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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 10 Dec 1981

Vol. 331 No. 9

Supplementary Estimates, 1981. - Vote 15: Stationery Office.

I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £507,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1981, for the salaries and expenses of the Stationery Office; for printing and binding, paper, publications, office machinery and other office supplies for Public Services; and for sundry miscellaneous purposes.

Briefly, this Supplementary Estimate is for a sum of £507,000 sought to provide for increases of £117,000 in salaries, wages and allowances for the Stationery Office and for increased expenditure of £790,000 for paper and publications.

Six hundred and ninety thousand pounds.

Seven hundred and ninety thousand pounds for paper and publications.

No, it is £690,000 on the order.

I am assured that the earlier edition of the Estimate was in error. The sum mentioned then was £690,000. The publication on the file and circulated subsequently was £790,000.

I am at a loss. I got one from the Dáil Office this morning, to make sure that it was up to date.

Is that Pl.355?

No, it is Pl.241.

Pl.355 is the correct one and it shows £790,000.

On a point of order, could the Minister explain? How did this £100,000 come about? The Estimate on the publication which I collected this morning from the Dáil Office is in respect of a total of £507,000. The additional for salaries is in line with what the Minister has said and for paper and publications is £690,000, bringing a total of £807,000, which is correct mathematics, and then of course, the savings of £300,000 taken from that. The savings on A.2. amount to £300,000. When that is taken away the final total is £507,000. What is the total Estimate now?

By way of explanation, the Supplementary Estimate contained in Pl.355 was circulated in substitution for the Supplementary Estimate already circulated at Pl.241. I gather that Pl.241 was circulated earlier in error and should have been withdrawn. The correct sum has now been circulated, namely £790,000.

Would the Minister of State agree that this is surely a most inefficient way of handling the business? It affects the Department of Finance and the Stationery Office of that Department. I express my thanks to the Assistant Clerk of the Dáil for giving me the correct one now. But I would have expected that the Dáil office would have been notified.

It is only an error. Do not make a song and dance of it.

We had another discussion here prompted by the Government party over another £100,000 which went on for years.

That may be, but this is a clerical error.

It is not a clerical error. It is a change in figures. The figures go from £2,998,000 to £3,098,000.

None of it has been spent in Germany to buy arms.

I resent that comment by the Minister. Unless it is withdrawn I refuse to co-operate for the remainder of this Estimate. I am asking the Chair to request the Minister to withdraw that insulting, uncalled for remark. Unless it is withdrawn I refuse, on behalf of this side of the House, to co-operate not only on this Estimate but on the remaining Estimates today.

Acting Chairman

A clerical error has been made here.

I am not talking about the clerical error. I am talking about the low, insulting, uncalled-for, demeaning remark of the Minister in the House.

It was made in reply to Deputy MacSharry's remark.

What did I say?

Deputy MacSharry said that there was a lot of talk about £100,000 on another occasion, and in response to that I said that none of this £100,000 was spent on arms. That is all there is to it.

Is the remark withdrawn?

If the Chair says that it is unparliamentary I will withdraw it.

I did not say it is unparliamentary. I said it was uncalled for.

Then withdrawing it does not arise. Deputy MacSharry's remark was not called for either.

I am refusing to co-operate on this or any other Estimate.

Acting Chairman

The remark was irrelevant. Let us get back to the Estimate.

It may have been irrelevant as far as this Estimate is concerned, but I am refusing to co-operate with the other side of the House unless the remark is withdrawn.

Acting Chairman

Could we get back to the Estimate?

Not until the remark is withdrawn.

I think we should deal with the matter in hand.

I am on my feet. I intended, and was prepared, to co-operate to the very best of my ability and was not making any issue of the clerical error in regard to the £100,000.

It sounded like that.

If the Minister had only had patience. Obviously the Minister is a little bit testy, for whatever reason. If he had only waited, the complaint was a justifiable complaint.

Acting Chairman

Could we get back to the Estimate?

The complaint was with the non-notification of the General Office of this House. That office deserves more respect from the Minister and the Department concerned. I want the Minister to withdraw the remark he made which was uncalled-for and irrelevant. Until it is withdrawn I refuse to co-operate with the Government on this and the remaining Estimates.

If the Chair says that the remark was unparliamentary and out of order, of course, I will withdraw it. But if we are going to get into the business of asking each other to withdraw political charges across this House, there will be no end to it.

There was no need for that political charge.

There was no need for what Deputy MacSharry said.

Acting Chairman

The remark was irrelevant. Could we now get back to the Estimate?

It was an insulting and a demeaning remark. But the Minister lowered himself to make such remark. I am entitled to resent and resist it.

The Deputy can certainly resent it if he wants to.

Until it is withdrawn the Minister will not have the co-operation of this side of the House on the remaining Estimates. The choice rests with the Minister.

If the Chair rules that I made an unparliamentary remark I will withdraw it. But I am not going to withdraw anything because Deputy Fitzgerald wants me to do so.

We are not in a hurry with the Estimates.

So the Deputy will hold things up and make a bigger mess of the country.

No. The Minister is now losing his cool. It is unbecoming in the Minister.

The Minister made a mess of the figures himself. It is not a clerical error because there are changed items in both documents.

It is not that the Department have not got enough staff to help out. It is costing the country half a million pounds over and above the civil service. It is a reflection on the civil service and the public service.

The Estimate has been moved and an explanation given.

Until such time as that remark is withdrawn I will not co-operate.

It is already agreed that the Estimate will conclude not later than 2.30 p.m. So, if the Deputy wants to waste time until 2.30, that is his privilege.

The Minister is aware that, depsite the agreement, we can still oppose the Estimate which presents problems for his side of the House as well. It could not then be disposed of in accordance with Standing Orders and that presents a problem too. So the decision now rests with the Minister.

It rests with Deputy Fitzgerald.

The Minister has not the common courtesy to withdraw that remark. I would have expected more from a Minister that I held in some regard in this House. I do not think that the remark he made was called for.

That remark has been made hundreds of times in this House in the past.

The Minister has lowered himself and demeaned himself but, of course, what else can we expect because this is the type of Government we have at present. One cannot expect anything but remarks of this nature which sound rather traditional, reminiscent of incidents in the past. I will leave it at that. But I protest not at a clerical error which would be understandable, but that the General Office of the House was not informed of the change.

On this point I want to say that one could accept a clerical error. But this is not a clerical error because Pl.241 and Pl.355 contained different items and the major item is the reason for the £100,000 difference now that we have seen Pl.355 is an increase in appropriations-in-aid which were not on Pl.241. It was more than just a clerical error; it was a mistake in the preparation of the Supplementary Estimate. I want to know what procedures the Minister will adopt to eliminate any danger of a recurrence of this kind. It might just as well have been £1 million that we were talking about. We come in here prepared to discuss Supplementary Estimates as circulated to us and find that when we arrive here that Pl.241 as circulated is now defunct and is replaced by Pl.355 with no explanation other than the note on top of it that this Supplementary Estimate is a substitute to the Supplementary Estimate already circulated.

The explanation is simple and the situation is in no way unusual. There was a printing error in the printing of the Estimate sheet.

Acting Chairman

Is the Minister concluding?

It was a printing error on the original Estimate which was circulated and it has been corrected. The original Estimate was £2.308 million. The Supplementary Estimate is now £790,000 and the subhead provides for the purchase of stocks and supplies of paper, envelopes and miscellaneous paper items and for the purchase for immediate delivery to Departments of special requirements such as punch cards.

The Supplementary Estimate is required to meet the increased cost in 1981 of these items. It is a substantial increase of 34.2 per cent on the original Estimate. If there was an error in estimation it was in the original Estimate which I would say was under-estimated by 34 per cent.

Not too bad when you place it beside an inflation rate of 25 per cent. However, the point at issue has not been replied to.

Deputy MacSharry is correct — this is due to another example of incompetence.

Acting Chairman

Deputy Fitzgerald has already spoken on the Estimate.

We are co-operating in trying to understand something. We have been talking about the withdrawal of a document from the General Office. On the Supplementary Estimate, I want to know of the difficulties the Stationery Office have been faced with because of the situation in the Clondalkin Paper Mills. Has the issue raised by Deputy Allen been cleared up? Was the paper for which we are providing made at Clondalkin, and if the mills there do not continue in operation beyond December what will the effect be?

I was asked about the total value of the paper purchased from Clondalkin from January last. On 1 December Deputy Walsh asked a question about the total value of the paper from January to 27 November. The value was £1.294 million. It is difficult to estimate the amount for a full year but I can give a monthly breakdown. In January, the amount was £60,000; February, £62,000; March, £72,000; April, £29,000; May, £165,000; June, £191,000; July, £192,000.

What percentage of that was bought at Clondalkin?

It was all from Clondalkin Paper Mills.

That makes it all the more important that the Government should do everything possible to keep the mills open and to keep the 400 employees at work.

Vote put and agreed to.
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