Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 1973: Second Stage.

Minister for Finance (Mr. R. Ryan)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This Bill provides for the setting up of a new Department of Government to be known as the Department of the Public Service. The establishment of this Department is an essential step in the implementation of the recommendations of the Public Services Organisation Review Group. As Deputies are aware, this group, under the chairmanship of Mr. Liam St. John Devlin, was set up in 1966 with a very wide mandate to look into the organisation of the public services; I might quote that mandate to give some indication of the size of the task facing the new Department:

Having regard to the growing responsibilities of Government to examine and report on the organisation of the Departments of State at the higher levels, including the appropriate distribution of functions as between both Departments themselves and Departments and other bodies.

The group reported in 1969. Its recommendations are far-reaching and comprehensive, ranging across the whole field of our administrative institutions. There has been general agreement that this report is one of the most important public documents produced since the foundation of the State. Before I deal with what has been decided and with what is being done on foot of these recommendations, I would like to give a brief overview of the report.

The proposals in the report may conveniently be grouped under three main headings. The first group of proposals are concerned with the structure and organisation of the public service. They include what are, possibly, the most radical recommendations in the report—recommendations for the division of each Department into an Aireacht, responsible for policy formulation and appraisal and overall management, and a number of executive units responsible for the execution of settled policy. Other recommendations of a structural or organisational nature deal with the creation of an appelate system and with the attainment of the unity of the public service. This unity of the public service would be achieved, partly, by greater staff mobility and, partly, by the creation of effective systems of management and communication.

This leads to the second broad group of proposals which deal with the management of the public service. They are built around the idea that the managerial functions of planning, finance, organisation and personnel should operate as communication channels through the whole public service. In each Department, each of these functions would have is own specialist staff unit, answerable directly to the permanent head of the Department and co-ordinated on a service-wide basis by the Departments of Finance and the public service. Another important recommendation in this area is for the creation, in each Department, of a management advisory committee, consisting of the top staff, to assist the secretary, finally, there is a third and wideranging group of recommendations for the redistribution of functions between Departments and between Departments and other bodies.

Although this is only a very brief summary of the recommendations in the report, it is clear that fundamental changes are proposed in the structure and operation of our public services. It is clear too that the management machinery of the present public service was not designed for the management of the type of public service envisaged in the report. The Government feel that any approach to the enormous task of restructuring our public service should begin with the machinery of management and, in particular, with the central institutions. They have, therefore, decided to accept the recommendation to set up a Department of the Public Service. The implementation of this decision is the main purpose of this legislation and before I discuss this matter, I should, I think, briefly mention the other steps that are being taken.

First, all Departments have been instructed to set up management advisory committees consisting in each Department of the Secretary and the top staff at assistant secretary level. In the absence of any change in the position where the secretary of a Department is the accounting officer and is, under the Ministers and Secretaries Acts, the principal officer of the Department who bears all responsibility under the Minister, it may be argued that this is not a significant innovation. This, however, is to miss the point. The creation of management advisory committees implies the involvement of the higher staff of each Department in the overall management of the Department's business. I intend to take an active interest in the operation of the management advisory committees and I would hope that they would become the starting points for further development of participative management practices.

Secondly, as a preliminary to the installation of the new system of management proposed by the report, specialist staff units for the functions of planning, finance, organisation, and personnel are being set up in each Department. There are two main problems to be faced here at the outset. The first is to decide on our initial requirements of people with the necessary skills, to see what resources of such skills are available within the public service and to supplement these resources by training and by the recruitment of any additional staff required. The second problem is that of working out the complex pattern of communications and relationships, between these staff functions and, on the one hand, the line units of their Departments and, on the other, the Departments of Finance and the Public Service.

Although the matter is more relevant to a discussion of the functions which will remain in the Department of Finance, I might mention also that the report advocated that the traditional methods of financial control should be supplemented, and perhaps eventually replaced, by a system known as programme budgeting. Programme budgeting is now being introduced in all Departments and has, in fact, made considerable progress in a number of them. Substantial returns by way of improved planning and budgeting procedures are likely to result.

A high priority was given by the report to the immediate development of a system of promotion by merit in the higher Civil Service and to the removal of all barriers to promotion arising from the concept of Civil Service class or from the Departmental location of civil servants. Promotion is a very delicate subject in the public service and before taking any action as regards the higher Civil Service, as a first step, it was necessary to consult the staff at the levels involved. While the complex problems have not yet been solved, the discussions have produced a joint consultative body through which the staff concerned may be able to participate in the process of public service adaptation.

At the same time, Departments have been looking at the redistribution of the functions of the public service proposed in the second part of the report. While some of these proposals could be considered on their individual merits, it would be preferable that they should be considered in the context of a unified public service in which they were made. In particular, they should be considered in the light of one of the main themes in the report—the recommended separation of policy and execution through the division of each Department into an Aireacht and a number of executive units. This is, as I said, probably the most radical and difficult area of the group's proposals and it has been the subject of much consideration by the Government. While the changes proposed would ultimately involve legislation and a final decision could be made only by the Oireachtas on the Government's proposals in the matter, I would at this stage direct the attention of Deputies to two important associated issues. First, if, as seems likely, the separation of policy and execution would produce a more efficient public service, it would be necessary and desirable to consider what changes, if any, should be made in our political procedures to take advantage of this increased efficiency. Secondly, the highly sophisticated machinery for the public service which is entailed in the proposals for the separation of policy and execution will require an intensive programme for the development of the managerial skills of the public service. A limited experiment on a non-statutory basis is being carried out in a few selected Departments so that the proposals can be tested by hard experience before the Oireachtas is asked to commit itself to radical change. The Departments of Health, Industry and Commerce, Transport and Power, and Local Government were selected and joint teams from my Department and each of these Departments are at present examining the problems involved in the experiment. It is hoped that the experiments will commence to operate in some of these Departments at an early date. This question of the structure of our public service is one which concerns all our people and I would be glad to have the opinions of Deputies on a matter which will be a primary concern of the new Department.

In fact, everything done so far on foot of the report brings us back inevitably to the need for a central unit of Government to co-ordinate the process of restructuring to be carried out by the various parts of the public service. Indeed, experience has underlined the wisdom of the statement in the recommended implementation programme given in the report that "the first essential is the establishment of the Public Service Department". The Government have decided to establish a Department of the Public Service and the first purpose of the legislative proposals now before the House is to give the necessary statutory authority for this Department.

As Deputies are aware, the responsibility for the staffing of the Civil Service has always been vested in the Minister for Finance. The functions of organisation and personnel were assigned to a division of the Department of Finance originally known as the establishments division and more recently styled the personnel division. The case for the assignment of these functions together with responsibility for the co-ordination of organisation and personnel matters for the whole public service to a separate Department of the Public Service is based on a few fundamental considerations. In the first place, the review group found that, in the past, these functions have tended to be subordinated to the financial and economic responsibilities of the Department of Finance; secondly, the skills employed by the organisation and personnel functions are so different from those required by the finance and planning functions that they should be under a separate permanent Departmental head and, thirdly, it is essential that the organisation and personnel functions for the public sector should be given the status they have acquired in the private sector. The eventual assignment to the Department of the Public Service of responsibility for the co-ordination of all public service organisation and personnel practices is a logical consequence of the acceptance of the idea of a unified public service.

The assignment of the Department of Finance and of the Public Service to the same Minister also follows the recommendations in the report. Planning, finance, organisation and personnel are interdependent functions and it is essential that they should be co-ordinated by the same member of the Government. Since, in our system, planning and finance are the responsibilities of the Minister for Finance, organisation and personnel must also be assigned to the same Minister.

The new Department will have divisions responsible for the functions of organisation, personnel, and remuneration in the public service. Remuneration, which is really part of the personnel function, is of such importance that it merits a separate division in the new Department. In fact, I would see this division as primarily responsible for staff relations and as providing the location where the co-operation of the public servants in the re-organisation of our public service will be secured.

The report had also recommended the incorporation of two other functional units in the new Department—a procurement division and a commissioner for administrative justice. Action on these recommendations is being deferred for the moment. The future organisation of the units of the public service dealing with such matters as accommodation and supplies must await a decision on the future of the Office of Public Works and other purchasing units in the service. As regards the commissioner for administrative justice, the net point at issue is the creation of some form of appellate machinery to deal with the complaints of those aggrieved by administrative decisions. In the report, it was recommended that this machinery should be co-ordinated by a commissioner of administrative justice associated with the Department of the Public Service. I propose that the relevant recommendations should be considered at an early date by the new Department in light of the experiments which I mentioned earlier are being conducted in relation to four Departments.

The Government have designated the assistant secretary in charge of the personnel division of the Department of Finance for appointment to the post of secretary to the new Department. The post of deputy secretary in charge of remuneration has been filled by promotion from within the Department of Finance and the two posts of deputy secretary for organisation and personnel have been filled by a competition which has been held by the Civil Service Commission and which was open to civil servants and noncivil servants. The officers appointed are, of course, serving in the Department of Finance at this stage. This opening of eligibility for the higher posts in a Department is a departure from normal practice, but it follows logically from the reminder in the report that "In the establishment of a Public Service Department a great responsibility rests on the Government to select the right men for the top posts in this Department". The open competition ensured that each appointee to these posts would have demonstrated his suitability in competition with all comers. The need to bring the organisational and personnel skills of the public service to the highest possible levels makes it essential that these posts be filled with people with the skill and competence to begin the transformation of that service.

The second main purpose of this legislation is to set up the Public Service Advisory Council—Coiste Comhairleach na Seirbhíse Poiblí—to advise the Minister for the Public Service on organisation and personnel matters in the public service. It is proposed that this council shall report to the Minister each year and that the Minister shall cause copies of every such report to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. It is of interest to note that the review group commented, in connection with this proposed report of the Public Service Advisory Council and other material about the activities of Departments to be submitted to the Oireachtas, that

While it is for the Oireachtas itself to determine its own procedures, the existence of this volume of information opens up the possibility of having Parliamentary Committees to review the activities of the Government.

Generally, the provisions relating to the council follow the recommendations of the review group. There is to be a chairman and seven members; the chairman may not be a whole-time public servant and one of the members shall be the secretary for the time being of the Department of the Public Service. The report recommended that four of the members should be from the private sector and four including the secretary of the Public Service Department should be from the public sector. It would be difficult to give a satisfactory definition of the boundaries of the private and public sectors; in fact, as I shall mention later, it is difficult to give a precise definition of the public service. Consequently, the recommendation for the four and four representation is not being written into the legislation but it is my intention that four of the members will not be serving whole-time public servants in the commonly accepted sense of the term. The other four will be public servants. In advising the Minister and his Department and in keeping the Oireachtas informed on the progress of the continuous process of re-organisation of the public service, the council will, therefore, combine a wide range of experience from the public and private sectors of the economy.

Before I conclude by giving an outline of the way in which I see the new Department operating in the public service of the future, I might, perhaps, deal with some of the difficulties that arise in defining the public service. If, as recommended, we are to aim at a unified public service, we must consider carefully what the constituents of that public service are to be. There will be no doubt that the public service includes the Civil Service and few will dispute that the officers and employees of local authorities and health authorities and of bodies financed from public moneys and established to perform functions which might well be performed by the Civil Service, are public servants. Furthermore, those semi-commercial bodies established by statute and dependent to some extent on public funds are, in some sense, part of the public service although they may operate in a purely commercial environment.

It would, however, be stretching things too far to maintain that all bodies in receipt of aid from public funds are part of the public service. Another problem arises in relation to such bodies as the Defence Forces, the Garda and the teachers whose members are undoubtedly public servants although it is hardly appropriate that they should be reviewed by the Public Service Advisory Council.

On the establishment of the Department of the Public Service, all the existing organisation and personnel functions for the public service at present discharged by the Department of Finance will be transferred to it by order. If and when it is decided to assign any further functions in relation to any other body in the public service to the new Department, this will, in almost all cases, require further legislation. Whether or not particular public service bodies are to be designated as being within the public service in the sense in which this expression is used in the context of the Public Service Advisory Council will be decided by the Minister, and confirmed by regulations made by him in each case.

Having dealt with the institutions proposed, I would like to give a brief outline of how I foresee the operation of the new Department. Its first task will be to equip itself for the renewal of the public service. As the central unit of service-wide systems of organisation and personnel, it must first of all ensure that the levels of skill it possess and which are possessed by the organisation and personnel units in all Departments are equal to the best available. Secondly, it must press on with the re-organisation of the public service on a fundamental basis on lines like those suggested in the report of the review group. Finally, it must guide and co-ordinate the general structural changes required to produce a public service combining unity of purpose and efficient and effective deployment of resources with diversity of initiative towards the attainment of national goals. In this it will, as I have indicated, have the assistance of the advisory council.

The council's functions are primarily advisory; in fact it might well be regarded as another of the channels of communication needed to secure a unified public service properly integrated into the machinery of government in the widest sense. On the one hand, it will advise the Minister and the Oireachtas on progress in the continuous process of updating public service structures and staffing; on the other hand, it has the equally important function of keeping the public service in touch with developments outside.

In the same way, the functions of organisation and personnel will be channels through which, in conjunction with the functions of planning and finance, the management of the public service is unified. If we can succeed in building an efficient management structure for the public service, we can then proceed to use this structure to enable the Government, and the Oireachtas, to take the appropriate major policy decisions while allowing the maximum discretion in execution. In all this, our aim must be to see that our people are served by a public service which is sensitive and responsive to their needs and aspirations and, at the same time, which is capable of initiative and the exercise of discretion. As we move over the threshold of the European Communities, it is more than ever necessary that we should have a public service at least as good as the best European model. The Report of the Public Services Organisation Review Group has charted the way for us; what is first required is the building of the necessary management structures and this legislation is an essential preliminary step.

Mr. Colley

This Bill is, potentially, one of the most important which has ever come before this House. It could well, not just of itself, but in consequence of what will flow from its implementation, affect the lives of every man, woman and child in this country. Consequently, it behoves us to give more than cursory consideration to its provisions. I should like to mention also, for the record, that it is a Bill which was originally introduced by the previous Government. It was impossible in the last Dáil to get time for its discussion. I do not want to be controversial by entering into a discussion on the reason why it was not possible: the fact is that it was not introduced.

In anticipation of the consideration by this, and the other House, of the Bill certain preliminary and necessary administrative arrangements were made in the Department of Finance for the setting up of the Department of the Public Service. The result is that the principal importance of this Bill and its passing into law in so far as the Department of the Public Service is concerned is that it will give to the nucleus which already exists a legal existence and, I hope, a fillip to its activities. It will provide for the setting up of the Public Service Advisory Council which has been dealt with in the Schedule to this Bill.

I think it is appropriate that I should refer to the fact that this Bill, as everybody knows, is based on the Devlin Report on the Reorganisation and Review of the Public Service. That task was a huge and daunting one. It was accomplished with great effectiveness and the report on it was one of tremendous clarity which is all the more creditable when one considers the complexity of the issues which were being dealt with. Whether we agree with all, or some, or none of the recommendations we should pay a tribute to Mr. Devlin and to the members of his group. What they attempted was to look at the whole structure which we had inherited from Britain and which was not new at the time we inherited it. Their task was to try to revamp the whole structure of the public service in line with the requirements of a modern society.

Perhaps the most fundamental concept involved was the concept of what was the public service. The Minister has indicated certain difficulties which arise in defining what is the public service. There is a basic concept involved in the Devlin Report. It is impossible, in my view, to deal with this Bill without referring to the Devlin Report. The most fundamental concept in this report is the concept of the unity of the public service. That is which is clearly recognised as the Civil Service, the local authorities, semi-State bodies, and a number of much greyer areas, being included in the one concept of the public service.

This is a concept which does not commend itself to everybody, as I am well aware. When dealt with in practice it does produce a number of difficult problems. Nevertheless, I am convinced that it is the right and only concept which enables us to approach any far-reaching review of our public service. It is also essential as a concept if one is to achieve some of the things which are recommended by the Devlin group and which I think are worthwhile. For instance, the achievement of mobility within the public service is not possible unless one can view the whole range which I have mentioned as part of the one public service. It is also not possible to ensure that there will be comparable remuneration for comparable work, without this overall concept. These are two matters I have chosen at random to illustrate the importance of the basic concept.

I am well aware, and the Minister has touched on this, that when one talks about mobility in the public service one is also talking about promotion, which is a delicate matter.

What is involved here is a radical reappraisal of concepts which have been long held and have been regarded as sacrosanct. I can see that for people who entered the public service quite a number of years ago on the basis of its existing structure and in expectation of a continuation of that structure with, barring accidents, a consequential climbing up the scale of promotion, the concepts involved in the Devlin Report may appear to be a fundamental threat to their well-being and to their well-founded expectations.

There is a very delicate problem here. When I was Minister for Finance I was concerned about this matter and certain steps were taken. The Minister touched on this in his speech and with regard also to the consultation with the Civil Service groups involved to try to achieve an equitable solution to the numerous problems that arise under this head. This is the right approach. A considerable amount of give and take is required. Nevertheless, when these matters are being considered it is important that we do not lose sight of the overall objective, namely, to bring about a fundamental restructuring and improvement in the efficiency of the public service, in the service it can give to the community. It is easy to lose sight of this overall objective and we get bogged down in the details of what people may claim to be their fundamental individual rights. As I have indicated, the problems that arise in this regard require a high degree of consideration, of consultation and, in some instances, of generosity but we must not lose sight of the overall objective, namely giving a better service to the community.

There is little doubt that at this stage in our history and when we have become members of the European Community we need to restructure the public service. The need to do so would be even more compelling if we had not become members of the European Community. The pressures of the modern world on the resources of the public service, the kind of tasks being set for it and the things expected from it are such that even with the highest degree of talent available in the public service we cannot get the results we want and expect unless we ensure that it is so structured as to enable public servants to give that kind of service.

In modern times there have been vast advances in various techniques of management. Some of them have been applied in the public service but some of them cannot be applied effectively without the kind of structure which is envisaged in the Devlin Report. It is our duty to provide the public service with the institutional framework which will enable these management techniques to be applied to the public service for the benefit of the community and of public servants. I have already referred to the problems which arise for people in the public service but it opens up a vista for them if they approach this problem properly. If the Devlin Report is implemented, there are much greater possibilities for men and women of ability to achieve the highest posts in the public service if there is mobility of employment within the entire service. Furthermore, the possibilities of more interesting work and of the suiting of work to the aptitude of public servants are much greater if the problem is approached on the basis recommended in Devlin. For that reason, it would not be true to say that the possibilities for public servants are diminished in any way by the implementation of the Devlin Report. On the contrary, they would be considerably enhanced.

There are certain aspects of this Bill which, at first sight, may not indicate the very serious implications they carry. Perhaps one of the most fundamental matters that is involved is the concept of the Aireacht. It is true that the Bill does not contain a reference to the Aireacht but, as I said earlier, it is not possible to discuss the Bill without reference to the report from which it has its genesis and the Minister has found it necesary to refer to that. It would be quite unreal to discuss the Bill without referring to the concept of the Aireacht, the small group around the Minister in each Department concerned primarily with policy making, as distinct from the numerically much more substantial group in the Department concerned with the execution of policy.

This is a fundamentally different concept from that operated heretofore. Certainly it is possible for people to take differing views as to whether such a proposal, if implemented, would be effective and many people differ in their views on this. I recognise a number of the difficulties that are involved in implementing the concept of the Aireacht but I am still firmly of the opinion that we should implement this concept. In that regard, the former Government made the decision that the concept should be implemented on a trial basis in certain selected Departments, as indicated by the Minister in his speech.

There is much to be learned about how this concept would operate in practice and that is the reason we took the decision to do it on a trial basis. As in any case where a fundamental change is being made, it is simply not humanly possible to anticipate all the problems which will arise. I have no doubt that on the operation of the experiment in the selected Departments some problems will come to light which certainly have not occurred to anybody yet. Nevertheless, there are some problems which we can visualise and these in some cases are problems which go to the root of our concept of democracy and parliamentary control in relation to the Government and its activities. For that reason I think we should give some consideration to these problems when discussing this Bill.

There is a reference in the Devlin Report—and one of the criticisms of the report was that in this regard it did not go into sufficient detail and I noticed that the Minister in his speech made only a very passing reference to it—to this problem which arises in regard to setting up some form of appeal tribunal or appeals commissioner. What is involved here is fundamental because if we accept the concept of the Aireacht what will happen is that very many matters which are at present the subject of parliamentary question, the subject of representation, on implementation of the Aireacht concept would cease to be matters for which the Minister concerned had any responsibility. Clearly, in these circumstances the role of many Deputies might well change fundamentally. The public would, I think, take quite some time to get accustomed to the idea that if you had a complaint about the way some Department had administered some particular scheme you were not entitled to have it raised in this House or, if you complained to the Minister concerned, he would have to tell you that he had no function in the matter.

To me this is something that needs to be considered very carefully. So far as I could weigh it up I have done so and have come down in favour of the Aireacht principle but I am not trying to minimise the difficulties that will arise. Apart from practical difficulties, so many people in this House and outside it have been for so long conditioned to accept the sort of structure we have and the sort of responsibility that is placed on Ministers and the Government, that to depart from that concept in relation to what numerically will probably be the great bulk of matters which are raised by way of parliamentary question or representation and to take them out of the area of Ministerial responsibility seems to me to be something that will require a great deal of education of people just to understand the theory of what is happening, not to mention the practical difficulties that can arise.

Clearly, to implement this concept, even on an experimental basis in one Department, on a sufficiently full basis to enable a real trial to be made involves some legislative changes and I think also changes in the Standing Orders of this House. I think this matter should not be left too long because, if an experiment is carried out in certain selected Departments and if at the same time we do not provide the full machinery for operating the Aireacht concept, the experiment will fail and the whole concept may be thrown out as unworkable when it will not have been fully tested. Consequently, I urge the Minister to give urgent attention to the legal and other problems which will arise regarding the operation of the Aireacht concept even on an experimental basis. Apart from the difficulties I have indicated of getting people to change their whole thinking and the approach they have been conditioned to have, it is essential that the form of appeal tribunal or office of appeal commissioner that is set up must be, and must be seen to be, effective in remedying the grievances of citizens.

I would greatly fear the operation of the Aireacht concept on an experimental basis unless I were satisfied that anybody who—take the Department of Industry and Commerce because it is one of those mentioned as a subject for the experiment—was dissatisfied and had a grievance about some activities of the Department, say for granting a duty-free licence, such a person should be, and should be seen to be, in a position to get satisfaction quickly in regard to such grievance. The theory is that the Minister would lay down the policy to be followed in regard to the issue of duty-free licences for particular classes of commodities but that the executive branch of the Department would carry out that policy on a day-to-day basis and that if somebody applied for a duty-free licence and was refused it while believing, on the terms of the Minister's directive that he was entitled to such a licence, it is essential—I am taking this merely as a small example of the kind of thing involved—that the machinery be provided to enable such a person to have determined independently whether the Minister's directive had been complied with and have this done quickly so that if the directive had not been complied with the situation could be remedied without any delay. If it transpires that the Minister's directive has been complied with, and there is a grievance about the actual directive, that is another matter. This brings it back into the realm of this House and the responsibility of the Minister for the policy being followed. I have taken a very simple example— perhaps it is not the best one—to try to illustrate in simple terms the kind of problems which will arise on the implementation of the Aireacht concept.

I have an open mind as to the actual form of appeals tribunal which should be available, but I think two things are essential. First, it should be seen to be independent of the executive branch of the Department and, secondly, it should be able to provide speedy redress for anybody who has a complaint to make. It has not yet been spelled out what the relationship of the Deputies to the executive branch of Departments will be. If one takes the kind of example which I have mentioned, if the citizen concerned goes to his local Deputy, can the Deputy or should the Deputy take up his complaint in the first instance with the executive branch of the Department? In practice, I suppose this will happen. The unsatisfactory aspect of that is that if the Deputy does not get satisfaction he cannot go to the Minister to complain about it, because the Minister will have no responsibility or function in relation to that particular operation. We all have a good deal to learn about how to handle these problems and this structural machinery which would ensure that the citizen concerned can get satisfaction quickly.

The Delvin Report recommended, in detail, a number of redistributions of functions of various Departments. The Minister did not touch on this matter. I do not propose to go into it now either. Whether one would agree with the recommendations made— and I have some reservations about a few of them—the fact remains that a great deal of time has elapsed since the recommendations were made and certain changes have occurred in our society and in our situation in the EEC, as a result of which it might well be that a fresh appraisal of the problem would produce somewhat different recommendations. I say that merely to indicate that I think that if and when we reach the stage of distribution of functions we should not regard the Devlin recommendations in this regard as being 100 per cent sacrosanct. A number of recommendations made in that report should be looked at again.

There is also the problem that touches on the nature of our Constitution and that faces any Taoiseach, if one were to adopt in full the recommendations made in the Devlin report in regard to the redistribution of functions in Departments. There would be a pattern of distribution of functions. It seems to me that any Taoiseach, in considering these matters, would have to consider the effect of changes which have occurred in our society, as I have indicated, and also the material available to him, and which of the Ministers available to him is most suited for one particular area, and which Minister for another area. A completely rigid structure would tie the hands of any Taoiseach in this regard. The Taoiseach is tied by the provisions of the Constitution which limit the number of Ministers he can appoint. That is another reason for not approaching the Devlin recommendations in this regard as a completely rigid blueprint. When I say that, I do not want to give the impression that I disapprove of the recommendations made because I do not. I agree with most of them but I have reservations about some of them.

While this part of the report is interesting and caught a good deal of public attention, it is by no means fundamental in relation to the rest of the recommendations in the report. In the Bill there is provision for the setting up of the Public Services Advisory Council. The Schedule sets out the details of the structure and operation of that council. I regard such a council, especially in the early years, as being absolutely essential to the effective operation of the Department of the Public Service if one regards the operation of that Department effectively as fundamentally constituting the implementation of the Devlin Report in the public service.

I was glad to hear the Minister say that although the Schedule does not spell out what is recommended in the Devlin Report, that is, that there should be three persons from the public sector and four persons from the private sector, plus the secretary of the Department of the Public Service, the Minister intends to follow that recommendation in the setting up of the council, as I understand him. I was glad to hear him saying that. I think it is important that this should be so. While I appreciate that there are difficulties in defining what is the public sector and what is the private sector, nevertheless there is one aspect of this which I would urge very strongly on the Minister, and that is that it should be quite clear to everybody when the personnel of the Public Service Advisory Council is announced that the four members, as against the three members from the public sector, should be seen to be what are commonly understood as being people in the private sector. In other words, there should not be any suggestion, or suspicion, that the council has been loaded with people who would have a bias towards the public sector as against the private sector.

I do not say this in any carping spirit. I say it because it is perfectly understandable in human terms that when one is faced with the prospect of having implemented such a fundamentally different system from that to which one has been accustomed and in which one has grown up, for most people there is a built-in resistance to the change involved. I believe that the Department of the Public Service are going to have an enormously difficult task in trying to bring about the changes which they must bring about. The difficulties will exist because of this in-built resistance to change and because of the belief generally held in many places that the implementation of the Devlin Report is going to downgrade and affect adversely the interests of people in the public service.

For all of these reasons there is going to be a major task for the Department of the Public Services to put across the concepts in the Devlin Report, and to implement them is going to be an even greater task. That being so, I believe it to be vitally important that the advisory council, which, in effect, is going to advise on and observe, for the benefit of the Minister, according to the Bill, but also for the benefit of the public and the Members of this House, the implementation of the Devlin Report, should be seen to be so constituted, as was recommended in the Devlin Report, that there is no apparent weighting of it in favour of the public sector, some members of whom could, as I say, have a built-in objection to the changes proposed. Therefore, to reiterate briefly, I would regard the functions of the advisory council as being vitally important, and almost equally important I would regard the clear demonstration to the public that the constitution of the council is such that the public sector is not loading, or thought to be loading, the council in its favour.

There is one other matter I want to touch on. From time to time, indeed, for many years, there have been talks and speeches on the possible role of parliamentary committees in relation particularly to the operation of our semi-State bodies. This is an extremely vexed question, and I do not want to embark on that at this stage, but what I do want to say is that if the Devlin Report is implemented on the lines I have been discussing, this could well change the thinking in regard to Parliamentary committees.

The Minister said something in his speech which suggested that one of the effects might be to produce parliamentary committees to examine the operations of government. This may be so but, it seems to me that another effect, on the contrary, could well be to bring about less of a requirement for parliamentary committees in relation to semi-State bodies. The reason I say that is that, if this concept is properly operated, then the policy terms of reference under which semi-State bodies operate will be spelled out much more clearly than they are at present in most cases, and the day-to-day operations of those bodies will be subject to the review and appeal of some kind of appeal commissioner. That is something that does not happen at the moment, and that is the main reason I think there has been such a demand from time to time for the operation of parliamentary committees to supervise semi-State bodies because their day-to-day operations are not matters which can be dealt with in this House. It is simply as an effort to get around that difficulty, I think, that primarily there are these demands for the operation of parliamentary committees.

In fact, this is one of the areas that has never been really spelled out by most people in dealing with these demands for parliamentary committees, as to whether they envisaged that the terms of reference of the committee should cover the day-to-day operations of these companies. I would think people might, in theory, say it should be to deal with the overall policy of these companies, but in practice what most people have in mind is the day-to-day operations to question the kind of things that cannot be questioned in this House.

If, however, we implement the Devlin Report and we treat these semi-State companies, certainly the non-commercial ones, in the same way as we would treat the executive branch of any Civil Service department, then their day-to-day activities will become subject to review and appeal by whatever body or commissioner is set up to deal with this precise function. That would be a completely new situation and would, I believe, be a considerable improvement on the present situation. In this area you can see that the pendulum is swinging from side to side. Originally these semi-State bodies were set up because the structure of the public service did not enable the work that was required to be done by the Civil Service with all the checks and balance and responsibility to Parliament that is involved. But now the pendulum, having gone so far, is going back the other way. People are concerned, and rightly concerned, to ensure that the operation of these semi-State bodies should be subject to some kind of review. I believe the full implementation of the Devlin Report by the Department of the Public Service should bring about a situation where these day-to-day activities, in so far as they would depart from the terms of reference, the policy laid down for them by the Minister or the Government, as the case may be, would become subject to review. That is a good idea and might well lead to a lessening of demand for parliamentary committees in that context, not necessarily in regard to other operations of parliamentary committees which have been envisaged from time to time.

There are very many other complex aspects of this matter with which one could deal but with which I do not propose to deal here, because I realise the difficulties involved under the rules of order in dealing with this Bill and at the same time dealing with something which is not officially before the House. Nevertheless, I hope what I have said has been sufficient to indicate, first, that I agree entirely with this Bill, which was produced under my ministry. I believe what is involved is of fundamental importance to everybody in this country, that it is necessary that this Department be set up, that it be given sufficient resources— and I am not merely talking of money when I say that; I am also talking of political backing—to enable it to do its job. It has an enormous task ahead of it, a very difficult and important one. I believe the proposed advisory council is essential in enabling the new Department of the Public Service to do its job, and that the advisory council, if constituted as visualised in the Devlin Report, will ensure that the maximum help that can be given by the advisory council will be given.

I do not want to mention any names in this regard but I would strongly urge the Minister, when he is considering the appointment of members of the advisory council, to consider the appointment of some people, at least, who might be said to have a vested interest in ensuring the success of the Department of the Public Service. He would be doing a good day's work for the new department and, indeed, for the whole community if he approached the task in that way.

I have tried to indicate some of the complexities and ramifications involved in this but I have only touched on an outline of them. I hope I have made it clear that what is involved fundamentally is so important that it could mean a complete change in the matters of ministerial responsibility to this House and of the remedy which the ordinary citizen has in dealing with any part of the public service.

I do not believe that the change will be detrimental, although it will be difficult to put it across. On the contrary, I believe the change will be extremely advantageous both for the efficiency of the public service and indeed in the long term for the remedying of legitimate grievances of citizens. But I am afraid we are a long way from that point. This Bill is designed to get the operation more under way than it has been, to give it more firm standing and commitment. For that reason I welcome and support this Bill.

Major de Valera

My welcome for this Bill must be much more qualified than Deputy Colley's. I have the advantage in this case of talking as an ordinary Deputy who never held office. I should like to suggest, in the first instance, that this Bill is preeminently one which, if our democratic parliamentary life was functioning properly, should go to a Special or Select Committee of both Houses of the Oireachtas and be thoroughly examined there.

This Bill is a typical example of an efficient Bill produced from the point of view of the administration, and I do not quarrel with it from that point of view. Neither am I to be taken at this particular point as criticising. I am saying in a much more positive sense that this Bill is of such an important nature and involves in itself such a possible revolution of the administration and running of the State that if Parliament is to be anything more than what it is degenerating into, a rubber stamp for the administration, if Deputies are to be any more than this, this Bill should be submitted to a properly selected Committee at least of this House for quiet, careful analysis as to its implications.

This is clearly a Bill into which a lot of thought and work has gone. I have no doubt that its advocates will be able to make a very careful case for its provisions when they are spelled out. It has its origins back in an excellent piece of work which resulted in an excellent report, the Devlin Report, which has been referred to here. I want to stress that there is so much involved and so much affecting the effectiveness of the Parliament of this country and the constitutional set-up of this country implied in this Bill that we should not merely pass it as a routine measure setting up another Department. That is the first point I want to make.

I remember, when the Deputy who is now Minister for Finance and his colleagues were on this side of the House, being very concerned, in regard to a Referendum Bill, about the generality of the provisions and about what was not explicitly written into it. This is a Bill of somewhat the same nature. When looking at it, one has to look at it very closely to see what may be involved in it.

First of all, the Bill sets up a Department within the meaning of the existing Ministers and Secretaries Acts. It does not say what the functions of this Department are to be. It says that the Minister for the Department will be the same as the Minister for the Department of Finance. You get a clue as to what the functions are in the definition section where "public service" is defined. Here it is defined wide enough to bring in the semi-State bodies. It says:

"The Public Service" means the Civil Service of the Government and the Civil Service of the State and such bodies established by or under statute and financed wholly or partly by means of grants or loans made by a Minister of State or the issue of shares taken up by a Minister of State as may stand designated for the time being by regulations made by the Minister after consideration of the advice (if any) of the Council in relation to the matter.

First of all, we are giving a blank cheque in that we set up a Department. We are not offered in the formal way in the Bill itself an explanation as to what the Department is to be. We have to wait until we get from the Minister an explanatory statement, which is not part of the Bill, as to how he sees this Department will function and operate.

The Bill sets up a Department. Section 3 states:

On the appointed day a Department of State to be styled and known as Roinn na Seirbhíse Poiblí or (in English) the Department of the Public Service shall stand established.

I will leave out for the moment the second part of the Bill which deals with the establishment of the Council. That is simply setting up a separate Department. I can read nothing more out of the Bill except that in the definition section its scope is broad enough to cover semi-State bodies and anything else the Minister or the Civil Service administration wishes to cover.

I now come to the Minister's contribution on this Bill, which is not statutory, is not mandatory and, as the lawyers say, is not evidence. I get some clue in this as to the thinking, which is to separate the policy from the executive functions. One can clearly see a trend through the Minister's speech to separate the financial or accounting function from the executive functions. I do not have to be told in detail the very good reasons for that line of thinking and I am not criticising efficient organisation here. It may be an excellent idea for every Minister to organise his Department into a headquarters staff—call it Aireacht or whatever you like to call it—into executive units for carrying out the policy end. It may be a good thing to have alongside that financial accounting structure. That I do not quarrel with. In fact, I commend the work and the thinking that have gone into the approach to the problem. I want to look at it for a moment, and no one else has adverted to this so far, from the point of view of this House.

If one does that, then who will be the accounting officers? Will we find ourselves in the position in this House that the only people who will answer as accounting officers will be only those on the financial end and the whole executive end of the Civil Service will have the same alibis and the same defences as semi-State bodies have at the moment? If we carry out the line indicated by the Minister and if the Bill is implemented on that particular basis, then it will be open to those concerned to take the same approach to whole areas of activity of the State and simply say to us that we can ask questions only in regard to the actual finances and the accounting of the finances; the money went to a particular source and that is that.

If I seem to have taken a belligerent approach to the Bill I think I have revealed now the reasons why I have taken such a line. It is not in any criticism of the excellent desire to reorganise the Civil Service and it is certainly not in any criticism of the excellent staff work done and all the thought. The Administration has as usual minded its business. If I may say so, without disrespect to either the Chair or the House, I do not think we mind our business as efficiently and it is time we adverted to that aspect of our work when considering legislation of this kind. I concede the Civil Service is doing its job from its point of view and organising itself efficiently. It behoves us who have the responsibility of keeping the balance and making democracy work to see that our side of the work is done as efficiently. I asked who will be the accounting officers. In what position will this House be in future? What will the Committee of Public Accounts do in regard to any Department? What questions can legitimately be asked here in this House?

It is understandable that no Government wants delays in getting work done. No one wants delays in getting a job done and all of us have to perform our functions to the best of our ability and all of us do not want to be interrogated about our work and all of us resent any interference, if I may so describe it, in our work. But interference is part of the balance in a democratic State and democratic life generally. It is one of the principles operating to ensure fair play and let a man be a man and not just a communal machine.

I should like to press home the point about accounting to Dáil Éireann. A great deal has been said about the accounting of semi-State bodies. Every reasonable person will agree it would be an impossible position if, so to speak, there had to be an accounting of the smallest day-to-day expenditure. But there have been complaints from time to time about the inefficient use of money. Mistakes have been made. That is inevitable in any organisation, public or private. In effect, what this House is being asked to do is to sign a cheque and ask no questions. The House has honoured me by appointing me to the Committee of Public Accounts and, as a member of that committee, I received a letter and when I opened the envelope I found it contained the published schedule of the already published accounts of the various State bodies. I admit this is a courtesy, but no member of the committee may ask a question about these accounts and, if a question is asked here in this House, we are told it is not our business. We have legislated ourselves out and the accounting officer will simply give the answer that he is not accountable. That is already happening in regard to the Committee of Public Accounts, the only watchdog this House and the people have on the spending of their money. It is the people's money that is being spent. But the people's representatives can make no further inquiry. Indeed, there are some who will view the courtesy of being presented with these documents to which I referred earlier as not a courtesy at all but an insult.

I may seem to be a little over forthright in all this but attention has to be called to the matter. The possibility now is that the principle operating in respect of semi-State bodies will be extended to large areas of the public service and that may be done by the simple expedient of separating the financial form from the executive functions and carrying out a re-organisation or a redelineation of who accounting officers are and what their functions are. I presume, and I hope I am right in this, that the secretary of the new Department will be in every respect on the same footing as are the secretaries of existing Departments in their capacity as accounting officers. The very fact that I pose these questions is enough to draw attention to a facet of this problem which we might easily overlook.

Therefore, when the Minister comes in here and asks us to pass an efficient Bill of this nature—it is highly efficient—I think the House is negligent if it does not investigate thoroughly the mechanics of the measure and carry out that investigation in a helpful way. I am not approaching the Bill from the point of view of saying: "This is a Bill we will not have at any cost. Throw it out." This is not the approach of this party. Deputy Colley was the Minister's predecessor and it is extraordinary—and the present Minister is young enough in office to think it is extraordinary—the change that takes place in thinking by the transfer from this seat to the seat the Minister is occupying opposite. I am sure the Minister has not yet become so acclimatised to the seat he is sitting in that he will not listen to an echo from the past, if I might put it in that way.

I am not suggesting that this Bill should be rejected. I think it is high time we reorganised. It is probably high time we reorganised ourselves in this House. The question of Parliamentary Committees has been adverted to by the Minister who referred to the passage in the Devlin Report where the work of Parliamentary Committees is advocated. If I could feel confident that the Minister, and whoever might succeed him whenever he may be succeeded, would wholeheartedly subscribe to that principle I might be converted to the idea of a speedy passage of this Bill through the House.

As Deputy Colley said, I do not want to wander out of order, but the trouble about this Bill is that it does something as part of something overall that needs to be done but in the doing of which it will be committed to other factors, and one of the reasons why I should like to see it examined in the quiet of a Committee of both Houses of the Oireachtas is that I feel there are in this Bill matters which need to be committed to a committee.

I hope the House will sometime arrange its business so that it can be an effective instrument of democracy, so that it will not degenerate into a rubber stamp for a Government which are maintained in power because they have a couple more Deputies to vote for them, right or wrong, when they propose legislation. The Minister quoted the report of the review group:

In so far as it can do this, I say "good", but in so far as such a procedure could easily become one by which a committee would get only what was considered to be good for them, I should like to consider such a statement for a moment in other language.

I should like to repeat that I have no intention of casting aspersions on anybody. I accept wholeheartedly the integrity of the administration and of the people who made the report. That is not in question and I agree with Deputy Colley's commendation of them. However, I want to deal with the realistic factors which come into play, how machinery put up theoretically and designed to give practical effects can operate to defeat some fundamental principles.

After all, democracy in its nature is an inefficient thing. It involves a certain amount of waste and inefficiency and possibly involves incidental injustice here and there. We then come to the question of whether it is democracy we want or whether democracy is to be thrown over for another system. There can certainly be another system but I think our people have wanted democracy, and I am going on the basis that the people of this country want democracy to be a real thing. Indeed that is my only apology for the approach I am taking here.

I might at this stage mention the points on which I question the Bill and on which I reiterate the request that the Bill should be examined by a committee, preferably a Special Committee of both Houses of the Oireachtas. The first point I would make is that in its definition we do not know what the consequences will be in regard to the mechanics, the realities and the practicalities of responsibility to Parliament. I have pointed out the case of semi-State bodies and I should like to know who will be the accounting officers and so forth and what their limitations will be in so far as responsibility goes.

The second point is the possible pre-emption of the subjects open to Parliament in the revision of procedures and in which way Parliament can be effective. Even the most casual observer will have noted the system by which the State has been run in the past ten years or so. The business of Government has become so intricate that the procedure by which the Bill comes before us means that there will be a debate on the Second Stage and a section by section debate on the Committee Stage. Through this procedure, Deputies are not in a position to have enough information. I have not enough information on this Bill notwithstanding the published reports and notwithstanding having listened to the Minister and his predecessor. The most I can do is to ask for information, and unless I am given affirmative answers to questions I will not be in a position to question the provisions of the Bill, much less to contradict them. In this situation the House becomes reduced to Deputies being able to make only incomplete contributions and the House becoming merely a rubber stamp of Ministerial proposals. This cannot go on indefinitely. It has not gone on indefinitely in other parliaments. The Bill should be examined from the point of view of ascertaining how far it pre-empts the options open when that fundamental problem that I have touched on is approached.

Deputy Colley made some interesting comments on the question of the function of the local Deputy. In a sense, they were complementary to the questions I have asked in relation to the functions of accounting officers and who will be accounting officers and, particularly, the question regarding the separation of the financial from the Executive, to put it broadly. This being the case, I do not follow how the Aireacht or the policy section of the Minister would block questions but Deputy Colley seems to envisage this happening. If that should be the case, this is something we must consider. By and large, it raises, again, an interesting question for the parliamentarian. I do not wish to go out of order on this but I hope the Ceann Comhairle will bear with me to the point that I must touch on. Deputies are extremely busy in the carrying out of personal representation work for individual constituencies but we are not as official in doing the work of Parliament for the reason I have mentioned. I am not sure whether our approach here will minimise the role of the Deputy as the constituency representative in the sense of the individual advocate of a constituency and maximise his role in this Chamber which is where the important work must be done in modern times when one must deal with modern, complex organisation and legislation. I do not see that as a great objection to the Bill but I see it as something that concerns us very closely, that concerns the function of the Deputy and something that this House should decide and should not be pre-empting even in default of our own negligence to provide for the problem ourselves.

Regarding the setting up of an advisory council, I see nothing wrong in such a proposal but I wonder why he must go to the trouble of setting up the council legislatively. I think that he could do that administratively. However, I ask why he is setting up the council. The Minister tells us that the council is to report once each year. Is this council to be something that is interposed between this House and the Executive functions of the State? Here is an opportunity to make a point that is very relevant in so far as semi-State bodies are concerned. It is both wrong and dangerous to employ the devices of commissions, eternal committees, councils or advisory bodies to interpose or go alongside the simple direct constitutional relationship between Parliament and Executive. We would get along much better and more efficiently if that direct relationship were maintained fearlessly and straightforwardly with the functions of the two parties being fairly clearly defined. I would much rather agree among ourselves here that there are certain things we should not interfere with from day to day. This might even concern certain types of questions with which we should not harass Departments. Rather than interpose something, let us deal straight with Ministers and Departments and let them deal straight with us. Let us realise that they have a very definite function and that from the formation of the State they have discharged that function very well. Let us cut out the frills. The Minister will get no better advice in his Department than that which he receives from the head of his Department and from his senior officers in the Department. We will get no better answers nor the country will be no better served in any way than by way of our direct relationship with the Minister, the Minister answering for his Department.

What is required is organisation of both sides. By all means let the public service procedure be reorganised and adjusted in the interest of efficiency. Let the Aireacht within the Department, if it is composed of the Minister's own officers and his headquarters staff, be made a working unit. That is efficiency and is commonsense. Let us also separate in a realistic way the accounting function within the Civil Service from the Executive function but then let it always be remembered that in the last analysis the Minister is neither the personnel manager, the production manager nor the chief accountant of his Department. He is, so to speak, the managing director of his Department and, as such, responsible in all respects and responsible to the Dáil. It is my opinion that this Bill provides rightly when it provides within the service itself for the separation of the financial and Executive personnel into these rather closely linked units. There must be closely and complicatedly-linked units within such a big organisation as the Civil Service but the point I wish to make is this: what we must guard against is that the ministerial responsibility to this House is not only in regard to a first portion of that function, that the responsibility to the House will not be cut down merely to an accounting responsibility and that what accounting responsibility is there is complete as it has been in the public service prior to the institution of this device of semi-State bodies which was a device which had much to recommend it from one point of view but much to criticise it from another point of view. These, generally, are the comments I offer in respect of this Bill which is simple on its face with a definition of public service that is wide. It has laudable aims when looked at from the point of view of the public service and from the Minister's point of view when looking inwards into his own Department. Our function is to survey the whole field. It is from the point of view of surveying the whole field that I make these remarks.

I am always a little dubious about councils, commissions and all that. If it is advice the Minister wants he will not do better than to listen to the experienced people around him who are also carrying responsibility. It would be unworthy of me even to make the suggestion that it was done deliberately, but if this were to work out as a device to minimise the powers of Deputies and of Parliament to inquire into things then I would deplore it greatly and I would say you would be better without it. In any event, I wonder how much it adds to the whole procedure. However, there may be good internal reasons for it. In fairness, I would be inclined to take the view that where it is something completely internal to the Civil Service and its working I would indeed be guided by the people who know most about it, that is the people working the system.

If the Ceann Comhairle will pardon me I will make this concluding remark which is a little beyond the Bill. This is yet another indicator to point out to this House the need for considering its procedures and remind it that time will not wait for it. This Bill is relevant to that point in that I fear it pre-empts our options in that regard but this may be a suitable time to do it because the Minister has not been so long in office and the natural resistances that an officeholder or an executive has towards a parliamentary function has not, I hope, conditioned him completely. I would exhort him to recall some of the thoughts that emanate from this side of the House on this. Lastly, I should like to say something in all earnestness, not in any spirit of criticism of the sponsors and authors of the Bill, but because of what is involved. Great staff work has led to the presentation of this Bill before the House. A great and sustained and praiseworthy effort was made to bring this Bill here. The form of the Bill does not in that sense do justice to what is behind it. It would be a tribute to and a participation in that work if this House were to shake itself and to say: "Yes, and now let us take it up here." I have no doubt that there is much in what is proposed to be done. Perhaps most of what is proposed to be done should be done. In the doing of that we could do a great deal for the effectiveness of Dáil Éireann and of parliamentary democracy in this State.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach (Mr. Kelly)

I had not intended to intervene in this debate and I shall do so only briefly in order to comment on the two speeches that have just been made. So far as the words of Deputy de Valera are concerned I hope he will not think I am making a small-minded point when I say that his points of view are ones which were consistently put forward inside and outside these Houses by members of the party to which the Minister and I belong before the change of Government. All the indignation which he expresses in regard to getting the reports of semi-State bodies, many of which, if not all of which, are working with the people's money, into the day-to-day operations of which he is prevented from inquiring, is the same indignation as we felt and expressed over many years. I do not at all mean that as an imputation against Deputy de Valera's sincerity.

I know he is concerned in his heart for the welfare of the institutions of this State and I have heard him make speeches which must have been uncomfortable even for members of his own party when they were in Government so I accept entirely that what he says is sincerely intended. I merely think it right to say that his concern about the non-accountability, and as he apprehends it the progressive non-accountability, of people who spend the people's money is not peculiar to himself alone. Indeed, I wonder to what extent this Bill is an appropriate occasion for raising the matter in the acute form that he has done. I can almost see the papers tomorrow giving deserved prominence to Deputy de Valera's remarks. I do not begrudge him that prominence but I would be sorry if anything he said were to lead the public into the belief that the Bill now before the House is an instant and powerful engine drawn up at the bastions of this democracy and with concealed battering rams inside for knocking them down. I cannot see that in the Bill myself.

I realise, although I am not as conversant with the problems as Deputy de Valera is, and certainly not as conversant with them as Deputy Colley must be, that this Bill is only the tip of the Devlin iceberg, but as a Bill it must be taken for what it says and I do not think we need concern ourselves now with what the rest of the iceberg may or may not contain. This Bill involves in no way the shedding of the responsibility of the Government or of members of the Government to this House. It does not itself involve, or even explicitly foreshadow, the diminution of the system of parliamentary question and the right of the individual Member to have his questions answered publicly by the Minister in charge of that branch of the public service but if and when the time comes that such legislation is before the House the remarks of Deputies de Valera and Colley would be certainly very apposite and I would have a lot of sympathy with them. I would be very surprised—I say this as an ordinary Deputy and not as an office holder—if this Government were characterised in the future by any move towards reducing the accountability of Ministers to this House. I do not think that is going to happen and while I do not accuse the two gentlemen who have just spoken of trying to raise a scare in that direction—Deputy Colley was very measured in what he said about the implications of the Aireacht concept and I do not at all accuse him of raising a scare—it is worth emphasising that this Bill does not carry any explicit statement or any implicit requirement that the accountability of Ministers to this House, and ultimately to the people, is going to be diminished. I make that statement as a corrective to two very well-informed speeches that have been made before me.

I am not as worried as Deputy de Valera is by the fact that the Department of the Public Service is merely described as such while its functions are left undescribed. I am aware that there is always a fear, and it lurks in the mind of everybody, perhaps in the minds of lawyers more than others, if he finds that a blanket institution or blanket concept is being created and he is not exactly being told what this thing is to do. In fact, there is a sort of precedent for this. The last occasion on which a separate Department was created was in 1956 when the Department of the Gaeltacht was set up. The Act which established that Department described the function of the Department but in terms so general as to be merely padding.

The official version of the Act is in Irish. It is a very rare bird for that reason. The official translation of the Act describes the function of the Department as being:

to promote the cultural, social and economic welfare of the Gaeltacht; to encourage the preservation and extension of the use of Irish as a vernacular language; and, to such an extent as may be necessary or appropriate, to consult or advise with other Departments of State in respect of services administered by such Departments which affect the cultural, social and economic welfare of the Gaeltacht or which concern the national aim of restoring the Irish language.

That subsection, subsection 2 of section 3 of the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Act, 1956, might just have easily been left out because it did not tell the Dáil or the Seanad in 1956, and it does not tell me now, anything about what the Department of the Gaeltacht actually does. It is a piece of padding. It is true that the section would not have been susceptible to quite the same criticism as Deputy de Valera levelled against the Bill before us. I feel that if the Minister, or his officials, in drafting the Bill had inserted something to the effect that the function of this new Department was to improve the standard of the public service and to co-ordinate and restructure this and that it still would not have told us anything of what was going to happen once the Department got moving.

I understand the Deputy's concern about generalities which are put before this House and do not tell the House exactly the way things are going to work. I have often made the point in the Seanad that what the Minister says by way of explanation in introducing a Bill is not part of the law and it will not be part of a law and nobody will be able to rely on it in any court. There is ample precedent—and precedent created by the Deputy's own party as well as by mine—for this. The Department of the Public Service cannot without further legislation develop horrible dimensions which encroach on the institutions of the State which we have come to regard as essential.

My intervention was to try to alleviate any anxiety in the minds of the public which may have been caused by the well-intentioned words of Deputy de Valera and Deputy Colley in their contributions.

Ruairí Brugha

The speeches that have been made during the discussion on this Bill have been very useful to me. One thing that strikes me forcibly is that we have had fairly serious discussions about what I believe both sides of the House agree is an important Bill but yet not more than five or six Members of this House have been present during the past two hours.

Having studied the Devlin Report and then having read the Bill I was surprised that the Bill contains no reference to Aireacht. It contains no reference to the separation of the policy side and the executive side. It contains something new, a Public Services Advisory Council. However, as far as I can see, the essence of the Bill is in section 3, subsection (1), which states that:

on the appointed day a Department of State to be styled and known as Roinn na Seirbhíse Poiblí or (in English) the Department of the Public Service shall stand established.

In fact this does not specify what that Department is for other than it is a Department of the Public Service.

Listening to the debate, and going back on my own experience, I agree that the examination of the public service gone into by the eminent people who sat on the Devlin Commission was an essential and a very useful exercise. It is obvious to anybody who has seen the increasing complexity of the different Departments of State, not to mention the semi-State bodies, that an examination of this kind was necessary. I do not wish to engage in any sort of criticism other than to be constructive but it seems to me, looking at the Aireacht concept of having a separate advisory side to a Department of State in addition to the executive side, there is the advantage that one is not judging the execution of one's own functions.

Looking at it from the point of view of a business man, one employs a person to do a job and one thinks out the policy that is to be carried out and holds that person responsible. It is true to say that, with the increasing complexity of the Departments of State and with the broadening of their various functions, it has come about that Secretaries of Departments, and Deputy Secretaries, have found themselves in the position of having to advise Ministers and think out policies while, at the same time, having to try to execute them. I understood that the concept of the Aireacht was to try to separate these two so that the adviser to the Minister would have the time to think out what sort of advice he should give and the person to be carrying out the policy would not be the person who would be advising. One would then have a situation where the adviser to the Minister would be in a position to advise the Minister as to whether the policy in the developing situation was being properly carried out. That is the concept of the Aireacht as I understood it. Some major changes are needed in the system of appointment in the higher levels of the public service. We should be able to call on the best talent in the country. The existing structure has not necessarily fulfilled this function and for this reason I welcome the reference by the Minister to the question of promotion by merit.

It is essential that we have mobility in the public service and this has been referred to by several speakers. I know from personal experience that frequently a change of job is very good for a person. Public servants could gain if they were given an opportunity to move from one Department to another, or from a semi-State body to a similar organisation. This should be done by way of interview and, possibly, promotion and it would be helpful if there were a period of, say, three to five years in a particular job. It would be desirable to consider the idea of promotion within the service for a limited period of time and subject to review.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach seemed to think the previous speaker had been taking an exaggerated view of the Bill but the previous speaker was right in one respect. I am sure that members of the Government parties are aware that Deputies generally are not able to give the amount of time that is necessary to legislation which could be very important. Although the Bill does not spell out the matters Deputy de Valera referred to, to some extent the Minister has referred to them and in that sense perhaps Deputy de Valera was entitled to raise the points he mentioned.

It is not because I am in Opposition that I am raising anything similar. For some time I have been an advocate of the committee system— not the committee system to which our Bills are subjected at present but rather an informal committee system where Deputies who were interested in the subject matter of the sections of a Bill could tease them out with other Deputies and the Minister's advisers. That would be a useful exercise and it would not necessarily be a major departure from the practice in this State in the last 50 years.

As the Minister has referred to the Devlin Report, it may be appropriate to refer to it also. With regard to ministerial responsibility, at paragraph 7.1.1 of the Report of Public Services Organisation Review Group it is stated:

The primary influence on the present organisation of the Departments of State is the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility. ... Furthermore, each Minister is a corporation sole and normally all the Department's acts are the acts of its Minister. He is responsible to Parliament for these acts and cannot devolve that responsibility on any member of his staff.

7.1.2. With the modern complexity of administration and the mass of detail to be covered, it would be impossible for any Minister to have direct personal knowledge of all the operations of his Department.

That goes without saying. Anyone with experience in administration knows that a Minister could not be in direct touch with all the matters dealt with in a large Department. The report states:

His task is not materially eased by having a Parliamentary Secretary. Nonetheless, he is not empowered by statute to delegate his powers to his civil servants. Yet the work has to be done. The modus operandi which has been adopted is to issue letters, minutes and instructions, in the name of the Minister. An official signing the letter expresses himself as having been “directed by the Minister to say”. The official does not sanction, he conveys the sanction of the Minister. He does not describe himself as authorising, he speaks of the Minister authorising.

With regard to the separation of policy and execution, I should like to quote Dr. Whitaker on the matter. At paragraph 13.1.1 of the report it is stated:

I am not sure now if the biggest problem after all will not be one of organisation—how Secretaries and other senior officers can organise their time and work so as to get away from their desks and the harassing experiences of everyday sufficiently to read, consider and consult with others in order to be able to give sound and comprehensive advice on future development policy.

Devlin savs that unless this defect is remedied the other reforms that were suggested at best will be palliatives. The report continues:

13.1.2 The problem is not new but it is now urgent. In the Constitution it is provided that the executive power of the State should be exercised by or on the authority of the Government and the Ministers and Secretaries Act originally produced the concept of the Minister as a corporation sole responsible for every executive act of his Department. This concept would be unworkable if literally interpreted and the civil service works on the convention that the individual civil servant acts as directed by his Minister who, when these acts are questioned, accepts responsibility. The working of such a system depends on keeping the number of cases in which the Minister is directly involved within manageable proportions; that the system still works, despite the increase in the volume of public business since 1924, can be attributed to the adoption of two devices which keep down the volume of cases for direct Ministerial attention. The first of these is that of the commission to which executive functions are assigned; the second is the State-sponsored body. Without these devices, it is doubtful if the system could have survived.

The data introduced by the Minister in his speech does not relate to anything spelled out in the Bill. It might be a useful exercise on the part of the Minister if he were to consider an exception in this area and have some informal discussion on his opening speech. I know that there is and has been a great deal of contention about the semi-State bodies. From personal knowledge those I know in semi-State bodies from top executives down are doing a very tough job but I also know that the degree of accountability —I do not say this in any controversial sense—which would help to satisfy me, for instance, that the work being carried out was as efficient and as good as one would expect on behalf of the public, is not there. If, as has been suggested, there is any possibility that the reference in the Minister's speech to the introduction of the Devlin concept would mean that the accountability which we are not able to get in relation to the day-to-day working of semi-State bodies at present will embrace Departments of State— I can see the Minister shaking his head and I do not see this in the Bill, so I do not accept it—it would be a matter that would require reconsideration.

I am very much attracted by the idea of the appointment of a Public Service Advisory Council. The form of the council also appeals to me although I do not know why the Minister has selected four—perhaps he would enlighten me when replying —from the public sector and four from the private sector. It is a council of seven plus the secretary of the Department. The Bill does not say that there should be three from the public service. I am not quarrelling with this but I should like to know the Minister's thinking on it.

I am also curious to know why a member of the council who ceases for any reason to hold office cannot be eligible for reappointment as a member until the period of such cesser has elapsed. I do not regard that as very important but wonder why it is introduced. A person might have resigned because he was ill or he might take six months leave but, perhaps, the Minister's advisers had something else in mind. Paragraph 7 of the Schedule refers to expenses but I cannot find any reference to salaries. Has the Minister decided that such a council would be on some sort of salary basis? Paragraph 14 (1) says that the council shall report annually to the Minister: could the council report to the Minister other than annually at his request?

I should also like the Minister to spell out what exactly he is referring to when he speaks about a commissioner for administrative justice. At first, I thought this referred to something within the public service as between civil servants and their superiors but on second thoughts it seems to refer to the public. I should like to know what is intended. It sounds like some kind of tribunal. I should like to know who will appear before the tribunal and for what purposes. That is all I intend to say until Committee Stage.

Mr. Enright

I should like to take the opportunity, on my first occasion of speaking to a Bill introduced by Deputy Ryan as Minister for Finance, of wishing him every happiness and success during his term as Minister. I hope he will have a long term as Minister and that he will have an opportunity of implementing many of the ideas he spoke about while he is Minister for Finance.

At this juncture of our history this is a very important and significant Bill. It deals with our Civil Service and appears to affect also people involved in the administration of public funds such as, I understand, people in the semi-State bodies. Since I became a Deputy I have heard the Civil Service being complimented on many occasions for their dedication and loyalty to the country down the years. Without doubt that is correct. I think it will be seen that this Bill recognises this is so.

This Bill is essential following our entry into Europe. There will be changes in the administration of many Departments. This Bill is connected with the Devlin Report which was published in 1969. It deals with our Civil Service. In his opening speech the Minister mentioned Government Departments "and other bodies". This is significant. One should take cognisance of this. The Bill refers to semi-State bodies which distribute public funds. This House has not the power to debate adequately on this subject.

It appears that we will have an opportunity of debating many of the functions of the semi-State bodies in the future. I do not know whether I am correct in taking that interpretation from the Minister's speech. From the Minister's use of the words "and other bodies" I believe this is the proper interpretation.

As a Deputy I find that when one comes to deal with legislation affecting different Government Departments the rules of the House restrict the debate. We find different Departments being responsible for particular subjects. No one Government Department has sufficient power to deal completely with some subjects. This is noticeable particularly in regard to pollution. The Department of Local Government have certain powers in regard to pollution, while the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries appear to have some power also in this regard. The Department of Lands and the Fisheries Trust also have powers in regard to pollution. The subject of pollution cannot be debated properly because more than one Minister has functions in this regard. The new Government Department which is being set up may make it permissible to debate such a subject when discussing the Estimate for that Department. There are a number of subjects which are similar to pollution and which I will list later.

The Minister in his speech said:

This unity of the public service would be achieved, partly, by greater staff mobility and, partly, by the creation of effective systems of management and communication.

I hope this is true. There should be proper co-ordination, communication and management. There should be liaison between all the Departments.

The Minister mentioned that Departments have been instructed to set up management advisory committees, consisting of the top staff, to assist the secretary of the Department. This should include the top personnel of each Government Department. Co-ordination is essential.

It is hoped that the new Department will plan for the future. There should be a certain section in each Government Department preparing and planning for developments which will take place in this country in the future because we are now members of the European Community and must watch developments throughout the world. It is not sufficient for any Government Department to deal with a limited range of subjects. Each Government Department should know what is happening throughout the world. There will be many changes in agricultural trends, and in marketing and packaging of products. The personnel in the Department of Industry and Commerce should be aware of what is happening throughout the world. The personnel there should read papers and periodicals giving information on changes abroad. They should be in contact with our embassies and with bodies such as Coras Tráchtála and the IDA. The staff in such bodies should report to the Government Departments. There should also be close liaison between the Departments.

Plans have been made in various Departments which occasionally it has not been possible to carry out. Public opinion may not have been ripe for accepting such plans. However, it is essential that Government decisions should not be arrived at until proper consultation has taken place with people who are interested in the policy, and that when a decision is taken the plans to implement it should be properly formulated and administered.

Programme budgeting, one of the matters dealt with in the Devlin Report, has been spoken about consistently over a number of years. It is difficult to know whether any Government can plan for a number of years ahead. Our Government makes its plans for the year ahead in the budget which is introduced in the spring of every year. Sometimes supplementary budgets are necessary if targets have not been achieved. Programme budgeting as outlined by the Minister in his opening address is desirable. The Government may make a decision in regard to say, milk or beef for four or five years ahead. Such a decision should give people the confidence to invest and encourage more farmers to enter into that sphere of agriculture. Some millions of pounds would be allocated for such a programme, and this should lead to greater stability in market and in regard to the whole structure of the Department.

If programme budgeting is adopted all our embassies throughout the world should study the implications of the Government decision, knowing that this decision will be adhered to and that the programme will be carried with effect. Coras Tráchtála, who are represented in most of the capital cities in Europe will know, for instance, that a decision has been arrived at in regard to industry and commerce, that this will be part of our industrial policy for four or five years ahead and that this will not be changed except in the event of a change in Government. It is essential that the programme should be strictly adhered to. We have had the First and Second Programmes for Economic Expansion. The First may have reached some of the targets aimed at but the Second did not reach the targets set. If programme budgeting is to operate successfully the Department of Finance and the other Departments will have to work in close communication with one another. We are not long in Europe, and our European partners will be taking a great interest in what is happening in this country. If proper programmes are outlined by each of our Government Departments and if those programmes are strictly adhered to, this can be of immense benefit to the country.

I presume the line of command in the new Department will be similar to that in the others—a secretary, assistant secretaries and so on down the line. I note from the Minister's speech that a competition has taken place for the post of secretary of the Department.

The Minister also mentioned the question of promotion. I agree with a great deal of what Deputy Brugha said in this connection. Promotion on merit alone is absolutely essential. I believe the vast majority of the members of the Civil Service will be pleased that promotion will be on that basis. Because of our entry into Europe there will be greater scope than ever for any young man or woman entering the Civil Service. The number of opportunities for promotion will expand. It will be essential for our Civil Service to be in close touch with Europe. It is vital that people with drive and those with the best brains should obtain the top positions in the Civil Service so that complex and difficult matters can be dealt with and proper decisions arrived at.

The Schedule to the Bill states that the seven ordinary members of the Council shall be appointed by the Minister. This is very necessary. Many people regard civil servants as faceless people who have very little liaison with the general public. It is healthy and good for the people to have close liaison with their civil servants. If people come to Leinster House on deputations Ministers are quite willing to meet them. That is a very good idea. It is desirable that our Civil Service should be in a position to explain their points of view at certain times and to explain many different decisions which are taken. Some time ago there was discussion about one civil servant who was not able to explain his point of view. This can happen no matter what Government are in power.

Our Civil Service should have much closer liaison with the general public. An attempt was made in regard to this on the question of the community schools but I do not think it worked out very well at the time. It was a very hot subject and I do not believe the Irish public got as good a view of the Civil Service as one would have wished. Our civil servants on many subjects would be able to give much useful information as distinct from the information given by the Government Information Bureau. I hope in the future they will have closer contact with the public.

I should like if the Minister would set out the actual direct line of command in regard to this Department. In the course of his speech the Minister dealt with the powers of Parliamentary Committees in this Department. They are certainly a very good idea. It is essential that we have them. Dáil Éireann should have regular debates on the activities of certain semi-State bodies. I am not sure if this Bill will allow this to take place. It appeared from the Minister's speech that other bodies will be included and that the Parliamentary Committees will be able to review the activities of the Government. I hope they will be able to review the working of the semi-State bodies. Deputy de Valera and Deputy Brugha mentioned this.

Every year millions of pounds are spent by the different semi-State bodies. While at times we may be able to review the policies of these bodies we are restricted by the rules of this House in regard to either criticism or praise of them. Some of them are our biggest employers and they spend vast sums of money every year. They have a very important effect on the lives of every one of us. It is a poor reflection on this House if we are not able to have very full debates on the working of those semi-State bodies.

We often find that there is an Estimate for two or three million pounds for some of our State Departments and debates of three or four days take place on them, but some of our semi-State bodies get millions of pounds and we are not in a position to say one word about them. I am not happy with this situation and I hope the Parliamentary Committees mentioned by the Minister will allow us to review the workings of the semi-State bodies such as CIE, Aer Lingus, Bord na Móna, the ESB and Bord Fáilte. It is good that the elected Members of this House should be able to air their views on the policy, the management and the complete structure of these bodies. Some of these matters may be raised at the Committee of Public Accounts but I believe this is the only place where real power lies and where policy decisions should be made. I should like the Minister to state in his reply if the semi-State bodies will be reviewed by these Parliamentary Committees.

The Minister dealt with the commissioner for administrative justice. He stated:

The net point at issue is the creation of some form of appellate machinery to deal with the complaints of those aggrieved by administrative decisions.

I am not certain what the Minister means by this. I hope he will enlarge on it. I am not certain if it means a form of ombudsman, who would be in a position to deal with complaints. I do not think he intends to go that far, but I should like the Minister to tell us exactly what he means by this commissioner for administrative justice.

In regard to the Schedule dealing with the members of the proposed Public Service Advisory Council, there will be a chairman and seven ordinary members appointed by the Minister; four will be from the private sector and the chairman, the Minister says, shall be a person who is not a fulltime member of the public service. This pleases me. It is in keeping with the thinking behind the Committee of Public Accounts; the chairman of that body is a member of the Opposition of Dáil Éireann. That is a good idea.

I would be happier if in subsection (1) it was specifically stated that the number appointed from the private sector would be four. This is not specified at the moment. It is desirable that it should be.

I would hope for two results from this. First, I would hope that our semi-State bodies would be subject to review by this House. This would be the beginning of parliamentary committees and I would hope that in time these committees would progress to debate in this House. Whether or not that can be done under this Bill is not clear to me at the moment. Perhaps the Minister will clarify the position. These bodies spend millions of pounds and if we cannot discuss their workings then democracy is not functioning properly, functioning as every Member of this House would wish it to function. Secondly, it is absolutely essential to have a Public Service Department competent to review the workings of every other Department and plan for the future. I welcome the Bill.

Minister for Finance (Mr. R. Ryan)

I am grateful to the House for the manner in which Deputies contributed to the debate. The Bill marks a point of very significant departure for the whole public service, a body to whom this State owes a very great deal. We have every reason to be grateful to our civil servants, to everybody engaged in semi-State bodies and allied organisations for their integrity and devotion to duty.

Unfortunately, the immense personal sacrifices and extraordinary application of these people often goes unhonoured. The most common reference to them in public places is usually one of derision, associated with little ladies running around with cups of tea to public servants with their feet resting comfortably on their desks.

Those of us who have been privileged to be associated with civil servants know that they are in fact seriously overburdened with the weight of work which falls upon them. This happens at most levels but particularly at the level of senior civil servants who are obliged because of our failure to reorganise the structure of the public service to deal with a mass of trivia and everyday administrative practices which become such a burden that it is virtually impossible for them to do the kind of thinking and research so very necessary if our public service is to render the best service possible to our people in these challenging times.

Perhaps, if I were to list the problems, which people may not readily consider come within the ambit of the Minister for Finance, it will give some idea of the extent of the jurisdiction of the Department of Finance, a jurisdiction which extends far beyond the control of the Civil Service, planning and economic policy and the control of our finances. The Minister for Finance, with the assistance of his advisers, is responsible for the Irish bloodstock industry through the National Stud. He has responsibility also in the sphere of culture, since he is involved in the problems which affect both the Abbey and the Gate Theatres. He also has responsibility for Gaeleagras and particularly for the promotion of Irish throughout the whole public service. He has responsibility for the National Science Council and for that area which has been so sadly neglected, namely, the application of science to the technological and physical requirements of this modern age. He also has responsibility for the Sugar Company, for the Racing Board, for western development, for Ceimicí Teoranta, the Stationery Office, Fóir Teoranta, that organisation directly concerned with collapsing industries, an organisation one might consider proper to the Department of Industry and Commerce and yet, like Ceimicí Teoranta, it comes within the direct ministerial responsibility of the Department and Minister for Finance. He also has responsibility for the B & I Shipping Company, the Valuations Office, the Office of Public Works, and all that office does, such as arterial drainage, the care of national monuments, marine works, the Shannon navigation. He has responsibility for the Irish Life Assurance Company and the State Laboratory. I am certain that, if I had more time, I could add to that list. That list is surely proof of our failure to reorganise and restructure our public service to meet the requirements of the present day. We have several other Departments of State far better geared to deal with many of these problems which are still the ministerial responsibility of the Minister for Finance.

This Bill is a move in the right direction, in the direction of carrying out the process of restructuring the whole public service. We are anxious to achieve unification of the Civil Service to prevent the best brains being locked away in small locations or in particular classes, unable properly to use their skills and energies because, through the laws of chance, they were recruited to a particular section. In the past men and women have been doomed to remain in unsuitable locations while other sections have been starved of the skills and expertise these people could have contributed to improve the public service if only they could have been released from the stranglehold existing structures imposed upon many of them. We want, therefore, to achieve greater mobility which Deputy Brugha, Deputy Enright and others identified as something highly desirable.

It is only through a restructuring of the whole Civil Service that we can get an adequate application of the principle of promoting people by merit. This is not in any way to denigrate the recognition that ought to be given to people in respect of experience and service. As one recognises the value which can come from promotion by merit, one does not wish to stimulate fears or resentment which might arise if people thought the principle of seniority was to be totally overruled. It is not necessary to do that, but in order to respect the principle of seniority and the value of merit it is desirable to separate the executive and policy-making functions of the Civil Service. There are people who are more than adequate to serve on the executive side who might not be qualified to serve on the policy side. By keeping these two wings so closely interwoven in the past we have done injustice to some people, and at the same time depreciated the value of services which the State could have got from many people with policy making aptitudes.

Our anxiety is to remove the barriers to promotion caused by the location of public servants and the ancient and anachronistic classification of civil servants. We want to redistribute the functions of the public service, but on account of the multitudinous pressures to which all Ministers and Departments of State are subjected, the truth is that nobody has yet had the time or sufficient detachment to make the right decisions in this sector, or having made them, to implement them. We believe that the creation of this new Department will enable these decisions to be taken and implemented. Were it to remain totally within the Department of Finance, we fear that what would happen in the future would be the same as happened in the past, that is, that this very important priority would be forced to take second place to the financial and economic demands which are made at present on the Department of Finance.

The private sector has long since given new status to organisation and personnel problems. The two Houses of the Oireachtas through various measures of legislation have recognised the importance of properly organising our living national wealth, that is, our own people and their skills. The new Department of the Public Services will do for the public service what the Department of Labour have done for the private sector, by promoting new personnel policies which can greatly enhance our economy and make the people engaged much happier in their work.

One of the principal functions of the new Department will be to promote happiness and a spirit of co-operation in the public service which, if properly operated would work to national advantage. There is a need to promote better staff relations and the Department of the Public Service will give constant attention to this point.

I accept the sincerity of the words of caution uttered by Deputy Colley, Deputy de Valera and other Members of the Opposition and from this side of the House about the hidden dangers there could be in implementing legislation of this kind. As Members will readily realise from reading this Bill, the Bill itself does not contain any dangers whatsoever. There are no risks attached to the establishment of a new Department of the Public Service although there might well be difficulties if everything recommended in the Devlin Report were to be implemented without Parliament concerning itself with what was happening. In recent months I may have changed hats, but the head is still the same head. I want to assure Members of the Opposition and everybody else who might be concerned that the changing of hats might change the heads, that as far as I am concerned, and I speak for my colleagues also, we are anxious to maintain the supremecy of Parliament, believing in the long run that this is the only security for the liberty of the individual and for the proper development of our society.

I hope that as we are strengthening the ability of the executive to manage the affairs of State, Parliament will also revamp its own procedures. It is no disrespect to Parliament to say that it is incapable today of applying itself in a way which will achieve maximum benefit. I accept what Deputy Enright and others have said about the need to supervise the parliamentary children —the children which are brought into the world by statutes of Oireachtas Éireann. I do not wish to devalue the importance of looking at the way in which money has been expended when I say that it is of very great importance to do something which the House is not doing, that is, to look ahead to what our statutory bodies should be doing next year, three years, five years or ten years ahead. Too little attention is being given to consideration of the problems which this society will have to face as it continues to develop. If we had proper co-operation between these statutory bodies and Members of this House through working committees we would avoid a great deal of the unnecessary carping criticism and distrust which arises because of the inadequate flow of information which exists at the present time.

I want to emphasise that there is nothing in this Bill or in any proposal which this Government have in mind which would in any way inhibit that process. We are anxious to encourage it. We are not so long in office to fear that our Ministerial wings would be clipped or our contribution in any way diminished or devalued if we had Parliamentary Committees. We believe it would be the reverse. We were disappointed when we were in Opposition that there was not greater speed in adopting the idea of working at Parliamentary Committees. Now that we are in Government we will not hinder this development which we consider to be of great importance.

Deputy Colley thanked Mr. Liam St. John Devlin and his colleagues for their monumental work. On behalf of the Government, which were not in office when the work began and finished—some four years ago—we appreciate and express gratitude for the great sacrifices which were made by Mr. Devlin and his colleagues to produce this work. It is important that people should recall that their services were given without monetary benefit. Indeed the eight-member council which it is proposed to establish under this Bill will not obtain any fees or monetary reward for the services which they will perform. We know from experience that it is often the hard-working horse that is the one called upon when a job needs to be done well. We anticipate it will be similar in the future.

The level of fees paid to directors of State-sponsored companies is not such as will tempt the best people to give us the assistance and the advice we are looking to. We have not made any provision for tempting them. We believe they will be satisfied in ensuring that the job is well done, and we are sure it will be done very well indeed.

Deputy Colley was concerned about the possibility of the Aireacht developing before it would be given legislative authority. When I outlined the intention to allow the Aireacht idea to develop, I did so only to recommend its operation so that we would have some hindsight and some experience whenever we would come to introduce legislation to give the Aireacht concept statutory form. It is better to do that rather than to introduce the Aireacht by legislation which would be coupled with this Bill. In the meantime Deputy Colley and the House can be assured that Ministers will retain full responsibility for all that happens in their Departments and they will be answerable to this House for everything that happens within their Departments. There is no intention on the part of the Government to diminish accountability in any way. It is only when the idea of the Aireacht and of Executive agencies has been tried and proved that they might, perhaps, be given legislative form. If, in the light of experience it is considered that the recommendations, which are certainly worth trying, cannot be justified, we would not proceed with legislation.

Deputy Colley expressed the view, also, that the Devlin recommendations concerning the distribution of functions of Government may need to be looked at again. I assure the Deputy and the House that this is an on-going review so far as the Government are concerned. I gave a list earlier of the many functions which fall to be performed by the Minister for Finance. I am sure that Deputy Colley, when he held that portfolio, must have wondered also why many of them have been left in the hands of the Minister for Finance. They were left there solely for historical reasons because many of the Departments of State which exist now did not exist in the 1920s or 1930s when these functions were first assigned to the Department of Finance. This emphasises again the need to bring about a whole restructuring of the public service and a thorough review of the functions that are at present allocated to different Departments.

Perhaps I should emphasise that before the new Department of the Public Service, which is being created in this Bill, is empowered to exercise any of the functions it is proposed to give it, an order will have to be made by the Government and it will be placed before the House. The House can then consider it. But I thought it only proper, when discussing the bones of the new Department, that we should indicate the flesh we propose to put on them. The flesh will be simply, as recommended by Devlin, the transfer to the new Department of the organisational and personnel responsibilities which at present lie within the Department of Finance.

As the House is aware, the review body recommended also that other functions be given to the Department of the Public Service, including those of the commissioner for administrative justice. His function would not be that of ombudsman but rather to create the machinery which would allow a system of appeals by citizens against what they consider to be administrative malpractices. That is something that would necessitate separate legislation after the problem had been examined carefully. Many Members of this House on all sides have been of the opinion for a long time that there is a need to have an ombudsman system here. However, the daily pressures imposed on every Department of State inhibited people from standing back and considering the best way of going about this. The new Department of the Public Service will give attention to this problem and, in that way, will probably devise the best system to ensure justice for the citizens without jeopardising in any way the efficiency of the public service. These two are not in conflict. They should not be thought to be in conflict but the best way of not generating any conflict between them is to study the matter carefully before bringing in such a very important functionary.

Deputy de Valera, in a speech which is very worthy of careful study by everybody concerned with our public institutions, emphasised the importance of parliamentary supervision. Much of what I have said already will have answered a great deal of his criticisms, which, I accept, were made in good faith; but I would ask the Deputy to accept the assurance from us on this side of the House that we value as much as he the standing of our parliamentary institutions and we will not do anything which could be regarded as minimising in any way their importance. I would refer the Deputy to what I said in my opening statement. He will find there all the assurances which any reasonable person could require.

In any event, before there could be that limitation on the powers of Parliament which seems to him could arise, we would have to come into the House with new legislative proposals; Certainly, while this Government are in office, no such move will be made from this side of the House.

The same Deputy and also Deputy Brugha asked why the council will report only once a year. Deputy Brugha asked whether this would be the only communication between the council and the Minister. I would refer the Deputy to section 5 where he will note that the general function of the council shall be to advise the Minister on the re-organisation of the public service. The report would simply indicate the progress which had been made in the re-organisation of the public service. It is not proposed for one moment that the council would come between the Minister and the Parliament—far from it. The responsibility of the Minister will be direct to this House and to the Seanad.

Deputy de Valera made the point that it might not be necessary to give the council statutory form. That is a reasonable view and I accept it but, at the same time, there is as good an argument to be made against having advisory bodies unless this House has created them, because to create them without the House having control over them or responsibility for them would be to create other dangers of the kind that Deputy de Valera feared could arise. It does not strengthen in any way the powers of the council to make it statutory. Its function is to be an advisory one but it will in no way dictate policy. It will be open to this House to review the council's annual report or to take any other action it may wish in regard to the council.

Deputy Brugha was anxious to know why four experiments had been taken to try out the restructuring and the Aireacht idea. One, perhaps, could have chosen some other Departments as the guinea pigs but there were valid reasons why these particular ones were chosen.

The Department of Health were chosen because they are concerned with regional matters in the regional health boards and hospital boards and, therefore, have a considerable regional impact. The Department of Local Government were chosen because, in part, they also have regional interest but they are also the Department concerned with the operation of local democracy. We wanted to be in a position to study the consequences of this reorganisation on the operation of democracy at local level. The Department of Industry and Commerce were also brought into the scheme to test the ideas of State-sponsored bodies, the Department of Industry and Commerce having quite a considerable number of such bodies. The Department of Transport and Power have not merely State-sponsored bodies but they have the principal nationalised industries and all of these posed particular problems in addition to the ordinary ones of the Civil Service, as we know it, which made it worth while to choose them.

I trust I have covered the principal points raised by Members and that they will see their way to support our endeavour to bring this Department into existence at the earliest possible date.

Mr. Colley

May I ask the Minister a question please? I do not know if I made the point clear but I was trying to indicate to the Minister in regard to the Departments in which the Aireacht idea is to be tried out on an experimental basis, that it seemed to me that while there was a danger in trying to bring in legislation to cover the appeal situation and so on, which would arise out of that just on an experimental basis that, on the other hand, failure to do so could lead to the assumption that the experiment had failed. I wanted to urge the Minister to consider the possibility even of temporary legislation to test the experiment. You are not really testing the experiment and in a position to make a judgement on it unless you go the whole way, which involves what I said earlier about the question of Parliamentary Questions and the effect on that. I would like the Minister to consider that and to consider that you cannot get a fair judgement of the experiment without it.

Mr. R. Ryan

I can understand the point which Deputy Colley is making and I should like to give him the assurance that we will keep this developing situation under very close examination. I certainly would not wish the idea to get abroad that the Aireacht was failing if it was not, nor would I like it to be thought that something was being done secretively which ought to be done in the open. However, in no way can I visualise that the right to ask Parliamentary Questions can in any way be curbed by the experimentation that is taking place at the present time. It would not be open to a Minister to say, for instance, without legislation that he has no responsibility——

Mr. Colley

Of course not.

Mr. R. Ryan

——for something or another. At present we have a number of statutory bodies which have been given specific responsibility by statute and the Minister may take the line that it is no function of his, that it is now the function of a particular board or other, but that cannot arise until such time as legislation would be introduced. Even then, even were legislation to be introduced and create these new creatures, I would not consider it desirable that the right to ask Parliamentary Questions should be limited.

Question put and agreed to.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Next Stage?

Mr. R. Ryan

I wonder if the House would agree to take the next Stage now? It is not that we are at all anxious to rush this through but the House has considerable business to get through this session and it might be of assistance to clear it now. We certainly want to get this long-drawn-out proposal implemented. I think the gestation period has been considerable.

Mr. Colley

I appreciate that and I appreciate that there is considerable business to be done, but it has been so long since this Bill was circulated that there may be many people outside this House who would wish to make representations and who will not realise that the Bill is going through the House. I think it might be no harm if they were given, say, a week after the reports of this debate so that if they want to make representations to the Minister or, indeed, to this side of the House they will have an opportunity to do it.

Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, 10th July, 1973.

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 3 Jul 1973

Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 1973: Second Stage.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 3 Jul 1973