Seanad Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 13 Dec 1938

Vol. 22 No. 6

Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Bill, 1938 (Certified Money Bill)—Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee)

The purpose of this Bill is to give effect in principle, though not in detail, to certain recommendations of the Shanley Committee. We have not found ourselves able to give effect in particular to those recommendations of the Shanley Committee which related to the salaries of Ministers and of the holders of other parliamentary offices. In general, I may say that, in regard to the salaries attaching to Ministerial posts and parliamentary offices, they remain at the figure at which they were first fixed in the Ministers and Secretaries Act of 1924.

We do not propose to give effect to those recommendations of the Shanley Committee which provide for the payment of allowances for expenses to leaders of the second and third largest Parties in Dáil Eireann. The reason for doing that I think will be clear if we consider the basis upon which Parliamentary government as we know it is supposed to rest. It is, that in the realm of public affairs there is a function not merely for the initiator, the projector of legislation, and for the administrator of the public estate, but also a position for the critic who, to serve the public good, will bring a critical faculty to bear upon all the proposals and all the actions of the Government of the day. In our view it is obvious that those upon whom, as a result of public election, this task of critical examination devolves should be as well equipped for it as possible. They are discharging a public duty and, in the view of the Government, as in the view of the members of the Shanley Committee, they certainly should not be called upon to bear, in their private capacity, the full financial burden of discharging that duty. It is as a contribution towards the cost of this public work that the allowances set out in this Bill are being provided.

I hope that in discussing these particular provisions we shall not have a repetition of the mis-statement which characterised the debate on the Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) Bill. These moneys are being provided, not by way of salary, for the leaders of the Parties for whom they are intended. They are not intended to be the personal perquisite of any member of the Oireachtas. They are provided in order to enable those Parties to fulfil their constitutional function in this State and to put them in a better position to do so. I trust, when we come to discuss the Bill in detail, that at any rate it will be quite clear in the mind of every one of us that, as I said, no personal profit and no personal advantage will accrue to any man in his individual capacity by reason of the fact that these allowances are being provided. They are, as it were, given to the custody and put under the control of the leaders of the two Parties for whom they are intended in order to enable them and their followers to discharge the public function which the people have allotted to them.

Part IV of this Bill is concerned with a grant of pensions to former holders of a qualifying office and to the widows of such persons on their death, and with the grant of allowances, during minority, to the orphan children of such persons. Senators who have compared the Bill with the report of the Committee of Inquiry will have observed that, with one major exception, the Bill is broadly based upon the committee's recommendations so far as its essential features are concerned. The major exception to which I refer is the fact that the Government have felt impelled to depart from the committee's recommendations, first of all, in regard to remuneration during office, and also have had to take the responsibility of providing pensions for Parliamentary Secretaries. With the special knowledge which we possess of the services rendered by Parliamentary Secretaries and of the risks and sacrifices, actual and prospective, which they, equally with Ministers, must incur in serving the public, and of the disabilities under which they likewise suffer so far as provision for the future of themselves and their families is concerned, the Government, as I have said, in this Bill have provided for the grant of pensions in respect of Parliamentary Secretaryships at two-thirds of the rate appertaining to Ministerial office. The rates proposed for children's allowances are identical in each case, but in the case of widows of Parliamentary Secretaries will also be at two-thirds of that provided for the widows of Ministers.

Turning to the definition of Ministerial office which is in the Bill, it will be seen that it applies both retrospectively and prospectively and covers all those who have already held Cabinet office or office in the Government under the First, Second and Third Dáil Eireann, or have been members of the Provisional Government, or of the Executive Government of Saorstát Eireann or have held the office of Ceann Comhairle in the Dáil, as well as those who now function or will in future function as members of the Government under the new Constitution or as Ceann Comhairle.

The Government is unable to accept the recommendation of the Shanley Committee to make the post of Attorney-General a pensionable one, and, as I said already in the other House, they did not reach that conclusion without much hesitation. We have, however, amended the Bill as originally introduced, following the representations made in the debate on the Second Stage of the Bill, so as to make provision by way of gratuity for an Attorney-General who has ceased or shall in future cease to hold office by reason of a change of Government, provided he has not less than four years' service in office. The amount of the gratuity is equal to one-half of a year's salary, and is intended to tide the ex-Attorney General over the period after the cesser of office during which he will be gradually taking up again the threads of his professional career.

There are a number of other matters embodied in the Bill which are either consequential on conclusions already mentioned or are of minor importance in the framework of the scheme. The principal of these is the fact that, as the result of discussion in the Dáil, the Government has departed from one of the recommendations of the Shanley Committee in regard to the non-abatement of military service pensions by reason of the fact that the holder of such pension is also a recipient of a Ministerial pension.

There is, perhaps, one other matter to which I should call attention, and that is that under Section 14 (4) (d) double pensionable value is given for service rendered before 11th July, 1921. I should say that most of the surviving Ministers of that period are already qualified for maximum pension under other provisions of this Bill and would not need the reckoning of that period of service in the manner prescribed in this Bill, but a few former leaders have left dependents but ill-provided for and these would not, otherwise, be eligible for awards. The Government feel that it would be invidious and entirely contrary to the wishes of the Oireachtas to have them excluded.

In submitting this Bill and recommending it to the approval of the House, I welcome the opportunity of repeating the tribute which I have already paid to the thoroughness with which the Shanley Committee of Inquiry discharged the duties entrusted to them and to the good sense and careful appreciation of the public interest which they displayed in the recommendations embodied in their report. I submit this Bill to the House in the belief that, as I said elsewhere, it will contribute materially towards attracting high-minded persons to office in the service of our country and towards preserving proper and right standards of democratic government here in future.

Mr. Douglas

My general attitude on this Bill is the same as that on the previous Bill, with just one difference. I am and have, for a great many years, been strongly in favour of the majority of the provisions in this Bill. My principal criticism is that it should have been passed years ago. Had it been so passed, I believe it would have made for good government. Having been a member of the Constitution Committee, I was amongst a few people who were asked, in the very early days of the life of this State, to express an opinion on this question. I expressed very strongly a view in favour of the immediate provision of pensions for Ministers. Nothing that has occurred since has made me change my mind. At the same time, I also advocated the provision of some allowance, larger than that for a Deputy, for the leader of the Opposition, so that he might provide himself with secretarial staff. Instead of increasing what is sometimes regarded as an objectionable type of opposition, I believe that that would have the opposite effect because the better an Opposition is organised, the more reasoned and careful and useful will be its criticism of the Government. To that extent, I support the Bill. I do not propose to go into details, except in regard to one provision which seems to me to deal with the general principle of the Bill.

Having decided to do a number of things, not necessarily unpalatable things but things which they knew might be misunderstood and become unpopular through misrepresentation, the Government failed as it were at the last jump and acted contrary to what I believe to be their own convictions when they did not implement the recommendation of the Shanley Committee with regard to Ministerial salaries. As one Senator said during the interval, you can be "penny wise and pound foolish" and I do not believe it will ever pay this or any other State—particularly a small State —to underpay those who hold Ministerial positions or leave them, by any chance, in a position in which by family misfortune, or for other reasons, they might have to incur debt. This matter has, fortunately, nothing whatever to do with Party or individuals. It is a matter of principle. I should like to see this House recommend to the Dáil that the report of the committee with regard to Ministerial salaries be adopted. That is a thing which, I think, might very well be done after careful and proper consideration by the Seanad.

Professor Alton

I should like to support the suggestion made by the last Senator. The committee went very carefully into the question of Ministerial salaries. At the time—and more so later—some of us realised that we erred in being too niggardly. When one realises the number of what might be called meritorious, as distinct from merely official, tasks which fall upon a Minister, it is essential that he should be able to act with dignity and without the worry of the little economies that are rendered necessary in the case of a more ordinary person. In other countries where this foolish economy is in vogue, I know that certain abuses have crept in. I do not believe they have crept in here, and I do not believe they will creep in here. I urge the Seanad to make a recommendation which would place our Ministers in a position to discharge their extra-official duties with, I shall not say, magnificence, but with the proper dignity demanded by their position and by their country. The Seanad would be very wise to urge that the Ministry should, at least, adopt the recommendations of the committee. I should go even further to-day than I went then.

Donnchadh O hEaluighthe

Do labhair mé cheanna ar Bille mar seo, agus níl le rá agam anois ach go bhfuilim ag cuidiú leis an Bhille seo. Is doigh liom go bhfuil a lán daoine eile ar aon intinn liom. I spoke before in favour of the other Bill, and I intend to vote for this Bill. I have known a number of ex-Ministers and a number of the present Ministers. Some of them are very good business people, indeed, but they devoted their time to national freedom and, because of their activities in that direction, they were not able to give the attention to their business which they had previously given. Unquestionably, we had a number of able Ministers in the past, as we have a number of able Ministers in the present Government. They are not working trade union hours of employment. They are working overtime. While other men are devoting their time to their business and advancing it, these men have been giving their service to the State. Because of that, they are not in touch with their businesses, as they formerly were. It would be a desperate state of affairs if men who had given national as well as Ministerial service were, because of national service, to be abruptly cut off from their businesses and the emoluments they were receiving. I do not think that any other remarks of mine are necessary to recommend the Bill to the Seanad.

Professor Tierney

I support the suggestion made by Senator Douglas. I do so, not necessarily because of any admiration for any member of either the present or the past Government, but because I think that this is a question which transcends personalities. It is a great pity, indeed, that, owing to the influence of Party politics, a certain element of personality has in the past been involved in this question of Ministerial emoluments. The reason why these emoluments have been kept so low as they have been since the commencement of the State is because Party feeling ran so high that there was a danger that, if an attempt were made to remunerate our Ministers as they ought to have been remunerated, Party capital would be made out of the proposal. It is not a question of this Minister or that Minister, and it is not a question of setting the emoluments of those who hold these high offices in contrast with the wages that are earned by people whose services to the nation are not so great. I would be prepared to go anywhere, before the poorest audience in Ireland, no matter who they were or no matter from what they might be suffering, and maintain that it is in their own interests, almost more than in the interest of anyone else to see that the men at the head of this State are enabled to carry out their duties in a proper way.

To my mind, this question of Ministerial emoluments is altogether different from that of the allowances to Deputies. That is a matter about which there might be some argument, but on the question of Ministerial emoluments I have no doubt that it would be to the great advantage of this country if the ordinary salaries of Ministers could be raised, not merely to £3,000, but to £5,000 a year. I do not think that anybody in the country would have cause to regret that. I say that for a reason in which I believe particularly strongly myself I believe that we are in a stage of social experiment in this country and that we have not yet reached the position where we have evolved, so to speak, a native headship of the nation: and we want in this country, almost more than anything else, to my mind, to get the leaders of the ordinary people into a position where they can hold their own in social matters, and in the ordinary amenities of life, with anybody in this country, no matter how well-off that person may be. I believe that it is in the best interests of the people of this country that our leaders should be in such a position.

As everybody knows, Ministers have to work very hard. No matter what Government they may be members of, anybody who has seen Bills put through the Dáil and Seanad by Ministers knows that their work is of a kind that falls to the lot of very few people in the country. It may be said that, if they have to work so hard, they have very little time, in the ordinary course of their duties, to take part in the activities of social life, but that, again, is an argument for securing, in the interests of the people, that whatever time they should be able to devote to social life and social amenities, they should be able to devote that time freely and on such a scale as will enable them to compete with any other class or type of person in the community.

We hear a great deal about certain social drawbacks from which we suffer in this country. We hear about the growth of certain abuses in our country districts, such as the excessive number of dance halls that are run for profit, and so on. I believe, myself— I am convinced—that a great many of these social abuses spring from the fact that we have no native social attraction, so to speak, in this country, and I believe it is the greatest mistake we could make, even though it may spring from very high motives, to cut down the capabilities of our national leaders in that respect. If our Ministers—and the thing should not be kept within too narrow a range—if Ministers and parliamentary secretaries and people connected with the Government, who have been entrusted with the work of governing the country, were unable to live a proper sort of social life, I believe that that would have a great and very bad effect, in the end, on the general social life and amenities of the country. There is nothing that we want so much as something in the way of a native upper class in this country, if I may use the term—and I hope it will be understood that I am not using the term in any invidious sense—a class that springs from the common people and retains its touch with the common people but which, at the same time, is enabled by the common people to carry out its duties in such a way as would be consonant with the ancient honour and dignity of the people of this country.

I should be very strongly in favour of Senator Douglas' suggestion, and I should hope it would be possible for the Seanad to adopt it. There are other aspects of the Bill, however, in connection with which I must confess that I have some misgivings. I am not so optimistic as Senator Douglas is on the question of the payment of Leaders of the Opposition. From what experience I have had of an Opposition in our circumstances in this country, I would be prepared to argue that a great deal of the sort of opposition we normally get here is not dictated by the highest national considerations at all. I do not want to be taken as saying that in any offensive way. I have the feeling, however—and I think it has been borne out by the present Minister for Industry and Commerce— that a great deal of the very active, capable, and even self-sacrificing Opposition that we had when the Cumann na nGaedheal Government was in power was not dictated by the highest national considerations or by the best interests of the people, but by the desire to score Party victories. No question could be discussed at all— at that time, at any rate—except in the most fanatical Party light, and it was impossible to get the best minds of the country to get together and study national problems impartially and objectively. I have the feeling that, with the two-Party system—or with the two Parties and a bit, as we seem to be providing for in this Bill—you are not going to get that kind of properly critical, impartial and constructive Opposition about which Senator Douglas is so optimistic.

I do not think this idea is of real value at all. I quite admit that this proposal of paying Leaders of the Opposition is intended, generally, to be, not a contribution to any person's emoluments, but rather to enable the secretarial work of the Party in opposition to be carried on. I think, however, that, in this country, with our record of Party politics, the provision for that kind of work could very well be left to the Parties themselves. I do not think we are ever likely to suffer for long from a lack of an Opposition Party or Opposition Parties in this country, or that there is such a famine, or is likely to be such a famine, in Opposition Parties as that we should go out of our way to make special provision for them by legislation. I regret that this proposal was put forward at all. I regard it as one of these ultraparliamentary and ultra-democratic devices, like Proportional Representation, which, personally, I, at any rate, regard with hardly anything but horror. I do not think you can gain anything by means of this elaborate sort of mathematical provision. I hold that politics should be allowed to take their normal course in this country, and I think that that normal course is always likely to be fairly lively.

Mr. McEllin

I am very glad to see Senators taking an independent stand in this matter and expressing their individual opinions in the manner in which they have been doing so, so far, in connection with this Bill. I am glad to see them expressing their own opinions, and that the thought of this House is not exactly a replica of what is thought in the other House. I do not know, however, that I would altogether agree with Senator Tierney when he says that there is so much fierceness in the arguments or debates in the Dáil, or that Party politics plays as big a part as he suggests. There is one thing, however, that I do hope we will never have in this country, and that is what might be called a mutual agreement society, either in the other House or in this House. I think there is no better safeguard for the institutions of this country than a good, healthy argument, and I hope that Deputies or Senators, or Parties, or whatever they may be, will always preserve their independent lines of thought and express their individual opinions on the various topics of the day, as they see them.

Now, Sir, there are one or two points in connection with this Bill on which I should like to question the Minister. One part of this Bill says with regard to pensions that a pension will become available to a Minister only if he applies for it. My point with regard to that particular issue is that if a Minister is entitled to a pension for the services rendered I cannot for the life of me understand why it is necessary that he should have to apply for it. I do not know why it is necessary, unless the principle behind it is that some Minister might be of such independent means that he would not require it. I do not think that is fair to the man who finds it necessary to apply for such a pension. It would not be fair to him or to his honour to feel that others had not applied for it because of having more of the world's wealth at their disposal. I do not think it is a good provision to have in the Bill. If a man is entitled to a pension he should get it without having to apply for it. With regard to the other points which have been mentioned, it strikes me that a Minister who qualifies for the maximum pension and is afterwards returned to the Dáil will have an income of, roughly, £980 a year. It seems to me that a Minister who has that advantage will feel, when he has paid his income-tax out of £1,700 a year, that there is a temptation for him to follow the line of least resistance—to claim his £500 and take his £980 a year, rather than assume the responsibilities of office with £400 or £500 of an increase. I begin to think that there is a good deal to be said, from that point of view, in favour of Senator Douglas' suggestion and Senator Tierney's suggestion that a Minister——

Mr. Douglas

If the Senator goes much further I shall change my mind.

Mr. McEllin

——is not fully paid at £1,700 a year; in other words, that he is not getting sufficient to compensate him for the extra worries and work of office. Under those circumstances I should be inclined to agree with the suggestion that the recommendations of the Shanley Committee should be adopted.

Professor Johnston

I rise to support the suggestions made by Senators Douglas and Alton with reference to the clause in the Bill which fixes the salaries of Ministers. I wonder whether Ministers were actuated by some feeling of false modesty when they accepted the draft of the Bill now before us, and placed the salaries payable to themselves at a figure which we cannot help regarding as excessively modest. If that be so, may I illustrate the point at issue by telling a little anecdote, the application of which will, I hope, be sufficiently obvious to the House? Sandy McPherson was pouring out a glass of whiskey for Jock McGregor, and afterwards Jock McGregor was heard to remark that Sandy McPherson was a very mean man. When asked to illustrate that contention somewhat more clearly he said: "I told him to stop and he stopped." At the precise point where the other man told him to stop, he stopped, instead of splashing in a little drop more. The Ministers, in regard to this Bill, told the Oireachtas to stop at £1,700. Did they really mean us to stop at that point? If not, would it not be better that we should accept the suggestions of Senator Douglas and Senator Alton and recommend the other House to fix a salary which we think is commensurate with the extreme public importance of the offices that are held by those persons? There is scriptural ground for maintaining that "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox which treadeth out the corn." There is here a certain regrettable tendency to devote too much attention to the effort to muzzle the oxen, and not enough attention to the effort to see that there is as much as possible in the way of corn and other wealth to tread out. I think that consideration applies to the salaries of Ministers, as well as to some of the matters we were discussing earlier on this occasion. That is all I should like to say with reference to the Bill at the present stage.

Professor Alton

I forgot to ask the Minister whether it would be possible to raise the pension in the case of a child that has lost his father?

Mr. O'Donovan

I notice that speakers who criticised the allowances of T.D.'s some time ago now want to be more munificent in the case of Ministers. I should like to point out to the House that the present Ministry up to quite recently did not accept even the salary which is suggested in this Bill, and I think the House would be quite well meeting the matter in agreeing to what is suggested in this Bill. The only point which particularly strikes me about it is that the allowance of the Taoiseach himself, whoever may be the Taoiseach, is the same as the allowance granted to the Lord Mayor of Dublin. Now, there should not be, and there is not at present, any comparison between the services which are rendered to the country by the leader of the Government and the services rendered by the person who occupies the position of Lord Mayor of Dublin. Of course, there are two ways of arguing the matter; it might be argued that one should be increased or that the other should be reduced. I certainly at any rate wish to point out to the House that there is that bad contrast between the Lord Mayoralty of this city, which is certainly the capital city, and the leader of the Government of this country. There are intricacies in the Bill that I have not studied, or at least that I have not tried to paraphrase, but they will probably be explained to us in Committee. I should, however, like to ask the Minister whether it is possible that this eventuality might arise: That an ex-Minister would receive £500 pension, that he could be elected to the Dáil and get £480, that he could be the leader of the Opposition and get an allowance of £800, and furthermore have a military service pension of, we will say, £250 or £350. That would bring him a total of £2,030 or £2,130, as the case may be. Granted, of course, that that £800 is supposed to be an allowance for secretarial assistance, it seems to me that, apart from aiding the Opposition Party to criticise and amend the motions before the House, it is actually money to pay the critics. It seems to me to be a subsidy to the Opposition Party. If we take it that the Fianna Fáil Government is in power, there is no subsidy to the Fianna Fáil Party.

Mr. M. Hayes

Shame.

Mr. O'Donovan

An allowance of £800 a year to the Opposition is partly, at any rate, a subsidy to what was called the Fine Gael Party, or, as they call themselves now the United Ireland Party. To some extent, it is actually a subsidy to the Opposition Party, as well as an allowance to aid criticism. I am not in favour of any increase in Ministerial salaries, apart from the allowance which should be given to the head of the Government. I have spoken already in favour of an increased allowance to T.D.s because I think they deserve it. The salaries of Ministers, no matter how great or how arduous the work they have to do, are certainly what is often called a living wage. There are still many people unemployed, who have to live on the barest allowance—it could scarcely be called sustenance. There are also people who deserve pensions from the State who have not yet received them.

From discussions that took place, both inside and outside the Dáil, it is a crying shame that so many people who served the State in the same manner as Ministers have served it, have not received pensions. I refer to those who served in the military movement for the freedom of this country. There are too many of these people still "down-and-out," whose cases have not yet received suitable recognition from the State. I hope that some speeding-up will take place in the granting of military pensions. When these cases have been fixed up it will be time enough for whatever Government is in power to consider a further increase in Ministerial salaries. The question of pensions is in the air in all quarters at present. Take the case of people who have been criticising the Government for the delay that has occurred in the allocation of military pensions. Naturally, they will ask: "Why grant pensions to ex-Ministers who, in the past, were in violent opposition to the policy of the present occupants of the Ministerial Benches?" It is perhaps the greatest evidence of Christian charity that this country should have in office a Government which offers to do good to those that hated it; to bless those that cursed it; and to pension those that persecuted and calumniated it. I think it is the greatest evidence of Christian charity, that we could have a discussion on such amicable terms in both Houses. I am opposed to the idea of increasing any Ministerial salaries at present.

Mr. E. Lynch

I should like to refer to Part III of the Bill, dealing with allowances to Leaders of certain Parties in Dáil Eireann. I rather subscribe to the view expressed by Senator Tierney in regard to that matter. I cannot be expected to follow him when he referred to the Party, with which I have some association, as "a bit". The whole may be greater than a part, but it is some part of the whole. Nevertheless, this House has something to say to this part of the Bill. The reason why I object to the payment of a sum of money to the Leader of the Opposition Party or to any Opposition Party, be it only a bit, as the case may be, is that I think political Parties should not be considered by a State as an entity in the Parliament of a particular country. Perhaps it would be better if they were not an entity but an anachronism in the Parliamentary life of the country. In my opinion, a Chamber or Parliament is composed of individuals, and the fact that it divides itself into parties is a matter of private convenience. We have not to go very far back in the life of parliamentary institutions to find that the Party system did not exist; that even Cabinets, as we now call them, lid not exist. As far as I am aware, the Cabinet of to-day in Great Britain has no legal status whatever, but is merely an organism, and at one time, in the time of Charles II, was known as a cabal. It is merely for the convenience of the Legislature that there is such an organism within the Parliament. If that be so, I feel that the funds of the State should not be devoted towards the private affairs—I think they are private—of a collection of individuals within the Legislature, which calls itself a Party. The fact that they are given altogether for private reasons is, I think, a matter for themselves, and hence, State funds should not be provided for the private convenience of individuals within the Parliament.

Again, you are providing State funds for the purposes of a Party to whose views the majority of the citizens may not subscribe. We have had already in this country disestablishment legislation—legislation brought into the British Parliament to disestablish the subsidising of a certain institution in this country because the majority of the citizens did not believe in the religious views of that section of the community which was subsidised from State funds. I feel that when you are agreeing to pay a sum of money from the State for the purpose of a Party, you are providing public funds for the convenience of a certain section within the Parliament, a section whose views may not be endorsed by the majority of those inside the Parliament and whose views may not find sanction amongst a very large section of the community outside the Parliament. It is in those circumstances that Part III of the Bill is such that, speaking for myself, I cannot support it.

As to the rest of the Bill, I am in agreement with it, but on this particular portion I would far prefer to see the political Parties, which are accidental combinations of individuals for their own private political purposes within the Parliament, providing their own money and doing their own work in their own way. They should not be subsidised. It may be said, and probably will be urged, that it enables such Parties to do their work more efficiently and, in doing so, they are enabling the work of Parliament to be carried on more smoothly and effectively. That may be so, but still I think that if we leave these Parties to their own devices, leave them to provide their own funds for their own efficiency, that they will do so, because the urge behind the political Party is to improve on the work of their opponents with the hope of ultimately beating them and reversing the positions in the Chamber. That being the urge behind the Party machine, they will provide the funds and evolve and develop the efficiency necessary. If they do not, then it is their own look out and they should be left to their own devices in that regard. Public funds should certainly not be used to enable them to do the things for which they should provide their own money.

Mr. Baxter

I do not know that I would have been tempted to comment on the Bill were it not for the remarks made by Senator O'Donovan. It is quite true that it would be very popular in the country to oppose this measure. In fact, I believe that next to opposition to the Bill which has just passed, opposition to this measure would be the most popular thing in the country, and the arguments that could be made in favour of it to win the popularity of those who are called the plain people down the country, are the type of arguments we heard from Senator O'Donovan. Ten years ago that was the kind of argument that came from the platform of Fianna Fáil. The fact that such arguments were then made created an attitude of mind on the part of the people to measures like this that we find in the country to-day. I could very easily and conveniently stump the country in opposition to this measure. I could put forward dozens of arguments against it. I could say, for instance: "A nice thing, now, the Ministry of Fianna Fáil, to whom £1,000 a year was more than enough, believe that they must make provision for their future by pensions of £500 a year," and so on.

I would remind the House that Senator O'Donovan should have recollected that the present Ministers are making provision for pensions for themselves as well as for those who were their predecessors in office. But life is too short for that sort of thing. There is too much work to do in this country and too little time in which to do it. It is easy to play to the gallery and to enunciate policies that are very destructive of the fundamentals of social life in this State. People who have responsibilities in the House or in the country ought to be careful, when they are talking, if they are pandering to the jealousies of people. And mind you, there are few countries where there are more people who will respond to an argument where jealousy is the driving motive than this country of ours.

Mr. O'Donovan

Wrong.

Mr. Baxter

If you point out that so-and-so is going to get something and he ought not to get it, there are thousands who will believe that he ought not to get it, because they are not getting it. Senator O'Donovan——

Mr. O'Donovan

Disagrees.

Mr. Baxter

——makes the sort of case that he is safeguarding himself in his support of this measure because at the same time he makes a plea for all the people in the country who are demanding military service pensions and have not yet been given them. That is an entirely different question and I presume Senator O'Donovan is one of the people who had a great deal to say on public platforms about all the pensions that were to be given. It is rather difficult now perhaps to deliver the goods and I do not think it fits into this Bill at all. What I believe we ought to keep in mind is this, that there are conditions here unlike what they are in most other countries in Europe. We are a very young Parliament. The men who have been leading in the country, whether they lead on the right or on the left—and I do not mind which you call right and which you call left—are men who came into the position of leadership, who were thrown up out of a movement and who emerged obviously as the leaders. The truth is that they led in this country in times of very great danger. They led in a very daring movement, when everything that they had and that their people had was risked and was at stake every hour of the day.

We have passed away from those days, but most of us were close enough to them then, and close enough to events since to realise that that is true and that there is something else true as well. In my view, if danger came to this State to-morrow—and who knows, who can look into the future? —I am quite convinced that the men who led the country for the last 20 years are the very people who would be called upon again in another hour of trial, and a great many of those who are prepared to be carping critics, either of the Ministry because of what they are doing for those who were their predecessors in office or, from this side of the House, because of the support they are giving the Ministry in this measure, would be, I feel certain, talking in whispers and their leadership would not be there. It is doubtful if they would be even good followers and perhaps the leaders would feel happier that they were not in the army at all. This country has only limited possibilities to exploit. It has undoubtedly thrown up in our generation a number of men of competence of a high order, men with courage and with honesty.

It is easy enough to give the impression in this country that there is a great deal of money to be made out of public life. I think the sooner people are disabused of that view the better. It is not so. I do not know any of the leaders of Fine Gael who are not poorer in cash because of their leadership of the country over a great many years. I cannot claim to have any intimate knowledge of the people who are in the present Ministry but I am quite satisfied they have not much chance of putting anything by for the future either. At the same time, the country must be led. We have no aristocracy here with an inheritance that will enable them to spend their private incomes to help in governing the country. And even if we had, I doubt if that method of governing would be most acceptable to the people. We must draw upon our natural resources—upon the common people of the country to manage the country's affairs, and in addition we must establish this fact: that if men will go into public life here—if men will emerge from a movement as the leaders of our own day did, men who took a great responsibility and took all the risks—it must not be possible that these men, after their terms of office come to an end and when they pass the reins of government to their successors, are to be turned out into commercial life after 20 or 25 years of national service, only to discover that commercial life has no place for them.

I am satisfied that the ablest men in any of the Ministries in this country could not find a place in the commercial life of this country if they were turned out and their Cabinet defeated. This is because of the fact that the Government has poked its nose into the business of this country. If one has a taint of politics on him, the commercial interests do not want him. Are we to see men who have served their country well, honestly and honourably, who have not had a chance to make provision for their future, being turned out of office either because their policy has become unpopular or for some other reason, or because they choose to stand up for principle here? Are we to see these men turned out with no opening in commercial life; are we to see them going around wearing down the heels of their boots to the uppers? I do not think there could be any justification for this country claiming to be a grateful country or a people grateful for good leadership if it were to pursue a policy like that.

I do not think the kind of approach Senator O'Donovan made to this measure was the sort of approach that any Senator who had any pretence to giving a lead in public life should make. This measure has been very fully debated in the Dáil and here as well. There is, apparently, in this House general agreement that the measure is justified. There are in this country many people who do not accept it and who do not agree with it. One hears strange arguments in the country if one listens. One argument that would be advanced is this: "Look now! they seem to be united on this—the leaders on both sides are united." This class of people seem to have a grievance because there is unity. These were the very people who previously were expressing disappointment that there was not more unity on the part of the leaders.

Another class of critics will say: "They are making provision for themselves; but look at the treatment the members of the Irish Parliamentary Party got in their day." That is another argument I have heard used against this measure. That argument is sound. As General MacEoin said in the other House, the leaders of the Irish Party who, in their time, served their country well according to their lights, did not get from the next generation the sort of understanding and appreciation that they ought to have got. But I say here now that that ought to be a lesson to us, and we ought not to treat those who have been leading the State since the time of the Irish Parliamentary Party, in the same way as the Irish Parliamentary Party were treated. Their treatment was wrong, but two wrongs do not make a right.

Some exceptions have been taken to the section of the Bill which makes provision for the leaders of certain Parties to have an allowance, so as to enable them more efficiently to do their work in the Legislative Assembly. Senator O'Donovan said you cannot pay people for opposing. He apparently finds fault with that. If we are going to persist in a democratic form of government at all, how are we going to progress except by clash of mind on mind? There are different points of view in the country, and if there is reason brought to bear, and if the Party Whip were not used as ruthlessly, unjustly and unfairly as we have experience of it being used, there would be much greater wisdom emerging from the Oireachtas generally. That, however, may come with the passing of the years. Let us hope it will come quickly to Senator O'Donovan.

In trying to do their work well and efficiently the leaders of Parties have great difficulties with which to contend. I was myself for a little while a leader —not very long. At that time there were not so many Deputies in the Dáil as there were in later days. The work of opposition had to be done. Perhaps it was done badly, but at all events it was done. It was only when one tried to sit down day after day and night after night, in some cases until the small hours of the morning, reading Bills very technical in their character, about which one knew very little, and studying those Bills with a view to improving them, that one realised what all this work of opposition really meant. It is easy enough to get up and make a platitudinous speech on a subject about which everybody in the country knows something. It is very different when you take a Bill such as the Shannon Electricity Bill and try to examine it closely. It is when one seeks to amend a Bill like that that one finds what it is to be up against real work. That is very different from getting up and making a speech of a general character.

The people who will sit down in future, either in this House or the other House, must read the Bills as they come along and see where the faults are and then try to draft amendments. They must be prepared to assume that duty and try to convince the Minister. They may not succeed, but that is the sort of work we are expected to do, all of us, if we are to play our part in the Legislative Assembly. But you have to have people already doing that work, people who will set the example of leadership, who themselves will work, and upon whom the brunt of the work must fall. In my judgment, the leadership here has entailed very great sacrifices indeed, physical and monetary, and sacrifices in every respect and, while we have had men who were prepared to do that, I have to confess that, looking around, I do not see so many others of the next group who are going to fill their places. Even though they have not been so well filled in the past, I do not see that the people who are coming along are going to be a great improvement on those who are there already. Anyhow, it is important, in fact it is the most important thing in this State to-day, that we should have our feet on the ground, firmly fixed in the ground, that the laws of the country should be sound in principle, and that, when they are put before the people, they should be drafted properly and should be of such a character that they will be beneficial to the people of the country as a whole. You are only going to get that done by people who are prepared to work and, I argue, you are not going to get that from those who will merely make speeches. You will have to have efficient organisation, political organisation, to get that put through, and, if people in the past made great sacrifices, I doubt very much if the people of the coming generations will do what their predecessors did. I do not see any of them rising in any place ready to do and dare what men would face twenty years ago. I ask any of the people here now to go back to the country districts and see where are the next group of leaders going to come from when these people have passed out. We are legislating here, not for to-day or for to-morrow, but for days perhaps some distance ahead when some of us, anyhow, will be forgotten. I think it is right that we should proceed on sound lines and, if we have to face a proposition like this, let us face it manfully and not in the spirit in which Senator O'Donovan would like us to face it.

Mr. MacDermot

This Bill, apart from fixing the salaries of the Ceann Comhairle and Leas-Cheann Comhairle, the Cathaoirleach and Leas-Chathaoirleach, consists of three things. One is fixing the salaries of the Ministers, the second is providing pensions for ex-Ministers, and the third is the giving of salaries to Leaders of the Opposition Parties.

As regards the salaries of Ministers, it seems to me, as to many others who have spoken, that the case for increasing these salaries beyond, at any rate, the figure of £1,000 a year that they were receiving until just lately, is overwhelming and, moreover, I may say that, if I had been a member of the Shanley Committee, I would have thought the figures suggested by the Shanley Committee none too great. They seem to me very suitable figures. On the other hand, when it is suggested that we should now recommend to the Dáil that the figures of the Shanley Committee should be adopted in place of those actually in the Bill, I would interpose two reminders. One is that there is such a thing in public life still as consistency, perhaps not an enormous amount of it, but still some, and something is due to consistency. It ought to be encouraged and there ought not to be too flagrant or indecent departures from consistency. We all know—I say this, not for the purpose of making Party capital—I do not go in for Party anyhow—nor for the purpose of being disagreeable to anybody —but we all know that, until comparatively recently, it was the official doctrine of the Fianna Fáil Party that no man, at any rate no man in politics, could be worth more than £1,000 a year. If they feel, as I take it they do feel, that the figures proposed in this Bill are as far as they now can go, without flagrantly offending against the sentiments of their supporters and of themselves in the past, I am not disposed to quarrel with them. I think that we ought to be content to accept the figures of the Bill as they now stand for the present and if, with the evolution of public opinion in this country a few years hence, the Ministers come forward and propose that we should adopt the figures of the Shanley Report, I should be pleased to see them do it, but I do not think it is for the Seanad to throw this sort of bouquet at the Ministry that we should in effect be throwing by passing a recommendation that the salaries should be increased from what they are in the Bill to the figures given in the Shanley Committee Report. I do not see the Minister for Finance quite venturing to call together the Dáil again in Christmas week in order to put that proposal to them. I do not think our recommendation would have any practical effect except to throw a sort of bouquet at the Government that I, personally, especially in view of the measure we have been dealing with a little earlier this afternoon, and in view of the conditions of distress throughout the country at the present moment, do not feel in the mood to throw at them.

The second point I would make against making such a recommendation is that, in considering the size of the salaries given, we ought not to forget the pensions. If the pensions were confined, as I think myself they ought to be, but as, in fact, they are not—if the pensions were confined to cases where they are needed, as, for instance, they are in England (in the case of Cabinet Ministers they can get them by applying for them and stating they need them)—if they were to be confined to cases where they are needed for ex-Ministers, then they should not be taken into account in considering what the salaries of Ministers ought to be. But, under this legislation, ex-Ministers will receive these pensions as a right, and I, personally, would be surprised if any of them, except in the rarest cases, failed to take advantage of them. That being so, they should be considered and taken into account when you are considering what the size of the salaries ought to be, because, even in a country where his income was, as suggested by Senator Tierney, £5,000 a year, it would take a lot of saving by a Cabinet Minister to accumulate in three years enough to bring in an income for the rest of his life of £300 a year or, in four or five years, to bring in these higher sums that are provided for in the Bill. I think, therefore, it is legitimate to take into account the fact that ex-Ministers are to have pensions as a right under this legislation in considering what their salaries ought to be, but, on the general question of salaries, I think that the arguments in favour of giving Ministers better salaries than they have had during the past few years are as strong as they are weak about giving increased allowances to Deputies and to Senators. There is no parallel between the two cases at all. The Minister has to do a whole-time job and, if you are going to get a man for a very difficult, laborious whole-time job, you have got to pay him well if you are to have any reasonable expectation of getting a first-class man.

I think that a great deal of service ought to be done for the State free. I was horrified by some of the sentiments I have read expressed in the Dáil debates by certain Deputies that, if the State wanted anything from anybody, now that we had established our independence and so forth, it must be prepared in every case to pay for it. I am as earnest as any Senator here of the importance of the poorest being able to reach the Dáil and the Seanad when the case arises, but, on the other hand, I do think that tradition should be kept alive, that where men are able to do so, where they can manage to fit in with their other occupations, professions and trades, they should be encouraged to think that it is not an amazing act of quixotry but a right and natural and patriotic thing for a good Irishman to do, to give up as much time as he can to the State without profit or, if you like, without loss or, as far as possible, without loss, but you cannot always avoid loss, consequential loss.

There must sometimes be loss in every country. Many men have gone into politics who have sacrificed very large incomes and very rich lucrative positions by going into politics, and it is quite impossible to establish any general rule by which the State is to pay compensation for loss like that. On the other hand, as I say, in the case of Ministers who are doing a whole-time and difficult job, if you want to get good men, and men who will have peace of mind while they are doing that laborious and difficult job, you must pay them well, although I must say I do not quite follow Senator Tierney the whole distance on his hobby-horse about the social flowering that would take place in this country if all our Ministers were provided with £5,000 a year or more. I do not, personally, believe that the gain in doing that in the way of improving our native culture or anything of that kind would be enough to compensate for the shock that it would cause to what have been referred to to-day as the plain people throughout the country. It would not be felt that that was remuneration that was in scale, considering the size of this country and its resources, with what has been paid in other countries of the same size and resources.

As regards pensions, I have very little to say except that I entirely approve of pensions for ex-Ministers. I would only make the limitation that they should be provided where they are needed and not where they are not needed. I do not, however, propose to enlarge on that now. Senator Baxter spoke of the Irish Party and of the fact that there were men alive to-day, or had been alive until recently, in great distress, who had been in that Party. That is not an argument that has any bearing at all on the question of providing pensions for Ministers, but it is an argument that illustrates something I was saying this evening on the former Bill. That is, that if you make it a regular thing for Deputies and Senators in this country to be dependent entirely upon a political income, the day will come when you will have to face the question of providing pensions for them. That is a development that I personally should view with very great misgiving. I think it would be a bad thing from any point of view, if it should happen.

There remains the question of salaries for Leaders of Opposition Parties. As to that I must say that I can see absolutely no case for it—none. It appears to me to be a grovelling imitation of the English. Why we should imitate every absurdity in the British system, I do not know. We imitated them in the hard-and-fast ideas about the Party system. We are imitating them in this question of paying an allowance to Opposition Leaders, only that we are going one better. We are being more English than the English themselves. They pay only one Opposition Leader. We are proposing to pay two. There is further this difference between ourselves and the English. The English give £2,000 a year to the Leader of the main Opposition. They do not give an allowance to any other Opposition Leader and, furthermore, they make no stipulation as to what he should do with it. I believe that, in fact, he is expected to use it for keeping up the sort of establishment that Senator Tierney would like to see Ministers keeping up here—for political entertainment. I say that without any confidence. Possibly he is expected to do it. Here it is not to go, we are told, to anybody personally but there is nothing in the Bill to prevent its going to anybody personally. If any group should decide that its leader should get the money, there is nothing in the world to stop them doing so. I believe that, as a general rule, they will probably decide that he shall not get the money.

Mr. MacEntee

I should say so.

Mr. MacDermot

It is entirely up to them. As far as the State is concerned, they are handing over this money to the Opposition Leaders. I must say that, for my part, I would just as soon see the Opposition Leaders get it. I think if anything there is a slightly better case—a very bad case—but a slightly better case for paying these sums to Opposition Leaders, making them a little more proseprous and giving them, personally, time to familiarise themselves with the details of Bills—to give them compensation for sitting up late at night with wet towels around their heads, mastering the details of legislation which they will have to cope with the next day in the Dáil because, mind you, you cannot pay anybody to do your thinking for you. It is a thing you have got to do yourself. What is going to be the use of this £800 a year that is to be paid over to the Leader of the main Opposition Party? I do not know how Opposition funds stand in these days. It is now a couple of years since I belonged to a Party but I know that when I was in the main Opposition Party, £800 would not have gone anywhere towards the Party expenses. There was at least one period when the expenses per week would not have been covered by that figure.

Mr. O'Donovan

Blue shirts were dearer then.

Mr. MacDermot

I do not know whether there was any secret about it. I do not think I am hurting anyone here by making that statement. I do not know whether the Fianna Fáil Party had the same experience.

Mr. MacEntee

We were never so fortunate.

Mr. MacDermot

Every Party, at some time or other, has periods of great financial prosperity. I think any Party of the size of the main Opposition Party, even in its lowest water, would find that £800 a year would go a very short way towards paying necessary expenses—the rent of offices and the salaries of employees.

Mr. M. Hayes

That is the Senator's own statement. Did he leave when the going was bad?

Mr. MacDermot

If I have said anything that is offensive to anybody I assure the Seanad that I had no intention of doing so.

Mr. Hayes

Say it first and be sorry afterwards.

Mr. MacDermot

I do not know to whom anything I have said could be offensive. As regards a small Party like the Labour Party, I do not know what their funds are. They have trade union funds, I suppose, and yet £500 a year might mean more to them than £800 a year would mean to the main Opposition Party.

Mr. Hogan

Not at all.

Mr. MacDermot

I confess that I have some doubts about it. It seems to me that if a Party has any justification for existing at all it should be able to finance itself. It is not the business of State funds to do so. It seems to me in principle entirely ludicrous that you should pay one set of men for governing the country and that then you should incite other men to impede them in carrying out their programme by giving a salary to them if they are conducting an Opposition Party. Now, dictators deal with Opposition leaders by throwing them into concentration camps.

Mr. Hayes

Hear, hear.

Mr. MacDermot

That is not a procedure that I should dream of advocating, but we need not necessarily go to the opposite extreme. We pay every Deputy and every Senator his allowance regardless of what Party he belongs to. He is at liberty to oppose the Government of the day as much as he likes without anything being cut off from his allowance. That is all right, but it is quite another matter when you begin to put a premium on systematic opposition, not occasional opposition, to the measures of the Government, because they are measures of the Government, by subsidising Opposition leaders. We seem to be taking it for granted, in the most extraordinarily sheepish and unimaginative way, that there is something sacrosanct about not only the English system of Party government, as it has been known in the past, but about the particular structure of Parties in our State at the present moment. We are proposing to subsidise two Parties. I have no doubt the figure two was reached because at the moment there happened to be only two Opposition Parties. Had there been three Opposition Parties, it would have been proposed to pay three Opposition leaders and we should have been told that it would be quite improper to pay more than three. We are just fatuously accepting the situation as it is and seeking to concentrate it for all time. That seems to me to be quite unreasonable.

It is very doubtful if the Party system, as it has been known in the past, will last in any country. It is very doubtful whether the dangers of democracies have not to-day become so great that, in the interests of efficiency, the Party system, as it has been known in the past, will disappear. It is very doubtful whether other democratic countries will not adopt the solution which has long since been adopted by that very democratic country, Switzerland. Incidentally, if Senators had paid any attention to conditions in Switzerland, had examined democratic ideals and democratic practice there, they could not possibly have made some of the speeches they made on the Bill for increasing the allowances of Deputies. In Switzerland, they have now reached the practice of forming their Federal Governments of members drawn from the various Parties, and, somehow or other, these men have got to make compromises with each other, and to adjust their views, and the country seems to carry on extremely well in spite of the fact that they are not all drawn from one Party. Along with that, I must say, there does go a system that if a measure of the Government's is defeated in the Swiss Federal Parliament, the Government does not go out of office. It stays on for a fixed length of time, but, at any rate, these men, drawn from different Parties, have imposed on them the task of adjusting their differences and producing legislation for the consideration of Parliament, and there is not this perpetual distortion of truth which there must be and which there is everywhere under the Party system. When one Party is in office, the other Party says that most of the things it does are wrong; when the Party goes out of office, it supports things which it opposed while in office; and when it goes into office it does things it said were wicked to do when out of office.

We have no better example of people absolutely standing on their heads than we have had in connection with the Fianna Fáil Party and the legislation we are presented with. If they had a secretary or typist extra on whom £800 a year was spent before they came into office, would it have prevented them from taking that view about the adequacy of an income of £1,000 a year for a Minister, which they did, in fact, take? Similarly, if the present Opposition had this allowance of £800 a year during the last few years, would it have prevented them, for instance, from voting against the coal-cattle pact, or would it have prevented them from taking a line with regard to arbitration for the Civil Service that was diametrically opposite to what they took when in office? Would it have prevented them challenging an election on that issue, as they did challenge it? It seems to me we are going out of our way to subsidise an artificial and decaying system, and we are doing it without any good reason, and without any real need for it.

It was pointed out by one of the members of the Shanley Commission who considered this question, a dissenting member who disapproved of these allowances, namely, Deputy Moore, that there was no guarantee that the demand in connection with these allowances would not increase, and that it would be shown, in a very short time, that £800 a year for one Party and £500 a year for another went an extraordinarily little distance towards meeting the expenses which the State, in principle, here undertakes to meet. If the State is really responsible for providing the clerical assistance that is needed for an Opposition political Party, it ought to do it logically on an adequate scale, and not by the miserable doles proposed in the Bill. Consequently, I think the whole proposition absurd, and that part of the Bill I strenuously oppose.

Sir John Keane

I quite agree with what the last Senator has said with regard to these parliamentary allowances. This matter has been approached in other forms than that of giving allowances to Opposition Leaders. I know that in one State in America it is done in what seems to be a far more sensible way. It is realised that all members have difficulty in getting expert information and advice about parliamentary matters, about Bills and about drafting Bills, and the Government supplies what they call, in the case I know, a legislative reference library, under the head of a skilled man, probably a man with legal parliamentary experience, to whom any member of the Parliament can go and ask where he can find this information and get advice on the drafting of Bills and the framing of questions. I think that is a far more sensible way to tackle this matter than to give allowances merely for secretarial assistance to the Leaders of fortuitous Parties. I think the whole thing wrong. However, there it is, and it will go through, but it is none the less wrong for that.

I was rather horrified to hear the standards of social life which Senator Tierney laid down. He suggested that as you paid a man more so he is more fitted to play his part in social life. Frankly, I was horrified. It is not what is in people's pockets but what is in their hearts and heads that make social intercourse. We have, we know men in academic life and in the life of art and culture, comparatively poor men, who make our society. It is not the men who spend money on material things that make society but the men who contribute to the arts, to literature and all that makes life worth having. I strongly join issue with Senator Tierney when he says that we pay our Ministers £5,000 a year that they may play their part in the society of our country. If he considers it he will probably adjust his view. I shall be very much surprised if he does not, because he is a man whose assay is measured in terms of culture and not in terms of material values. I have just one other word to say on the subject and it is that I think ex-Ministers should be subjected to a means test, and that those who do not want the pension—and it should be left to their consciences to say so-should not draw it. I do not think it sufficient that they should merely be asked to apply. There should be some sort of means test as there is on everybody in regard to their own personal incomes. We have to tell our personal incomes to certain revenue officers, and why should not similar information be required of of those who draw a pension from the State?

Mr. Quirke

I should like to say, first of all, that I am supporting the Bill. I did expect to hear some sort of sensible argument or enlightening discussion, if you like, but so far we have not, in my opinion, heard anything whatever of that nature. We had from Senator Baxter and Senator MacDermot statements in connection with the previous attitude of policy of Fianna Fáil with regard to salaries. Senator Baxter suggested that Senator O'Donovan had made certain statements from platforms some years ago, but I am sorry to say that I never succeeded in getting Senator O'Donovan on to a platform, though I tried hard enough.

Mr. Baxter

For the Party's sake, keep him off them.

Mr. Quirke

The Senator would be quite right if he said I made those statements. I did, very definitely, and I come here to-day, notwithstanding any statements I made in the past, to support this Bill and I do so in the belief that any fool can make a mistake, if you like to say that it is a mistake, but it is a great fool that will stick to something that he believes to be wrong. Now, that is so, if it were a mistake. I say it was not a mistake and, further, that we have a completely different set of circumstances at the present time.

That is one of the reasons, if not the reason, why I am inclined to support this Bill. At the time that we were criticising salaries and suggesting that no man in the country should be paid more than £1,000 a year we had very few men then who were drawing salaries to that amount. Since then the country has progressed industrially and commercially, and as a result of that development we have numerous people now all over the country drawing salaries far in excess of £1,000 a year. You have many people drawing salaries in excess of £2,000. I believe we should look at this from a different angle altogether from that suggested by previous speakers. I do not want to delay the House at this hour, but I take the attitude that we should completely eliminate personalities and try to forget altogether the abilities and capabilities of the present Ministers or the Ministers in the previous Administration. I believe we should look to the future and try to visualise the position which I do for this country in the years to come. I believe that in the future we will have more people than we have at present in receipt of salaries of £1,000, or even of salaries of over £2,000. As I have already said, we have many such men in the country at the moment. You have managers of various big concerns and of factories.

As regards the people who are now growing up, Senator Baxter does not expect very much from them. I differ from him on that. I believe that what applies to the past and to the present generation will apply to future generations of our people. I do not believe that this country will ever be without good men. It has never been without them, and I believe that we will have as good men to serve this country in the future as we have to-day and had in the past. The parents of to-day will, I believe, do their best to direct the careers of their children on the lines that they see best from the financial point of view and from the point of view of placing them in good positions in life. If they believe that their children are likely to make good in some industrial career, they will naturally direct their minds towards such a career. On the other hand, if they think that their children have a chance of establishing themselves in a good position in life in the political field, then there is every reason to believe that we will get the best of our people into that particular field.

That, in my opinion, is the biggest and the strongest argument that we can have for supporting the Bill. We want to create a situation in this country in which we will have the best brains of our people striving and struggling against one another to reach the position of Ministers and positions in the Government of the country. It is only by, so to speak, opening the field in that way that we can hope to have real efficiency here.

On the question of pensions, I believe that what is involved here will apply more to the future than it does to the past or the present. We have men in office, and we had men in the previous Administration, who have been tried under very high pressure, men who would not be capable of doing anything wrong even under greater pressure in the future. But we want to provide against the possibility of any such a thing happening in the years to come. When we have passed out of public life others will come along to take our places. What we should aim at now is to create a situation whereby the best brains of the country will be encouraged to enter public life in the government of the country, and to assure them, before they do that, that they are going to be provided for in the years that follow regardless of what may happen to their different political Parties. I resent very strongly the suggestion made by Senator Sir John Keane and also by Senator MacDermot with regard to ex-Ministers availing of the provision made for them in this Bill, the suggestion being that before they received the pension they should come forward and prove that they were in absolute need of it. I think it would be a degrading thing to put any man who at any time had held the confidence of the people of this country—a confidence which was sufficient to place him in the position of a Minister of State—in such a position. I resent the suggestion that men who have held office as Ministers should be put on a different plane—that one man should be picked out and put in the position where he would say: "I do not want this pension," and that he should be able to say of a colleague: "But here is a poor unfortunate fellow who has no money and who needs a pension; none of his people ever had any money, and he is entitled to a pension." I do not want this matter approached by that sort of mentality because I think it is quite wrong. I have the same objection to Senator MacDermot's statement to the effect that people should not be paid adequately for their services to the State.

Mr. MacDermot

I never said that.

Mr. Quirke

I can tell the Senator exactly what he did say. He said that men should be encouraged to give their services free to the State. If the Senator maintains that there is a difference between the two statements, then I say that it is the difference between tweedledum and tweedledee. The Senator suggested that Ministers or Senators or whoever else they were, if they were in a position to accept a lesser amount of money than would sustain the ordinary individual in such a position, that then they should give that service free to the State, and, of course, let everybody know that they were doing it. That, to my mind, would be detrimental to the interests of democratic government, and I do not believe it should be done. I do not believe the State should allow any man to be in the position of being able to go about parading himself as a sort of public benefactor. We should not have the situation in which a man holding a position in the State would be able to go to the people and say that "I am giving you my services free, gratis and for nothing."

Mr. MacDermot

So far as the Senator is purporting to quote what I said, he is completely off the line.

Mr. Quirke

I could not be completely off the line in connection with everything Senator MacDermot said because he said so many things that one is bound to hit him somewhere or another. I am awfully sorry if I have hurt his feelings. The Senator, in referring to the Fianna Fáil Party, said that never in his life had he seen such an exhibition of people standing on their heads. That was how he referred to the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party in connection with this measure. All that I have to say in regard to that statement is this: Senator MacDermot has been standing on his head for the past two years, and I think it is about time now that he came to his feet and realised his own position.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Minister to conclude.

Mr. MacEntee

The main ground upon which criticism has been levelled against this Bill is, first of all, that perhaps in some respects it did not give effect to the recommendations of the Shanley Committee, but, apart from that, principally on the ground of the allowance which is to be paid to the leaders of the Opposition Parties. I emphasised, and I asked the House when they were discussing this Bill to bear in mind, that the money which is provided here for the leaders of the Opposition is an allowance towards the expenses which those who undertake the duties of the Opposition in the parliamentary system must necessarily incur. I asked the House, when discussing the matter, not to refer to it as a proposal to pay a salary to the leader of either Opposition Party or to the second largest Party in the House. I regret to say that Senator MacDermot did not bear that fact in mind and did refer to it as a salary continuously.

It would be most unfortunate from every point of view if the impression were to be created that this sum was to be paid by way of personal salary to the leader of the Opposition, and I hope that when we are discussing this matter we will make it quite clear that it is not in fact paid to him by way of remuneration for any services which he may render to the State in that capacity.

I had been previously told by Senator O'Donovan that this was a subsidy to the Opposition Party, and I was told that no subsidy was being paid to the Government Party. This is not a subsidy to political organisation of the Opposition Party. This is an allowance which is being paid in order to enable certain essential parliamentary work to be done. Having had experience both in Government and in Opposition, I should say that the work of criticism which properly devolves upon those who lead the Opposition or who are prominent members of the Opposition, is as heavy during the time that the Dáil sits as the parliamentary work which falls upon the Minister, that is if the work is to be done intelligently.

Mr. MacDermot

How about Independent Deputies?

Mr. MacEntee

Perhaps so, but I should say that the country as a whole does not expect as much from the Independent Deputy as it does from a member of one of the recognised Parties in the State. I was saying that, whereas the work which falls upon the leaders of the Opposition is very heavy and, so far as parliamentary work is concerned, may be quite as heavy as that which falls upon Ministers, those who are in opposition have not, as Ministers have, at their command the whole service of the State. No Minister who does his job properly ever brings a proposal before the Dáil which has not been subjected to a great deal of searching criticism, first of all, by the advisers of his own Department and then by his colleagues in the Government and by their advisers; and, as a result of that criticism, he comes to the Dáil fortified with an amount of knowledge upon the subject which it would be very difficult for those who are not surrounded by skilled and experienced advisers, as Ministers are, to obtain. As there is often a conflict of opinion on the part of the Minister's advisers or the Minister's colleagues, the Minister sometimes has to resolve the difficulties which are thereby created, and it is always possible that in regard to the details of a measure, the Minister may have made a mistake, or his Departmental advisers may have made a mistake; or, where there has been a choice of two opinions about certain proposals, he may have selected the wrong one.

What is going to save the country from the consequences of a mistake made by a Minister in that way? Nothing can save the country except the fact that there may be in opposition, or in some section in the Dáil, or there may be in the Minister's own Party—though the country as a rule does not look to the Minister's own Party to be as acutely critical of governmental proposals as it looks to the Opposition—and, therefore, I say again that what is going to save the country from the consequences of such a mistake is that there may be in the Opposition an acute intelligence as equally well-informed as the Minister in regard to the Bill which may be able to point out the mistake. That is the ideal position. I am not going to say that it is possible to realise it in practice. I am not going to say that so long as you have Party government in this country, or even if you had a coalition government more or less on the lines that Senator MacDermot has mentioned as existing in Switzerland, so long as you have one section of people in this country entrusted with the affairs of government and another section looking after them—I am not going to say that you are ever going to get the ideal position in which you would have the people who are not in control of the administrative machine, and who have not all the resources of the State at their disposal as Ministers have, as well qualified at every moment to deal with parliamentary business as those who carry ministerial responsibility may be presumed to be. It should be our endeavour, however, so far as we can within reason to ensure that those whose duty it is to criticise legislative proposals will be fitted and facilitated in that work. Therefore, one of the things which we are trying to do, purely in an experimental way, is to see whether we cannot put those who undertake before the public the responsibility for doing this work in a better position to do it.

I know it can be said that the allowances which we are making are not sufficient for that purpose; that they are in fact ridiculously small. If I were asked for my personal private opinion, I would be inclined to agree with that, but I do feel that as an experiment, and as a first step towards organising the work of the Legislature better, we could not go much further than we are going. I think this is, perhaps, as far as public opinion would warrant us in going in regard to this somewhat novel proposal. But I must say that I would be more concerned if I were meeting with criticism on the ground that we were not doing enough to enable the Dáil to function properly than I am when it is said that we are subsidising the Opposition or by the argument of Senator Lynch, who took up the attitude that Parties in a representative democracy were entirely anomalous things and something of comparatively recent growth in the parliamentary system. I think that most people who have studied representative systems in other countries, particularly those who have studied them in Great Britain, from which ours undoubtedly derives, would challenge that. It is quite true that you have not had Parties formed purely upon a sentimental basis or a basis of principles. But, in order that the King's Government might be carried on in Great Britain, those who were responsible for the Administration of the day had always to get a Party to back them in Parliament, and the difference between then and now is that then that Party was generally based upon purchase and maintained by patronage. To-day, it is based entirely upon the wide suffrages of the electorate and upon the fact that the general mass of the electorate tends to divide itself into two classes, either for or against certain broad principles or for or against—in some cases—certain personalities. It is because public opinion will not tolerate the maintenance of Parties upon the old principle of purchase and patronage to which I have referred that you have to-day another outlook and that it has been assumed, as Senator MacDermot has assumed, that the whole burden of providing for the work of legislation— and particularly for the exercise of the critical faculty in connection with legislation—should be borne by private individuals who had come together and organised themselves as a Party. It might have been possible before the work of the Legislature became so heavy, when legislation, so far as it was designed to serve the public weal, confined itself to certain broad measures, to rely on the unassisted effort of private individuals to discharge the proper duties of an Opposition. To-day, however, owing to the complexity of modern life and of modern legislation, it is not possible, in my view, for the proper functions of a Parliament to be discharged without having in that Parliament organised Opposition Parties. You have got to allocate to certain members of those Parties who are willing to undertake the responsibility the duty of examining very complicated measures and, in my view, it is not possible for a member of the Opposition unless he is in a position not merely to devote the whole of his personal time to that work but is also rich enough to provide himself with highly skilled secretarial assistance, to undertake that task. In our public life we have very few men who are able to do that and still fewer who are willing to do it. If the members of the Opposition are not able to discharge this important function of the Legislature—the criticism, in the public interest, of the measures which are submitted to it by the Government—or if they are not able or willing to provide the funds for that purpose, then it is not, as Senator Lynch has said, their own look-out. If the Opposition do not do their duty or are not able to do their duty, it is not their own look-out but it is the look-out of the nation because it is the nation which will suffer if this work is not as well done by the Opposition as it ought to be.

I was surprised when Senator MacDermot said that we had introduced this proposal in grovelling imitation of the British arrangements in regard to the Leader of the Opposition. If the Senator had happened to be in the Dáil when what I might describe as the regular Opposition was constituted in 1928, he would be aware that one of the things which was agitating the minds of those who were members of the Government at the time and, I might say, of those who were in Opposition Parties, was this very question of enabling Leaders of Opposition Parties to do the work which the public expected them to do. A characteristic of public opinion is that, as a rule, it expects a great deal of work from its leaders, but it is reluctant and slow to realise that it must make provision to enable this work to be done. It is only at a very belated stage that it becomes conscious of the necessity for that provision. This proposal agitated the minds of those who had the responsibility of Government here long before it was ever thought of in connection with the Leader of the British Opposition.

Mr. MacDermot

But it was not introduced.

Mr. M. Hayes

It was recommended by a committee in 1929.

Mr. MacEntee

It was, and other matters prevented effect being given to the recommendations of that committee. It was not this particular matter that was the stumbling block.

Mr. MacDermot

We waited for a lead.

Mr. M. Hayes

We waited for a conversion.

Mr. MacEntee

Senator MacDermot says that one of the things we are doing in this Bill is encouraging opposition to Government measures. That is not so. This measure is not designed to encourage opposition to Government measures if they are good and sound, but to assist intelligent criticism of Government measures. We, in the Government, do not believe that we are all supermen, and I am sure our predecessors did not believe that they were supermen, no matter what they may have said on occasion. We do not believe that our proposals for legislation might not occasionally be improved by intelligent criticism, and we are not anxious to shirk criticism. But if we are to have criticism, we are anxious that it should be intelligent criticism, and, so far as the members of the Government are concerned, they recommend this proposal very strongly to the Oireachtas for that reason. They think that it will improve the tone and tenor of public life.

The Senator pointed out that our views had changed in regard to Ministerial salaries. That is quite true. I am not going to say that if the Leader of the Opposition had received this allowance when we were in opposition our views on that question would have been any different from what they were during that period. It sometimes requires not merely secretarial assistance, but actual experience of a problem to make one change one's mind. I am quite prepared to admit that, when we came into the Dáil, we were inexperienced in government, just as some of those people who have been criticising proposals which we have submitted are inexperienced in government. When and if the time comes that they have to assume the responsibilities of office, I hope they will be as receptive to the lessons of experience as we have been. If they close their eyes to them, they may not suffer in reputation; they will be able to go around and talk about "consistency." They will be able to go around and talk about consistency, but remember that, if they are consistent in standing up to the coercion of experience, it is, as I say, not they who are going to be the sufferers, but the country. Neither do I say that if, during the last four or five years, this allowance was being paid to the Leader of the Fine Gael Party, that that would have prevented that Party from opposing the coal-cattle pact or voting for arbitration for civil servants. It would not have prevented them, because these were purely and simply broad Party issues. There is, however, a great deal of useful work done in the Dáil and the Oireachtas generally that cuts across these Party lines, and it is in order to enable that sort of work to be done that we feel that this provision ought to be made.

A number of suggestions were made here to the effect that this Bill might be sent to the Dáil with recommendations that the Dáil should adopt the proposal of the Shanley Committee in regard to Ministerial salaries. I would ask that that should not be done, because I am afraid that the Dáil might not find itself quite a free agent in that regard. I can frankly say that I do not think the Shanley Committee erred in regard to this matter, but I do think that, in the general public circumstances of the time, it would not be possible to give effect to that proposal.

Mr. Douglas

Do I understand that the Minister's advice to act only as you think fit applies to the other Bill and not to this Bill?

Mr. MacEntee

Of course the Seanad can act in this matter just as it wishes, but I am merely pointing out that I am afraid that, so far as the question of Ministerial salaries is concerned, a recommendation of that kind at this stage would be futile. The Seanad, however, is its own master, and I am just giving my personal view. I may say also, in justice to the Shanley Committee, that in putting forward that point of view I am not reflecting in any way on their good sense and judgment in the matter.

With regard to the other point which was put to me by Senator Alton as to the allowances in regard to children, I think that what I have said with respect to Ministers' salaries applies also in that connection. It may be that these amounts are too small but, at the same time, we have to take a great many other factors into consideration.

I should like to say just one last word about the question of Ministers' pensions. If I may be permitted to say it, I feel I ought to say this: that I hope that nobody will think that there has been in regard to this matter any question of Christian charity to anybody. This has been brought in because the Government is convinced beyond yea or nay that only by making a provision of this sort can the public interest be served in the future. It would be quite impossible that Ministers should remain in the position in which they have been for the last 15 years. They are entrusted with the management of very large concerns and very heavy responsibilities are imposed upon them and, in my belief, and I say it frankly, it is not in human nature for a man to discharge those duties as he ought to discharge them in the public interest if, all during his period of office, he has facing him the prospect that when he relinquishes office he will have nothing to which he can turn his hand; that he will have passed the meridian of his life as a rule; that he will see old age facing him and will face the prospect knowing that, at the end of his term in office, he must be dependent upon someone else than the State for his bread and butter. You will not get good service in such circumstances and you may breed the worst evils of public corruption here. Because of that fact, the Government has faced the very odious responsibility, as it has been, of asking the Oireachtas to make provision which will remove that fear from the minds of Ministers and enable the public work to be done here as it ought to be done. It is not out of consideration for ex-Ministers that this is being done. The present Ministers, as well as those who went before them and those who will come afterwards, are involved in this matter, and, above all, the public welfare and public good are involved in it.

Question put and declared carried.

Committee Stage ordered for to-morrow.

Mr. MacDermot

Might I ask at what hour can amendments be handed in on the Committee Stage of this Bill and the other Bill?

Mr. Douglas

Perhaps I might make a suggestion. Frequently during the time of the old Seanad, if amendments were handed in, say, to-night, they would not be printed, but it was the practice, as I remember, that if they were handed in in fairly good time, copies would be made and circulated.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

That would be a matter for the consent of the Seanad.

Mr. Counihan

Will the final stages be taken to-morrow?

Leas-Chathaoirleach

That is a matter for the Seanad to decide.

Mr. Healy

I understand that there are other Bills to come up to-morrow, and I suggest that if you expect to finish your business to-morrow, 3 o'clock would be too late to meet. Would it not be better to meet at 11 o'clock in the morning?

Leas-Chathaoirleach

I think there will be plenty of time, Senator.

Mr. Quirke

Most of these Bills, I think, will not take very much time to-morrow, and even if we did not succeed in finishing the business we could meet the next day.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

The next Bill is the Imposition of Duties Bill.

Mr. MacEntee

Perhaps I should move the Second Stage of the Bill, so that the Committee Stage might be taken to-morrow?

Mr. Douglas

I would much prefer that the Second Stage should not be taken now because, in practice, a Bill of this kind is not amendable.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

Very good.

The Seanad adjourned at 10.20 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 14th December.