When the House adjourned on Thursday last I was replying on this amendment to section 24. During the course of the debate last Thursday, and on the other days on which this Bill was debated, but particularly on last Thursday, spokesmen from this side of the House made very valid arguments as to why this particular category of employee of a local authority should not be qualified to stand for election to the local authority for which he was working. If the Minister sought to qualify the employee of one local authority to stand for election to another local authority our objections would not, perhaps, be so strong, but what the Minister proposes is, in our opinion, absolutely ludicrous; and, in the intervening period since last Thursday, I and my colleagues on this side of the House have been confirmed in the viewpoint we expounded here when this section was being debated last Thursday. The people are now more aware of what exactly the Minister is proposing and they are in total agreement with our point of view. People have been amazed at what the Minister is proposing. That has been the general reaction. You may find the odd person who has a vested interest and who expresses a different point of view but the general feeling on the part of the public is that this is a retrograde step.
The Minister is excluding every other local authority employee. How he can distinguish between one category and another is something I cannot understand. We believe that no employee of a local authority should be placed in a position in which he could find himself elected as a member of the council for which he is working, given the conflict of interests that must arise, the awkward situations that could develop and the clash of loyalties that could result.
I do not want to repeat the arguments we advanced last Thursday. The Minister made no attempt to answer them and he gave no valid reason for not answering. The debate last week took place under a cloud. That cloud was caused by the continuous threat issued by the Minister that, unless we hurried up, the Bill could not be debated in both Houses in time to come into effect for the local elections on 18th June next. Looking back, I think now we were right to ignore the Minister's threat because, on the following day, Friday, the Government Chief Whip made an approach to the Fianna Fáil Party. The assistant Whip was in charge when the approach was made. A very strong appeal was made to the Fianna Fáil Party to agree on Tuesday, today, to allowing the Bill to conclude in the Dáil. I will go so far as to say that the approach made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach was close to a begging request.
