Vol. 8 No. 19
I move:—
Section 1. To delete in line 21 the word "twelve" and to substitute therefor the word "nine."
The Bill takes power to have twelve Ministers in the Executive Council. My amendment is in the nature of a compromise, to have three open Ministries which may be used for Extern Ministries of vocational councils.
I second.
I take it that the Senator, in moving the amendment, does so because he believes that the system that has grown up known as the Extern Minister system, ought not to be given up, and that he really believes it would be much better to continue as at present with a certain number of Ministers who are not members of the Executive council, probably with a desire that vocational councils might afterwards be appointed in connection with these Ministries. As it stands, the Bill leaves that optional. It provides that the Constitution as it exists at present can be carried out if a President chosen by the Dáil, with a majority to support him, desires to carry it out. It further provides for what we might, for brevity, call the British system, or the system which is used in most countries, by which all Ministers are members of the Executive Council, if they desire. What the Senator proposes is a sort of half way between, leaving three Ministers outside.
I would suggest to the Senator—and I think he knows that I have a great deal of sympathy with him because I am not completely convinced that the provisions in the present Constitution if carried out would not have been satisfactory—that there is no particular gain in making the Executive consist of nine. It is far better to leave it optional, to leave it to the President to carry out one or the other. I think that the amendment would not be a gain from any point of view.
I would like to give the reasons I feel that I am unable to support this Bill. I hope in giving these reasons I may be able to convince some other Senators to agree with me. We are all aware that when the Constitution, to which we all gave assent, was prepared, a provision was introduced into it to enable a certain number of Ministers to form what is generally known as a Cabinet, and I believe the idea of the extern Ministers was introduced with a view to economy. At all events it gave an opportunity for economy to be exercised. These Ministers might be people who had special capacity or special knowledge of doing certain work. They should not necessarily be members of either House of the Oireachtas and they could be employed in a temporary manner. It seems to me that to take power now, after this Constitution has only been in force for a few years, to wipe out this provision altogether is quite unnecessary and most undesirable. I have not heard any valid reason given for the change—nothing to convince anybody that there is any necessity for it. It has not been long enough in operation for a proper test to be made, but we may be quite sure of one thing and that is, that if this Bill is passed in its present form full advantage will be taken of it and that in this poor, miserable little country which is not Ireland but only twenty-six counties of Ireland, we will be saddled in future with twelve Ministers and twelve Ministries. That works out on an average at a Cabinet Minister for nearly every two counties. I would like to know if there is another country in the world which is provided with such an excessive amount of Ministers for the amount of work to be done.
The Six Counties.
Every articulate public body in this country has protested against the number of Ministers we already have, and everybody who has a stake in the country has also protested that instead of an increase there should be a diminution in the number of Ministers. The country is being bled white and there is not the slightest question about it, if this Bill is passed it will be bled whiter still. We have an example of that in the case of the farmers. The farmers are having extracted from them by direct taxation far more than they are able to pay. They are deprived of the means of stocking their farms. If you go through the country you will see that the country is not half stocked. Ministers themselves recognised that fact when they introduced the Bill to enable farmers to borrow money to stock their farms which they should be able to stock by putting a good year against a bad, except for the fact that the money is taken from them in local taxation, which I am sorry to say Ministers have done nothing to curtail, and in public taxation. The whole of the money is taken away for administrative purposes. The country is calling for a reduction in the number of Ministers.
I said a moment ago that I did not hear a single argument adduced as to what is the necessity for this Bill, or why our Ministers are so over-worked that they cannot carry on with the existing seven Ministers—I mean Cabinet Ministers—and want to increase the number to twelve. If we look at some other countries and compare what Ministers have to do, and the responsibilities they have to bear, we will see how absurdly under-worked Ministers are here. There is no question the country as a whole is largely of opinion that it would be a great deal better off with half the legislation that is passed. I do not know whether Ministers are as much in touch with casual people as some of us Senators are who have to go down the country, but I was greatly struck by what an old fellow said to me recently. He put it in a very ungrammatical way, but probably in a very epigrammatic way. He asked, "What on earth are you all doing up in Dublin? You are doing nothing but passing Acts of Parliament. What this country is suffering from is want of neglect." If we had fewer Ministers to devise Acts of Parliament, and if they could devote their attention to cutting down expenses it would be infinitely better than increasing their number and then inflicting upon the country a great many more Acts of Parliament.
To compare the number of Ministers here with that in other countries, let me give you a few figures. In Great Britain they have a population of 3½ millions per Cabinet Minister, and each Cabinet Minister has to deal with a revenue of something like 66 millions. In the United States I may say all the Cabinet Ministers are Extern Ministers. None of them has a seat in either House. Each Minister has to deal with a population of 9.2 millions and a revenue of 20.7 millions. In France each Minister has to deal with a population of 3 millions—that is nearly the total population of the Free State—and with a revenue of 15 millions. The Minister is looking at me as if to ask: "Why are you taking all the big countries?" We will come to the small ones. In Belgium, which is smaller than Ireland, each Minister has to deal with a population of 630,000 people and a revenue of 2.75 millions. In Holland each Minister has to deal with a population of 600,000 and a revenue of 2¼ millions. In Italy he has to deal with a population of 2.3 millions and a revenue of about 10 millions. In the Free State, if this Bill passes, each Minister will have only to deal with a population of 290,000 and a revenue of 2.2 million pounds. After to-day's Budget it will probably be reduced to two million pounds. With these facts before us I do not see what possible argument there can be for increasing the number of Cabinet Ministers. It undoubtedly must lead to expense. For that reason I cannot vote for the Bill, and I hope other Senators will feel in the same position.
Some of the last speaker's arguments were in favour of the amendment and some against it. The Minister will probably resist this amendment. He will resist it because it has the same element that induced him to resist——
On a point of order, I was not dealing with the amendment at all.
You were not dealing with the amendment?
I was only dealing with the Bill.
I wished I had noticed that sooner and had stopped you.
Surely I am entitled to speak on the Bill.
Not on the Report Stage.
This amendment is really a compromise. It gives the Minister a little of what he wants, an increase from seven to nine, whereas under the Bill he could go the whole hog and have twelve. It still leaves a margin and it preserves to Senators and to the citizens—to wit, Patrick Murphy, of Skibbereen—some margin of the privileges, nominal though they may be, accorded to them by the Constitution. I think it is a very fair compromise. It will not increase the cost of administration in any sense, as Senator Barrington seems to imply. Whether a Minister is an extern Minister or an Executive Minister he has to be paid, I presume. I do not know whether he gets more as an Executive Minister than as an Extern Minister. Whether you take him as a member of the Executive or otherwise, his Department will cost the State the same amount of money. I made my protest against this Bill previously on the grounds that there was no effective liaison between this and the other House, and that our business and the legislation of the country generally was to that extent injuriously affected. We wanted a more effective liaison as contemplated in the Constitution. The provision made in the Constitution to effect that has broken down. Our experience in this House has shown that to be the case. I support this amendment to be consistent in my protest on broad lines.
The principle underlying the Bill was that it should be open to succeeding Presidents to decide just how much of the field of administration they were prepared to take collective responsibility for, how much of the general field of administration would be thrown into the circle of collective responsibility. It was asked that there be given to each President discretionary elasticity. The amendment, in fact, says that there shall not, and that is described as compromise. The amendment limits the expansion of the Executive Council to two additional members, from the present seven to a proposed nine, and I think that is unreasonable. At the moment, outside the Executive Council in this country, which is predominantly agricultural, you have the Department of Agriculture. You have local government, a matter which touches people very closely in their everyday lives, and it perhaps comes home more pointedly to a great many people than the central Government. It is very questionable whether Departments of that kind should be simply matters of single responsibility—the single responsibility of any Minister—and Senators know that in fact people have not adjusted their minds to acquitting the Government generally, the Executive Council, of responsibility for these matters.
If they feel that things are wrong in Local Government matters they blame the Government. If they have criticism or comments to make with regard to agriculture, again, it is the Government. Again I suggest, Deputies, Senators and still less the general public, have not adjusted their minds to this idea of the single responsibility of an individual Minister in respect to an important sphere of administration and personally I do not believe that they ever will. These matters will always be regarded as of concern and responsibility for the Government generally. I have stated frankly that we do not think as much of the Extern Minister idea as some of us did in 1922, when it was embodied in the Constitution. I attempted to explain that it is a matter of theory, this matter of single responsibility, rather than of fact, for the reason that every important proposal of any of those Ministers has its financial consequences. It has financial reactions and the Minister for Finance is necessarily and naturally a member of the Executive Council. These matters, because of their financial reactions, become, in fact, matters of collective responsibility. Take the position of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. Practically any administrative proposal of his has its financial side, must get the concurrence of the Minister for Finance and consequently becomes the collective responsibility of the Executive Council. Take the position of the Minister for Agriculture. His recent move in the matter of the dairy industry involved large expenditure. The Executive Council found itself compelled to sit in judgment on that necessarily because of its financial aspect. This collective responsibility idea is fictitious theoretically and could only work in practice because there has been such a good understanding between the Extern Ministers and the Executive Council as a body. There is very little in it, if anything. We do not secure in fact, as we hoped we might, that mitigation of the rigidity of the party system. You do not secure in the Dáil free non-party discussions on the proposals of these Ministers. It would be very difficult to realise that ideal because almost all their proposals involve considerations of finance and thereby and therefore involve the Executive Council and become matters of collective responsibility. That being so, is it unreasonable to ask that each President, on his election, be free to decide whether or not he would resort to this Extern Minister idea at all; whether he would not fix the responsibility for every act of administration and make them all matters of collective responsibility?
Senator Barrington did not seem to realise what was involved in the Bill He talked the facile talk of economy as if it were a question of the number of Ministers involved rather than of the nature and character of the Ministers and their responsibilities; whether we are going to perpetuate and stereotype this fiction of the single responsibility of the Minister for Agriculture for agriculture, or the Minister for Local Government for local government, and keep those matters removed from the joint responsibility of the Executive Council as a body. At the moment, at all events, the position is theoretically that these Ministers stand on their own legs and are singly responsible to the Dáil. If any of them were defeated on a departmental proposal it would have no reactions on the Executive Council. If the Executive Council as a body went out, the Extern Ministers would remain. That is splendid in theory, but does it work out that way in practice? It has had a five years' trial, and we know there must be collective responsibility; for Agriculture, for the Post Office, for matters in Local Government, for any matter that involved expenditure at all, radiate immediately and necessarily into the sphere of the Executive Council, and become matters of collective responsibility.
Senator Bennett's amendment seeks to say that at least three Departments must be left outside the field of collective responsibility. Is it wise to tie the hands of a President in the matter of the extent of the general field of administration that he would make the subject of collective responsibility? I do not think it is.
The question of the number of Ministers to be appointed is quite another matter. I can assure Senator Barrington that the Extern Minister idea had no aspect whatever of economy. It was a constitutional fact; it was an idea that you might correct the rigidity of the party system by making certain departments the subject of free non-party discussion and division in the Dáil by excluding them from the sphere of collective responsibility.
You might have it differently worked.
Theoretically you might, no doubt, but in effect, as I pointed out, it would be very difficult to work it, otherwise than it has been worked. For this reason, suppose the Minister for Local Government or the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs singly responsible to the Dáil and not identified in any way politically with the Executive Council. He has a particular proposal that involves a very large expenditure. It is put up to the Minister for Finance, and after due consideration turned down by him. He is to come to the House and rant against the Minister for Finance. He could say, "Believe me, Deputies, I could make this country blossom like a rose only for the tight-fisted Minister for Finance and his colleagues on the Executive Council." As a matter of every-day procedure, is that an ideal? It is a kind of dog-fight between the Extern Minister and the Executive Council, the one claiming that he could do wonders only for the tight-fistedness of the other. The Senator has shown in his remarks that he has not adjusted his mind to this Extern Minister idea. He referred to the burden of local rates, a matter which he said Ministers have not done much for. What Ministers?
Local Government Ministers.
There are no Local Government Ministers.
There is one.
Yes, there is one singly responsible to the Dáil. The Senator showed in his remarks that he was not adverting to the fact that it was a matter of single responsibility. He threw his charge in a general way against the Executive Council. He said Ministers had not done sufficient to relieve the burden of local rates. The question of Ministers and the number per head of the population each one has to deal with is one we cannot discuss at length, and one which we should refrain from discussing if only for the reason that it has nothing whatever to do with the Bill. The Senator in his abstruse calculations might work out what number per head of the population he has to deal with and then we will discuss it on some other occasion.
The proposal underlying this Bill is simply that the President elected after the General Election will be free to take, if he so decides, envisaging his own political circumstances, into the circle of joint collective responsibility the entire field of administration. It does not say he shall not leave any Department outside to be dealt with as a matter of single responsibility. It does not propose to cut out of the Constitution the Extern Minister idea entirely; but asks for a discretionary elasticity for the President in the matter of deciding how much of the field of administration shall be the subject of collective responsibility. I think that is a perfectly reasonable proposal that should be endorsed by any Senator who has given it a few minutes reflection.
Before this section is adopted I would like, in a very few words, to refer to one aspect of the matter that I do not think has been touched upon to-day. The Bill is described as an Act to amend the Constitution by increasing the maximum number of members of the Executive Council from seven to twelve. As I understand the Bill, and I agree with it generally, if passed, the President will have power to absorb into the Executive Council certain individuals, not necessarily the Ministries, which is a totally different thing. Will it also confer power upon the President to put out of the Executive Council individual Ministers taken in if, in his opinion, any Minister is not required or if a particular Minister will not work with the Executive Council? If this Bill is passed the President might, after the next General Election, bring in a Minister for Agriculture to the Executive Council and he might find that the Minister did not work satisfactorily with the Executive Council and he might wish to have somebody else. But as I take it, having once got the particular Minister in he cannot get him out. It is important to know, therefore, is this a Bill for absorbing the Ministry into the Council or only for absorbing the individual Minister. If it is the Minister representative of the Ministry who goes into the Council it would be naturally open to the President having the power of bringing him in that he should also have the power of putting him out.
Surely every President of an Executive Council has power to get rid of a colleague.
He might be put out and the President might bring in a successor.
There is no advantage in a Minister being within the Executive Council. I think the advantage is the other way. Once a Minister becomes a member of the Executive Council thereby his Department and his administrative acts become a subject of collective responsibility. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is responsible, with me, for the Intoxicating Liquor Bill. He is responsible with me for every act of mine from Monday morning until Saturday night and so is every other member of the Executive Council.
For every act?
For every official act. That is the position within the Executive. It is a group jointly responsible and one cannot be defeated in the Dáil without the whole group going down as a political entity. If the President after the General Election combines all the Departments in the Executive Council then each Department becomes the subject of collective responsibility no matter who is the political head of it.
And remains there all the time.
Remains there for the lifetime of the Government. If, on the other hand, he says, "I do not propose to fill certain posts; the Dáil must fill these and the persons holding these posts will be singly responsible to the Dáil," that is another matter. There is the Procedure Committee in the Dáil which will have to appoint the Minister and, therefore, the Minister so appointed is, theoretically, responsible to the Dáil. The Minister for Agriculture was appointed in this way; the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was appointed in this way; the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Fisheries were appointed in this way. And there is not at present in respect of these Departments collective responsibility with that reservation I have spoken of, namely, whenever there is a proposal involving finance. In that case the Minister for Finance has to get these proposals and to pronounce judgment upon them and the other members of the Executive Council are jointly responsible with him.
I think from the observations of the Minister we may take it that if he was President he would absorb all Ministers, and would have them all members of the Executive Council. We may assume, therefore, from the arguments of the Minister, that the purpose of this Bill is to destroy vocational councils. He told us that the existing position was wrong, and ought to be changed. Have we reason to think, with an experience of a short period like three and a half or four years, that we are justified in arriving at a conclusion, that, assuming a change of Government, and a new outlook, this is a power we ought to put into the hands of a President, to exclude an idea given such prominence to in the foundation of this whole Consituation? Ought we to scrap that at such an early period, and allow any future President to absorb into the Executive Council anybody he likes? For my part I do not think it is a good idea. I think that the present position has not been sufficiently tested and tried. I believe that in a small country like ours, if the President is enabled to have twelve members in the Executive Council, it would mean that that council would really mean a council of three or four Ministers doing the work, and that the other seven or eight would be nonentities. My proposal was meant to correct the rigidity of the party system. The party system apparently is very rigid; there is only one party in this country at the moment, but another party may arise, and more than one other party. I think the provision to arrange for Extern Ministers and vocational councils, or for the absorption of persons of great capacity was a very valuable one. I have heard no argument advanced that would satisfy me that the Constitution should be departed from by this amendment Bill. I think the compromise, as suggested, ought to be accepted by the Seanad.
One thing that seems to be lost sight of is that the election of vocational Ministers would make it possible to avoid the choice of the people after an election in the country. In other words, that under a so-called democratic Constitution there would be a loop-hole for sentimentalists and other people being created Extern Ministers without having faced the hustings. That is one strong argument why the Extern Minister idea ought to be got rid of at once if we are to have constitutional representation in this country. You might have a crank coming in or a person who by reason of some new trend in liberal thought, such as calling Jews aliens, and being made a Minister, thereby avoiding the democratic choice of the country. For that reason I stand by the Bill, which leaves it at the discretion of those who assume responsibility, such as a President does, to seek his colleagues from among those the country has provided him with.
The only thing in connection with Senator Bennett's remarks is this that it is not proposed to scrap this provision. It is proposed to leave it to the President to decide in face of political circumstance and exigencies whether he will take over the entire field of collective responsibility or leave certain departments to be filled by the Dáil.
One other point, Senator Bennett does not yet seem to have got used to the fact that it is an inherent defect in a Bill to amend the Constitution.
I take it this applies to the next amendment?
Yes.
Amendment 2 not moved.
Bill ordered for final consideration.
