This Bill has been certified by the Ceann Comhairle as a Money Bill.
Public Business. - Superannuation and Pensions Bill, 1929—Second Stage.
Cathaoirleach
Question proposed: That this Bill be now read a Second time.
I want to make certain points which may not be said to deal with the principle involved in the Bill, but are incidental yet important to the Seanad and I think to the general question involved. According to the statement which we have just heard, this Bill has been certified as a Money Bill. While it is too late, I think, to make any formal protest in regard to that, or to raise the question in a formal and effective manner, I do make the point that sub-section (1) of Section 3 goes so far outside the purport of a Money Bill as to deprive it of that particular classification. That sub-section states:—
(1) The Minister may be order authorise the grant of pensions, allowances, or gratuities to widows to whom this section applies and may by any such order regulate and appoint the rates and scales of such pensions, allowances, and gratuities, and the conditions under which the same are to be payable, and may by any such order prescribe the penalties for any fraudulent conduct in relation to an application for any such pension, allowance, or gratuity.
I submit that that goes beyond the definition of a Money Bill in the Constitution. Article 35 of the Constitution states:
A Money Bill means a Bill which contains only provisions dealing with all or any of the following subjects, namely, the imposition, repeal, remission, alteration or regulation of taxation; the imposition for the repayment of debt or other financial purposes or charges on public moneys or the variation or repeal of any such charges; supply; the appropriation, receipt, custody, issue or audit of accounts of public money; the raising or guarantee of any loan or the repayment thereof; subordinate matters incidental to those subjects or any of them.
Now it is only possible to bring in the provision in the last sentence of the sub-section I read as " a subordinate matter incidental to" the subjects which precede. When you speak of an order imposing penalties for fraudulent conduct in relation to pensions as a subordinate matter incidental to it goes beyond, I think, what ought to be brought within the classification of a Money Bill. I make a formal submission that this Bill ought not to be considered as a Money Bill, because by the fact that it prescribes penalties for fraud to be imposed by order of the Minister it goes outside the scope of a Money Bill as defined in the Constitution.
The next point I want to raise, which, as I said before, is incidental to the Bill, is of some importance. I refer to sub-section (2) of Section 2, where reference is made to an order made by the Minister under Section 5 of the Principal Act as amended by this section. "The Royal Irish Constabularly (Resigned and Dismissed) Pensions Order, 1924, made by the Minister under the said Section 5 shall, with the necessary qualifications, extend and apply to every person to whom the Minister is authorised by the said Section 5 as amended by this section to grant a pension, allowance or gratuity," and so on.
I want to point out that that Order of 1924 is not readily available for Senators or Deputies. I ask the Minister to take special formal notice of this fact, that up to now there has been no collection of Statutory Rules and Orders made up in bound copies and available for Deputies or Senators or lawyers outside this House. That is to say, that though those Rules and Orders have statutory effect, and are in fact in many cases revisions and alterations of the law, there is no means readily at hand whereby Deputies or Senators or the public outside can put their hands upon those Orders in any bound or collected form. I am submitting this point in the presence of the Minister in the hope that he who is responsible for the Department will take such steps as will ensure, just as has been done in the past in the case of British enactments, that there ought to be available in bound form all those Statutory Orders and Rules which are, in fact, part of the statute law of the country.
I agree with Senator Johnson for the reasons that he has stated, and for the further reason that in its main provisions this is not exclusively or essentially a Money Bill. I had occasion some time ago to make a suggestion of that kind in connection with another measure. I believe that this House ought to be much more careful of its privileges than it appears to be, and although I do not wish to divide the House on this question, at the same time I cannot let it pass without comment.
Cathaoirleach
The Senator is talking about dividing the House. I do not think that he can do that on this Bill.
What I mean is that difficulties might arise, but I do not want to create difficulties.
Cathaoirleach
As this is a Money Bill, I just want to indicate to the Senator that it is beyond the power of the House to deal with the matter further.
I am not asking for a full discussion on this question. In so far as I am concerned myself I do not wish to allow this to pass without at least calling attention to it, so as to preserve in their entirety the privileges of this House should the occasion ever arise for other men to defend them. There is another matter connected with this Bill that I would like to call the Minister's attention to. This is apparently dealing with what I may call the remnants of compensation in respect to events that happened in the last ten or fifteen years, and as the Minister is dealing with remnants I think that he ought to deal with all of them. There is one small lapse, I think, and that is in regard to the dependents of soldiers in the Connaught Rangers who were concerned in the troubles of the past ten years. I would make a suggestion to the Minister that it would be just as well to consider that matter in this Bill. To do so might entail a slight amendment of the title of the Bill.
As to the first point raised by Senator Johnson, I have nothing to say. I have given the matter no consideration. The question as to whether a Bill will be certified as a Money Bill or not is a matter for the Ceann Comhairle. No application is made to the Ceann Comhairle to certify a Bill as a Money Bill. He examines a Bill when it reaches the final stage and determines for himself whether it is a Money Bill. If he is satisfied in his own mind that it is a Money Bill he so certifies it, and if he is not satisfied he does not certify it. There is no representation made to him. I am not at all sure that Senator Johnson is right in saying that the particular section to which he refers has the effect that he seems to indicate. The intention of that particular passage in the Act is certainly to enable penalties in the matter of pensions to be inflicted on persons guilty of fraud—that is to say, some deduction from the pension or something of that nature. That is the intention, but whether, in effect, it gives wider powers I do not know at the moment.
With regard to Statutory Orders being printed and issued in volume form, I am inclined to think that there is a good deal to be said for that. We issue an annual volume of statutes, and I think that probably it would be a good thing to issue an annual volume containing the Orders made under the various statutes. No doubt these Orders are all available in the library of the House, and that they can be found in other places Individual Orders can be purchased from the Stationery Office, and I am sure that they are kept in stock, but, of course, that is not as convenient as having the bound volumes available.
With regard to what Senator Comyn said about the Connaught Rangers, that matter was raised in the Dáil, and I have had some representations made to me since. I am looking into the matter, but it is really outside the scope of this Bill. This Bill deals solely with the ex-R.I.C. and their dependents, and if we were to go outside them and proposed to deal with all cases that had a claim, we would have to look further afield. I am not, at the moment, saying that the Connaught Rangers' claim should be admitted, but, if it were admitted, there would probably be other people with somewhat similar claims. I could not undertake to accept any extension of the Bill by way of including a class who have not hitherto been included without a great deal of further consideration. As I said in the Dáil, a Committee was set up some years ago to look into the case of the Connaught Rangers, and while the majority of the Committee found that the Connaught Rangers had carried out the action that they did carry out in India out of patriotic motives, the Committee was of opinion that they were in no way urged to do it by any organisation. Their case was different from that of the R.I.C. in that way, that no promises of any sort, either general or particular, were held out to them, and that consequently their case was a parallel case to that of civilians who made sacrifices of a pecuniary sort in great numbers of cases for the national interest. The Committee held that because of those circumstances the Connaught Rangers had not a claim on the State. The matter was left there and was not further examined, until, as I have said, it was the subject of discussion recently in the Dáil. I undertook that I would look into the matter again. I have had one or two conversations with people since, but I did say that I could go no further than that at the present stage.
Might I ask the Minister if some portion of, I think, more than £1,000,000 which goes out of the country annually in pensions could be paid in the English token silver which remains here?
I desire to reply to one or two points made by the Minister.
Cathaoirleach
Perhaps it would be better if the Senator deferred what he has to say until we reach the Committee Stage of the Bill on the next day that the House meets.
Question put and agreed to.
Cathaoirleach
As the time is running short for the purpose of taking the remaining stages of this Bill, it would be necessary, I think, to have a motion handed in for the suspension of Standing Orders on the next day the House meets, so that the remaining stages of the Bill may then be taken.