Vol. 310 No. 2
I move:
That leave be given by the Dáil to introduce the following Supplemen-tary Estimates for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of December 1978, namely:—
Votes Nos.:—
1 (President's Establishment),
5 (An Chomhairle Ealaíon),
33 (Vocational Education),
35 (Higher Education),
37 (Fisheries),
47 (Army Pensions),
52 (Remuneration).
Can the Minister say whether any of the money concerned has been spent?
I cannot say off-hand but I am not sure why the Deputy would not consider it more appropriate to raise this question on the various Estimates.
The reason is that I do not think the House should agree to the introduction of Supplementary Estimates if there is any question that the money has been spent in advance and that, therefore, the authority of this House is being flouted. One would have thought that the Minister, knowing that a similar matter was raised yesterday, would have been able to obtain the information in regard to the Estimates he is introducing and would have been able to give an assurance that the money has not been spent.
The Deputy may take it that any procedure in regard to the expenditure of money will follow the rules and precedents in this regard.
What are these rules and precedents?
I do not propose at this stage to spell them out for the Deputy.
Do they not require that the money should not be spent in advance?
The Deputy is aware that the matter is a little more complex than that.
What is the position, then?
This point was raised yesterday also and this is the second occasion on which the Minister has come into the House without being able to tell us whether the money concerned has been spent. If Deputy Vivion de Valera were here, he would not let this situation pass.
I am simply moving that leave be granted to introduce the Supplementary Estimates. I am not introducing the Supplementary Estimates.
Deputy Vivion de Valera has expressed concern in the past on the question of whether the authority of the Dáil has been flouted in respect of Estimates.
If the Deputy has no wish to agree to leave being granted to introduce a Supplementary Estimate, he should say so.
What I would ask of the Minister is that on all future occasions he would come into the House with this information.
I will not give any undertaking to do that.
Order.
Democracy in action.
May I point out that Fine Gael should know by now that if they disagree with a Supplementary Estimate on any basis, whether on the basis they are now alleging or otherwise, the course open to them is to refuse to agree to the Supplementary Estimate? If they wish to choose to change the tradition of the House in relation to the granting of leave to introduce Supplementary Estimates that is a matter for them but they are not going to drag us with them.
It is not as simple as that. The Minister is asking for leave to introduce Supplementary Estimates that will be taken some time between now and the end of the financial year.
That is correct.
Deputy Bruton wanted to know whether any of this money has been spent but the Minister has said that we can find that out when the Estimates are being debated. That will probably be on the last sitting day of the session.
That is not quite right.
It could be on the last sitting day. As the Minister for Education is here, let him tell us whether the money in respect of his Department has been spent or does he know whether it has been spent?
The Minister knows all about his Department.
Why, then, is he refusing to disclose the information?
A big sweat is being worked up about nothing just as happened in regard to the NCEA Bill. After all the shouting Deputy Collins did about that Bill he is not prepared to take it today although I have it ready.
All that is before the House is the question of whether leave be granted to introduce Supplementary Estimates. I take it that the leave is being granted.
It is not. In view of the arrogant attitude of the Minister for Finance not only in refusing to give information but in telling us that he will not give the information in future either, I am calling a vote on the motion and I am sure that if Deputy de Valera were here he would support us in the lobby.
Deputy FitzGerald is misrepresenting totally my position. What I said was that the ordinary practice—and this is the practice one would expect from any rational person—is that in debating any Supplementary Estimate the question is put and if Deputies are concerned in regard to the answer, they can oppose the granting of the amount sought. What we are doing today is simply deciding whether leave will be given to introduce the Supplementary Estimates. If leave is not given they can-not be discussed because the details of them and the question of whether the money has been spent cannot be disclosed to the House in those circumstances. If that is the position that Fine Gael wish to pursue, they may pursue it but they must not try to misrepresent our position.
But the Minister has refused to give an undertaking to disclose the information in future.
The Deputy is not in order in discussing the Estimates. All that is before the House is the question of leave to introduce and if that motion is being opposed, I shall put the question. If leave is granted the Estimates will come before the House for debate and the Deputies can have their say then.
The only point I wish to make concerns the Minister trying to explain away what he said. He said explicitly that in future he would not give the House information as to whether money has been spent.
Not at the stage of the question of leave to introduce being granted.
This is information to which the Dáil is entitled.
On a point of order——
Order.
——I submit that it is my experience and the experience also, I suggest, of any other Deputy in the House, that the only question asked and normally permitted by the Chair in regard to the introduction of Supplementary Estimates is when the Estimates will be circulated and when it is proposed to take them. Is that not the tradition of the House?
The Minister's answer was that he did not have the information.
Surely, as this is a motion, we are entitled to ask a question in regard to it.
Apparently, the only way to be recognised here is to be disorderly.
The Deputy is an expert on that.
Could one ask for two more unlikely leaders?
Deputy Briscoe is trying to work his way down the benches.
After his performance last week one would not expect him to open his mouth again.
The question before the House is that leave be granted to introduce the Supplementary Estimates.
Order, please.
On a point of order, the Chair is putting a motion on which there is possibly going to be a vote.
Are they being kept orderly?
Order please.
Most of the interruptions in this House are from Cabinet members. Leave to introduce the Supplementary Estimates has been sought by the Minister for Finance. A legitimate question has been asked in connection with the Supplementary Estimates: Has the money included in the Supplementary Estimates already been spent? Has part of it already been spent or has none of it been spent? Surely before we are asked to vote on a matter of that nature it is reasonable that the Minister for Finance would inform the House.
The Chair will answer that after the Deputy resumes his seat. The only matter before the House now is whether leave will be given to introduce the Supplementary Estimates. Any debate on it in relation to the matter will then be in order. I am now putting the question "That leave be granted——
On a point of order——
There will be no debate on it now.
We are not asking for a debate. We are asking for a reply to a simple question.
That question may be asked when the Estimate comes before the House.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I understand that there is a question before the House.
I would remind the Deputies who are seeking to raise this in a disorderly manner that there are six or seven Estimates involved. We can-not have a discussion on them now. There is no precedent whatever for it. Asking questions is just a means of having a discussion.
(Cavan-Monaghan): The question I want to ask has been suggested by the Minister as a proper question. I ask him, through the Chair, in view of the fact that there is some doubt as to whether money has been spent or is going to be spent—and there is a lot of money involved—when these Estimates will be taken? Will they be taken before Christmas?
It is proposed to circulate them by tomorrow morning and it is hoped to take them possibly next week.
The Minister for Education has made a derogatory remark. I would like to ask him to withdraw it. In relation to the NCEA Bill he says that I am not ready to take it. It has taken him 18 months to produce it.
That is not a point of order.
I put down 20 amend-ments and I suggested to him that if he had not been in America he could have got the Bill through the House in six months.
I am putting the question.
On a point of order, surely the information——
That is not a point of order, that is repetition.
On a point of order, the information being sought is a point of order. Did the Minister for Education certify the spending of money or did he not?
The answer is they do not know.
How could the Minister know when he was in America?
