This Bill has been certified by the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil as a Money Bill.
PRIVATE BUSINESS. - APPROPRIATION BILL, 1928—SECOND STAGE.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
Question proposed: "That the Bill be read a Second Time."
I wish to call attention to three or four points in this Bill, and I am doing so not so much for the purpose of criticism as for the purpose of getting information. For that reason I sent a notice to the Minister, not only saying that I was moving, but explaining my reasons for doing so, in order that he might be fully prepared to give reasons. He will have had an opportunity to look into the matter. I wish now to inform the House of what I have already communicated to the Minister. The four points I propose to touch on are the railways, the local loans, the Dublin sites and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs.
All these, I believe, are in the Appropriation Accounts, although I missed any reference to one of them. I presume it must be enclosed in some other, so that one does not recognise it. It has been hitherto in all the Appropriation Accounts. One of these, the local loans, was mentioned in the Ultimate Settlement; the others are not mentioned in the Ultimate Settlement. At all events, they were not mentioned in any of the legal documents, but were found in the British White Paper. I do not know why the others were not mentioned in that document, but apparently they were not. The Minister contented himself by stating certain facts and not explaining them. Also, as far as I could see, he avoided giving any reasons why those charges should be made. So much so that when a Seanad Committee was proposed to examine the question and see whether they ought to be charged, he objected to it, and it was, in consequence of his objection, defeated by the casting vote of the Chairman.
The view I take of our financial relations with Britain is that in the Treaty there were two clauses dealing with finance only. One was Clause 5, which dealt mainly with the National Debt and pensions of soldiers in the war. Section 10 dealt with pensions of police and officials. Section 10 is still part of the Agreement, and I am not going to question it at present in any way. Clause 5 has been repealed. My view is, if no financial arrangements have been made in the Treaty at all there might, no doubt, have been a number of questions raised between the countries, but when two very far-reaching clauses of that sort dealing with enormous sums of money for which this country would be liable, they, by implication, kept out any other claims. I do not say that there might not be some small adjustment necessary, but any large claims should be excluded, and I cannot see any justification for paying money not included in those two clauses. None of the items I am calling attention to can be included under Article X, because that only deals with officials and police. According to my opinion, therefore, we should pay nothing except what came under that particular Article X. It is quite clear that none of these items I mentioned come under Article X at all.
Another financial arrangement was made in December, 1925, by which Article 5 was cancelled, and instead of that the Oireachtas decided to pay £5,000,000 in one sum, or divide it over a certain number of years. Also, there were payments for destruction, and 10 per cent. was added for reparation. Those, as far as I know, are the only public arrangements that have been made of a financial nature, yet none of these items I mentioned come under these, either under the Treaty or under the Treaty Agreement. I think the Minister might explain why these things come under it. I may say if they came under the Public Debt they were cancelled. If they did not come under the Public Debt, or under Clause X., they should not be charged. We had no liability for these.
Going into the different points, I will first take the railways. In the Railways Act it is mentioned in all the books of the Appropriation Act of previous years that the sums allotted there are for payment of National Debt advances from the Commissioners for railways. Where does that come in? It does not come under Clause X. or Clause 5, or, if it does come under Clause 5, it is wiped out. I do not know whether any such arrangement under statute can be brought forward.
Local Loans are definitely stated in the Schedule of the 1920 Act to be part of the National Debt, and are therefore wiped out. I do not know why they are being included in this, or ever have been included since 1925. I cannot find the Dublin sites in the present list, but I presume it must be somewhere, because it has been in all previous ones, and in the books of the Appopriation Act, so I presume it is concealed under some other head. I may remark here that, in all the previous Appopriation Acts, it is stated that money for the railways came from the National Debt Commissioners, but it is skilfully avoided this year. The National Debt question is embarrassing, and not mentioned. In regard to the Dublin sites, I presume they are the offices in Merrion Street. It does not say which, but, as far as I know, we are paying annuities on them also. They do not come under any of these three heads—the Treaty, 1921, Treaty of Agreement, 1925, or Ultimate Settlement. I would like to ask the Minister where has he got that except by negotiations contrary to the statute and contrary to the Treaty.
Every Government has in its hands large sums of money drawn from the Savings Bank and other sources. They use that money very properly by lending it out for various purposes through the different Departments. They become manager on the one hand and debtor on the other. I expect that the money for these buildings was probably Irish money which was in the hands of the Government, either in the Savings Bank or in other holdings, because in Ireland there was a certain amount in the Savings Bank. Of course, that must have been in the hands of the British Government at that time. They took with one hand and lent with the other to re-build these places. Yet we are expected to pay back the British Government money that was Irish money. The Telegraph Acts come on in the same way. While all these moneys were being handed out no claim was made for like sums from the British Government. All was given to the British Government, and nothing was got in exchange. I will not lecture on the matter, but I want to get some information from the Minister and some reason for this state of affairs. I may say that it has not been, in my opinion, any great advantage for Ministers to keep these matters as secret as they did. It has been used all over the country against them—and I used it myself to emphasise my criticism of the Government—that all these matters were kept as secret as they could be kept. It has certainly done neither the Minister nor his Party any good to have these things said through the country. They will be said again if explanations are not forthcoming. A proposal to have the matter investigated was supported by about half the Seanad, but it was not passed, because the Minister said he would not attend and would not give any explanation. I would ask the Minister when making a statement to tell us as much as he can about these matters.
There is one item in the Bill dealing with appropriations and grants that I would like the Minister to inform us about. Part I of the Appropriation Account deals with the year ended 31st March, 1928. We are only dealing with that period now. I daresay certain delays occurred, but it seems extraordinary that the accounts should come on at this time. Another item in the Bill is for the salaries and expenses of the staff of the Irish Land Commission—£35,000. Surely, in the ordinary appropriations the salaries and expenses of the office of the Irish Land Commission, as well as grants, were calculated in the total amount asked for in March, 1928. How is it that our attention is only called to this £35,000 now? We should have information also about the £39,000 for disability pensions, and about a contribution of £150,000 for the relief of unemployment. How do these items come before the House now in an Appropriation Bill dealing with accounts for March, 1928? I suppose there is a reason for it, but it seems rather strange to bring these items before us now. Part II. of the same Account deals with twenty-one millions of money. This Bill is brought before the Seanad to discuss now, although we have only to-day and to-morrow to look into it. It is hardly worth saying a word about it, good, bad or indifferent, by way of criticism or otherwise.
I might say to the Minister that on looking over the salaries and expenses of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs I see that it amounts to nearly £2,400,000. The Minister will remember that in his Budget he raised the cost of sending telegrams from 1/- to 1/6. I would like to know how much money the Minister made out of that increase. It is a crippling charge on Irish trade to charge 1/6 instead of 1/- for telegrams. In the British Post Office one is charged 1/6 for sending a telegram to the Irish Free State, so that the British Government is probably making a fair amount of money out of Free State citizens, because the Ministry here wishes to make 6d. extra on telegrams. It is bad enough to have to pay 2d. on letters that can be sent in Great Britain for 1½d. I believe that is largely due to the enlarged Post Office facilities that were given in the days of the British Government, and that they were based on what Great Britain and Ireland could afford. It is probably too expensive a service for this State to bear now. It is likely that the Minister cannot give up that charge. It costs 6d. more to send a telegram to the Irish Free State than to Belfast. There must be a great deal of revenue in it to make it worth while continuing it. I may say that it creates a very false impression on the other side of the Channel that we should be subject to this special charge. People there say that, as we have to pay 2d. on our letters and 1/6 for our telegrams, this must be an expensive country to come to and an expensive country to deal with. I am only drawing the Minister's attention to the matter so that he will be able to consider it before next March. I think if it were at all possible we should do away with these annoying little things that give us a bad reputation across the water.
The Minister's attention was called last year to the outstanding case of 18 Beresford Place, which was destroyed in 1916 and for which no compensation has been paid. The Minister undertook to look into the matter, and said that if it were found that there was no case comparable with the destruction of what was known as "Liberty Hall" he would sympathetically consider the payment of compensation. Everybody knows that "Liberty Hall" was destroyed because it was the headquarters of the Insurrection of 1916. Other claims were paid by various Commissions that were set up to award compensation. In every case where a claim was made to a Commission set up under the British régime it was pointed out that the people associated with Liberty Hall were connected with the Insurrection and that, therefore, they were not entitled to any compensation. Liberty Hall is an outstanding case, and the Minister must admit that if any case was entitled to compensation it should have been one of the first. It may be said that there was delay about the claim, but in view of the activities that went on since 1924 there was not much opportunity for putting the matter before the Minister for Finance in a proper way. It was raised last year and the Minister agreed to look into it. We understand that he discovered there were fourteen or fifteen other claims, which were much smaller, and that the bulk of them would not amount to a sum that should be allowed Liberty Hall as a fair award. For that reason the Minister was not prepared to go into the question. I would like to put it to the Minister that he should get this matter off his conscience, as he, as well as everybody else, must realise that Liberty Hall would not have been blown down, and possibly this State would not have been set up, if Liberty Hall were not the centre of the revolution that took place. I put it to the Minister that he should examine the matter again with a view to giving compensation where it should properly be paid.
I am not sure that Senator Moore is simply looking for information and enlightenment. If he were, I think he could have found a great deal more in the public documents than he seems to have found. I would be very much inclined to let him explore them until he is better informed than he is. I will say one word in reference to his remarks. The Senator quoted two Clauses of the Treaty which referred to financial matters. It is at once obvious to anyone who will look at them that they do not by any means cover the financial questions that have to be dealt with. Very important settlements had to be arrived at; the whole arrangements about Departmental property and Departmental liabilities, special funds, our share of the Road Fund, the disposition of the Church Temporalities Fund, the question of arrears of taxes which had become due to the British Exchequer—which were in that sense a property of the British Exchequer—the question of the duty on beer which had been sent to England and consumed, and which really, at the taking over of financial control, gave us one million pounds net. All these things are not at all covered by the Treaty. Special negotiations had to be carried out to deal with them. They were dealt with on a certain basis, the principle of which the Senator, if he chooses, could have traced under the heading of "Working Arrangements," which were fixed in 1922 in the Transfer of Functions Order issued in March, 1922, and, I think, in special Clause of the Constitution.
I do not want to interrupt the Minister, but I want to point out that what he quoted was in force for only one year.
I am not going to enter into a disputation with the Senator. A general arrangement was entered into, and no other arrangement was possible whereby, if we took over Departmental property, we took over Departmental liabilities. The question of the telephones is a case in point. We received the telephones, but we had no title unless we took the liability which attached to them. In the case of the railways, apart from a general bargain which gave us, as I indicated, very advantageous results, it meant that there was about six million pounds revenue to which our claim was not very good, but, on the other hand, which the British Government might have very great difficulty in collecting. They could not have collected it in full. Some of it they could have collected.
So far as the railways are concerned the arrangement come to to pay these annuities was part of the general agreement. It was really advantageous to us. To illustrate how little the Senator seems to have gone into the matter I will recall to the Senator his questions with references to the annuities in respect of the Government buildings. He said that these buildings were probably built with sums advanced out of the Post Office Savings Bank funds, and he proceeds to say that these funds in the Post Office Savings Bank were partly Irish funds, and why should we now be paying the British Government? Of course the position is, in so far as that particular point is concerned, that the British Government has to repay to the Irish depositors the funds advanced out of the Post Office Savings Bank money for these buildings. The money had to be got back in order to repay the depositors. Dealing with the question of local loans, this matter has been gone into to some extent before. It crops up every year, and it is not worth while spending a good deal of time in dealing with the position regarding the Local Loans Fund. Local authorities borrowed money from the Local Loans Fund, and the authorities that borrowed that money undertook to repay it. Nothing that happened in connection with the change of Government freed the local body from responsibility for making repayment. Unless the British Government transferred the rights of the Local Loans Fund in the matter to us, we acquired no right to get that repayment from the local authority, because the Local Loans Stock was issued for providing capital for the local loans. Money was lent out to the local authorities and they paid interest and sinking fund. The interest went to pay a dividend to those who held the Local Loans Stock, and the repayment went to replenish again the Local Loans Funds. So far as the Treaty was concerned, it made no change in the position. The local authorities have borrowed from the Local Loans Fund, and they were still due to repay to the Local Loans Fund. If no further agreement had been made the position might have been that until these loans were repaid the Local Loans Fund would be recoverable from the local authorities.
Would not that be part of the National Debt?
That has nothing to do with it. I am really not replying to the Senator very much. If no further arrangement had been made, the position would be that until the debt would have been paid the Local Loans Fund would have continued to collect. It would not be desirable that you should have a Department of the British Government actually collecting here, and the first arrangement made was that we would collect and repay, deducting the cost of collection. Subsequently we made an arrangement whereby we pay an annuity of £600,000 a year for 20 years. That arrangement will give us ultimately a substantial share of the Local Loans Fund. For the first ten years we will collect substantially more than is required to pay the £600,000. For the remaining ten years we will collect less than is required to pay. The payments will continue very heavily for another ten or twelve years into our Exchequer, and in addition to that the final payment in respect of the loans will not be made until the year 2000. Senator Jameson asked why we had not on Part I. of the Schedule items referring to the year ending on the 31st March last. The position is that there is only one Appropriation Bill in the year. What happened last March was that we voted any supplementary sums that were required by the Departments, and we also got a Vote on Account for the services for the present year, and before the 31st March, the Finance Bill, to which no schedule was attached, was passed for the purpose of getting authority to issue these sums out of the Central Fund. Then another Central Fund Bill was passed. Now we are taking the final instalment of the amount required for the present year, and are appropriating the various services in this Appropriation Bill and the sums that have been voted since the last Appropriation Bill. The usual practice would be to discuss any items which had been the subject of supplementary estimates, but it would have been impossible to do so on the Finance Bill last March. If any further sums are required for any Department they will have to be included in the Finance Bill, which has to be passed before the 31st March. It will be possible to raise them in reference to matters such as the Post Office, charges for telegrams and letters.
The real difficulty here is the sparsity of population. The position is, as the Senator is well aware, that in England, with the 1½d. post, it is possible to make a profit. Here, I suppose, we do make a profit on letters. The main item of revenue is letter postage, and, in spite of the fact that it is 2d., we cannot make the Post Office pay its own way. Of course if we had never been connected with the British Post Office, and if we had not some of the services now in existence, and which cannot very well be taken away, we might make the Post Office meet its outgoings; but it is difficult to see how more than that can be done as long as there is a sparse population. It may be taken that it is impossible unless there is going to be substantial contributions from the Exchequer for the Post Office to have charges as low as in England. I am always desirous of having the Post Office pay its own way, for the reason that by that means we have some standard for our services. If we are paying a contribution of £400,000 a year, it is difficult to say that in order to increase the facilities we should not contribute £450,000 or £500,000 a year. We are always urged, even by people who are crying out for economy, to open new telephone exchanges, and to give extra deliveries of letters, and all that sort of thing. In my opinion the best and the most comfortable position would be for the Post Office to pay its own way, and, if the receipts permitted, new facilities should be given, but that if they did not there should be no increased facilities. As far as telegrams are concerned, the case I made at the time the increase was agreed to was that there was a distinct loss of money on telegrams, and there seemed to be no reason why a man in Connemara or in the Dublin slums, who never sends or receives a telegram, should be paying his share any more than could be avoided of the £120,000 a year that was being lost on maintaining the telegraph service at the rate of charges that were before that in existence.
It may be the subject of unfavourable comment outside, but it is one of the things people have to recognise, that if you have a small country with a sparse population, it is unreasonable to expect postal facilities at the rates they have in big countries, where the postman can carry 600 letters in place of the 6 a postman may be carrying here. I do not see any way out of that difficulty. With reference to the point Senator Foran raised, I believe that if application had been made for the payment of compensation, as it might well have been, in 1922 or 1923, that payment would not have been refused. Also, I am quite clear about this matter, that, if there were no other cases. I would not hesitate to make payment in the Liberty Hall case even now. The difficulty is, that while we might consider the Liberty Hall case and ascertain the amount to be paid, if the Liberty Hall case were allowed in now, in other cases it would be extremely difficult to investigate and to determine the amount; and, if we open the door in the Liberty Hall case, we might have to open the door in cases we never heard of. If Senator Foran's union had come forward in 1922, when only half the time that has elapsed now had elapsed, an investigation would have been easier than at present. We would have had an interval of only six years then, and in their case we should have had a fair chance of being able to conduct an investigation; but, when twelve years have elapsed, the position is somewhat altered. I do not deny that there is force in the argument of Senator Foran, but I think there is a certain blame attached to those he represents for not making their claim in some sort of reasonable time. It is a really extraordinary thing that during the three or four years in which Senator Foran's union might have made a claim, and when the whole country were making claims, they allowed that time to elapse without putting forward their own particular case.
I hope the Minister will reconsider his attitude in the case of Liberty Hall. If he does and our case is met, I want to assure him that we will not ask for any interest on the money.
I would be prepared to discuss the case with the Senator, and to hear his further representations on the matter.
It is to be hoped that in the reconstruction Senator Foran will have a fair wage clause.
The Minister seems to have missed my point about the telegrams. As for the twopenny stamp, I admit that I did not raise any argument about that. What I did say about telegrams was that while a charge of one and sixpence was put on here, that there is also made in England a charge of one and sixpence on telegrams sent to the Free State. The British Government is making money out of us as well as our own Government. A letter sent from England has only a three-half-penny stamp on it, but on telegrams coming from Great Britain to the Free State there is a charge of one and sixpence. That is a decided handicap upon the trade that is carried on between the Free State and England. I have no doubt now that the matter has been brought to the Minister's notice he will look into it before he frames his next Budget.
Question:—"That the Bill be read a Second Time"—put and agreed to.