Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 12 Dec 1972

Vol. 264 No. 6

County Management (Amendment) Bill, 1972: Committee and Final Stages.

SECTION 1.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I move amendment No. 1:

To add to the section a new subsection as follows:

"( ) Before appointing a rate collector under this section a county manager shall set up a board consisting of at least three persons not below the rank of county secretary, none of whom shall be an official of the county in which the appointment is to be made, to recommend a suitable candidate and the county manager shall appoint the person so recommended."

When this Bill was introduced it was welcomed in principle by the Fine Gael Party because it seeks to remove from the political arena, on the face of it at any rate, the appointment of rate collectors. The appointment of rate collectors has been treated in a rather unique manner over the years. On the coming into operation of the County Management Act, 1940, it was the one post that was reserved to county councils for appointment by them. Rate collectors serving county councils continued to be appointed by a vote of the county councils. That was not the case in regard to urban rate collectors or rate collectors serving corporations. The appointment of practically every other officer was made an executive function and taken from the county councils and handed to the county managers.

This Bill seeks to make the appointment of a rate collector under a county council an executive function, but it simply stops there. On the Second Reading of the Bill I did my best to persuade the Minister to hand the appointment over to the Local Appointments Commission under the 1926 Act. I made it perfectly clear that provision could be made to retain the local nature of the appointment. A local residence qualification could be prescribed. There is ample machinery in the Act of 1926 for prescribing a local residence qualification. I adopted that attitude on the Second Reading of the Bill because I wanted to make sure that the appointment of a rate collector would be removed from the political arena, and be seen to be removed from it.

I know that many county managers pay no attention, good, bad or indifferent, to representations whether they come from Ministers, Deputies or anybody else, but there have been cases in the past in which county managers have yielded to political pressure in the making of appointments. I regret to say that I know instances of where that was done in the past. It was for that reason I wanted to hand over this important and well-remunerated appointment to the Local Appointments Commission.

I had another reason for doing that. There are a number of ways of appointing officers to local authorities. The Local Appointments Commission have operated well since 1926. There was the system of appointing rate collectors which has now been abolished—that is, by majority decisions of the council. There is also the system of appointing officers under Article 26 of the Local Government (Officers) Regulations, 1943. That article envisages an advertisement being published, applications being received and a person being appointed from among those who duly applied in accordance with the terms of the advertisement. It foresees a competitive examination. For some reason or other a rate collector—whether he was to be appointed by the county manager to serve an urban authority or a corporation or to be appointed by the county council—was to be appointed in some different way. The manner in which a rate collector for an urban authority is appointed at the present time, and the manner in which he will be appointed if we pass this Bill without amendment, is gloriously vague.

Paragraph (g) of Article 26 says:

If the local authority in relation to a vacant office by order (or, where the office is that of rate collector to a county council, by resolution) decide that having regard to the nature of the duties of that office, the knowledge and experience necessary for the efficient performance of those duties, and the qualifications for that office the person to be appointed to that office cannot be satisfactorily selected by competitive examination and that such person is to be selected by some other specified procedure, such person may be selected by such other procedure.

The thinking in the Department of Local Government is that he should be appointed in some other way. It is admitted by the Minister that his case for altering the present system is based on the knowledge that in the past the appointment of rate collectors has been the subject of political pressure, that it was carried out on a political basis.

I told the Minister on the last occasion that there was one occasion in County Cavan when five rate collectors were appointed on the casting vote of the Fianna Fáil chairman of the county council in some cases and by a majority of one in other cases, all on the same day. We should get away from that system of appointing rate collectors and we should be seen to get away from it.

In the Bill as it stands, I put it to the Minister, and I should be glad to hear him on this, that there is no procedure prescribed, that it is open to the manager to do it by competitive examination, to set up a board of some sort, though I am not clear whether there is any obligation on him to do so. It is open to the manager simply to make the appointment himself.

Members of county councils have been open to heavy canvassing in the past. It has been acknowledged and admitted that the position of rate collector was a reward for political services rendered. I think it is only right to say, however, that notwithstanding the system of making appointments, by and large the men appointed discharged their duties and in very few cases did they succumb to the temptation to misappropriate funds. That has been a striking feature of the system we are now abolishing. Perhaps it is due to the fact that the political parties making appointments in public would not appoint a man whom they could not stand over. Undoubtedly, however, those men were appointed for political reasons and it is a credit both to the political parties and to the men appointed that the number of such appointees who broke faith, who misappropriated funds, were very few and far between. However, we want to get away from the political aspect of this. That is what this Bill is about. As I have said, the Minister knows that members of county councils were subject to heavy canvassing by candidates who had to canvass at least 20 members, maybe 25 and perhaps even as high as 40.

Mr. Creed

Forty-seven.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I am told it is as high as 47 in the biggest county, Cork. It is not prescribed that the appointments will be made in accordance with regulations. It is simply stated it will be an executive function. If that is left unstated, the manager will be subject to undesirable political pressure. Seeing that this has been tainted with political pressure in the past, the people will not believe it will be above politics. How could they? The Minister has said that he will continue, as a Deputy, to make the representations he is expected to make about these appointments——

Mr. Molloy

I never said I would make any representations about these appointments. If I did, I withdraw it.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I will read the record.

Mr. Molloy

The Deputy has read it already.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I will read it again to get it into the proper context. During the debate on the Second Stage on 22nd November, 1972, the following occurred:

Dr. O'Donovan: I asked the Minister for an assurance that under no circumstances would he interfere with this system.

Mr. Molloy: I have no intention of interfering in appointments made by way of the executive function by managers. I can give that assurance wholeheartedly to the Deputy as Minister for Local Government.

Dr. O'Donovan: That is all I want.

Mr. Molloy: That is not to say that as a Deputy I will not continue to make the ordinary representations which every Deputy is asked to make.

In the context in which that is stated it can mean only one thing, that if the Minister is asked to make representations about the appointment of a rate collector he will continue to do so. To whom will a Minister make the representations? He will make them to a county manager who, if he is to make a good job of his county, will have to rely on the good offices of the Minister for Local Government to sanction this and to sanction that, to allocate a grant for this and a grant for that, to speed up this and to speed up that. That is an undesirable state of affairs. We are getting out of the frying pan into the fire.

That is why I am sorry the Minister has not accepted my suggestion that this should be handed over to the Local Appointments Commission. I know there was fear among local officials that that in some way or other might prejudice them locally. I do not agree with that. Even where the Local Appointments Commission come into operation the manager still has power, with the approval of the Minister for Local Government, to promote within the service.

I failed in my effort on the last occasion to get the Minister to accept the Local Appointments Commission. As I see it, we are making a vague enactment, deciding that this is to be an executive function without prescribing anything else. We are consolidating the accepted practice in the past that this was an appointment in some way different to all other appointments. In some literature on the subject, it has been accepted in the Department of Local Government that this is a job which may not be filled properly by a competitive examination or interview. I should like to know how it is to be filled and I suggest that the Minister accepts this amendment, which is:

To add to the section a new subsection as follows:—

"( ) Before appointing a rate collector under this section a county manager shall set up a Board consisting of at least three persons not below the rank of county secretary, none of whom shall be an official of the county in which the appointment is to be made, to recommend a suitable candidate and the county manager shall appoint the person so recommended.

I put that amendment down in the hope that the Minister would accept it. I believe if it is accepted it will go a long way to putting this important job, which carries a salary of up to £2,000 a year, perhaps more in some counties, above the pressure of politics, and, in the context which we now know, above ministerial pressure. I believe this would improve the Bill and that managers would be glad to be rid of the task of carrying out these appointments on their own. I believe they would be pressurised by every county councillor in the county, by Deputies simpliciter and by Deputies who also happened to be Ministers. That is a task I am sure no county manager wants. He wants a good rate collector who will carry out the job well and he does not mind how he gets him, but he does not want his time taken up by this sort of pressure and representations. I should be glad if the Minister would avail of this opportunity, if he does not intend to accept this amendment, to tell us how the appointment should be made and under what regulation, circular or instruction.

Mr. Tully

I do not intend to make a Second Reading speech on this, in view of the short time left for business. What Deputy Fitzpatrick has said makes a lot of sense. I do not know whether the Minister was a member of a county council or not but if he was he would know that, while Deputy Fitzpatrick has simplified the matter very much and said that all the appointments were political, in fact all the appointments were not political. Maybe we are unique in Meath but we did appoint a number of people where we had half the Fianna Fáil Party, half the Fine Gael Party and half of our party voting one way and the other half voting the other way. This happened on a number of occasions. Granted they were usually football stars or somebody like that, but these people were appointed. On occasion we did divide politically, and we make no apology for doing that, provided the candidate is up to the mark.

As I said on the Second Reading, we are glad that the authority to appoint rate collectors is being taken from the elected members of the county councils. However, I agree with Deputy Fitzpatrick that it does seem a little odd that we should take this power from the county councillors and give it to the county manager who must, of necessity, be subject to pressure not only from those same county councillors but also from TDs who are not county councillors and from TDs who are Ministers. If we do that we are making a bad situation worse. I would like to see these men being appointed purely on merit.

It has been said that, with a few exceptions, the rate collectors appointed under the old system turn out to be very good at their job. We are all glad of that. They are not so good at compiling a register of electors. Most of them seem to have a very short memory when they come to add to or subtract from the register of electors. That is only by the way. Like Deputy Fitzpatrick, I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this question of giving the county manager the right to appoint a rate collector himself. That is, in effect, what he is doing. Perhaps I have had more contact than most Deputies with county council staff throughout the country and for that reason I know that promotions made are usually very fair, but in this case the county manager is not being asked to promote people from the staff but to select somebody from outside the local government service completely, somebody who will be able to earn, in less time than it takes a Member of this House, more than a Member of this House gets. It amuses me to find some rate collectors standing for this House. I do not know why they do so, because most of them earn more outside the House than they could inside and they have a lot more free time.

If the county manager is given this right he will be under pressure from all sides, and the Minister should spare him this embarrassment. The history of rate collectors being appointed by the county councillors dates back to the time when Fianna Fáil controlled nearly every county in Ireland, and it was all right then. The winds of change have changed things quite a lot, and possibly the Minister will say: "If that is so, surely the weight should be on the county manager from the other side." I do not know, but I think the Minister would be very well advised to have another look at this. I am not saying he should do exactly as we suggest in the amendment, but he should consider if there is some way in which he could take the power of appointment completely away from local officials.

One other matter is the appointment of somebody from a particular county. The danger of giving this power to the Local Appointments Commission is that it would be thrown open to the whole country and there would be a certain amount of resentment if an outsider went into the area and started to collect rates. That would create a rather awkward situation I do not know the solution to it, but I suggest that the one the Minister is putting up here is not the ideal one.

Mr. Creed

I put this point to the Minister on the Second Stage of the Bill and I got an assurance from him, by way of interjection, that a county manager would be entitled to have rates collected through the office. In Cork, which is the largest council in the country, we have a very efficient rate collection system through the office. As members of the local authority there, we have taken a decision that where a vacancy arises the collection will be done through the office.

Managers will not be anxious to operate this Bill because of the pressure that will be brought to bear on them. I want to ask the Minister whether in any other county where a manager decides to opt for the office collection, he is entitled to do it. I would like to get that reassurance from the Minister.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. Molloy)

Yes, he is. I told the Deputy that on the last occasion, but if he was not too clear about it I would like to reassure him. If a vacancy occurs in the office of rate collector the manager then has the opportunity to review the whole position and he can decide to adopt the office method of collection if he so wishes. I stated on the Second Stage that I did not want to lay down a specific instruction that rate collecting should be done by way of office collection or that it should be done by way of the ordinary rate collector method which is employed generally in county council areas. I am leaving it to the discretion of the local authority.

When a vacancy arises the manager will have discretion to continue with the previous system or to decide to have the collection carried out in future through the office system and probably appoint somebody from within his own staff to do the collection. In a number of local authority areas, persons of the rank of staff officer and such grades are, in fact, collecting the warrants from more than one area. In a number of cases several districts are collected by the one officer working from an office in the local authority area, so there is no difficulty whatsoever in that regard.

In regard to this amendment put down by Deputy Fitzpatrick, I should like to assure him that I accept the spirit in which he has put down the amendment. It is laudable. His motives in putting down the amendment are beyond dispute and I do not intend disputing them with him. What we are both seeking to do is to create a system which would be impartial in the appointment of rate collectors. We both agree on that. The difficulty I have in regard to the amendment he has put down is, among other things, that in practice it would create a number of difficulties. I will mention some of these. Also, it would introduce a third method of making appointments to local authorities. We have the county manager exercising his executive functions, which is one way. We have the Local Appointments Commission, another way. Deputy Fitzpatrick, in his amendment, is proposing a third way. I do not agree that a separate system should be set up for the appointment of rate collectors. I do not see the necessity for it.

I am rather surprised that it took a debate on this subject to bring out all the criticism about managers being subject to pressures and that they were persons who would give way to pressures of the kind the Deputy mentioned. Those of us who work with local authorities, whether we are members of local authorities or not— I happen to have been a member for two or three years—know well the calibre of the men operating as county or city managers throughout the country. They are men of integrity and have been performing a very valuable service to the community. I have never heard their integrity questioned on any occasion before this Bill was introduced. One cannot believe the statements which have been made here. There has been no evidence at all that managers are the type of persons who give in to pressures. Whatever purpose Deputy Fitzpatrick had in continuing to make that point I do not know but it goes against all the evidence in the field of local authority administration.

I accept that what we are all seeking is an impartial system. That is what I am seeking. The argument was used that Fianna Fáil, at one time had control of all the local authorities but did not now have that control and therefore, were taking the power of appointing rate collectors away from the councils. That argument is a lot of rubbish. First of all, Fianna Fáil never had control of all the councils.

Mr. Tully

They had control of a great many more of them than they have now.

Mr. Molloy

If the position is as the Deputies say it is now, whatever great significance there is in that, remember the local elections were held in 1967. It is not last week that they were held. If this had been the purpose and the reasoning behind the Bill we would have introduced it long ago. We do not think like that. That is not the reason why the Bill was introduced. This is just another false argument that I thought it well to refute. I do not accept it. It is a slight to my own integrity to question the motives I had in bringing forward the Bill. I explained my motives on the previous Stage.

The system proposed in this amendment does present difficulties and it is no harm to put them on record. On Second Stage I referred to the desirability of having a person collecting rates who has some local knowledge. The Deputies who spoke accepted that it is desirable that rate collectors should have local knowledge. If you are looking for someone with local knowledge there must be some form of local competition to appoint him. If the amendment were accepted there would not be even a local official on the interview board. You would be obliged to have three strangers to the area and the future employer would not be represented on the interview board. That would be a rather extraordinary situation. I do not accept that this would be the ideal method to replace the existing system of appointing rate collectors. It is obvious that a senior, sensible, member of the local authority staff should sit on the interview board. I do not think that in their hearts the Deputies opposite would object to that. That is the system that has been in operation in regard to the appointment boards that managers have established in exercising their executive functions in regard to the filling of other vacancies, which I listed on Second Stage, and which has never been queried. The integrity of that system or of the managers or of the personnel of the interview boards has never been questioned. There is no information in the Department that would indicate that there have ever been complaints about that method of appointment.

The amendment says "the county manager shall appoint the person so recommended". That is an extraordinary recommendation and is a complete change from the existing practice. It would place obvious difficulties in the way of a manager if he were obliged to accept the person nominated by the board.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): He must appoint the person recommended by the Local Appointments Commission.

Mr. Molloy

The Local Appointments Commission have a completely different machinery. They deal with a large number of applications. They have a backlog of vacancies to fill. I am not too keen on adding the appointment of rate collectors to that backlog. It is difficult enough to get quick decisions from the Local Appointments Commission.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The Minister said that it would be an extraordinary thing if the manager had to appoint the person recommended by the board. Under the other system he must.

Mr. Molloy

I have not finished. If you want to set up this elaborate type of machinery, you have the Local Appointments Commission which, as I explained, have only been used for the more senior posts in the local authorities. If you want to include rate collectors, why not all the other 20 or 30 different offices that become vacant from time to time and process them through the Local Appointments Commission? I do not think the local councillors or the community believe that there is a need for all this precaution that Deputy Fitzpatrick is seeking.

Once a board make a recommendation after having interviewed or examined applicants, under the existing system and under the system that I am proposing, the manager still has to get satisfactory evidence as to the health of the person being recommended and also has to make discreet inquiries as to character in order to ensure that he is not appointing as a rate collector a person who has a criminal record or some blot on his character which would be an obstacle to his appointment to a position of such responsibility which involves handling funds. Under the amendment proposed by Deputy Fitzpatrick the manager would not have the opportunity of doing that unless the three people were asked to undertake this work. There might be 27 applicants for one vacancy. It is ludicrous to imagine that they should have to go through all that procedure for one appointment. I am surprised at its being recommended.

The manager, being chief executive of the local authority, should have the final responsibility in the appointment of whoever the local board recommend to him. I have explained that he must check on health and character. Subject to this the manager is in practice, obliged to appoint the person recommended. That is what has been happening and there are no complaints that managers are not accepting the names recommended by the interview boards.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Where is the regulation prescribing the board?

Mr. Molloy

I will come to that. I recognise the need for greater clarification of the type of interview board and the regulations that govern them. I propose introducing new regulations because up to now the law has been somewhat loose but I believe necessarily so in view of the existing system of appointment of rate collectors, the system we are abolishing under this Bill. To give an idea of the looseness and vagueness of the present system I would like to quote from article 26 of the Local Government (Officers) Regulations, 1943, which formally enjoins that appointment be made by competitive examination but paragraph (g) of that article goes on to say:

If the local authority in relation to a vacant office by order (or, where the office is that of rate collector to a county council, by resolution) decide that having regard to the nature of the duties of that office, the knowledge and experience necessary for the efficient performance of those duties, and the qualifications for that office the person to be appointed to that office cannot be satisfactorily selected by competitive examination and that such person is to be selected by some other specified procedure, such person may be selected by such other procedure.

I accept that there is a need to tighten this up and I propose to make new regulations which are at present being prepared. The regulations I propose will unambiguously require that except in case of internal promotion all appointments must be made by open competition. To give effect to this detailed rules will be laid down as to the type of competition and the manner of carrying it out for the various grades of office.

In the case of rate collectors there will be a requirement that the competition take the form of a competitive interview supplemented in appropriate cases by qualifying written tests. Detailed rules will be laid down regarding the composition and procedure of interview boards to ensure impartiality. That is going as far as I can go in trying to meet what Deputy Fitzpatrick and I are seeking, a completely impartial system of appointment. Once we tidy up the regulations governing the method of interview a local officer with two outsiders that the Deputy mentioned can sit on the interview board. They make their recommendation, the manager checks out the medical and character references of the person they propose and the manager then proceeds to appoint that person. I think that is a watertight system. One cannot find perfection in anything in this life. We can only strive to do this as well as we can. I am fully satisfied that this method will prove to be successful.

I have already stated that if all my thinking is wrong in this and if all the views I hold now are wrong and it is found to be open to the terrible pressures the Deputy has been referring to, it is still open to the Minister for Local Government of the time to transfer the appointments to the Local Appointments Commission if he sees that that is necessary. I do not think it is necessary. I do not think we should do it at this time. It is an option that still remains if this system does not work. I have no reason to doubt that this system will not work and I recommend it to the House. I am sorry I cannot accept the Deputy's amendment.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I am glad my amendment has established that the Bill as it stands, without any regulations, would leave the appointment to be made in a manner that is much too vague for an important appointment like this. I had read article 26 of the Local Government (Officers) Regulations, 1943, which the Minister read, into the record of the House earlier. It is clear from that, that the position of rate collector was an appointment apart, to be made in a way that nobody could decide. That was one of the reasons why I put down the amendment. We had a case in Cavan some years ago where out of a number of applicants one refused to sit for the elementary examination that was prescribed. Yet he was the man that was appointed. We had something similar in Donegal recently but I think it is fair to say that the Minister did not appoint the gentleman who refused to sit for the examination.

The Minister referred to my fear that some county managers might be subject to pressure. I repeat that I believe the vast majority of county managers are above pressure but I repeat, and everybody knows, that in the past some county managers have given into pressure coming from a certain quarter. This debate established one thing—that the Minister for Local Government still reserves to himself the right to write to a county manager and say: "So-and-so is well qualified for the job. I would be glad if you would appoint him." That is all right coming from a Member of the House who does not happen to be the boss of the county manager in question.

Mr. Molloy

I never said that.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I read it into the record. It is there. I leave it to the public. I will not bore the House with it again. The Minister said in the context of an appeal by Deputy O'Donovan not to get involved in these appointments that he would give an assurance that he would not interfere in the executive functions but that that did not mean that he would not continue to make the representations that every Deputy is expected to make. I leave it to the House and the country to decide what the Minister meant when he said that. I will be forgiven for being a little bit——

Mr. Molloy

Naïve.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): ——careful when at the tail end of the Second Reading we extracted that admission from the Minister.

I put down this amendment in the hope that the Minister would accept it. Like every other amendment that is put down by the Opposition it is not necessarily perfect. It was put down to establish our thinking in principle. I am glad to say that while the Minister has not accepted the amendment as I have spelt it out he has said now, I think for the first time, that he will bring in regulations. There is not a word in the Bill about regulations but the Minister has now said he will bring in regulations to spell out for the county managers how rate collectors are to be appointed. I do not wish to obstruct the passing of this Bill but I think the Minister should move a short amendment to the Bill in the Seanad saying that the appointment shall be made in accordance with regulations to be drawn up by the Minister for Local Government. I do not think that would be a bit hard.

Mr. Molloy

There is no need to include those words. That is already in the legislation and the Minister, exercising his functions makes regulations under the 1941 Act. Those regulations apply generally to all of the posts which I mentioned on Second Stage which he is obliged to fill. The regulations lay down the method by which he shall fill them. I have stated my intention to make new regulations to govern the appointment of rate collectors. The existing regulations which I read out on Second Stage will also apply to them. The ones I mentioned today will be additional.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I have been doing a bit of research and while I find mention of a board I cannot see any provision in any of the regulations for the establishment of a board or making a board obligatory. We now have it from the Minister that he is going to draw up regulations and that under these regulations the manager will be required to set up a board and that probably two of the people will be from outside the county. I concede that there is merit in having one from the county who would have local knowledge. I would not quarrel with that. We now have it from the Minister that he is going to establish such a board and that he is going to prescribe an interview and also a minimum educational qualification. That is an improvement. I think it should be written into the Bill. In view of the fact that I did my utmost on Second Stage to have this handed over to the Local Appointments Commission with certain safeguards to preserve local knowledge and local residence and in view of the fact that the Minister is yielding on this or to use another phrase, is giving an assurance that he proposes to draft regulations which will prescribe an interview board, I do not propose to press the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Section 1 agreed to.

Section 2 agreed to.

Title 2 agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.