I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that when one tries to interpret the provisions of this Bill one is obliged to refer back to a number of statutes —not so excessive a number of statutes as to present an enormous problem in codifying the law in this respect, but sufficiently large a number of references back to make interpretation difficult. Therefore, I should like to urge the Minister to set in train —he clearly could not do it at this stage — arrangements to codify the legislation in this respect. Two types of legislation come together here, the Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) Acts and the Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Acts. It would be a worthwhile and not a major task for the draftsman's office to codify the law in this respect so as to ensure without too great difficulty that anybody reading the legislation can see reasonably clearly what is involved.
Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) and Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices (Amendment) Bill, 1973: Committee Stage.
Amendment No. 1 has been deemed to be out of order.
I move amendment No. 2:
To add to the section a new subsection as follows:—
"( ) The allowance to be paid to each member of Dáil Éireann and the allowance to be paid to each member of Seanad Éireann shall be reviewed by the Government and a report by the Government of the outcome of such review shall be laid before Dáil Éireann at intervals not exceeding two years commencing on the date of the passing of this Act.
This amendment and amendment No. 4 are cognate——
It is desirable to take the two together.
That is agreed. These are the amendments I mentioned on Second Stage and which I handed across the floor of the House. It will be clear that the object of the amendments is to bring about a situation, or at least to attempt to remedy a situation about which Deputies on all sides have complained in the past. We are all aware that one of the difficulties which has arisen in the past in relation to increases in allowances to Deputies, Senators, et cetera, has been that because of the long delay between one increase and the next the amounts involved have appeared to be excessive to the general public. Deputies on all sides agree, I think, that it would be far more equitable, and more understandable and reassuring as far as the public are concerned, if necessary increases were made at much more frequent intervals.
It may have been that in the past there were many reasons as to why this did not happen and these amendments are designed to ensure that at intervals not exceeding two years all the allowances and salaries dealt with in this Bill would be reviewed by the Government. I think that part of the amendment is surely unobjectionable, and that the Government should review the salaries and allowances at periods not exceeding two years.
The amendment goes further and suggests that the Government should lay before Dáil Éireann a report of the outcome of that review. Of course, it would be quite possible that in certain circumstances any Government might, in such a report, state in effect: "We have examined the levels of the allowances and salaries and in the prevailing circumstances have come to the conclusion that there should be no change therein." That is something which could happen and it is not precluded by these amendments, but I think it is necessary if one accepts the idea in the amendments, to provide that there should be a report laid before Dáil Éireann because without that report the Government of the day could carry out the review to their own satisfaction but as far as the House and the public were concerned nothing would have happened.
Therefore, it seems to me that these amendments might remedy a cause of complaint on all sides of the House. They endeavour to meet that problem in a reasonable way. In his reply on the Second Stage the Minister indicated he was not disposed to accept such amendments and I think the reason he gave was that he considered them to be rather nebulous. I suggested then that if he felt that I was quite happy to have the experts available to the Minister redraft these amendments, if the Minister accepted them in principle —that he would have a second look at them. He did not seem to be disposed to accept that either, saying that the provision in the Bill whereby allowance changes can be made by order more than adequately met the problem.
I do not think that is true. It goes some of the way but it does not ensure that salaries and allowances are examined and reviewed at regular intervals and the necessary decisions made on them. I would hope, therefore, that in the interval the Minister may have given a lot more thought to this problem and that, as a result, he will agree at least to the principle of these amendments.
I support the amendments in the knowledge and experience of two sections in the Committee on Procedure and Privileges in which we have been looking for some formula by which Members of the Oireachtas can be paid their due increases at more regular intervals. This is necessary even from the point of view of the type of publicity that some of our misguided newspapers have been inclined to give to these issues. Not so long ago we had banner headlines stating: "TD's Get Massive Increases". They appeared in some of our newspapers. We were the only people singled out for that type of treatment although, as everybody knows, the judiciary and the higher civil servants were given what has been ascribed to us — massive increases— more massive than we are getting.
It is important from the point of view of the House that we work out some formula by which we can ensure that Deputies' salaries can keep pace with general increases prevailing in the country. I know we will run into all sorts of difficulties when we look for this formula and I do not know the best method to arrive at it. There were suggestions that we link it to a grade in the Civil Service but that was found to be unworkable or impossible in the sense that it gave us a vested interest in a certain grade of the Civil Service and that we might ensure that they got increases. I can well see an argument in that, but I think there is an overwhelming argument for some such system to be worked out. I do not think it is beyond the genius of the Department of Finance to put some suggestion before us through which we could contemplate the alleviation of this problem.
I think this is a very reasonable amendment. I find it very hard to even work out a reason why the Minister would not accept it. If he does accept it he will ensure that in future we do not get the type of uninformed bad publicity we have been getting up to now.
The fact that the Deputy's amendment has been allowed proves that it is ineffective because if it were effective in imposing a charge on a public fund, in other words if it achieved the purpose for which it is designed, that is to ensure increases from time to time, it would be denied. That is why I see no reason to depart from what I said previously. It simply would require a report to be written but the shelves of the Library of this House are already stacked full of written reports on which no action was taken. Far more significant are the provisions in the Bill to enable increases to be given by order of the Government and my own undertakings on the Second Stage to give increases whenever nationally agreed levels of remuneration should be determined.
The Deputy's amendment would provide that the allowances of Deputies and Senators and the salaries of Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries would be reviewed by the Government and that a report by the Government on the outcome of such a review would be laid down before the Dáil every two years. It is over a year since we had the Devlin Report and it is over two years since the Devlin Committee was asked to deal with the reference concerning Parliamentarians. Where does the setting up of groups to review and the publication of reports get us? Nowhere except ending up at the end of it all in an unseemly debate like we had yesterday.
There is no suggestion in the Deputy's amendments that there would be any obligation on the Government or the House to accept what recommendations would develop from such a review. It is not even suggested that the review should contain a recommendation. It is simply that it might describe what everybody would know. I cannot see any value in spending public time and money on such a fruitless exercise. We are providing that the rates of remuneration can be increased whenever the Government think fit. I would remind the House of the commitments which I have already given on the Second Stage. These are that:
in the event of further national pay agreements, as they are entered into they will be implemented so far as allowances to Members of Houses of the Oireachtas are concerned.
That commitment is recited at column 1316 of the Dáil Official Report of 18th July, 1973, I further indicated at column 1320:
if and when adjustments take place on a nationally-agreed level elsewhere then the necessary order can be made.
At column 1322 I said:
It would be our intention to increase the remuneration whenever a national wage agreement would indicate that there was a nationally accepted formula for so doing.
I think that is the most effective guarantee which can be given. It is much more constructive than the suggestions of Deputy Colley. I accept his suggestions were made in good faith. I think he will see, however, that the way in which we are going about it will ensure a greater likelihood of no further delays in the future. I would not wish to set a pattern and say anything that could be quoted as indicating what the pattern of future wage agreements should be; but it is not improbable, looking at the pattern of previous national wage agreements, that increases in future remuneration under national wage agreements will take place more frequently than once in every two years. If we were to accept the Deputy's suggestion and discipline ourselves to move only as a result of such reviews, then there would be unnecessary delays, the kind which generate the kind of comment which leads people to believe that the Members of this House are receiving now rates of remuneration which are outside the national wage agreement. On all sides of the House we have heard such comments made over the last week, when in fact all we are doing is making up now for the default over the last five years in not paying these increases as they arose. We want to avoid that and we are providing the machinery for doing it. I have given the most explicit undertakings to the House.
If I might deal with the last point the Minister made first, he is mistaken in saying that if national agreements were to occur, as it is quite likely, that they would provide for increases at shorter intervals than heretofore and that there would then be delay if this amendment were accepted. He is mistaken there because, of course, the amendment provides for review at intervals not exceeding two years. If there were shorter periods involved in a new national agreement this amendment would not at all preclude review and laying before the House of a report by the Government of a review which it might carry out, say, every 12 months, if that were the requirement of the current national agreement.
Furthermore, the Minister talks about the application of new national agreements to the remuneration of Members of this House and the other House and Ministers, et cetera. I have two observations to make on that. Firstly, while I hope there will be a new national agreement entered into, the Minister, I think, will admit that it is by no means a certainty that such agreement would be entered into. Therefore, we must contemplate a situation in which there is no national agreement and what is likely to happen in relation to the matters dealt with in this Bill if that situation arises. Even if there is a new national agreement our experience in this Bill and in the Minister's proposals is that the national agreements which have existed and exist at the moment are not being applied. As far as we are concerned the fact that there are national agreements does not mean they will be applied to the remuneration of Members of this House and of the other House.
The Minister is correct in saying that the amendments do not impose an obligation on the Government of the day to increase the remuneration involved in this Bill. That is true, and the amendment would not be in order if it proposed to do so. Apart from that it would, in my opinion, be very defective if it were to do that because, clearly, at any given time when the question of reviewing allowances and salaries of parliamentarians is involved all the circumstances at the time and all the circumstances that have occurred since the previous increase have got to be considered by the Government of the day. That is all that is required here.
The whole point of this amendment is to ensure that the Government of the day address themselves to the problem and show to the House and the public that they have done so by bringing in and laying before the House a report of the outcome of their review of the situation. In my view, this is not imposing an obligation on any Government which could be unacceptable to them. It is, however, ensuring that we will not have a recurrence of what has happened in the past. In this case, five years have elapsed, at a time when there has been greater inflation than ever before, since the last increase was made in the allowances in salaries of parliamentarians.
It is true to say that the fact that you have a review and a report laid before the Dáil is not a guarantee that the Government of the day in fact will increase the allowance, et cetera. However, a report by the Government is quite different from a report by any other body because it is the Government which is the body, and the only body, which can take the initiative in this matter.
Therefore, a report by the Government would, in my opinion, necessitate either concrete proposals by the Government of the day in regard to the remuneration and allowances or, alternatively, as I indicated earlier, it would specifically state that in their view there should be no change. Presumably in any reasonable conception of such a report, it would specify the reasons why the Government took that view. Therefore, in my opinion, this would be a reasonably satisfactory way of tackling the problem which the Minister admits is one which has been referred to by and has been of concern to Deputies on all sides of the House.
The Minister has not made anything like a convincing case as to why this amendment should not be accepted. If he says it will be ineffective, then what I have just said deals with that argument. Is there any other reason? Assuming he thinks it will be ineffective, and we think it will not, if it is ineffective he is not losing anything. It seems to me that, if the Minister has any argument of substance against the amendment, it should be on the basis that it will be effective and will be too effective, perhaps. If he thinks it would commit the Government to something to which they did not want to be committed, that would be an argument I could understand. That is not the argument, because he is saying it will have no effect. I tried to show that I think he is wrong. Let us assume for the moment that he is not wrong and that it would be ineffective: what has he to lose by accepting the amendment? That is what we should like to know.
The arguments for this amendment were put very clearly and cogently by Deputy Colley and Deputy Crowley. I listened to the Minister's reply. I cannot see any validity in what he said. He started off by saying that, if the amendment were to be effective, it would not have been allowed by you, Sir, and since it has been allowed for discussion and to be decided on by the Committee, therefore it is useless. As I understand it, the only reason why you, Sir, might rule out an amendment of this kind is that it imposes a charge on public funds. The whole point of this amendment is that it does not do that. It allows this very thorny problem — and it is a very thorny one — to be reviewed properly every two years so that the situation of accumulated delay in which we now find ourselves would not arise again. This is not the only time that this situation arose. To a greater or lesser extent it arose every time a Bill was brought in to increase salaries or allowances.
The Minister has given no argument whatever in reply to Deputy Colley's case that it is patently and clearly desirable that this amendment should be accepted. I can only hope — and it is a hope after what we had to hear from the Minister yesterday — that he will see sense and go a long way towards solving this perennial difficulty by accepting this amendment.
Is the amendment withdrawn?
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,
I asked was amendment No. 2 withdrawn?
No, Sir. For the benefit of Deputies who do not know what, in fact, is being discussed at the moment, I think they will be interested to hear——
Order, please.
——that we are discussing an amendment which proposes that the salaries and allowances of TDs, Senators, Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, and so on, should be reviewed at intervals not exceeding two years by the Government of the day and that a report of the outcome of that review should be laid before Dáil Éireann. This does not impose any charge on the Exchequer. The object is to try to deal with the problem which Deputies on all sides, including Deputies who are here now, have complained about in the past, that is, that too long an interval has elapsed between one increase and another and, as a result, when increases were granted they appeared to the public to be excessive when, in fact, they were not and were only taking account of the interval which had elapsed between one increase and another. The object of this amendment is to ensure that the Government of the day would be obliged, at intervals not exceeding two years, to examine all the allowances and salaries and lay a report on the outcome of that before the House.
There is, of course, no obligation proposed in this amendment on the Government to come in with the report and say that salaries are to be increased. It visualises a situation where a Government might say: "We have examined the situation and, for the following reasons, we do not think there should be any change." At least this would ensure that, if the requirements of the situation were that there should be some modest increase, the Government could then and would almost certainly, as a result of having carried out the review and bringing in the report, bring in proposals to make this modest increase rather than allow this very long interval to elapse.
Were you not the worst offender yourself when you were Minister for Finance?
Order.
Since the 22nd December last you had the report in front of you and you did nothing about it.
Is Deputy McMahon serious? Would he tell us, please, when and how I could have done something with it from 22nd December?
The 16th December.
From that date? Would the Deputy tell me when I could have done something about it?
You had it long before that.
I got the report on 22nd December, as the Deputy says. He is correct. Would he tell me when I could have done something about it?
What about the three years before that?
Let us take it one step at a time. I will come back to that.
We can only make progress by orderly debate and I would ask Deputies to desist from interrupting.
We have had the interruptions, the point has been made and I am quite prepared to deal with it but I would ask how what Deputy McMahon suggests could have been done after 22nd December?
You dithered with it for months beforehand.
What did I dither with for months beforehand?
You dithered with everything.
Is the Deputy changing his feet? May we take it that the Deputy is now withdrawing the silly observation he made? Is he?
Deputy Colley made no provision in the Estimates for it.
Deputy Kavanagh is an innocent man. He believes the Minister for Finance. I challenged the Minister for Finance before to produce——
It would have taken £½ million.
——one current Estimate prepared by the previous Government. The capital Estimates were prepared, the current Estimates were not. The Minister for Finance knows that and he is chancing his arm when he says what he did, as he did before.
You were afraid to bring it before the election. Is that not true?
Deputy Kavanagh, I got the report on 22nd December, as Deputy McMahon said.
A Deputy
Tell us when you got it first?
On 22nd December.
On a point of order, is this a confidential chat between Deputy Colley and Deputy Liam there, or is it going through the Chair?
Deputies
Deputy who?
Deputy Liam Kavanagh. I think Deputy Colley should address his remarks through the Chair.
But Deputy "Thingum" kept talking to Deputy Colley.
Order, please. Deputy Colley must be allowed to continue.
Deputy "Thingum" made the interruptions to Deputy Colley and Deputy Colley, I think, Sir, is entitled to reply to Deputy "Thingum". Would you give me a ruling on that?
But through the Chair.
As far as I know, I was addressing my remarks through the Chair.
No. They were directly across the floor.
I think the Deputy will find when he looks at the record that my remarks were through the Chair.
A late interpolation.
No interpolation from me. I never interpolated anything into the Official Report. It is clear enough from the interjections we have had that some of the Deputies opposite, not all of them, may have been fooled by some of the misstatements made by the Minister for Finance or, alternatively, they may not have been fooled but they feel they have to have some defence of the carry-on by the Minister for Finance on this Bill. We will come to that in much more detail later.
What we are discussing at the moment is this amendment, which I suggest is a reasonable amendment, designed to meet a problem about which Deputies on that side and this side of the House have frequently complained. The Minister will not, he said, accept the amendment. His answer is that it would be ineffective, it would not do anything. I put it to you, Sir, and through you to the Deputies opposite, that either this amendment would be effective or ineffective. If it were effective, is there any objection to it? If, on the other hand, it were ineffective what has the Minister to lose in accepting it? I believe it would be effective. It is open to anybody to have the contrary belief. Suppose it is ineffective, what does the Minister lose by accepting it? I would suggest that Deputies opposite might think about it. They have, or should have, an interest in this. It is in the interests not only of Deputies and Senators, it is in the interests of the public, I believe, to ensure that there does not appear to be an excessive amount of an increase in the salaries and allowances of public representatives. That is in everybody's interest. I would urge Deputies opposite to have a little whisper in the ear of the Minister for Finance and ask him, for once, to show that somewhere inside him there is a certain amount of common sense. I believe there may be a certain amount, but he conceals it very effectively. If he cannot put forward a better argument than he has put forward so far for not accepting this amendment he is not showing one ounce of common sense.
Why did the Deputy not bring that in, through the Chair, when he was Minister for Finance?
Let me reply to that interjection, originally addressed to me, and subsequently through the Chair, and say, first of all, the occasion when one can do this is when one has a Bill of this kind before the House. When I became Minister for Finance the whole question of the allowances and salaries, et cetera, that we are dealing with here had all been referred to the Devlin Commission. Would Deputies at least pay a little attention to this and let us not have any more of these silly interjections we have had? It had already been referred to the Devlin Commission. We got the Devlin Report and that covered not only Deputies, Senators and so on but judges, higher civil servants, local authority people in the higher echelons, the chief executives of the various State-sponsored bodies and so on. It was a very detailed, complicated and well-produced document that required a good deal of consideration and also required to allow the parties who were involved to make representations in connection with it, which they did.
The Government at the time when that report was received were in quite a different position from when the report was commissioned because when it was received there was a national agreement in operation and it was clearly the obligation of the Government not to do anything which would or would even seem to breach the national agreement. Therefore, the Government referred it to the Employer/Labour Conference, the body who had negotiated the national agreement, the body who had available to them a steering committee of skilled people whose job it was to interpret various aspects of the national agreement where there were conflicts. It was referred to them to advise the Government on the extent to which the implementation of the Devlin Report could correspond with and conform to the national agreement. We got that report on 22nd December last. These are the facts. In the light of these facts would Deputies please——
And then you did nothing.
How do you mean? Deputy McMahon said that before and this time he will have to explain himself. On 22nd December we received the report. The Deputy says: "And then you did nothing about it". Would the Deputy please tell us what should have been done and when after the 22nd December?
This matter should have been brought before the House.
Is the Deputy not aware that the House did not meet after the 22nd December until his party were in office?
I know that very well but we did not call the general election.
What had that got to do with it? The Deputy is saying I should have brought it before the House.
This is one of the things that the last Government ran away from.
Is the Deputy saying that we should have had a special session of the House in order to introduce a Bill of this nature?
It was not necessary to have an election.
If the Deputy's objection is to our having had an election, let him say that, but he must not say that I should have brought the Bill before the House at a time when the House was not meeting. We do not want this sort of nonsense. I am surprised at Deputy McMahon.
Was there not a provision made by the Deputy while he was still Minister for an increase in the Presidential allowance but not in the allowances for Deputies?
The Deputy will appreciate that the matter of allowances for Deputies was one that had to await the Employer/Labour Conference.
When was the decision made in relation to the Presidential allowance?
On the 12th March.
The Deputy will appreciate that at that time we could not have known who would win the Presidential election.
Following the very interesting apologia that we have had from Deputy Colley as to why he did not bring in this measure and following the further remarks in relation to the Government, of course the last Government went to the country for various reasons one of which was undoubtedly that they would not face up to giving common justice——
On a point of order——
Acting Chairman
Deputy Dockrell must be allowed to continue.
——what has the last general election to do with the amendment we are discussing?
It has everything to do with it.
I hope Deputy Dockrell will discuss the amendment that is before us. We should be glad to hear his views on it.
Deputy Colley has asked us to tell him how he could have done something about this. As Minister for Finance he could have influenced the Government not to have a general election and, therefore, he could have brought in a Bill which would have been an act of common justice for many people in the judiciary, for higher civil servants and for Deputies but he would not face the odium that might come from such a move and, so, there was a general election. He wants to persuade us now into believing that he had not available to him sufficient time in which to introduce a measure of this nature but he had plenty of time to do so.
Is the Deputy saying that we should have postponed the election in order to have done this?
Yes. It would have been quite easy to have dealt with this and, perhaps, other matters.
Would the Deputy give us his views on the amendments?
The amendment appears, prima facie, to be very reasonable but after it is examined and after one has heard the Minister's view on it, one begins to wonder why Deputy Colley did not introduce it during his many years in office. I will not accept that he had to wait for the Devlin Report because for many years before then there was a crying necessity to increase the allowances and salaries of Deputies and persons in other categories.
I was not Minister for Finance then.
Long before the Devlin Report was set up, increases could and should have been given to the various categories of persons mentioned in this Bill. The Deputy is trying to say now that everything hinged on the Devlin Report. The last Government did not introduce a measure of this nature because it was not one that would make good argument at the crossroads.
We would appreciate hearing the Deputy's views on the amendment. I do not agree with the Deputy in regard to what happened in the past. I have already expressed my views in that regard. Irrespective of that, and taking the situation as of now, can the Deputy say whether the amendment is reasonable or otherwise? If there is a good case against it, could we hear his views in that regard? It seems to me that the amendment is reasonable and I would like to hear the views of an experienced Deputy, such as Deputy Dockrell, on it. Perhaps there is something in it that is escaping me.
As I have said, the amendment appears, prima facie, to be reasonable but all Deputies must make up their own minds on these matters. When one considers the apparent reasonableness of the amendment one also wonders why it was not introduced in the past and whether Deputy Colley was an unreasonable person. Why did those apparently cogent arguments that he is putting before us now not occur to him previously? Is this a sudden conversion that has taken place as a result of his move across the floor to the Opposition benches? I stand behind my own Minister who has said that there are reasons why this amendment may not be as reasonable as it appears.
I congratulate the Deputy.
What are the reasons?
I have not been here for 30 years for nothing.
I can see that.
I can be parliamentary when I wish and I would commend that to the Opposition and also, perhaps, to some people on this side of the House.
We do not intend to be too parliamentary.
That is painfully obvious.
The Deputy has been subtle in getting himself out of this dilemma and to that extent I congratulate him. He has talked his way out of that rather tight corner.
It took you people 16 years to push yourselves and everyone else into a tight corner.
This amendment is very reasonable.
It appears to be eminently reasonable.
This amendment, in substance, was put by three of us representing the Committee on Procedure and Privileges to the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Colley. In the main, the amendment was the brainchild of a former Deputy of the House, Sir Anthony Esmonde, who did so much and worked so strenuously on behalf of Deputies because he, like us, was aware of the tremendous handicap that we were working under in that we had no——
Party.
Guts.
——formula or any type of committee under which our salaries could be reviewed at regular intervals.
Rubbish.
That was our own fault.
I also had a strong interest in ensuring that what happened in the past will not happen in the future.
That is what we are trying to ensure.
This is an intelligent suggestion designed to prevent the type of occurrences that have happened in the past. The Minister says that because he will ensure we will be tied to national wage agreements we do not have anything to worry about. He did not honour the national wage agreement or the recommendations of the Employer/Labour Conference when he refused to implement that report fully. He did not date the increases back to the time recommended. Our argument is that he is quite likely next year, or the year after, if he is still here, to do the same thing and our amendment will ensure against that. It is not an unreasonable amendment.
As I have said, this matter has been discussed by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges and I know it has the backing of most Members of the House. However, because the Minister adopts a stick-in-the-mud attitude of no change at any cost, he will not accept the amendment. Despite what Deputy Dockrell has said, I think he would be well advised to accept it because it will guarantee all Deputies that in future we will not be treated as second-class citizens—that we will get increases in allowances when we are entitled to get them. I am asking the House not to accept the bona fides of a Minister who yesterday came in and introduced a most acrimonious tone to the debate. He suggested that former Ministers of this side should subsidise the research and secretarial services of their backbenchers but he did not commit himself, on his increased allowance, to subsidise his backbenchers. It was a petty and cheap political scoring point. Every Member of the House is interested in ensuring that never again will we have to wait for five years to get increases due to us. If the public did not see us as being able to look after ourselves properly they would quickly lose confidence in our ability to look after them.
They started to lose confidence in you a long time ago.
My vote is not going down at succeeding elections; it is going the other way, unlike Deputy Donnellan's.
No doubt Deputy Donnellan will give us the benefit of his views.
You are wasting your time talking — just wasting the hours and the days.
Has the Deputy no views on the amendments?
We know Deputy Donnellan is with us in spirit even though he has to vote with his feet.
The former Minister for Finance——
If I had made some of the stupid statements Deputy McMahon made this morning——
I did not make any stupid statement at all. I still say the former Minister had until 22nd December but he ran away from it.
Surely we do not have to explain again why he could not have done it? He had from 22nd November and the Dáil went into recess and was dissolved.
The whole question could still have been resolved. We did not have to have an election.
Is the Deputy suggesting that the Dáil should have been called into special session just to award increases in salaries and allowances?
Deputy Colley should have faced the music.
If it should have been done then why do Deputies opposite not agree with it now?
We cannot proceed in this fashion. Deputy Crowley on the amendment. We cannot have this talk across the House.
I do not see that we had any music to face. We see this as our legitimate right. I do not wish to make party-political issues out of this. Deputies opposite have been endeavouring to do that and it is unfortunate they should have adopted that attitude.
They are the people who are running away.
They were not even consulted about it. They did not have a party meeting about it. The Minister went along on his own bat and brought about this ridiculous situation.
Incorrect.
Why did Deputy Colley not look after this?
They had 16 years to do it.
We continuously looked after it.
They had since 1957 and they did nothing about it. The same kind of problem arises every couple of years.
The Deputy has just made our case for us.
We cannot proceed by way of question and answer or by way of exchange across the floor of the House. Deputy Crowley must be permitted to speak.
He is window-dressing—a lot of nonsense.
It is all right for people like Deputy Belton to sit there but most of us on this side have no other source of income except from politics and we want to ensure by this amendment that every two years our salaries will be reviewed and a report submitted to the House.
I see a few over there who have a little more than their salaries.
With the exception of the Minister for Finance I cannot see why anybody would object to the amendment. I know the majority of the backbenchers agree with this. The Committee on Procedure and Privileges discussed this. We went to Deputy Colley when he was Minister for Finance——
You are wasting your time.
We were not wasting our time and if Sir Anthony Esmonde were still in the House he would verify it. We always got a good hearing, some pertinent questions were put to us——
You got nothing.
Is the Deputy asking us why we do not accept the amendment? Why, during their period in office, did Fianna Fáil not put these ideas into operation? What prevented the Minister then from providing for this review?
The present Minister can make an order ensuring that this will be done.
We cannot proceed on the lines of question and answer.
We are making it easy for the Minister. We have fixed it to the national wage agreement and we would automatically get the same percentage increase generally allocated. That should be possible if it were not for the type of Minister for Finance we have, a Minister who ignored the recommendations of the Employer/Labour Conference in relation to our salaries. Certainly, with this amendment, it would be imperative on the House to review the situation every two years and again we would not have the situation where we had to wait five years before we could do anything about it.
If every organisation consisting of approximately 144 persons were to cost as much as this discussion has cost the House and the country, the people would be alarmed and appalled. A lot of the discussion on this amendment has been window-dressing. I am disappointed that this situation has arisen in regard to this issue. The people who sent us here did not do so so that we could argue as to what money we would be paid for the job we are doing.
Are you ashamed of it?
People go to the polls to elect their representatives so as to ensure that the interests of the people are served and that those who should be looked after are looked after. It reflects very little credit on all of us to be dragging our feet in this discussion. I remember a discussion about a former Deputy from Mayo who opposed a salary increase and later this Deputy lost his seat. This issue has been raised again and again. The political correspondents have mentioned it at various times. Because of this Deputy losing his seat, it seems a good idea to argue the merits and demerits of the increase.
Does the Deputy not agree with it?
There are far more important issues to be discussed than to spend two or three days on this matter.
The particular issue is the amendment. Can we have the Deputy's views on that?
I am discussing the amendment because the question devolves on this. We are a reasonable people and should regard ourselves as such. There are far more important matters that we should be discussing.
The Deputy must keep to the amendment.
The Opposition party are putting forward this amendment. If such a report came before the House every two years I do not believe it would be a good thing because there are other people looking for increases.
What does the Deputy suggest?
There are many working people, and so on, outside the House and their salaries are not reviewed every two years.
Indeed they have.
The Deputy is talking utter rubbish and he is playing politics.
Would Deputy Crowley allow Deputy Enright to speak?
I am not playing politics. What you are trying to do is to play politics.
We are not trying to play politics.
You are trying to drive a wedge between our backbenchers and to drive wedges among us in regard to this increase.
It is significant that that should have been said.
It is very significant, because you are playing the politics of greed, trying to get everything you possibly can.
Are you returning your increase?
Yesterday evening a member of your front bench described the Coalition as the "grab-alls".
Are you going to return your increase? I know you would not ask for it. You are just being a hypocrite.
It was said that we took the Chair and the Leas-Chathaoirleach position but remember — it was put by you yesterday evening—you did not put forward your own Cathaoirleach at the time. It comes ill to try to throw that back at us. I do not believe the amendment is necessary. I believe the increase that has been granted is reasonable and fair.
That has nothing to do with the amendment.
I do not believe the review is necessary. Everyone here should be deliberate and thoughtful in regard to the amendment and in regard to all of this matter. The dragging out of this procedure adds nothing to the House and contributes nothing to the country.
That has nothing to do with the amendment.
I regret as much as Deputy Enright regrets that this whole matter is dragged out but I would ask Deputy Enright to cast his mind back to 4.15 p.m. yesterday and try to discover why this matter is dragged out.
Deputy Enright is being ticked off now by the Chief Whip.
Deputy Crowley's ears are keen.
Deputy Crowley knows as much about any Chief Whip on either side—that is nil.
Our constitutional lawyer. Have one look at our constitutional lawyer, the trick-of-the-loopery.
This kind of thing is not helping discussion in the House. The Chair will be quite firm with regard to this matter of interruptions.
There is the man who came into the House and said we should have the oath back—the oath of allegiance.
Interruptions from any side of the House are disorderly.
The Deputy's own Whips will not do business.
Would you ask Senator Professor Dr. Kelly to go away and we will get on grand? He is very thorny. He comes in here and starts rows.
Why should the Deputy refer to him as a Senator?
He regretted that the oath of allegiance had gone.
Will Deputy Crowley not introduce matter outside the scope of the debate? Let us keep to the amendment.
This is the first bit of opposition we have seen. The first bit of opposition comes when we are discussing their own salaries.
Deputy O'Malley.
It is regrettable that this matter is dragged out and that impoverished Deputies on both sides, like Deputy Belton and Deputy Dockrell—both of whom, I think, have gone public—face into the summer in danger of undernourishment but if there were less interruptions from Senator Professor Dr. Kelly and others we might, I hope, be able to get on with this matter.
That is a very bad type of reply — stupid sneering.
The Chair would appeal to Deputies, for the sake of Parliament and for the sake of the House and decorum in the House, that the Member in possession would be allowed to speak. Interruptions from either side of the House are not adding to the debate and are not assisting the House in dealing with the matters before it. Deputy O'Malley, on the amendment. Will Deputies allow the Deputy in possession to speak? Personalities across the House do not help debate.
Deputy Colley proposed his amendment some hours ago. He made a very cogent argument for it. It was cogently supported by Deputy Crowley. There has been no answer to the amendment or as to the reason for the amendment and the need for the amendment. There have been lectures at us by Deputy Enright and by Deputy Dockrell and others and interruptions from Deputy Belton, Deputy McMahon and many others——
Deputy Crowley.
——and the Parliamentary Secretary, all of whom have dragged up matters from the past. They have made no effort, nor indeed has Deputy Enright—even though in the last few minutes he was invited several times by Deputy Colley to do so—to speak to the amendment. No effort has been made to disprove or challenge in any way what has been put forward from here in support of the amendment.
Deputy Dockrell puts it beautifully when he says that prima facie it is desirable and reasonable but he understands the Minister for Finance gave some reasons why it should not be accepted and that was good enough for him. When he was asked what those reasons were, he was not aware of them but he would take the word of the Minister for it. That gives a totally unreal sort of debate. I want to talk about that amendment. Cogent arguments have been put forward by Deputy Colley and Deputy Crowley. We have had nothing from the other side to refute these arguments except interruptions, personalities and the like. I want to talk about the amendment but there is nothing to answer.
The Deputy who is complaining is one of the worst-tempered Deputies in the House—one of the worst-tempered in both Houses.
Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would be willing to contribute? We are dying to hear the views of Deputies opposite on this amendment and we cannot get them.
If the Parliamentary Secretary would like to talk on the amendment I would sit down.
The Chair is concerned with the amendment. Deputy O'Malley should continue his speech.
I am being interrupted.
We are not getting any discussion on this amendment.
Get on with it.
Has the Parliamentary Secretary anything to say about the amendment?
I have: get on with it.
Is that all he has to say? Would he like to get a steamroller? If this is the way he is going to go on, he will have to learn that if he wants to get the business of the House done——
Again, the House is indulging in personalities and cross-talk. The Parliamentary Secretary should allow Deputy O'Malley to continue.
There was an agreement to complete the business by this Friday and that has been gone back on.
On a point of explanation, is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that there was a condition attached to that which he put in writing, a condition which was not honoured by his Government?
The Deputy does not know what he is talking about.
I saw the letter and I saw the Bill.
Deputy O'Malley on the amendment.
I hope that Deputy Kelly will not interrupt me again and that I can say what I have to say.
The Deputy need not be so pious about interruptions. He is the worst interrupter in the House.
Disgraceful arrogance.
I have seen some sights and performances in this House from time to time. Sometimes things are done because of personal difficulties but I will not comment on what we have heard in the past couple of minutes.
It showed absolute disdain for the Members of the House.
It is a pity that sort of thing should happen. It happened in relation to certain other things also.
The Deputy was very rude when he spoke about the former position of the Parliamentary Secretary. He spoke in a denigratory fashion and that is why this happend.
Would the Deputy allow Deputy O'Malley to continue?
It has been made very clear in the past hour or so that this amendment is designed to do something that all sides of the House have wanted done, have a regular review at regular intervals of the remuneration of Members of the House, members of the Government, and so on. The proposal is set out in this amendment. That proposal apparently, even though it was strongly urged by members of Fine Gael and the Labour Party, is not now——
In view of the fact that there are no Labour members present and since we know how strongly they feel about our amendment—they are with us in spirit—I think there should be a quorum.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,
I do not know whether it is necessary for me to detail the arguments for this amendment again. They have been set out in detail and have not been controverted or questioned by the other side of the House which, for the most part, would appear to accept them but feel because they are told by the Minister for Finance they will have to vote against them. A situation like this creates an unreal debate and because of that and because there are no arguments that can be cogently put against the amendment we have instead of argument the sort of interruptions, shouting and ill-temper that we have experienced on and off for the past hour. That is no substitute for argument. It is a pity that those who complain about the time of the House being wasted or expended unduly on this matter would not realise that.
I began trying to reply to Deputy Enright on this point ten or 15 minutes ago by saying that this Bill is not like any of its five predecessors since 1938. It has innovations of a radical kind for which there has been no justification and, as an Opposition, we cannot allow that to happen. It is not just a duty to ourselves but to democracy generally. If you have a Minister for Finance who takes up the totally intransigent and abusive attitude that he has taken up over the past couple of days in relation to the Bill and any possible amendments of it, I fear we are in for a long and, unfortunately, hot debate.
Make sure you keep it going now.
No. I expected the Minister might have something to say in reply but since he has been reading the newspaper for the past 15 minutes I suppose he could not. If he would pay a little attention now we would tell him again what we were saying. We have had no arguments on that side and unless the Government side are prepared to argue rationally against the amendment, we shall just have to put our arguments and listen to abuse in place of argument from the other side.
An amendment was proposed and I gave a reasoned answer why it was unacceptable. I have stated that case and I do not think that it assists the working of Parliament or is of any benefit to the people of the nation to have the Opposition tediously repeating their arguments and defiantly calling on the Minister to say, again and again, the same thing. What I have said stands. It is the truth. It stands by itself and it is not going to be strengthened by repetition. That is my stand and if the Opposition want to carry on until Christmas with this disgraceful performance in Parliament that is their business but we will not help them.
It is the Minister who is making the disgrace of Parliament.
Has the Minister anything further to say?
I have stated the case and there is nothing to add to it.
Would the Minister care to criticise, in a reasonable way, the amendment which has been put forward by this side of the House? He has not answered the argument about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this amendment.
Does the Minister propose to read his paper for the next quarter of an hour? Does the Chair approve of this practice?
The Minister has been accused of reading the paper but I am afraid we will be ashamed to read the papers in the next few days with the way things are going on in this House unless the Chair has the power of driving the money changers from the temple. That is what it amounts to here. A little more commonsense should prevail in the House and the dignity of the House preserved.
We would like to hear the Deputy's views on our amendment.
I will deal with the amendment.
Good, we are going to get some views from the Government side.
The former Minister, Deputy Colley, said he had been let down but we on this side of the House know that Fianna Fáil were let down by the Tacateers.
That is shocking.
What Deputy Coogan has said is probably the truth.
There is a question of money involved. Like marriage, matrimony, there is a question of money involved. The Opposition find that their household budget is such that they need more.
That is not in relation to the amendment.
Is there no Deputy on the Government side able to talk on this amendment?
The Opposition should tell us about the organisations who started by charging £20 per head and then reduced to £5 per head.
I would appeal to Members to raise the dignity of the House.
A good start would be for the Minister to desist from his attitude.
Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins
Does the Deputy want to speak? If he does not he should be quiet.
Have Deputies on the Government side anything to say on this amendment?
Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins
It has already been said.
The former Minister, Deputy Colley, should add to the dignity of the House.
In relation to the amendment the Minister has asked us to trust him in relation to future reviews. Prior to this we found that he was untrustworthy in so far as he failed to implement the terms of the wage agreement as indicated by the Employer/Labour Conference. There have been many rude interruptions from the Government side of the House. The procedure here, in order to evolve better legislation, has been that amendments are put down, examined, analysed and discussed in a rational way with views being expressed on these amendments by both sides of the House. The only view we have had from the Government side was that of Deputy Enright who indicated that the Opposition party was endeavouring to drive a wedge between the Government and their backbenchers. This is a clear indication of the thinking of the backbenchers of Fine Gael.
However, after making this statement Deputy Enright was told to close his mouth by the Chief Whip of the Government party and to change his attack in relation to the argument he was making. Apparently many of the Government backbenchers are in revolt.
The Deputy should confine himself to the amendment.
In relation to the amendment I should like to point out that no Labour members are in the House and have not been for a considerable time. They are not present because they are in agreement with this amendment.
Deputy Dowling was not here to vote this morning so what is he talking about?
Apparently the Labour members are in agreement with the amendment and they are either ashamed or are being kept out of the House.
They were here to vote this morning.
Listen, Deputy Belton, the Governor of the Bank of Belton, we have had a number of rude interruptions already from you. If this is Deputy Belton's only contribution then it amounts to nothing. The Deputy is afraid to make a contribution. If that is the type of contribution Deputy Belton wishes to make it is not very intelligent.
I will make up my mind about that.
As soon as Deputy Belton makes his maiden speech here we will all applaud him. The amendment put forward by my party is a very reasonable one. Deputy Colley has outlined the reason for it but no argument has been put forward to refute it in any way. The only contribution made by the Government side has been by Deputy Enright. The Minister has utilised the time of Parliament to read the newspapers and failed to present any argument to rebut the case made by Deputy Colley. Deputy Enright was told to close his mouth some time ago.
Deputy Dowling is inaccurate and untrue in his statement. He is highly inaccurate.
The Deputy was told to shut his mouth, whether it was to close it or shut it, I am not sure of the exact phraseology.
The Deputy should not be inviting interruptions.
The time has come when we must hear an argument from the Government backbenchers, the backbenchers now in revolt against some of the decisions made by the Minister for Finance. This has been known for a long time and it has been clearly indicated this morning. We hope that the Labour members, who are locked up at the moment and not allowed into the Chamber because they are in agreement with this amendment as are the backbenchers of the Fine Gael Party who have spoken, will come out and voice their views. I hope Deputies Belton and Donnellan will make their contributions to rebut the arguments put forward by Deputy Colley. I feel sure that the Deputies will be on their feet as I sit down to give their views as to why the Minister should not accept the amendment.
I did not intend to speak on this matter. I am a Member of the House since March but I must confess that I have not been overedified by the discussion, if I may call it such, which I have heard in the last hour. My initial reaction to this amendment would be to be against it because I do not regard the matter of Deputies' salaries to be the prerogative of a Government of the day. It is very much an all-Party matter for the Members of this House. The amendment says, "shall be reviewed by the Government". We have a Committee on Procedure and Privileges which has been active for some considerable time in these matters and it is probably because of the activities of that Committee that we now have this Bill before the House. I regret that this Bill appears to be discussed on party lines. This is very unfortunate and we would be far better occupied applying our time to what are really more important matters. Having got this Bill through, and learned the hard way in the process, we might be more careful in future in our conduct concerning matters pertinent and personal to all of us. We have none of us done ourselves any good in this discussion. As I understand it, an undertaking has been given by the Minister that our salaries will keep pace with national wage agreements.
But he did not implement it this time.
This is a big step forward and it means we are starting on the right road. Before I came in here, coming from a political family, I was very conscious of debates in this House, and one thing that struck me very forcibly was the thin-skinned approach of Members when it came to the matter of their salaries. For some reason or other there was a patent anxiety on the part of a certain side of this House to be very careful in regard to what might be put down on paper. I would say it is about time that Deputies realised they have a standing in the country, are elected by the people and should have the courage and guts to take the steps they are rightfully entitled to take——
Deputies
Hear, hear.
——instead of being afraid of what might be written in some newspaper perhaps.
That is telling the Minister off.
I am addressing my remarks to every Deputy in the House and, in particular, to the Deputy's own Front Bench.
I want to congratulate Deputy Esmonde on being the first Deputy on the Government side of the House who, since we started to discuss this amendment, endeavoured to make any case in respect of the amendment. It is quite clear from the Minister's attitude and that of the Deputies opposite who understand what the amendment is, and here I except Deputy Esmonde, that most of them agree with the amendment and they cannot, therefore, make any case against it.
In response to Deputy Esmonde's case, I understand his objection with regard to the Government, but I would remind him that no steps can be taken to increase allowances or salaries except on the initiative of the Government under both Standing Orders and under the Constitution. That is why the amendment suggests that the review should be carried out by the Government. It is of great significance that this amendment has produced an almost unique situation —it was certainly unique until Deputy Esmonde spoke—in that no backbencher on the Government side could even be provoked into speaking either for or against the amendment. It is unfortunate the Minister displayed the attitude he has. If the amendment is ineffective, as the Minister suggests, he has nothing to lose. I believe it could be effective and, if it were, that would meet the problem with which Deputies on both side are concerned. We have had no cogent arguments against the amendment. Here, again, I except Deputy Esmonde.
I make just one last appeal to the Minister to be reasonable and say: "I do not think this will be effective, but there is nothing to lose by putting it in." If he thinks there is something to lose we are willing to listen to him. He has not yet told us there is nothing to lose.
Tá
- Ahern, Liam.
- Andrews, David.
- Barrett, Sylvester.
- Brady, Philip A.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Ben.
- Browne, Seán.
- Brugha, Ruairí.
- Burke, Raphael P.
- Callanan, John.
- Calleary, Seán.
- Carter, Frank.
- Colley, George.
- Collins, Gerard.
- Connolly, Gerard.
- Crinion, Brendan.
- Cronin, Jerry.
- Crowley, Flor.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Daly, Brendan.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Dowling, Joe.
- Fahey, Jackie.
- Farrell, Joseph.
- Faulkner, Pádraig.
- Fitzgerald, Gene.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom.
- (Dublin Central).
- Flanagan Seán.
- French, Seán.
- Gallagher, Denis.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gibbons, Hugh.
- Gibbons, James.
- Haughey, Charles.
- Healy, Augustine A.
- Herbert, Michael.
- Hussey, Thomas.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Leonard, James.
- Loughnane, William.
- Lynch, Celia.
- Lynch, Jack.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacSharry, Ray.
- Meaney, Tom.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Moore, Seán.
- Murphy, Ciarán.
- Nolan, Thomas.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Connor, Timothy.
- O'Kennedy, Michael.
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Malley, Desmond.
- Power, Patrick.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Timmons, Eugene.
- Tunney, Jim.
- Walsh, Seán.
- Wilson, John P.
- Wyse, Pearse.
Níl
- Barry, Peter.
- Barry, Richard.
- Begley, Michael.
- Belton, Luke.
- Belton, Paddy.
- Bermingham, Joseph.
- Bruton, John.
- Burke, Dick.
- Cooney, Patrick M.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, Declan.
- Coughlan, Stephen.
- Creed, Donal.
- Crotty, Kieran.
- Cruise-O'Brien, Conor.
- Desmond, Barry.
- Desmond, Eileen.
- Dockrell, Maurice.
- Donegan, Patrick S.
- Donnellan, John.
- Dunne, Thomas.
- Enright, Thomas.
- Esmonde, John G.
- Finn, Martin.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom.
- (Cavan).
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Gilhawley, Eugene.
- Governey, Desmond.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Harte, Patrick D.
- Hegarty, Patrick.
- Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Burke Joan T.
- Burke, Liam.
- Byrne, Hugh.
- Clinton, Mark A.
- Cluskey, Frank.
- Collins, Edward.
- Conlon, John F.
- Coogan, Fintan.
- Kavanagh, Liam.
- Kelly, John.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- L'Estrange, Gerald.
- Lynch, Gerard.
- McDonald, Charles B.
- McLaughlin, Joseph.
- McMahon, Larry.
- Malone, Patrick.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- O'Brien, Fergus.
- O'Connell, John.
- O'Donnell, Tom.
- O'Leary, Michael.
- O'Sullivan, John L.
- Pattison, Seamus.
- Reynolds, Patrick J.
- Ryan, John J.
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- Staunton, Myles.
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- Timmons, Godfrey.
- Tully, James.
- White, James.
No, Sir. Section 4 is the section which provides——
I must ask that order be restored to the Chamber. Will Deputies please leave as quietly as they can, if they desire to leave?
This section is the section which sets out the amount of the allowance proposed to be paid to Deputies and Senators, and it is also the section which provides that they shall be deemed to have come into operation on 1st July of this year. As you know, Sir, I had put down an amendment to the section which, under Standing Orders of the House, you were obliged to rule out of order. Nevertheless, I take it, Sir, that I am in order in referring to the amendment in the discussion on the section. It summarises very well the principal objection we have to this section as it is drafted. That amendment was to delete lines 35 to 40 on page 2, and on page 3 to delete lines 1 and 2, and to substitute the following:
The allowance to be paid to each Member of Dáil Éireann and of Seanad Éireann shall be the sums recommended in the Report of the Special Committee of the Employer/ Labour Conference on the remuneration of the Judiciary, Higher Civil Service and Parliamentarians dated 22nd December, 1972, and such sums shall be payable on the dates and in the amounts recommended in the said Report.
We have made it clear that we believe very strongly that the report of the Employer/Labour Conference should be, in this legislation, honoured and implemented in full.
Just to recall the situation, because there have been arguments on the Government side to the effect that the Employer/Labour Conference report was unclear or did not make recommendations which would be different from what is proposed in this section, I would remind the House that the terms of reference of the Employer/ Labour Conference in preparing this report were to advise in relation to the extent to which effect might be given to the review body's recommendations for each group covered in the report on the basis of and for the duration of the national agreements.
I think the position is quite clear from that that we had the Devlin Report, but that the Employer/Labour Conference, the body which had negotiated the national agreements, which had set up a steering committee to supervise the implementation of the national agreements in various sectors of the economy, the body which represented both the employer side and the trade union side, were asked to advise the Government and this House, in effect, on the extent to which effect might be given to the Devlin Report on the basis of and for the duration of the national agreements.
I do not think anything could be clearer as to the terms of reference and what was involved. We come now to what the report said. On page 10, paragraph 24, dealing with Deputies, the report said the following:
The present allowance of £2,500 a year for Deputies has not been varied since July, 1968, when it was fixed at that level by legislation. If, however, a twelfth round increase in line with that granted to the Public Service had been applied to Members of the Oireachtas then a Deputy's allowance, inclusive of that increase and the first phase of the National Agreement of 1970 would have been £3,029 from 1st January 1972. On that basis, the second phase increase provided for in the agreement of 1970, that is, 4 per cent plus a cost of living supplement, would become due 12 months after the relevant date in respect of the first phase increase and the terms of the Second National Agreement would apply in due course.
Various efforts have been made on the Government side to suggest either that this is not clear or that it is not a recommendation at all. It has been suggested that the report did not attempt to suggest the figures which would have applied in the past. You will see, Sir, from what I have read out that the report spells out precisely what the figure would have been on 1st January 1972, and then provides the formula by which subsequent increases would be applied.
If it is desired to say that because the report says "If, however, a twelfth round increase in line with that granted to the Public Service", et cetera, had been applied to Deputies and, therefore, they were not making any recommendation in regard to Deputies, if the wish of the Government side is to argue in that way, I would ask what was the point of the whole report. Was it not, as I have quoted from the terms of reference, to consider the terms of the Devlin Report and to advise the Government, the House and the public as to the manner in which the Devlin Report could be implemented, and still enable us to comply with the national agreements?
The Employer/Labour Conference, when they approached this problem, considered that the only basis on which they could make a recommendation was to consider what had happened in the public service. They came up with this formula. They came up with a similar approach in the case of Senators and with a similar approach in the case of office holders, including the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Ministers, et cetera. They also made recommendations in respect of the Judiciary and higher civil servants—again on the same basis. Nothing could be clearer, in my view, than the terms of this report.
However, on the Second Stage, amongst various contradictory arguments made from time to time by the Minister was one to the effect that the terms of this report were not clear. When I questioned him as to whether, if he thought this were so, he would be prepared to accept that this report should be implemented from a date which would be made clear to his satisfaction from the Employer/Labour Conference he replied, firstly, that the Government had made their own interpretation and it was the correct one. Subsequently, when pressed, he said that this was a hypothetical question.
The reality of the situation is quite clear. There was a clearcut recommendation and the Government deliberately decided not to accept that recommendation. It is perfectly legitimate for the Government to decide not to accept a particular recommendation from this or any other report. That is a normal function of any Government but if that was the situation, then this House was entitled to expect that the Government would come in here and say openly: "We have decided not to accept this recommendation and the reasons are as follows" and to give the reasons. That is not, however, what was done.
The Government have tried to pretend that they are in this section implementing this report. You will see from the extract from the report in relation to Deputies which I read out that the report mentions a specific figure which would have operated as at the 1st January, 1972, and then provides the formula by which subsequent increases should be calculated. If the Minister wants to argue that that formula is not clear perhaps he would explain to the House how he arrived at the figure in this section in respect of Deputies, the figure of £3,416. That figure is not contained in the Employer/Labour Conference report but it is a figure derived from the formula spelled out in that report.
As the Minister well knows, there would be no problem whatever for his advisers to work out on the basis of this report precisely what the figures would have been and should have been at the different dates recommended by the Employer/Labour Conference report. That can be done and, as the Minister has demonstrated by providing the figure in this section, has been done. Therefore, that argument about lack of clarity simply does not stand up. If the Minister wants to make it again I would again invite him to say if he really is contending it is not clear and whether, on receipt of clarification from the Employer/ Labour Conference, he would be prepared to accept that. That is something he could do under the terms of this Bill. He could implement the Bill as it is drafted and make an order under a subsequent section on the basis of the Employer/Labour Conference clarification.
Would the Minister, if he is not prepared to do that, at least have the honesty to tell us that he is not prepared to accept this particular recommendation of the Employer/Labour Conference and let us not waste time arguing round in circles, as we have been doing, because of the attitude taken by the Minister and some of his colleagues in relation to this report? The position seems to me to be perfectly clear from the face of the report itself. If it is not, then the real issue can be clarified quite easily if the Minister would say whether he would be prepared to accept the recommendation of the Employer/ Labour Conference report on foot of an order which he could make under this Bill on receipt of clarification from the Employer/Labour Conference.
We have had, of course, some purported explanation by the Minister as to why he proposes to apply to Deputies, Senators and others the recommended figures only as from 1st July, 1973. He said that the Employer/ Labour Conference report did not recommend retrospection. That is one of the arguments he made. If it did not recommend retrospection, why did he apply retrospection to the judges and to the higher civil servants dealt with in the same report? He cannot have it both ways. The report should be implemented in respect of all the people concerned, or it should not. The Minister and the Government have chosen to implement the report in full in relation to the Judiciary and the higher civil servants but not to implement it in full in relation to Deputies, Senators and parliamentarians generally.
As I said, it is perfectly legitimate for the Government to decide this; but it is not legitimate for them to pretend that that is not what they are doing or to pretend that the reason for their decision is that parliamentarians are, in the Minister's words, "better shod" than recipients of social welfare. This kind of argument is really too trivial to be tossed across the floor of the House or indeed contained in, I think, a prepared statement by the Minister in this House. But, since he has made it, we have to deal with it. If the Minister pretends to even one ounce of logic, he must explain to the House why, if parliamentarians are "better shod" than social welfare recipients and therefore on his logic should not receive their increases prior to the 1st July when the social welfare increases were being implemented, judges and higher civil servants should receive their increases prior to the social welfare recipients.
Is the Minister telling us that judges and higher civil servants are not better shod than social welfare recipients? I do not think even the Minister for Finance, with all his brass neck, would attempt to justify that argument. The Minister indicated earlier he thinks there has been undue delay, a delay which, as he well knows, has been brought about by his own attitude and approach. If he wants to speed the process of this Bill he should at least give us a straightforward argument on this and not try to confuse the issue by bringing up silly arguments about social welfare recipients not being as well shod as parliamentarians.
At least, if the Minister would come out openly and say what his case is, we could argue on the merits of it and not waste time following up these silly red herrings he has been producing. He has, of course, been twisting and turning on this situation. He is trying to apply the formula of the Employer/ Labour Conference report to the Opposition allowance. This is not dealt with in the Employer/Labour Conference report. It could not be, but it would be dealt with quite differently from that of individuals if it were to be involved. On the other hand, he is avoiding applying the Employer/ Labour Conference recommendations to the items which were dealt with in the report. It is this kind of attitude on the part of the Minister which has led to a great deal of the acrimony and delay in dealing with this Bill. If he would be straightforward, stand on his own two feet, put his case, and let us argue about the real case, and not this nonsense, we would make far more progress and do greater credit to Parliament.
It is my belief that the Government have an obligation to implement this recommendation of the Employer/ Labour Conference in full, and that the onus is on the Government to give very good reasons why they should not do so. We pointed out previously the precedent being created by the Government in this case. The fact that they say they will not implement certain parts of the Employer/Labour Conference report and will implement others, can create a dangerous precedent in the private sector. If employers were to try to follow the precedent being created here by the Government, we could have a very serious situation indeed. I should like to point out again that the attitude of this party, whether in Government or not, has been consistently one of full support for the national wage agreement and the machinery of the Employer/Labour Conference. It was on that basis that we took the line we did in Government in relation to the situation which arose concerning the pay of those employed in banks, and the attitude we took in Opposition on the same issue and, indeed, on a number of other issues which have arisen from time to time.
We believe that, whatever view one may take of the level of the remuneration of parliamentarians, whether one thinks that the Devlin Report was fair and reasonable, or that it was excessively high or too low, the overall requirements of the economy demand that the approach to the problem contained in this section should be that it should be shown that whatever is done conforms fully to the national wage agreement and that the same norms and the same machinery are applied in determining the remuneration of parliamentarians as have been applied in determining the remuneration of hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country.
If we want people to adhere to the national wage agreement we must be seen to follow the same procedures, apply the same norms, and accept the results of doing so. This is reasonable. It is in the national interest and, clearly, it is the only ground on which one can stand when dealing with this whole problem of the remuneration of parliamentarians in the context of the national wage agreement and of the hope that a further national wage agreement will be negotiated.
This is a serious matter. The Government have decided to depart from that. It does not matter whether they are departing by paying more or by paying less. The fact is that they should stick to it in full and leave no room for argument or doubt about it. If the Government were to do that, there would not be any problem either from this side of the House, or I believe, with the public generally, because it could be seen that what was being done in the case of parliamentarians was exactly the same as what was being done in the case of everybody else bound by the national wage agreement. I believe that the Government's failure to do that in this section is creating a serious situation, and creating unnecessary dangers in relation to the national wage agreement.
I say all of this without any reference to the question of justice or injustice. Quite clearly a great deal could be said when one has regard to the fact that what we are dealing with here is the increase in the remuneration of parliamentarians after an interval of five years. I am not developing that aspect of the matter which, as I say, could be developed, but I am very seriously urging the Minister, even at this late stage, to consider very carefully the obligation which lies on him to implement in full the report of the Employer/Labour Conference, and the serious consequences which could flow from his failure to do so.
The onus is on the Minister to have another look at the £9,000, or more, suggested in his amendment for backbench members of the Government parties. This is a hidden subsidy. It is a contravention of the Employer/Labour Conference recommendation to the Dáil. This recommendation was within the guidelines of whether the remuneration they suggested for Deputies was in line with the national wage agreement. The Minister then introduces a new feature, an addition to allowances for backbench members of the Government parties, a feature which was not under consideration by the Employer/Labour Conference, a feature which they were not asked to consider, to adjudicate on, or make representations in respect of.
The Minister is leaving himself open to the accusation that he has found a way around the recommendations of the Employer/Labour Conference. In order to thwart and frustrate the Opposition, the Minister has found himself in the position of introducing something which, even now, should be sent to the Employer/ Labour Conference as a new feature for a recommendation from this body as to whether this is an addition to backbench Members' emoluments. I think it is.
The principle behind this secretarial allowance, if dispensed individually, contravenes the Employer/Labour Conference recommendations. First, it is a new development; secondly, it is an additional expenditure by his Department; and, thirdly, it was not adjudicated on by anybody other than the Minister. The Minister deserves to be in trouble over this; he is in trouble over it; and he will be in trouble over it. I do not say that the Minister is our employer but he is our remunerator and the remunerators of other employees could adopt a method like this to subvert and circumvent decisions arrived at by free negotiation between employer and labour organisations. This has happened in other countries. There are countries in which the "perks" are more important than the basic salaries.
It is a procedure which has not operated in this country so far. The Minister has himself adopted this procedure. He has given perks in lieu of remuneration to Government backbenchers for the first time, without reference to anybody. Who can blame other employers throughout the country if they call their workers into a huddle and say: "Look, boys, do not make a fuss about it. We will do it this way". The national pay agreement recommends a certain percentage increase and the workers agree because they know they will get the perks, the allowances, call them what you will. If they are queried by the Government or by anybody else they can say: "You yourselves have done it".
The Minister should divorce these two issues—the allowances for all Deputies and the allowance for the Opposition; settle this, get it out of the way and then if he has some bad thoughts in his mind about the question of secretarial or other expenses for each Deputy he could refer the matter to the Employer/Labour Conference, which has not been done up to this. He is making a mistake and it is not the only mistake he has made during this whole transaction.
Deputy Crowley rose.
Before Deputy Crowley begins, I am just wondering whether the Minister proposes to speak on the section at all? He has had ample opportunity of doing so. Or is he treating the House with sheer contempt continuously?
I will let Deputy Crowley have the floor.
I am quite willing to give the floor to the Minister if he would let us have some of his views on the matter. I think it would be relevant to the debate.
I would be very happy to hear Deputy Crowley.
Does that mean that the Minister is not prepared to give his views to the House on this matter?
We would prefer to have debate rather than cross-questioning.
It is a sad reflection on the House that a Minister of any Government would treat it with such contempt as not to give his views on such an important matter. We consider that this is a breach of the national pay agreement. We, as parliamentarians, did not receive any benefits from any of the earlier wage rounds and our pay level has fallen seriously out of line with the rest of the community. Because of that it was decided to put this before a review body, the Devlin Review Group. The Government, having received the Devlin Report, rightly, to my mind, decided to put it before the Employer/ Labour Conference. The Employer/ Labour Conference selected a special committee to investigate this whole matter. They had no less than nine meetings on this issue. They presented certain proposals to the then Minister for Finance which the present Minister inherited. All those proposals conformed completely with the terms of the national pay agreement. That is as it should be and it should be the aim of every Deputy to ensure that the highest status is given to the national pay agreement. We hope that another national pay agreement will be signed very quickly because we know that it is in the long-term economic interest of the country to have this type of contract between worker and employer. I would suggest that the Minister on this very important issue is leaving loopholes for other more unscrupulous people.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,
It is important that this loophole which the Minister has created be closed immediately in order to prevent unscrupulous people from cashing in on it. The recommendations of the Employer/Labour Conference state clearly that our remuneration has not varied since 1968 when it was fixed at a certain level by legislation. It is a disgrace that that situation should prevail in respect of any body of people.
It is regrettable that the debate on this very important issue has been so acrimonious. The recommendations of the Employer/Labour Conference should be implemented in full and not in the sort of smart-alecky way that is proposed by the Minister. These recommendations go back to January, 1972. Why have they not been implemented? We have heard the Minister make the cheap and snide remark that Deputies were better shod than old age pensioners. That was his reason for not implementing the recommendations. This attitude on the part of the Minister is deplorable but if he were man enough now to admit that he was wrong and to say that he is prepared to implement fully the recommendations he would gain the respect of everybody. I cannot understand how he could have adopted the attitude that he has adopted in this regard. I can see no political gain in an attitude of this kind. After all, the Minister is a reasonably intelligent man and I cannot see him bringing in stupid legislation such as this without having some reason for doing so. No matter how much I study the Bill I am unable to see any coherent reason for the Minister's attitude except to conclude that he places such a low value on his fellow parliamentarians that, to his mind, they do not deserve to be treated like other groups in the country. That would seem to be the only reason, too, for the snide remark which he made in relation to our increases.
For far too long we have endeavoured to keep this issue out of politics. We have tried to work out a coherent, logical and fair policy in regard to the remuneration of parliamentarians but it is a serious injustice to parliamentarians that the Minister should fail to implement fully the recommendations of the Employer/Labour Conference in regard to them while, at the same time, implementing fully those recommendations in respect of the judiciary and the higher civil servants. Perhaps the Minister's attitude could be attributed to his belief that he might be putting members of the Opposition in an awkward situation by these proposals. Be that as it may, the position for us cannot be half as awkward as that into which he is putting his own backbenchers whereby they are forced to support his policy although in their hearts and heads they do not agree with it.
I appeal to the Minister even at this late stage to reconsider this whole question and to have regard to the Employer/Labour Conference recommendations. I am very anxious to hear the Minister on this point. If he is prepared to meet us in relation to this very reasonable request, there will be very little delay in regard to the passing of this Bill.
I shall be very brief because in essence this is our third Committee Stage of this Bill because both on the Second Stage and on the Money Resolution the Opposition conducted a Committee Stage debate. Deputy Crowley's speech is at variance with what was said by the Leader of the Opposition this morning who complained because the Press were unable to detect any common line of policy in the Fianna Fáil benches. Deputy Lynch indicated that his sole grouse was the fact that the Opposition were not to receive more than a 40 per cent increase in the allowance awarded to the Opposition in 1968 in respect of secretarial expenses, research and information services. Deputy Crowley has indicated now that if there is retrospection to January, 1972, there will be little opposition to the Bill. I would advise the Deputy to meet with the Leader of his party so as to ascertain what is Fianna Fáil's common line on this issue, that is, if they have one other than that of continuing to obstruct the business of the House.
If the Minister went to the trouble of studying what was said he would not make such a statement.
What we are dealing with now is not an Opposition amendment that has been ruled out but is a section which proposes to give, in accordance with the Employer/ Labour Conference, an allowance of £3,416 per annum to Deputies and £2,023 per annum to Senators and to make the allowances operative from the 1st July, 1973. The Employer/ Labour Conference made no recommendations regarding retrospection. The Devlin Report pointed out specifically that it had no mandate to deal with retrospection and the reference of the Devlin Report to the Employer/ Labour Conference special committee was one which required them to consider to what extent the Devlin recommendations could be applied without a breach of the national wage agreement.
What we are doing is not in breach of the national wage agreement. We will not breach the national wage agreement. There is no comparison between employers in regard to what a national wage agreement would require them to perform towards their employees and this House which is itself its own employer and can decide to forego any portion of remuneration. That is all this Government decided it was the proper thing to do, that people in this House and the other House, being themselves their own employers, should decide. The Constitution so desires them to be their own employers because it is the House which determines the basis of remuneration, not the Government of the day. We on this side of the House consider that it is appropriate that the increased remuneration for Deputies and Senators would be applicable from 1st July, 1973. Ad nauseam I have given my reasons for this. They have been called stupid, ridiculous, unworthy and many other epithets. Those who want to use them are welcome to do so. We have stated our case repeatedly and I have nothing further to add.
For the third time in the course of the debate the Minister for Finance has shown appalling ignorance of the provisions of section 4 of the Bill. He went on to allege that what I said did not conform to what my Leader had said earlier. Section 4 has nothing to do with the allowance to the Opposition. We have been discussing section 4 which relates to salaries of Members of the Oireachtas and the Minister for Finance has displayed appalling ignorance, for a man who has the backing of the entire Civil Service in his Department and in any other Department he wishes to call on. He comes in here and makes the type of accusations falsely that even the most junior Deputy in the House would not make. I am not surprised, therefore, that we have this petty, bitter piece of legislation. Now with a deeper understanding of the Minister's mind, I am not surprised why he holds his fellow parliamentarians in such contempt.
We make no apology for demanding that the Employer/Labour Conference report be implemented completely. That committee had nine consecutive meetings on this important issue and the Minister, after a cursory glance at the recommendations, decided not to implement them. We regret it very much but we now begin to understand why we have this attitude.
I have the advantage now of speaking after the Minister made his contribution, which lasted approximately three minutes. During it he did not once refer to the arguments put forward in detail and with care by Deputies Colley, Cunningham and Crowley on this section. He said that because Deputy Crowley spoke about the matters contained in section 4, the section we are discussing now, he was in some way in conflict with what Deputy Lynch said this morning.
Deputy Lynch spoke only on the question of the allowance to the Opposition. Frankly, I was flabbergasted at the attitude of the Minister, not at the silly things he said but at the contemptuous way in which he treated the House and the reasoned arguments put up. In a debate of this kind if careful reasoned argument is put forward by a Deputy or Deputies and if that argument is not refuted, then that argument is accepted as correct, and there can be no doubt that the arguments put forward by Deputies Cunningham, Colley and Crowley can, therefore, be taken by the general consensus of the House to have been correct. I found it difficult to hear what the Minister said because he spoke in a very low voice——
It is very hard to strike the tone that you want. If I speak in a loud voice you say I am ranting and if I speak in a quiet voice you complain. Deputies over there might give me some indication of the tone they want and I might be able to oblige them.
At the moment the Minister is perfectly audible.
He is in between.
That is the line.
In his very short intervention the Minister said the figure proposed in this Bill does not breach the national wage agreement or the Employer/Labour Conference report and he said the Government would not breach them, the implication being that we on this side of the House were asking him to breach them. The whole point of our case, put consistently from the start, is that we do not want the national wage agreement breached, that we do not want the recommendations of the Employer/Labour Conference breached, and that what the Minister is proposing is a breach of them. The truth is the direct opposite of what the Minister has implied or suggested in his very brief intervention. The whole point of Deputy Colley's amendment which was ruled out of order for technical reasons is to apply the Employer/ Labour Conference recommendation. I will read the amendment:
In page 2, to delete lines 35 to 40, and in page 3, to delete lines 1 and 2, and substitute the following:
"(1) The allowance to be paid to each member of Dáil Éireann and of Seanad Éireann shall be the sums recommended in the Report of the Special Committee of the Employer/ Labour Conference on the remuneration of the Judiciary, Higher Civil Service and Parliamentarians, dated 22nd December, 1972 and such sums shall be payable on the dates and in the amounts recommended in the said Report."
Could anything be clearer than that? What we want done is to have the national wage agreement and the Employer/Labour Conference recommendations implemented in relation to the matters contained in section 4, and the Minister has the effrontery to say: "This Bill does not breach the agreement and the Government will not breach it." The implication is that we are endeavouring to do it when the amendment we had on today's Order Paper is a most specific one asking the House to accept that agreement.
As I have said, I am flabbergasted at the Minister standing up and making that statement. He went on to make the statement that the Government decided that because Deputies and Senators are their own employers it should be left to Deputies and Senators to agree on the figures, which should be within the national wage agreement. He said it was a matter for each House to fix its own remuneration. Technically and theoretically that is so but this House is screaming to fix its own remuneration in accordance with the national wage agreement and the report of the Employer/Labour Conference but it is being prevented from doing so by the Government and in particular by the Minister for Finance. If the Minister meant what he said—I have no doubt he did not—and if he does not want to correct what he said, he should now do the logical thing and allow each House to decide whether it wants to follow the national wage agreement and he should allow a free vote.
We know, everyone knows, it has got almost to the stage of being a farce, that the Government backbenchers are in entire agreement with the attitude Fianna Fáil have taken up in this matter. It was very significant this morning, when Deputy Enright was endeavouring to defend the situation and when he made the statement that what Fianna Fáil were trying to do was to drive a wedge between the Government and their backbenchers, that there was almost a tornado as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach swept into the House, reprimanded publicly Deputy Enright and told him to desist from that line. Understandably, Deputy Enright departed the House.
That is the situation that exists and I am now taking up the Minister on what he said, that the Government are allowing each House to fix its own remuneration, and I say to the Minister, let us now have a free vote on this point; take the Whip off the unfortunate people behind you; let them follow the consistent line which anybody who has any interest in the national wage agreement would wish to follow and could only follow. The situation is that the Minister for Finance, in spite of what he says, is doing the direct opposite to what he says: he is breaching the national wage agreement. He is the last man in this country who should do it because he is the Minister for Finance and it is the Government's duty to try to ensure that these agreements are kept by everybody and that future agreements will be made.
Can you look at the situation of the ordinary worker, or the ordinary trade unionist after this performance? He will say, and he is completely entitled to say: "The Government smashed that agreement and why should I make another one?"
The Minister for Finance and the Government, against the almost unanimous wish of their own backbenchers, are forcing this House to break a solemn agreement which is the most important single agreement in this country at the present time. We in Fianna Fáil consistently supported, maintained and upheld that agreement. We are now endeavouring to stop it being broken by the Minister for Finance and it is the Minister for Finance and the Government alone that are doing it; it is not the backbenchers of Fine Gael and Labour.
In relation to the proposed breach of this agreement by the Minister for Finance, forcing it on this House against the wishes of the House and in direct contravention of what he himself said, I want to point out that it is not just a question of justice or injustice to the present Members of the House. There are a number of persons who left this House voluntarily before the last election and, of course, a number who left it involuntarily. But, those who left it voluntarily left it on the clear understanding and assumption — and it was a reasonable one to make—that this recommendation of the Employer/ Labour Conference would be honoured by whatever Government came into power. They now find, to their horror and amazement, that this is not so.
The report of the Employer/ Labour Conference—quite a short document running to about 13 pages —deals, as Deputy Colley has said, not just with parliamentarians; it deals with judges and with higher civil servants. The three were grouped together because they were grouped together in Devlin, because they are regarded as being roughly in the same category for these purposes. A clear recommendation was made by the committee of that conference in relation to all three categories. The principles underlying the recommendations were the same for all three categories. The Government do what, of course, they should do— they implement the recommendations in relation to judges; they implement them in relation to higher civil servants. With all the talk on this we have yet to get a cogent or even a reasonable reason why the third category in that report do not have the conference recommendations implemented for them.
It is the Minister's contempt for his own backbenchers.
With all the talk, we have not got any reason why, three groups having been included in a report and a recommendation made in relation to the three, two are implemented without difficulty and nobody complains or minds because the judges and the higher civil servants are clearly entitled to what they are getting, but the third category in respect of whom the recommendations were made on the same basis are treated with this contempt by the Minister for Finance.
It seems to me just another manifestation of the wriggling and the face-changing that the Minister for Finance goes on with in relation to this matter that yesterday afternoon in a discussion on the Money Resolution regarding the question of the Opposition allowance he should justify, or attempt to justify, what he was doing or failing to do by relying on the Employer/ Labour Conference and what their recommendations were. As it happens, and as I pointed out last night, the Employer/Labour Conference did not make any recommendation at all on the matter of the Opposition allowance because the matter was never referred to them. That did not stop the Minister for Finance asserting positively in this House that the reason he could not do what he was being asked to do was that the Employer/Labour Conference prevented him. It did not. That is by the way. The significant thing is that he sought to justify his actions in relation to the Opposition allowance by relying on the Employer/ Labour Conference and the necessity of implementing and complying with its recommendations. That was his justification yesterday but today we come to section 4 of the Bill and we say to the Minister for Finance: "Implement what the Employer/ Labour Conference recommended" and he says "I will not do it".
That must be one of the most curious, unique, situations that has ever arisen in this House. The attitude of the Minister for Finance in relation to this is nothing short of brazen. His own personal attitude in the House as exhibited yesterday and again today when he refuses to take part in debates and reads newspapers for long periods, and so on, is on a personal level nothing short of brazen. I can only speculate that if any Fianna Fáil Minister had ever behaved in a manner that would approach even half-way the behaviour of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Richie Ryan, in this matter over the past few days what the reaction from the then Opposition would have been, what the reaction of the newspapers would have been. We have seen not just an exhibition of personal contempt for the Members of the House, not least his own backbenchers, but we have seen something that is totally inexplicable in the conflicting approaches to similar problems.
We are accused when we comment on this and try to take part in a debate on these matters of holding up the House. I have spoken as reasonably and as calmly as I can in the circumstances with which we are faced. Let us face the fact that what we are taking part in now is not a debate; it is essentially a monologue. It is a cogent argument being put from this side of the House by speaker after speaker. None of those arguments in relation to this matter has been refuted. No attempt to refute them has been made. By any rules of debate or rules of commonsense, the arguments that have been put are valid and they stand. The Minister for Finance flies in the face of the facts and of ordinary truth and justice if he persists in what he is now doing.
I had not intended to speak but Deputy O'Malley mentioned one of the most important aspects of this matter when he referred to the effect of the Minister's attitude on people outside the House. Deputy O'Malley has made one of the most important contributions to the Bill. Might I, therefore, suggest that the Minister would reconsider? Deputy O'Malley has pointed out the possible effects on the national wage agreement if the Minister persists in his present attitude. Whatever the fate of the present Bill, there is an even more important issue at stake—whether the third national wage agreement will materialise at the end of next month when the two bodies begin negotiating. I agree with Deputy O'Malley when he talks of the effect on workers outside and on their attitude towards the new national wage agreement if they see the Minister refusing to accept the findings of the Employer/Labour Conference.
It is not too late for the Minister to rethink. He has had a rough time, perhaps, for which he himself was mainly responsible but this matter is so important that he should rethink his whole attitude and remember what Deputy O'Malley has said about the national wage agreement. Let him, for heaven's sake, change his attitude. He may force this Bill through the House but he will not have the same power in regard to the third national wage agreement. The workers will weigh his every word and his attitude towards the national agreement and he may well be sowing here the seeds of defeat in relation to the third national wage agreement. I ask the Minister to heed Deputy O'Malley's words and those of the other speakers on this side and change his attitude and become a little more reasonable knowing that we on this side will stand by and honour in every way the findings of the Employer/ Labour Conference on this matter.
I think Deputy Moore is being too optimistic in asking the Minister to be reasonable because I am satisfied from my knowledge of the Minister that he is completely inflexible and that inflexibility will ultimately be his undoing as Minister for Finance and the undoing of his party. I advise trade union leaders to read very carefully the Official Report of this debate because from it they will gain a pretty good idea of the man they will be dealing with in the coming months. A trade union leader could have no better guide than to study the Official Report because he will recognise that, in fact, the Minister has refused to implement the national wage agreement in regard to Members of the House. If he can be that callous in regard to his own colleagues, the trade unions will not find it easy to deal with him. I advise them that in any negotiations with him to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" because whatever they say in negotiating with this Minister they will discover it will bear very little relevance ultimately to what they actually understood they were talking about.
He has insisted on calling the request to implement the proposals of the Employer/Labour Conference retrospection. The Devlin Report first came out on 11th July last year and because of the hue and cry by certain trade union leaders, the Fianna Fáil Government, instead of implementing the increases then, allowed the report to go before the Employer/Labour Conference. They finished their deliberations and came out with their proposals as late as 22nd December last year. Everybody knows that in order to increase allowances to Members this legislation must be put through the Dáil and so the Minister is fooling nobody when he says we did not have the courage to implement the recommendations. It must be clear to everybody that it takes much more courage on our part to fight the Bill as it stands at present than it would have taken to introduce it had we been returned to office when it would have been unanimously supported by the former Opposition parties. In fact, this is not so.
I think nobody will fail to recognise the attempt to stifle this Opposition by the refusal to increase the allowance to the Opposition Leader to the £30,000 he sought and the attempt by the Minister to insist that this allowance now being given to the Opposition should be used to pay for the secretarial services which we as a party employ. Our secretarial services cost us in the region of £1,000 per month which Fianna Fáil Deputies and Senators pay out of their own pockets. The Minister is now suggesting that the £21,000 they have decided to grant us should be used for that purpose instead of for research and information.
This has nothing whatever to do with section 4.
I do not think the Minister himself was on section 4 a few minutes ago.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,
The Minister has given certain assurances to former Members of this House who are also members of his own party that their pension rights would be seen to. There are Members of this House who voluntarily retired on the understanding that the Devlin Report would be implemented according to the interpretation of the Employer/ Labour Conference. The trade union leaders would do well to study this debate.
The Minister's refusal to even consider asking the Employer/Labour Conference for clarification in relation to the proposals which they recommended is evidence of the fact that he knows he is not within the spirit of those proposals. The Minister has been vindictive and in his opening gambit showed his vindictiveness and the weakness of his own case by refusing to answer the arguments put forward by our party and also in his naming of pensions to former Ministers without naming former Ministers of his own party or, for that matter, indicating what his own pension will be under this Bill in comparison to former Ministers should he be in office for three years.
As far as Deputy Barry Desmond, who described himself as a sort of self-appointed shop steward, is concerned I should like to point out that he quickly left the scene as soon as he, and Members of his own party and the Fine Gael backbenchers, received assurances that they would receive allowances which have been euphemistically described as secretarial allowances.
I should like to draw the Deputy's attention to the fact that section 4 does not deal with that.
The trade union leaders will soon find out the kind of man they are dealing with. I leave it to them to take care of this man when they come up against him. I think it is disgraceful that the first breach of the national wage agreement should come from this House.
I should like to put a net point to the Minister. I understand that the Minister said earlier that the Government did not intend to commit any breach of the recommendations of the report of the Employer/Labour Conference Special Committee. If that is so I should like to put a point to him. The Minister will see on the amendment sheet, amendment No. 1, which, as he knows, has been ruled out of order for technical reasons. He also knows that, if he were to adopt that amendment or the principles enshrined therein, it would be in order. That amendment calls for the allowances to be paid to the Members of the Dáil and Seanad to be the sums recommended in the report of the special committee and that such sums shall be payable on the dates and in the amounts recommended in the report.
The net point which I should like to put to the Minister, and I believe it is the net point in this debate on section 4, is: is the Minister prepared to accept the substance of that amendment? If he is, then we are ad idem. If he said, and meant to say what I understood him to have said, that the Government did not intend to commit any breach of that report, then there is no difference between us on either side of the House. However, if he does not feel that he could accept the substance of this, how does he reconcile that with the statement that the Government does not intend to commit any breach of these recommendations from the committee?
We stand over the section, as drafted, because we are satisfied it implements the recommendations of the Report.
Would the Minister put it to the Employer/Labour Conference and ask for their views?
We are dealing with the legislation now.
Is that the only answer which the Minister has to the net point?
It is a new practice in this House that when a man stops speaking he is asked if that is all he has to say.
Would the Minister put it to the Employer/Labour Conference?
The Minister is making a big mistake but it is not too late to correct it.
There were two parts to my question. One was would the Minister agree to accept the substance of this; and the other was that, if he did not, would he explain how he reconciled his failure to do so with the statement which I understood him to have made and which I quoted earlier, that the Government did not intend to commit any breach of the recommendations of this report.
I have nothing to add to what I have said. If Deputy Colley does not comprehend what I have said, then I suggest that he read the Official Report. I have nothing further to add.
I should like to make it quite clear to the backbenchers behind the Minister, and everybody else, the net effect of the changes and the point at issue, which is now clearly out in the open. We had an amendment down which called for the full implementation of the Employer/ Labour Conference report on the dates and as to the sums recommended in that report. I have put it to the Minister that, if he does not want any breach of the recommendations, he could accept that amendment or the substance of it. The Minister has refused to do so. Can there be any further doubt in anybody's mind that what the Minister is doing is committing a breach of that recommendation, because he has decided not to accept the recommendations of that report in relation to parliamentarians? Perhaps he had good reasons. I say that because the Minister has not given us good reasons as yet. In fact, his contention is that he was not failing to honour the report.
Can there be anybody who now has any doubt in the light of the discussion in the last few minutes but that the Minister is making perfectly clear that he, and his colleagues in the Government, have decided not to implement that report having regard to the fact that there was an amendment down which called for that precisely? This amendment called for the implementation of that report in full as to the amounts and the dates recommended. The Minister has not accepted it, or the substance of it. That being so, let it be quite clear to everybody, inside and outside of this House, as to what is happening.
The Minister and the Government have decided not to implement this report. No amount of twisting or turning can get over this issue. It is a clearcut issue, put clearly to the Minister, and he has made his decision clear. At least that is something. It is a gain compared with what has been happening in the debate up to now. The position is quite clear. There is no ambiguity about it. I want it clearly understood that the Minister is refusing to implement the report of the special committee of the Employer/Labour Conference. That is a committee which consisted, as I said, of trade unionists and employers specially skilled, and it was specially set up to interpret the correct application of the national pay agreement in various sectors of our economy.
That report is available to the Minister and to the Members of this House. The Minister has decided not to implement it. He has not given what any reasonable person would consider a convincing reason why it should not be implemented. The consequences of his failure rest on the Minister and on his colleagues in the Government and on nobody else. If the decision was made by the Government it could have been made hastily, but they have had every opportunity to see the possible consequences and the implications of their decision. There is no excuse for the Government saying the thing was done hastily and rushed through; they have had every opportunity to think about it. They have made their decision and the Minister, speaking on behalf of the Government, has made it clear that the Government have decided to reject the recommendations of the Employer/Labour Conference. So be it, and let the consequences be on the Minister's head.
I agree fully with what Deputy Colley has said, but the situation is even worse than he says it is. The Minister is deliberately circumventing the recommendations of the committee of the Employer/Labour Conference.
There was no such recommendation and it is high time this nonsense stopped.
Is the Minister prepared to implement the report?
Order.
I should like to know if the Minister is saying that in the drafting of this Bill he had no reference to recommendations of any kind. My understanding is that there were specific recommendations as to amounts and time. The Minister says he is putting into operation the amounts. That is only part of the committee's recommendations. It is true, as Deputy Colley has said, that the Minister is not implementing the recommendations, which had one guideline and one standard, namely, the national pay agreement. Not alone is the Minister not implementing the recommendations but he is circumventing them in two respects. He is circumventing them in relation to the time element and he is introducing a new element which was not referred to any committee, any conference or anybody apart from the Minister and possibly his Government colleagues. The circumvention arises from the fact that there are in this Bill recommendations that a bonus be paid to the Minister's own backbenchers.
Will the Deputy stay with section 4 now?
Section 4 deals with the remuneration of Deputies and I am making the case that there is a hidden remuneration in subsequent amendments to later sections.
That can be dealt with at the appropriate stage, but not on section 4.
Then I am inhibited in the case I am making about circumvention. In subsequent provisions there is a bonus or a "perk"— call it what you will—for backbenchers of the Government party.
The Deputy must stay with section 4.
On section 4, I take it Deputies on both sides will, as individuals, have to service their own constituencies, look after the business of this House and pay for what is needed to carry out that work out of the emoluments mentioned in section 4. This has been the practice up to now. Deputies on both sides out of their own resources and out of remuneration provided by the Department of Finance paid their secretarial and other expenses. My argument is that Deputies on the Government side of the House will not have to do that in future because a sum averaging £200 is being provided——
Now, the Deputy must come to the section.
The section deals with remuneration of Deputies, et cetera.
The Deputy will have to stay with section 4.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,
In conclusion, I would say that not only is there neglect—I shall not use a stronger word —in the implementation of the Employer/Labour Conference recommendations but also, as I shall be seeking to prove on subsequent amendments by the Minister himself, circumvention of those recommendations.
Tá
- Barry, Peter.
- Barry, Richard.
- Begley, Michael.
- Belton, Luke.
- Bermingham, Joseph.
- Bruton, John.
- Burke, Dick.
- Burke, Joan T.
- Burke, Liam.
- Clinton, Mark A.
- Cluskey, Frank.
- Collins, Edward.
- Conlon, John F.
- Coogan, Fintan.
- Cooney, Patrick M.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Gilhawley, Eugene.
- Governey, Desmond.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Hegarty, Patrick.
- Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Kavanagh, Liam.
- Kelly, John.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- L'Estrange, Gerald.
- Lynch, Gerard.
- McDonald, Charles B.
- McLaughlin, Joseph.
- McMahon, Larry.
- Malone, Patrick.
- Costello, Declan.
- Coughlan, Stephen.
- Creed, Donal.
- Crotty, Kieran.
- Cruise-O'Brien, Conor.
- Desmond, Barry.
- Desmond, Eileen.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- Dockrell, Maurice.
- Donegan, Patrick S.
- Donnellan, John.
- Dunne, Thomas.
- Enright, Thomas.
- Esmonde, John G.
- Finn, Martin.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom.
- (Cavan).
- Murphy, Michael P.
- O'Brien, Fergus.
- O'Donnell, Tom.
- O'Leary, Michael.
- O'Sullivan, John L.
- Pattison, Seamus.
- Reynolds, Patrick J.
- Ryan, John J.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Spring, Dan.
- Staunton, Myles.
- Taylor, Frank.
- Thornley, David.
- Timmons, Godfrey.
- Tully, James.
- White, James.
Níl
- Ahern, Liam.
- Allen, Lorcan.
- Barrett, Sylvester.
- Brady, Philip A.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Ben.
- Browne, Seán.
- Brugha, Ruairí.
- Burke, Raphael P.
- Callanan, John.
- Calleary, Seán.
- Carter, Frank.
- Colley, George.
- Collins, Gerard.
- Connolly, Gerard.
- Crinion, Brendan.
- Cronin, Jerry.
- Crowley, Flor.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Daly, Brendan.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Dowling, Joe.
- Fahey, Jackie.
- Farrell, Joseph.
- Faulkner Pádraig.
- Fitzgerald, Gene.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom.
- (Dublin Central).
- French, Seán.
- Gallagher, Denis.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gibbons, Hugh.
- Gibbons, James.
- Healy, Augustine A.
- Herbert, Michael.
- Hussey, Thomas.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Leonard, James.
- Lynch, Celia.
- Lynch, Jack.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacSharry, Ray.
- Meaney, Tom.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Moore, Seán.
- Murphy, Ciarán.
- Nolan, Thomas.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Connor, Timothy.
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Malley, Desmond.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Timmons, Eugene.
- Tunney, Jim.
- Walsh, Seán.
- Wilson, John P.
- Wyse, Pearse.
They must have wanted their increase after all.
SECTION 5.
We on this side of the House agree with section 5. It follows the line we had intended to take in this matter. Incidentally, I would be surprised if, when the Minister was researching this matter and came across the memorandum to which he referred yesterday, he did not also come across documents which showed quite clearly the directions which had been given by me as Minister for Finance in connection with the implementation of the Employer/Labour Conference report. Among those directions he would have found one to the effect of the contents of this section.
I believe it is right to do this, particularly if it is intended, as I think it should be, to ensure that remuneration for parliamentarians is regularly reviewed and adjusted where necessary in line, hopefully, with national wage agreements. If national wage agreements do not exist then we have another situation. It was for that reason, amongst others, that I proposed an amendment earlier which was defeated. The cumbersome procedure which has to be gone through at the moment, of the passage of all Stages of legislation through both Houses of the Oireachtas every time there is to be an adjustment in the remuneration of parliamentarians, is such that it contributes to the situation of which Deputies on all sides have complained in the past, that is, the long delay which has elapsed between one increase and the next.
It is true also that formerly the same position applied in regard to the remuneration of the judiciary. It was necessary in the past to introduce legislation each time the remuneration of the judiciary was adjusted. That was changed some years ago. This section proposes to make a similar change in regard to the remuneration of parliamentarians. Although there are arguments against this, on balance, I believe it is in the public interest that this should be done in this way. Consequently we support this section.
I would remind the Minister that in connection with section 2 I made remarks which would be equally appropriate to section 6 in regard to the manner in which this kind of legislation is drafted. I can appreciate that the Minister might well say to me that, because of section 5 and its operation and therefore, in future the making of orders, it may not be as urgent to codify the law as it has been in the past. There would be some substance in that argument. Nevertheless, I feel there is a great deal of unnecessary confusion in the legislation dealing with the allowances to Members of the Oireachtas and salaries of office holders. If there should be any necessity in future to amend this legislation, other than by the making of an order under section 5, it would be advisable to consider the codification of the law which existed heretofore and will be added to on the passage of this Bill.
I accept the point Deputy Colley is making. On the passing of this Bill we will have six Acts dealing with remuneration. Perhaps we should look in future to a codification of them.
Section 3 of the Principal Act deals with the salaries of the Taoiseach, Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries. Subsections (1) and (2) deal with the rates. The current rates were fixed in the 1968 amending Act which substituted new subsections (1) and (2) for what was there before. Under this Bill revised subsections (1) and (2) are being inserted. They simply replace the existing sections. The 1st July, 1973, has been determined as the date from which the increased rates of salary should come into operation. If this involves a sacrifice the sacrifice is on the part of the office holders. We expect no thanks for this and we consider that it was the proper date from which to make the payments. There were no specific recommendations made by the special committee of the Employer/Labour Conference in regard to the effective date for any revision.
I had intended to say on this section that really we had discussed all the points at issue and that it was not necessary to go over them again. However, in view of what the Minister has said, while I do not want to drag out the debate, I do feel it incumbent on me to say that we do not accept the accuracy of what the Minister has just said in regard to the terms of the Employer/Labour Conference report which I quoted earlier in the debate and that if the Minister thinks that what he said is correct the remedy has been suggested by us earlier, either to implement the amendment to apply the terms of the report as to amounts and dates or, alternatively, to implement the Bill as drafted and to seek clarification, if the Minister thinks it is necessary, from the Employer/ Labour Conference and if necessary as a result of such clarification to make an order under section 5 and the corresponding section subsequently. I do not wish to prolong the debate on this matter. I am saying this for the record in view of what the Minister has just said.
The arguments in favour of amendment No. 3, which has been ruled out of order, are those we have already made on section 4. I, therefore, do not propose to repeat them.
For the record I want to say that we have just voted on section 4. As far as we are concerned exactly the same principles and objections are involved in regard to section 7. I am not calling for a vote on it but I want to place on the record that exactly the same objections apply on our part. I am not calling for a vote simply because it is a complete repetition. That is the only reason why I am not doing so.
The present figure of £5,500 for the Attorney General was fixed by section 6 of the 1968 amending Act. The increased salary will be £7,213 as recommended by the Employer/Labour Conference special committee where the Attorney General is not a Member of the Oireachtas and it will be £4,430 where he is a full-time Attorney General and Member of the Dáil. An Attorney General who is a Member of the Dáil will thus be in exactly the same position as a Minister who is a Member of the Dáil. No provision is being made to cover the position of an Attorney General who is a Member of the Seanad.
I should like to emphasise that the Review Body did not contemplate an Attorney General who was a Member of the House; they specifically adverted to the fact that the Attorney General for some time past had not been a Member of the House but that a different situation could arise if he was a Member of the House. Having regard to the quite considerable additional duties which lie on an Attorney General if he is a Member of the House, no reasonable person can query the small increase of about £500 which the Attorney General in the House would get by reason of getting a salary related to his office of £4,430 plus his Dáil allowance.
We will be dealing later with the pensions section but I might mention that any pension he would get arising out of his Attorney General's salary would be related only to the £4,430 and he would have his right or otherwise, depending on his service in the House, to a certain pension arising out of his Dáil salary. He would be strictly comparable to a Minister but he would be full-time.
I would be glad of some clarification of this section from the Minister. He mentioned that there is no provision in this section for an Attorney General who is a Member of the Seanad. That is a fact. Is there any good reason why there should not be such a provision in this section? I am speaking from recollection, and the Minister can correct me if I am wrong, but I think that heretofore the salary of the Attorney General has been the same as the salary of a Minister. Under the provisions of this section the salary of a person who is Attorney General and is not a Member of the Oireachtas would be £7,213 whereas if he is a Member of the Oireachtas his income would be £4,430 plus £3,416. The consequence of this is that a person who is Attorney General and a Member of the Dáil receives £633 more than an Attorney General who is not a Member of this House. I would like the Minister to explain why this should be so and also why there is not provision for an Attorney General who is a Member of the Seanad.
The Attorney General at present gets £500 less than a Minister. He gets £5,500, a Minister gets £6,000.
This is by adding his Dáil allowance and his salary as Attorney General?
At present the Attorney General gets £5,500 and that is a global figure.
He does not get his Dáil allowance?
No, he does not get a Dáil allowance at all. Under recent legislation he has been somewhat below a Minister. We consider that an Attorney General who is full-time and a Member of the House obviously has additional responsibilities which deserve some remuneration and the small figure allowed is only such as to bring him up to the same level as that of a Minister. It closes the gap. The gap would not be closed if he were not holding the parliamentary responsibilities.
The question of the Seanad is a rather peculiar one. If you try to provide for some arrangement for the Seanad in relation to the Attorney General, because of the six Acts to which the Deputy has referred you arrive at the end of the day with a complex assortment of anomalies, none of which in itself can be corrected without creating other anomalies. You could have a position where the Attorney General would get more in the Seanad than a Minister who might be serving in the Seanad. The problem does not exist at the moment. Our attitude to it is that we will let perhaps wiser counsel deal with the matter whenever such a creature comes into being if, indeed, he ever does. Perhaps by then we will have codified the legislation governing these matters and the problem can be dealt with in that light.