I am afraid most of the matters that have been discussed here are things that have come in as a kind of side-wind to this particular piece of legislation. The real matter that is dealt with in this Bill is the postponement of the elections for urban districts from a time in January to a time in June and the bringing of the date of elections for urban districts into definite relation with the date of elections for the county councils and the re-starting of a triennial series that was broken as a result of the conditions—I might say— following 1914 down. I am glad to get the kind of general approval that the Seanad has given to the general scheme of the Bill. It was necessary in dealing with the main matter in the Bill to make clear what was the position with regard to certain bodies that had been dissolved. The effect of Section 3 is to give the Minister the discretion that he still has arising out of previous legislation to keep the Commissioner system going in Dublin City, in the Dublin Union, in Cork City, and in the three urban districts of Trim, Ennis, and Westport. Senator Haughton misunderstood the position with regard to Trim, Ennis and Westport. They will be continued, as far as I can see at present, under Commissioners but if the situation changes to such an extent between this and next June that we think the election can be held, we would be prepared to allow urban elections to be held there. Section 3 gives us that particular power and in the third part of the Bill, we propose to postpone the elections in County Dublin, as distinct from the County Borough of Dublin, so that we will not have elections in the very many bodies that already exist in County Dublin under the circumstances. You might have an election next year costing anything from £5,000 to £10,000 according to the area covered and as a result of decisions taken under the Greater Dublin Commission, you might have a re-election of those bodies or a replacing of them within twelve months. The Bill retains, to the Minister, his discretion in regard to certain dissolved bodies and proposes to postpone elections in the County of Dublin that would otherwise take place there.
Senator Haughton suggested that September would be a better month than June. Perhaps in the way he put it, it would be introducing politics into Local Government if we postpone the elections to September. It would not however cover his point with regard to migratory labourers. The point it would raise with regard to this is that they leave at a date in June and are away for a considerable period.
A date in June has been selected after exhaustive considerations, and seems the date most generally agreed on. The county councils seem satisfied. June is a good date for them. We had to postpone them to the end of June to get rid of the difficulty created by the new register not being the statutory register until the 1st June. We had to get away from the 1st June by a period of about twenty days. I do not think it is possible to get away from the June date of the election, and I think even if the matter were properly reasoned out on an amendment, we would find a better date could not be suggested. With regard to Cork and Dublin, part of the discussion would seem to suggest that the Government had departed from the principle of elected bodies. That is not a fact. The Local Government Act of 1925 makes it perfectly clear that in any case in which a body has been dissolved, for any reason stated in the Act, not later than three years after the date of dissolution of the body the Minister will cause an elected body to be re-elected, and will hand to that body all the powers and properties that originally existed; so the principle is not departed from at all. A partial discussion of that principle cannot take place on a Bill like this. If the discussion is to take place, let it be applied to the definite matter concerned. If, in discussing a Bill dealing with one main matter, we attempt to discuss anything that is only partially related to it, we can get no satisfactory discussion of the matter beyond having a few opinions expressed. These opinions even do not get a fair opportunity of carrying weight, because they are not related to a proposal to take a definite decision. I would not like it to be understood that the legislation at present existing implies in a way a departure in the matter of Government policy from elected bodies. If we take what has been said with regard to Cork and Dublin, I think that the Senate perhaps has had some slight evidence in the discussion that has taken place of how questionable it is to discuss the merits, good, bad or indifferent of the dissolution of these two bodies. I suggest that it really does not arise on the Bill that is at present before us. If the merits of the case with regard to Cork and Dublin were to be discussed, I suggest they ought to have arisen on the Local Elections (Dissolved Authorities) Act, 1926, when it was before the Senate here. I think that the discussion might have taken place then, and might rest until that particular Act had run its course. The matter was discussed here in 1926, and under the Act of 1926, the Minister for Local Government was given authority to retain Commissioners in Dublin and Cork to a date not later than the 31st March, 1929. Nothing has arisen since, so far as I am concerned as Minister for Local Government, either with regard to Cork or Dublin. The suggestion to replace the Commissioners there by elected bodies has arisen on this particular Bill, and not in any kind of formulated way. Senator Dowdall's case in 1926 was that there was not a tittle of opposition in Cork. The matter was next brought to my attention by a Deputy who has had considerable experience of city government in Cork suggesting that the Corporation ought to be restored there, but at the same time that, instead of a Corporation of 56, there should be a Corporation of 12 or 20. That suggestion contained a very radical change, and I think it ought not to arise as a side-wind to this particular legislation here. On Cork, I have simply to say what I said in the Dáil on this matter, and that is: If there is going to come from any class of the community in Cork ideas which we consider cannot be better, we are not going to stand in the way of their being put into operation at the earliest possible moment.
Senator Dowdall said there has been a Bill, but so far as I know that Bill has been left to hang fire, practically to see what is going to be the result in Dublin City. The interests of a city like Cork are great and important, and if allowing the election of a new elected body in Cork to wait over for nine months, that is from June to a date not later than the 31st March, 1929, is going to give perhaps one or two additional important ideas towards the solution of city government there, the delay would be well worth while. However the position is that if Cork City people are moving in the way Senator Dowdall says they are no one will be happier to see what they are going to do than the present Minister for Local Government, and everything they have to say will be very carefully and sympathetically examined.
On the question of Dublin, as I say, a discussion of the past brings us into a discussion that has not its roots in anything. We cannot have a discussion with its roots in anything except we are discussing something practical. The practical proposition that faces us here to-day is the Report of the Commission on Greater Dublin, which draws our attention to the fact, on Page 3 of the Report, that in the area to be comprised within Greater Dublin, and to enjoy unitary control and administration in that area, there now function some 19 thinking and spending authorities. This report has been published since November, 1926. The time that has passed since has not been normal. The co-ordination of the different bodies that exist in Dublin, the standing back and looking at the affairs in the City and County of Dublin, with a valuation of upwards of £2,000,000, will require very careful examination and thinking out. I do not think that, in our present circumstances, a complete examination of this report and a complete setting up of our proposal in connection with the matters and their embodiment in legislation could be expected sooner than the spring of 1929, and we are not asking anything unreasonable when we ask that the present system of government in Dublin City should be continued until such time as we are able to bring forward these proposals. The present County Council in Dublin should continue to deal with the government of County Dublin until such time as we have settled the whole question as to what is to be done with the Greater Dublin Commission's report. To do anything other than that would be either to skimp and to rush a consideration of this very important matter or, alternatively, to have elections for the City and County of Dublin spending on them something like £10,000 and dissolving these bodies say, in less than twelve months, in order to replace them by other types of bodies.