Before Private Members' Business I was dealing with the dominance in certain areas of activity of the Labour Party. I drew attention to certain aspects of the Minister's speech. It was a document which was devised and concocted by his Department. It was put into his hand and he was asked to deliver it. Very little screening was done by the Minister. It is full of ambiguities and half suggestions of what might or might not happen in the future. The Minister was dedicated to one area of activity only and that was to sack the board irrespective of the cost. It did not matter to him what their qualifications were or that the Labour Party can normally be expected to show justice in dealing with the work force. It did not matter that the normal practice before asking a person to relinquish their position is to give them an opportunity to make a case for themselves. It only mattered that these people were appointed by Fianna Fáil and because of some commitment he gave to a sectional interest in his party he had to bring in this legislation.
We have a party in this House who would like to think they have a big political future. They are small in number but they have designs on the sliding Labour Party vote. It is to try and shore up the voting and electoral strength of the Labour Party that they find it necessary to bring forward these edge of liberaltype policies and so hopefully retain some support among their own types. The Workers' Party have something else in mind. It is interesting to note their actions in the House for the past two months. We have heard their exposé of Fianna Fáil and what we should or should not be doing as regards appointments to An Bord Pleanála. I do not know what philosophy Deputies Mac Giolla and De Rossa follow. I do not know whether it is the Marxist or Trotskyite theory they follow. It is amazing, because if they are real followers of Trotsky or if they follow the fundamentalism of Marx, they should be the people who should be promoting the fact that public representatives should be supreme in all matters concerning Government. However, they want this done away with because it was done by Fianna Fáil.
I should like to pose a question to those two either Trotskyite or Marxist supporters in this House: what political philosophy are they following and what real political objective are they following in the House at present? Is it not strange that, irrespective of whether they are in the House, whatever their attitude to any Bill is they will get the best media and radio coverage for it particularly at the 6.30 p.m. News. It seems strange that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is not more concerned about what is going on in that area as far as The Workers' Party are concerned. We take no comfort in seeing The Workers' Party try to undermine the Labour Party. They are both running for the same vote.
The whole idea of this legislation is to divert the public's attention so the Government will not have to answer to the House for their lack of action in dealing with unemployment, pay and so on. People are to be nominated by selected groups which the Minister is not prepared to acquaint us with. The Minister probably has to scurry around the organisations which have a majority of Fine Gael and Labour members. They will probably put forward names with a fine Fine Gael or Labour label. They will be the names acceptable to the Minister. They will not be acceptable otherwise, particularly so if they have an affiliation to Fianna Fáil.
Our attitude is entirely different. Governments are elected to govern. It is their responsibility to appoint people as they see fit to the highest offices in the land. If mistakes are made it is up to the public to show by their vote what they think of the appointments made by the Government. The Minister's speech is a classic and will be prescribed reading in some Department of Political Science in some university somewhere as an example of what should not be done by way of a Second Stage speech by a Minister who feels his responsibilities heavy on his shoulders.
The new members of the board will be professionals. How the Minister expects to appoint people with no political affiliations I do not know. A judge with a man's life in his hands can put the onus of responsibility in the hands of twelve good men and true but the Minister says that Seán Citizen is not worthy to be considered for involvement in the Planning Board. There will be no representation on the board of the attitude of the man in the street when the Minister has his way. A string of degrees after a person's name does not necessarily mean he will have a practical attitude to anything, particularly planning.
One member of the board is to be a civil servant nominated by the Minister from his Department. While trying to get rid of people appointed by the Government, the Minister considers it obligatory to have one civil servant on the board. This leads me to be suspicious that this civil servant will be his messenger boy, carrying the Minister's dictate to the board and following whatever line of policy the Minister wishes to have implanted in the board. Why bother picking a civil servant from his own Department unless the Minister has something in mind for that civil servant to do? If the civil servant is carrying out his duties properly the only thing he can do is carry the wishes of his Minister to the board. That will be his means of political influence. He will shelve off his so-called political influence by having a selection committee pick a chairman for seven years. He will shelve off his responsibility to do something by way of positive planning by supposedly waiting until some organisations with majority Fine Gael or Labour affiliations bring forward names to suit him. Irrespective of whether that succeeds, he will not be left without an opportunity of influencing the decisions of the board because he will have a hand-picked civil servant on that board. We would all like to know the political affiliations of the civil servant.