I move amendment No. 22:
In page 5, before section 11, to insert a new section as follows:
"11.—The following section shall be substituted for sections 26 and 27 of the Act of 1977 and section 5 of the Act of 1958:
`(1) The Board and the Council of the Institute shall have the same membership.
(2) The Board and the Council of the Institute shall consist of a chairman and twenty-two members.
(3) The Chairman and ordinary members of the Board and of the Council of the Institute shall be appointed by the Government in accordance with the following provisions:
(a) seven persons shall be nominated by such agricultural and rural organisations and in such manner as shall be determined by the Government,
(b) one person shall be nominated to be an ordinary member by each of the following:
the Governing Body of University College, Dublin,
the Governing Body of University College, Cork,
the Governing Body of
University College, Galway, and
the Board of Trinity College, Dublin,
the Minister for Education,
the Minister,
the staff of An Comhairle,
the staff of the Institute,
the Irish Veterinary Association,
(c) two members shall be nominated by the General Council of Committees of Agriculture.
(d) the remaining members shall be representative of institutions providing courses of study in agriculture mentioned in section 12 (1) (d) of the Act of 1977.
(4) The provisions of the Schedule of the Act of 1958 shall apply to the Board and to the Council of the Institute.
(5) The Minister may provide by order as regards the members who are to be representative of the staff of An Comhairle and of the staff of the Institute for the selection for nomination of such members. Nothing done by or on behalf of the Board or of the Council of the Institute shall be invalid solely by reason of the fact that representatives of the staff have, due to unavoidable delays, not yet been appointed.
(6) The Chairman shall act as chairman both of the Council of the Institute and of the Board. He shall hold office on such terms and conditions as may be determined by the Minister from time to time.' ".
This is the major amendment we are putting forward to this Bill. It seeks to go to the heart of the Bill and to the purposes in the Minister's mind in proposing the Bill. To explain the case for our amendment it is necessary to go back to what has happened in the recent past, I hope not in a manner in which one gets involved in any unnecessary politics but simply for the purpose of illuminating what the amendment has in mind.
The previous Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Clinton, on assuming office found himself with a series of reports and recommendations from various people to the effect that the advisory, educational and research services under the aegis of his Department needed to be reorganised and streamlined. He proceeded to take decisions, decisions that in fairness it should be said had been long delayed, on the issues contained in the various recommendations. His decision was that the advisory, educational and research services which hitherto had been operating under separate directions—the research service was under An Foras Talúntais and was set up in 1958; part of the educational service and the advisory service were under the county committees of agriculture and the remainder of the educational service, the college education service, was the direct responsibility of the Minister for Agriculture—should be reorganised and brought together under one authority which was to be known as the National Agricultural, Educational and Research Authority, which was subsequently abbreviated to NAA.
The main principle was not one of title but that the various services should be brought together under one single authority with one single direction and with the staff being employed under one authority and the previous separate entities that had existed with independent functions should exist under a single guiding authority. The then Minister's purpose in doing so was to ensure that they followed the same line of policy and that decisions in research which obviously had implications for education were taken with a view to their educational implications and that decisions in education also took account of the decisions taken in the field of research.
The idea was that one policy would be followed by one authority in the single overriding interests of Irish agriculture. This was incorporated in the 1977 Bill. During the debate on that Bill, the present Minister, then Opposition spokesman on Agriculture, declared his total opposition to the principle of the Bill in so far as it involved bringing the Agricultural Institute in as a component part and merging it with education and research services under one authority. The then spokesman felt that the decision to abolish the Agricultural Institute was unwise, that they should retain their independence and that it was only if they retained their independence that they would be able to work as well as they should.
This was a genuine difference of opinion. The present Minister was wrong. However, whether he was right or wrong, it was a legitimate argument, a political issue on which there could be a difference of opinion. On attaining office the Minister reversed the work of his predecessor and introduced this Bill, the purpose of which is to take the Agricultural Institute from under the authority of the National Agricultural Authority and have them as a separate entity with freedom of action subject only to their responsibility to the Minister.
There are certain advantages in this from the point of view of the Minister, the staff of the institute and other people. By exercising greater freedom some good may come from their research programmes. But there are also disadvantages. The Agricultural Institute could pursue one line while the comhairle, which is concerned with research, advice and education, could pursue a different line. There is no easy way to reconcile these operations unless the Minister intervenes and tells them to co-ordinate their activities.
That one must go to the level of the Minister to get co-ordination between two separate institutions whose basic objectives must be the same suggests that no matter how well intentioned the Minister may be, there will be instances where the proper degree of co-ordination will not take place because there are two separate institutions with separate staff structures and separate interests. We all know that institutions tend to acquire an interest of their own rather than the interests of the people they are intended to serve. This is not to suggest that there is anything selfish or wrong about these people. But it is a fact of administration that institutions tend to acquire interests of their own. So long as there are separate institutions concerned with research, advice and education there will be divergence of interests between them and divergence arising from the fact that they are separate administrations. It is inconvenient or difficult to co-ordinate them when there is one institution in one town and another somewhere else and no central direction keeping them together, when one is doing research and the other providing advice and education. Deputy Clinton proposed to join them together so as to make sure they were co-ordinated. The Minister may have accepted a lot of the arguments put forward by Deputy Clinton, but felt there were other arguments in relation to the independence of research and the continued existence of the Agricultural Institute which were of greater importance. This is a legitimate area of disagreement and I do not propose at this stage to argue one case against the other.
I have tried to approach this Bill on an independent basis, looking at it on its merits and trying to put forward amendments in the light of my experience. I am not seeking to follow everything done in the 1977 Bill. I am quite ready to put forward other proposals if I think they will meet the case. The amendment we are putting forward is designed as a compromise to meet the legitimate argument of the Minister and the legitimate objectives of his predecessor. It proposes that the Agricultural Institute as a legal entity would continue to exist: it would not be abolished as was proposed in the original Bill. The comhairle being created in this Bill would also continue to exist. Legally they would be two separate institutions, but with one major difference, in that they would have the same personnel on both their boards.
This would not make the employees of An Foras Talúntais the employees of the comhairle or vice versa. The staffs would be separate and would have the right to have their own staff structures, promotional opportunities and so on. Perhaps fears about the staff position was one of the reasons why some of the staff of An Foras Talúntais were so opposed to the proposals made by the previous Minister. Their fears will be met by this amendment, because the institute will continue to exist as an independent entity, as will the comhairle. But there will be only one guiding voice in the policy field, because the two boards will consist of the same members.
The board will meet on one day as the board of the comhairle and perhaps the same day or another day they will meet as the board of the institute. The same chairman will preside and the same people will represent the different interests. The result will be that there will be continuity of policy. When those people are dealing with the affairs of the institute they will be the people who met the previous week as the board of the comhairle. Therefore, they will be aware of the needs of the comhairle and of their difficulties in relation to obtaining results in research or whatever. They will be able to bring the knowledge they have as members of the board of the comhairle to bear on the exercise of their functions as members of the board of the institute and vice versa. While the two institutions will remain separate and the Minister's major objection to Deputy Clinton's proposal will be met, the overriding objective of Deputy Clinton to ensure a unified direction in policy will also be met by the fact that the same board consisting of the same people will be doing the two jobs.
This is a very reasonable compromise between two sincerely held and legitimate points of view. It meets the bulk of the case made on both sides. If it is a good compromise—and I hope it is; I have only my own opinion to go on yet until I hear what other people say—I am only sorry that it was not put forward earlier. If it cannot lead to a solution we shall have to try again. The Bill has not gone through the House and if this amendment does not meet the case we can put forward another. Naturally, we reserve our position to do that if this does not meet with agreement. As of now, I think this is a reasonable amendment which meets the Minister's case and also the case made by his predecessor. It is a proposal which is in the interests of Irish agriculture.