughout the public service and this is a way in which this can be achieved. To suggest that once categories have been decided on and salaries for these categories agreed on An tÚdarás will be tied down in the appointment of individual persons to these posts is ridiculous.
I have just read what the words say: "An tÚdarás may appoint such and so many persons." The "and so many" could fit in with what the Minister has said. The question of how many persons are appointed would be a matter for the Minister to approve, but I do not accept that there is any case for that. The insertion of the word "such", and I quote:
(1) An tÚdarás may appoint such and so many persons to be its officers and servants as, subject to the approval of the Minister, it from time to time thinks proper
cannot be interpreted as meaning the number of persons or the categories of persons. "Such persons" means such individual; it does not son" means individual; it does not mean such people but such individual persons and if that is the Minister's intention his draftsmen have singularly failed to translate it into legislative thought and it is necessary to amend it to achieve that result.
Even if the Minister were correct in saying that the wording he has used achieved the somewhat more limited effect he mentioned we still find the autonomy of this body is closely circumscribed. The number and category of its employees are laid down by the Minister; the conditions and terms of service are laid down by the Minister; their remuneration is laid down by the Minister and the question of their dismissal is a matter for the Minister. Even if the Minister were correct in saying that is all that is involved, it would involve grave incursions into the autonomy of these bodies. The Minister had the gall to tell us, and I wrote it down when he said it, that this is the normal way of co-ordinating the activities of bodies of this kind in respect of remuneration. The word "normal" to me means that in the great majority of cases this is what is done. I am aware of about 70 State bodies and if it is the normal way it must be the way adopted by 50 of them. Would the Minister like to name State bodies in respect of which this kind of State control exists in this phraseology and carried to this extent? He would need to name 50 to justify the phrase he has used, but can he name ten or five?
What I was referring to here were bodies paid out of public funds.
Semi-State bodies.
Entirely out of public funds.
Some are, some are not.
It is quite a different matter.
About 40 of them are paid entirely out of State funds. Let us have 30 out of those 40 from the Minister.
Is Deputy FitzGerald advocating that An tÚdáras should have permission to appoint as many people as they wish at any stage for whatever positions they themselves think necessary?
Within their budget yes, like any other body.
It is extraordinary that Deputy FitzGerald now pleads to give them that right while a short time ago he would not give them the right to dismiss a member of the staff without——
Showing cause.
But why are we prepared to give them all the freedoms they would like on the one hand while on the other contend that they should not be free to dismiss a member of the staff? I am at a loss to understand Deputy O'Donovan's position. Earlier on he described An tÚdarás as public property and under that section he would not give them the right to publish at their own discretion.
They are a public body; they are not a private institution.
They are and, therefore, it is public money they are using. There should be some sanction on them apart from themselves. We must all accept that. I do not think we should equate university autonomy with university infallibility in the belief that we would not have here people who could be guilty in the matter of indiscretions or unreasonable or uncharitable acts. I think it is necessary to have this protection. Messengers and servants have been referred to as if they were different from professors or anybody else.
They need more protection. That is what I said.
The case is being based on a messenger as if he were not very important.
On the contrary, he needs more protection than the professor.
I hope the Deputy will remain in the House when the next section comes up.
If Deputies will allow the Deputy in possession to make his point then he can be replied to.
I detected in reference to the messenger and the doorman the suggestion, and if it was not there I withdraw the imputation, that these people were not in the same category in the matter of their being members of the staff as professors or anybody else.
They very often do not have the same rights.
I should like to see them having the same rights as anybody else.
We shall get that in the next section.
Deputy Tunney is in possession.
I see nothing wrong with having a sanctioning authority other than An tÚdarás itself. I would be very disappointed if this sanctioning authority were not there especially when we realise that the money being spent by An tÚdarás belongs to people other than An tÚdarás and there must be some voice, some agent, some representative of the people who are paying the money.
I am sorry to have to say it, but I have never heard a greater lot of nonsense from a Deputy in this House. Let me give an example.
If the Deputy would. I am always very anxious to dissociate myself from nonsense whether on my own part or on the part of the Deputy.
Good. The Deputy will have to dissociate himself from nonsense in a moment. I have no idea how many are employed by the Central Bank; I suppose it must be 300 or 400. We have a Central Bank Bill before the House. Is there any provision of this sort in that Bill? Not damn likely and, therefore, it should not be in this measure either. The Central Bank can only make public money. What other money does it make?
I would prefer to have some restriction on it. The fact that it is not there does not suggest that that in itself makes it a good thing.
I attempted to help a while ago by saying that to the best of my recollection—it goes back a very long time; it goes back before World War II—when the Institute of Higher Education was being set up there was something of this sort about the registrar of that body. That is the only body that I know of in which there was something remotely resembling this. Deputy FitzGerald is 100 per cent right. You have the first body set up here, the ESB. You have the Agricultural Credit Corporation away back in 1927, 45 years ago. You have Aer Lingus. There is none of this stuff in relation to these. We are told this body will not interfere with the autonomy of the universities. But it is itself tied up in knots and it will, of course, tend to tie the universities up in knots. As we are treated ourselves so will we treat others.
Remarks of the kind Deputy Tunney made confirm my conviction that I am on the right side of the House.
The Deputy is welcome to it.
There is a complete difference of outlook. We are sometimes asked by people who do not observe politicians very closely what is the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. It comes out here. There is no doubt about that.
I am afraid I would be on that side of the House.
Fair enough. A country is not run by Ministers taking into their hands the decision as to who will be employed by every State or semi-State body in the country, their remuneration and terms and conditions of employment. The way to run these things is by appointing bodies to do the necessary work, giving them a budget and telling them to get on with the job. It would be utterly inconceivable that these bodies, with their 65,000 employees in the public sector, should be controlled by the respective Minister in the appointment of staff, the fixing of their remuneration and the terms and conditions governing their employment. But that is what Deputy Tunney suggests. If that were the position no category of staff could be set up in Aer Lingus and no individuals appointed to the ESB without the terms of remuneration and conditions of service going before the Minister. This sort of thing has never been suggested, even by Fianna Fáil, before tonight. It is an incredible suggestion. Deputy Tunney must realise that.
Of course we must have control. That control was invented some years ago through budgetary control. If capital is required in a State or semi-State body those in charge of that body must justify the need for capital and, if the Government are dissatisfied with the way the body is being run, they can refuse the money or dismiss the board. They have dismissed boards, and quite rightly, in several cases. If a body is dependent on State funds for the bulk of its requirements, as this body will be, as Córas Tráchtála is, and roughly 40 of the 70 State bodies fall into this category on my calculation, if they are in that position they must each year go to the Government and seek the money they need to carry on their functions. The Government are entitled to express their views on the legitimacy of their demands for money. If the demand is they need more staff and the Government think they do not need more staff, they do not get the money. If the Government think the demand is unreasonable and the body is incompetently and extravagantly run they dismiss the board.
In no case is a State body in the position in which it cannot appoint a member of the staff, set up categories of grades, set out terms and conditions of service, decide on remuneration, or dismiss staff without the approval of a Minister. Why then pick on this body? This body is being set up to protect and safeguard the autonomy of the universities. The Government could have gone on with their policy of dealing directly with each university and college. They did not do that because the case was made so strongly by the Higher Education Authority for having a buffer body that the Government decided to introduce this Bill and that decision has now been, as so often happens in Church and State, sabotaged lower down the line and some people are dragging back this autonomy, which is the whole purpose and function of the Bill.
I should like to hear from the Minister where are all these bodies in respect of which all these conditions apply. There may be some. Deputy O'Donovan claims there is one where remuneration is subject to this kind of control. This may well be true in regard to a couple of these. There may be some bodies so closely part of the Public Service that this is the case. The Industrial Development Authority for many years, although given some autonomy and power to recruit staff outside the Public Service, was, in respect of the bulk of the staff, an integral part of the Public Service but it had a separate board and some of the staff it recruited from outside. Most of the staff were seconded temporarily and moved backwards and forwards to and from the Department of Industry and Commerce. It would not surprise me, therefore, if the Industrial Development Authority were in that position because it was an extension of the Civil Service. As in so many cases, bit by bit these bodies have been hived off, given their independence and autonomy and a board of their own and power to run their own affairs. When this change was made the staff were given the opportunity of remaining there or going back to the Public Service.
This is true of bodies depending totally on State grant as it is true of bodies earning their revenue in the market place. That is the position and I should like to hear from the Minister some justification for what he has done here. I hope I can drag some example out of him where this is done. When he says this is the "normal" way of co-ordinating such bodies, "normal", I repeat, means that which is done in the great majority of cases. There are 40 State bodies virtually totally dependent on State funds. I checked. I wrote on the subject about ten years ago. At that time here were 34 and there probably has been an increase since. I would need to be told the names of 30 of them in respect of which this clause applies before I would accept this is the "normal" way of handling it. I have not yet heard from the Minister.
The fact that Deputy FitzGerald knows of a number of bodies that seem to enjoy the autonomy which he would like to have here does not necessarily mean that that is the correct thing.
It would at least be the "normal" thing.
The normal thing need not necessarily be the correct thing.
Let us say "a normal" thing.
I am not very concerned about the field of commerce and what might happen there, but I would be concerned about education. I would like to confine myself to the field of education. I would suggest to Deputy FitzGerald that he should examine the position in the case of vocational education committees.
Which are not autonomous.
I do not want to see— this is my personal view—this board with autonomy without there being some questioning of what they might be doing and I do not see that they should be entitled to any more autonomy than that which exists at the moment in the case of vocational education committees.
Vocational education committees at the moment are engaged on very important work. I would be prepared to make the case that the field of education in which they are engaged is as important as this particular field. In the matter of co-ordination, the committee in Dublin is not allowed to employ all the available teachers and deprive other counties of teachers that may be required there. I see that as being a worthwhile exercise. Here I am confining myself solely to the field of education. I am not terribly concerned about what is happening in the Dairy Disposal Board and if they have to date been operating in fields which give them certain freedoms there may come a time when I can examine whether I am satisfied, in the matter of the expenditure of public moneys, that they should so continue.
I see in this not something which will be examined from day to day. I can see submissions being made, rather global submissions, and I assume that the Department of Education and the Department of Finance will not examine them in any tremendous detail and will not set out to thwart or to deny to An tÚdarás that which they may justifiably claim. I see in what is proposed here the safeguard that is required and I should be very disappointed to see it removed.
I cannot understand how Deputy FitzGerald feels that this particular section interferes with the autonomy of An tÚdarás.
That tells us something.
In fact it does not interfere with the autonomy but where in my view An tÚdarás really needed autonomy the Deputy was very anxious to prevent it having that particular autonomy.
In regard to the word "such" in section 14 (1) I am informed that "such" in this case relates to categories of persons and not to individuals but in any case I want again to emphasise that while the Minister will have discussions in relation to the various categories and remuneration with An tÚdarás, An tÚdarás will, in fact, employ the individuals and the Minister will not interfere in any way with them. I visualise An tÚdarás sending proposals to the Minister as to the categories and numbers they deem necessary and once these categories and numbers are decided then it becomes a matter for settling remuneration. After that the appointments will be made and An tÚdarás will have full autonomy in making these appointments. This basically is the really important matter.
Deputy O'Donovan mentioned something about the Institute for Advanced Studies and he said that the only one whose salary was fixed was the Registrar.
I have it here and I am right. It is a cog.
I want to point out that the very same procedure pertains in relation to the Institute for Advanced Studies——
It is the same Department. It is a cog, pure and simple.
——in relation to every post from senior professor down to messenger or from messenger up to senior professor, whichever way you like to put it.
I have here the Institute for Advanced Studies Act, 1940. Professors are appointed by the Government.
We are concerned here with the conditions of service.
I shall read it out to the Minister. I shall read section 18 and compare it with what is here. Subsection (1) reads:
The Council shall appoint such and so many officers and servants for the Institute and such and so many clerical and other nonacademic officers and servants for each of the Constituent Schools as they think proper, but subject, in regard to the numbers of such officers and servants, to the approval of the Minister given with the concurrence of the Minister for Finance.
What is wrong with that?
Subsection (2) reads:
Every officer and servant appointed under this section shall be paid by the Council such remuneration and shall hold office by such tenure and on such conditions as the Council with the approval of the Minister given with the concurrence of the Minister for Finance, shall determine.
Subsection (3) reads:
No person shall be appointed to be an officer or servant under this section unless he satisfies the Council that he possesses such an oral and written knowledge of the Irish language as will enable him to use that language in the performance of his official duties.
Cá bhfuil Deputy Tunney? It is a pity he has gone. This is an exact cog but this was passed in the year 1940.
What Deputy O'Donovan has said is interesting and revealing though the last point about the Irish language puzzles me. I seem to recall several distinguished Hungarian physicists, one of whom returned to Hungary to support the communist cause.
Was he an officer or a servant?
He was a senior professor, I take it.
That makes a bit of a difference.
They are exempt from that requirement? Deputy Tunney suggested that in choosing examples of messengers and doorkeepers I was in some way reflecting on these people. I do not think he could have been here when we first began to talk about them because the way they came in was in relation to the fact that it had been suggested that the people appointed were of such seniority that they could look after themselves. Deputy Thornley suggested this and I pointed out that the section applies to the servants as well as to the officers and they included people who would not be able to look after themselves. I suggested to Fianna Fáil and to Labour, without apparently any effect, that the function of Parliament is to ensure the protection of people like that against possible exploitation. I cannot see how Deputy Tunney could think that such a point of view on my part, even if he does not share it and shares with Deputy Thornley the view that exploitation does not matter in these cases——
That is absolutely incorrect.
I cannot see how he could think I was reflecting on the people concerned.
Deputy FitzGerald and I come from a more plebian institution. Section 15 really shows it up.
I shall be interested to hear the Deputy on section 15. Deputy Tunney also said that there must be some questioning of these bodies and the way they carried out their functions. He must not have listened to what I said. Of course there must be some questioning and I emphasised that. They must, in so far as they depend on State funds, submit their requirement each year, state why they need the money, have that money approved or partially disapproved if the Minister thinks the money is not needed, and if the board are not behaving themselves or are extravagant they should be sacked. I do not know what more questioning he wants.
Neither he nor the Minister answered the basic point that there are not precedents for this. The only precedent adduced so far significantly comes from the same Department. As far as I can recall there has not been any legislation from that Department between 1940 and today except for a Bill last year covering two particular points, one in relation to vocational education or both perhaps in relation to it. It is significant that after a 31 years gestation period the next Bill they produce is also unique in containing these provisions and this Department's determination to retain tight control over any educational body in respect of which it legislates at intervals of a generation or so contains these provisions but that the other Departments of State also concerned with autonomous bodies, entirely dependent on State funds, do not feel it necessary to introduce similar provisions. I think we have here unearthed something highly significant. I find the attitude on the other side of the House deeply disturbing. I hope, though it is late in the evening, that Deputy Tunney's remarks will be given full prominence in the press tomorrow. I hope the Fianna Fáil view of centralised ministerial control of every detail, especially in the sphere of education, will be blazoned forth and that everyone in the Irish educational sector will know explicitly the point of view held by Fianna Fáil on this matter.
When I heard that view put forward by someone whose views I always listened to with interest and respect it made me realise clearly why I was on this side of the House. It made me more anxious than ever before to get to the other side of the House and thus be in a position to do something about this appalling centralisation of control. The bureaucrats and Fianna Fáil Ministers wish to have control of every detail of administration and to prevent autonomy in any kind of body. This is more marked in some Departments than in others. We have seen in the only example of legislation we have had from this Department how this feature has intruded. In this area above all it is objectionable.
I am sorry Deputy Tunney has missed my remarks which were directed very much at him. I would repeat to him that I advocated that the press should publish his remarks fully tomorrow so that all will know the view of Fianna Fáil on this subject.
I am a member of Fianna Fáil; I am not the Fianna Fáil Party and have never claimed to be such. The Deputy may make this claim as far as Fine Gael are concerned.
Sometimes I do, and often I do not. However, I can claim to be speaking for the whole spirit of Fine gael in the point of view I am putting forward tonight. We believe in the devolution of authority. We are against centralised control. We believe there are modern methods of budgetary control that give adequate control over subordinate bodies without it being necessary for Ministers to interfere in individual appointments.
It is good to know that for once the Deputy is speaking for Fine Gael in toto. To my knowledge, this has not happened before.
Occasionally we all express our individual views. We make it explicit that we are so doing; in public and on other occasions we make it clear when we are speaking for the party and I am always careful to do so.
It is interesting and valuable to have the Fianna Fáil view stated so explicitly but it is very disturbing that this point of view should be held on the subject of education. When I heard Deputy Tunney who has been involved in vocational education not merely accepting the lack of autonomy in that area but exalting it, my mind boggled. All the people whom I know in the vocational education sector are frustrated by the fact that they have not got even the kind of autonomy that exists in the secondary education sector. Every move they make in the vocational schools must be approved by the Department and this lack of autonomy is the greatest bugbear in vocational education. I have not met any teacher or administrator in this sector who has not complained to me about this matter. Although Deputy Tunney is involved in vocational education, he does not appear to share this view and I do not understand this.
This is the first time I have heard the Deputy speak in such terms on behalf of vocational education.
If the Deputy read some of my speeches on education or read the Fine Gael policy on education he would find this viewpoint expressed explicitly. Our concern to secure autonomy in the educational sector and to give the institutions full freedom within the general overall control of the capital budget and the current budgetary conditions is the thread that runs through the entire Fine Gael policy. We believe that the educational system should be in the hands of educators, that examinations and curricula should be determined by educators——
The Deputy should confine himself to the section before the House.
This is relevant to the section before the House. I am entitled to express the general philosophy of my party in regard to education when it is so explicitly contradicted by the provisions of this section. I have been challenged by Deputy Tunney on the matter and I consider I am entitled to speak briefly and to the point on the subject.
This section offends against the basic principles of good administration and of good educational practice which require that in the delicate sphere of education the role of the State should be that of providing facilities, ensuring standards and co-ordinating to avoid waste of finance in an area which is highly expensive. It is not the function of the State to interfere in matters of detail. That it should be in this section that the Government Department concerned should insist on tight control over individual appointments and terms and conditions of remuneration is something I cannot accept.
The Minister stated that in section 14 (1) the words used mean "categories and numbers". In view of the fact that it is quite obvious from Deputy O'Donovan's citations where the inspiration for this section comes from, and in view of the fact that in respect of the other matters the wording runs closely parallel to that in the Bill for the Institute of Advanced Studies. I should like to ask the Minister how he explains the change in the phraseology in respect of subsection (1). As he heard from Deputy O'Donovan, in respect of that subsection the wording in the Bill relating to the Institute of Advanced Studies explicitly makes it clear that what is involved are categories and numbers of staff. However, someone in his Department in going over that decided it was not good enough and, while accepting the phraseology in the Bill almost word for word in respect of other matters such as remuneration and conditions of appointment, they changed the wording here to get rid of categories and numbers and introduced this vague phraseology of so many persons. Perhaps the Minister may not have been aware of this; the staff may not have brought his attention to the change in phraseology. Now that he knows they have changed it and modified it to get rid of categories and numbers, perhaps the Minister would look into the matter.
Rather than accusing the officers of my Department, the Deputy is accusing the draftsman of adopting an incorrect phraseology.
The Minister will appreciate that I cannot know who was responsible for the change in wording. It could have been a ministerial direction to get rid of the words "categories and numbers" which were too explicit. It could have been his Departmental officials in the guidance they gave to the draftsmen, telling the Minister of the change they were making or not telling him——
It could have been the Higher Education Authority.
Yes, it could have been the Higher Education Authority.
Those Quislings would have been capable of it.
Perhaps the Minister would tell us who was responsible for the change and why the words were changed.
Why does the Deputy assume that words were changed?
We have heard read to us sections from an earlier Act of his Department, in two of which the wording is the same as here and only in the third case has the wording been significantly altered to eliminate the words "categories and numbers".
The Deputy immediately assumes that something was changed and that this was copied directly——
No, it was changed. That is the point.
Although I am reluctant to intrude on this dialogue, am I to infer that Deputy FitzGerald intends to talk this out?
I intend to finish my remarks. I am not clear why that should be questioned at this stage. I should like to suggest to the Minister that in so far as subsection (1) does not give effect to his stated intentions and so far as the wording in the earlier Act does so give effect, he will consider amending subsection (1) on Report Stage.
I had intended to remain silent on this section because I think the debate is now reaching a farcical level where minutiae are being discovered. If I hear the words "autonomy" again in this debate I think I will commit hara-kiri in public In every intervention by the Department on this subject Deputy FitzGerald and Deputy O'Donovan appear to see the shadow of bureaucracy. Twenty years ago we had a Department of Education that did nothing and we screamed murder that it should do something. Now that the Department are doing something we are all screaming that it is bureaucratic. I think this is quite ridiculous.
While I accept the sincerity of Deputy FitzGerald's involvement with the level of porter or doorkeeper employment in such an authority as this, to suggest that the Labour Party lack interest in such a person is very unfair and untrue. As spokesman of a party affiliated to the major body of the trade union movement, I can assure Deputy FitzGerald we will do our utmost to protect the terms and conditions of porters. I fail to see how their conditions are in any way improved by deleting reference to the Minister and leaving it entirely to the authority.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 21st April, 1971.