I had to summon a special meeting of the Seanad to-day at very short notice for the purpose of dealing with the Medical Bill, 1924. The position shortly is that the Second Stage of this Bill in the Seanad was passed on the 24th July, 1924, and the Committee Stage was down for the 28th July. Four amendments were tabled to it, all in the name of Senator Douglas. But on that day the Senator moved that the Committee Stage be postponed to the 22nd October, or such date thereafter as the Seanad would decide. The Minister made a statement and the motion was put and agreed to. When the date mentioned arrived the Government was not prepared to go on with the Bill, and so it was not put down in the Orders of the Day in that instance. The Minister will explain the position. I understand that an amicable solution has been arrived at, and that the Seanad will be asked to concur.
PRIVATE BILL PROCEDURE. - MEDICAL BILL, 1924—COMMITTEE STAGE.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
I feel that I do owe a word of thanks and a word of apology to the Seanad for having brought them together in this way and I propose to make my apology by giving an explanation and relating the circumstances which, in brief, were these, and which I think will justify me for the action I took in asking the Cathaoirleach to summon the Seanad for to-day. It will be remembered that a certain peculiar position was discovered a year ago with regard to the General Medical Register and the legality of the Irish Free State qualified medical men being put upon that General Register. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health, who should have had charge of this matter, being laid up at the time, I was asked to journey to London and have a conversation and conference with the officials in charge of such matters at the other side. At that conference it was agreed that, pending a final solution of this big problem, there should be temporary measures introducing legislation both here and in the British House of Commons.
That legislation would not be identical. It would be complementary. One would supplement the other. We discussed the time periods and the definite details, and I came home and was able to prevail upon the Dáil to give me all the stages of the measure which is now before the Seanad in the Third or Committee Stage. I had advanced, as the Cathaoirleach said, to the Second Reading and it passed the Second Reading in the Seanad, and we were about to enter on the Committee Stage when I was informed that certain obstacles seemed to have been placed in the way of supplementary legislation on the other side, by a certain clause of the Bill. As I had brought the Bill to the last stage compatible with later amendments, I asked the Seanad to hold over the remaining stages of the Bill so that I could have a further conversation with the people at the other side and get the points in dispute cleared up. In order to regularise the situation I succeeded in getting a dispatch from the Colonial Office certifying that the position of the medicals prior to the setting up of the Free State would be maintained until a certain day in November. That date in November was settled upon because that was the date prior to the election which had to take place for the whole of Ireland and not for the twenty-six counties or the six counties. It was thought that it would be the last possible date that the irregular position could be maintained without legislation.
This point, however, arose in June, and the Bill was not passed into law. Certain correspondence passed between my Department and the British Government, and I found that I could get, though not as regularly as through the medium of dispatch, a pretty definite assurance that the position would be maintained beyond that stage in November. However, certain confusion arose in Ireland, and certain fears were entertained. But I did succeed in getting another dispatch which would continue the position officially to a date about the end of February. I put that date because there was only one point really down for argument between my Department and the British Department, or between the General Medical Council and the Irish section of the Medical Council. I was fairly certain that it could have been finished by the end of February. However, it appears that there is to be a meeting of the General Medical Council on the 23rd of this month. They decided that that was the most suitable date for their purpose, and they asked that I should have the Irish Free State Bill law by the 23rd February. As they had been so considerate and have even gone out of their way and done what might be called an irregular thing, and carried on in an irregular way in order to facilitate the Irish Free State Medical Practitioners, we thought it would be right to put both the Seanad and the Dáil to the trouble of meeting to-day in order to get this Bill passed into law.
There have been quite friendly relations between the Irish representatives on the General Medical Council, the General Medical Council, the Colonial Office, and my office. I asked for the date in February, and as this date of the 23rd February was within the terms of my letter to them, I thought it was right and proper to accede to their request. At the same time, the point that still remained in dispute had not been cleared up until the very day on which I received an intimation from the Medical Council that they desired this matter to be finished by the 23rd February. On that date I received word from the British Government that the point on which it was held up for further conversation was not any longer to be debated by them, and that they had withdrawn any type of objection they might have had to it. Accordingly this Bill would not prevent the complementary legislation, which they had to bring in, being brought in. The position I was placed in was that about last Saturday I received two intimations together— one that it was the desire of the British Medical Council that the Bill should be law by the 23rd of this month, and I received a communication from the Colonial Office that the point that had been in dispute was no longer in dispute.
In the circumstances I did feel that it was necessary, right and proper that I should ask the Seanad to meet for the purpose of getting this Bill passed to-day. If it is passed to-day by the Seanad, and if it is adopted later in the day by the Dáil, it will allow the necessary seven-day period to elapse, and the Bill can actually become law before February 23rd. The position with regard to the Bill is that there were certain amendments to be moved by a member of the Seanad. As far as I am personally concerned, there will be only one amendment. If I were in the position that I considered the British point of view so sufficiently well argued and persuasively put, possibly I would have to bring in an amendment myself; but that has all now disappeared.
I intend to ask the Seanad to amend the Bill only in one particular. The Citation Clause refers to the Medical Act, 1924. An obvious change will have to be made there. That is the only amendment that I desire to ask the Seanad to consider. I asked the Cathaoirleach to summon the Seanad on the basis of the two communications that I received, both of which came at a date that did not permit me to advise the Seanad in time. Consequently this meeting had to be called at short notice. If I had had those letters two days earlier I could have conveyed the information to the Seanad in the ordinary way and the Bill could have been brought up in the course of your recent sittings.
I did not ask the Clerk to put down on to-day's Order Paper, for certain reasons, the amendments that previously stood in my name. In the first place, I had quite a number of conversations with the Minister ever since the measure was before the Seanad. I am quite satisfied I could not serve any useful purpose in endeavouring, even if the Seanad were with me, to insert the amendments I had tabled. There were two points on which I felt there would be some difficulty arising in the working of the Bill. One was raised on the other side, and it was one which I endeavoured to meet by giving powers to the Irish branch of the profession. Any effort to meet it, without an assurance that it would be accepted by the British Medical Council and the authorities here, would simply mean holding up the Bill without achieving any purpose. The Bill will last for twelve months, and during that period it will be obvious to the medical profession whether the difficulties I felt, and, to some extent, the difficulties the Minister felt, would materialise. Very little harm can be caused during the twelve months, and the real object that we all agree upon will be achieved. It will enable students who take out their degrees here to have their names placed on the British Register, should they wish to practice in England. It appears the export of students is almost an industry, and for that reason it would be very unwise for either House of our Legislature to prevent students being registered in England. In case there should be any doubt, and in order to comply with our procedure, I formally ask the leave of the Seanad to withdraw the amendments that previously stood in my name.
It is perfectly evident that the sooner the position of the medical profession in Ireland is defined and legalised the better. This is only a temporary Bill; there are circumstances that make that form of it necessarily so. There are also circumstances that make it unnecessary for me to propose that the word "temporary" should be made "perpetual." Behind the whole matter lies the fact that the question may arise as to whether or not the medical profession in Ireland, and those entering medical qualifying bodies, are to have the power to practice freely in the British Empire. There is a good deal of confusion in the minds of people as to what that means. Some people think it is necessary to save one's face and pocket one's pride before they avail of the advantages of practising in the British Empire. When we consider the contribution this country has made to the British Empire, it is not so much a matter of saving one's face and pocketing one's pride as demanding one's rights. There are rights which, if pushed to their logical conclusion in view of our contribution to the Empire, should demand some quota to us from the proceeds of the sale of battleships and other things by the British Empire. I mention that merely to instance our position.
We have been contributing quite a lot to the British Empire, and when the question arises of availing ourselves of the advantages which the markets may afford to medical men, there is no reason why it should be looked upon as a matter of pocketing one's pride and asking as a favour the continuance of certain powers. It is not so much a matter of pocketing one's pride and saving one's face; it is a matter of considering what it means if this Bill were not rapidly put through. If we were no longer permitted freely to exercise the rights within the British Empire that were given to medical men in Ireland before, it would mean the debasing of the degrees of famous medical institutions in Ireland and the closing of them possibly. For the wear and tear, so to speak, of the Irish medical profession, only twenty men would be necessary annually in Ireland. That is to say, Trinity College, the National University, and the Royal College of Surgeons would be given less than seven men each to qualify. Each year, 150 men are qualified in these institutions, and in the past they contributed largely to Britain. The friendly attitude in which the British Medical Council has met the Irish Medical Council largely arises from their sense of indebtedness to the work of medical men who have been qualified in these institutions.
As I said, 150 men are qualified each year. These come chiefly to Dublin, and, on a small calculation, I would say over £100,000 are spent in the city. If one considers the reaction of making ourselves more colonial than we need be, it would be a great injury to the medical profession in this country. They would be no longer rivals with Europe and the world, and the tendency, at any rate, would be to degenerate and no longer to be au fait with conditions. It would result in making science parochial, and perhaps instead of medical men we might have medicine men in the country. It is no longer, I am glad to say, necessary to labour any of these results in view of the fact that this Bill is the only method of meeting the difficulty. At present it is illegal for the medical profession practically to qualify, or for Dawson Street to issue qualifications, because they cannot be sure that they are giving to those who take the qualifications the right to exercise them to their full extent. That is the position. I am bound to point out that, inasmuch as this is a six years' course, this uncertainty is greatly injuring the qualifying institutions, and it will take 12 months before that uncertainty is removed. The quickest step to clear the situation is to get this Bill through with the utmost dispatch.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
I ought to remind the House, perhaps, that this discussion is irregular. The principle of this Bill has already been accepted by this House, because it has passed the Second Reading of it, and the Bill is down to-day for the Committee Stage. I have, however, allowed the discussion to go so far, because I thought it was important, inasmuch as such a long interval has elapsed between the time the Bill was last before us and to-day. I thought, perhaps, the House would like to know what the present situation was. We cannot have any more discussion on the general principle of the Bill, because that has already been accepted by the House when the Second Stage of this measure was agreed to. I wish now to put the Bill through the Committee Stage.
I would like to say a word about this Bill, which I opposed on the Second Reading. A long time has passed since the Bill was before us for Second Reading, and, therefore, one may be excused for saying a word or two on the general principles of the measure. In speaking on the Bill now, I do not propose to go further than I can possibly help.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
We are now going to take the Committee Stage of the Bill, and if you have any observations to make I think it would be well if you reserved them for the purpose of supporting any amendment moved on the Committee Stage. If, however, the House will give you its indulgence, I would be quite satisfied that you should speak now on the general principles of the Bill in view of the latitude that has been given to other Senators. If you desire to say something on the general principles of the Bill, I would ask you to be brief.
Perhaps, if I may be allowed, I could speak on sub-section (3) of Section 4, which states that this is a temporary measure for one year.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
Very well, Senator, the House will hear you then.