Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 6 Mar 1940

Vol. 24 No. 7

Offences Against the State (Amendment) Bill, 1940. - Unemployment Assistance (Amendment) Bill, 1939—Second Stage.

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

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. MacEntee)

A Leas-Chathaoirligh, the main purpose of this Bill is to clarify an ambiguity which some people have professed to find in Section 26 of the original Act. The clarification becomes necessary by reason of the fact that if an interpretation contrary to that which the Oireachtas understood the section would bear in its plain and ordinary meaning were to be accepted now it would be necessary for this State to find, in respect of moneys already withheld from it, no less a sum than £63,000 and, in respect of moneys which might be withheld from it in future years, an annual sum of between £14,000 and £15,000.

I have said that this Bill was to make clear that the meaning which hitherto has been ascribed to the section by the Government and by a number of the local authorities concerned is the meaning which the Oireachtas intended that section should bear when it was passing this Bill. I think there cannot be any doubt in regard to that matter, if the debates which took place in this House and in the Dáil during the passage of the Bill be referred to. The issue, shortly, was this: whether the poundage, by means of which the contribution which the local authorities were to pay towards unemployment assistance is raised was to be levied upon the gross valuation—as defined by certain Acts—or whether it was to be levied upon what might be described as the effective valuation. That net point was raised on a number of amendments which were put down to the Bill in the Seanad and by two other amendments which had been put down to the Bill in the Dáil; and, in both cases, the decision was taken by the Oireachtas that the poundage was to be levied and the contribution was to be based upon the gross valuation of the local authorities concerned.

It was upon that understanding that the local authorities themselves proceeded to act, and for a period of four years the more important of the local authorities—I should say virtually all the local authorities; there were, in one year or another, certain minor exceptions to the rule, but they were not regarded as being significant—acted upon the same basis, that is to say, they took the same view as we did in regard to this matter. For the purpose of raising their contribution to unemployment assistance, they struck a rate which was in excess of the rate prescribed by the Bill. In the case of Dublin, for instance, when the contribution was to be the equivalent of a rate of 1/8 in the £ upon the gross valuation of the city, the corporation struck a rate of 1/10, as they knew, of course, that a rate of 1/8—since it would be collected only upon the effective valuation-would not provide the sum of money which would be necessary to enable them to pay their due contribution to unemployment assistance. They struck that rate at 1/10 because a rate was required. Since it would only give a yield from the effective valuation, a rate of that figure was required to be struck to provide the equivalent of a rate of 1/8 on the gross valuation of the city.

I am advised that the interpretation which for four years has been placed upon this section, that the meaning which had been taken out of it by all the Parties concerned, was the correct one. However, there are people who challenge that. There might, perhaps, be good grounds for that challenge if, as I said, the issue had been raised in that form when the Bill was going through and if there had been, in the minds of those responsible for the administration of the Act, any doubt as to what the Oireachtas and the Government of the day really intended in this regard. In that event each Party might, perhaps, go to the courts and ask the courts to determine the issue between them and see which of the interpretations is the right one. But of what advantage is that going to be in the end?

Mr. Hayes

The Minister might be proved to be wrong; and there would be no advantage in that.

Mr. MacEntee

I suppose that some politicians—I hope there is none of them in this House—might look for a little Party advantage out of that; and, to that extent, the Government might be discredited. But what good would it be to the taxpayer and to the ratepayer? That is really the issue here. Supposing that it were found, not that the Government was wrong but that the advisers upon whom the Government must depend in these highly technical matters of drafting were wrong, what advantage would there be, except the paltry partisan advantage of which the Senator has reminded me? What advantage would there be to the community?

Mr. Hayes

£63,000 to the Dublin ratepayers would be one advantage.

Mr. MacEntee

I should like to show the Senator that the advantage which he thinks might lie there is a pure illusion. After all, the finances of this Bill were very carefully framed. The reason why we are justified in asking the local authorities who control areas of more than a certain size, to contribute substantially to the cost of unemployment assistance is that, for one reason and another, it is necessary to pay unemployment assistance at greater rates in those areas, and that the recipients of unemployment assistance at those enhanced rates spend in those areas the money which is received. Accordingly, we feel that we are quite justified in asking the local authorities of those areas to make some contribution, and a significant contribution, towards the cost of paying unemployment assistance at, as I have said, increased rates in those areas.

For instance, take the case of Dublin. If unemployment assistance were paid in the county borough of Dublin at the same rate as that at which it is paid in any country town of 2,000 or 3,000 people in the rest of the country, the burden upon the Unemployment Assistance Fund would be, I think, about £240,000 or £250,000 less than at the moment it actually is; and it might be said that the Exchequer would be relieved, even though not to the extent of £250,000, because the Dublin Corporation does contribute something— about three-quarters of it, about £171,000—towards the additional cost of paying unemployment assistance in Dublin at a rate over and above that at which it is paid to recipients in other parts of the country.

I was saying that the very fact that we have to pay unemployment assistance at greater rates in Dublin than elsewhere justifies us in asking the local authority which controls this wealthy area—where you have almost one-sixth of the total population and the valuation of which is far in excess of the valuation of any area of equivalent size in any other part of the country—to bear some part of the burden which the citizens of Dublin would otherwise throw upon the Exchequer. That was carefully considered when the Bill was being drafted, and the proportion was prescribed with reasonable exactness roughly on the basis that at least we were justified in asking Dublin to pay three-fourths or so of this sum.

If, therefore, the contention of those who represent the Dublin Corporation were to be upheld in the courts, what would be the final result? Do you think we would be justified in accepting that position? Bearing in mind that we have responsibility not merely to the ratepayers of Dublin but to the taxpayers of the country as a whole, would not we be bound to come to the Oireachtas and say, that by reason of the decision in the courts the financial structure of the scheme had been upset and that we did not think it was reasonable that the poorer parts of the country should have a greater burden cast upon them by reason of that decision in the courts, particularly when the decision was occasioned by some ambiguity which had crept into the phraseology of the Act, that it was due to a verbal mistake, a clerical error, and that the decision of the court, based upon the drafting of the Act, had indicated that the phraseology had not given effect to what was the plain and clear intention of the Oireachtas when this Act was passed? That would have been the final position. If we had an adverse decision in the courts it would have been essential, I believe, in the larger public interest, in order to ensure that justice would be done between one section of the community and another, for the Government of the day, whatever Government it might be, to come to the Oireachtas, to point out how the financial provisions of this Act had been originally planned, and to ask the Oireachtas—which is the supreme legislative authority in this matter and the supreme taxing authority—to correct the phraseology of the original Act in such a way that this time, beyond yea or nay, the intention of the Oireachtas would be made effective. That is what would have to happen, naturally and inevitably, if we had had an adverse decision in the courts. With that in front of us, what benefit or advantage could the people of this State hope to secure by allowing a matter of this sort to be thrashed out in the law courts? The result would have been inevitably the same. We should have had a Bill brought in to clarify the position, since some people had expressed doubts and since, apparently, these doubts might have been held to be well-founded by the courts. Mind you, it is a matter of much doubt as to whether the courts would or would not uphold our decision, but whether they upheld it or rejected it, as I have said, the result was going to be the same. In the light of that fact, what justification would there be for the Government on the one hand to fritter away the taxpayers' money to allow this matter to be tested in the law courts, and on the other hand to permit the local authorities in Dublin, Cork, Waterford and elsewhere, to fritter away the ratepayers' money in the same futile pursuit?

Nobody was going to get any benefit or advantage out of a course like that except, as I say, the lawyers. Certainly the ratepayers of Dublin, about whom I gather Senator Michael Hayes seems to be concerned, were not ultimately going to get any benefit or advantage because the Minister for Finance felt he had got to get what was due to him, due to him not in his personal capacity, but as the representative of the taxpayers of this country. Let us not forget that it is not the Government that gets this money. If the Government puts a measure of this sort before the Oireachtas it does not do it because it has any purely Party end to serve. It does it in order that the burden of maintaining this essential social service will be properly, justly and equitably distributed, that the general mass of the taxpayers, who live outside the county boroughs, will not be called upon to pay more than their fair share. That is really what is involved here, and that is the justification for putting this Bill now before you: first of all, to see that the original financial structure of the scheme is preserved, secondly, to see that the financial responsibility which this scheme imposes upon the people will be properly and equitably distributed between one section of the taxpayers and another, and thirdly, to avoid, to obviate, and to prevent public money, the taxpayers' money on the one hand and the ratepayers' money on the other hand, being frittered away in useless litigation.

Mr. M. Hayes

I know the Minister for a long time, and I never cease to wonder at him. He is the greatest fighter of sham battles that ever appeared in any Parliament in the world. He has just fought a magnificent sham battle with a whole lot of arguments that no intelligent person would advance about this particular measure. He has vanquished every single opponent of his own creation and has not dealt, good, bad or indifferent, with what is in this Bill, with the real core of the Bill. I should not have interrupted him. He might have been more lucid, perhaps, if I had not interrupted him, but I interrupted him for the purpose of removing doubts and I removed them all. The Minister has not a single argument for this Bill. I read the debate in the Dáil and I did not find any there. He is worse here than he was in the Dáil.

This is called a Bill to remove doubts. To remove what doubts? It is called a Bill to remove ambiguities, a Bill, the Minister told us, that was to remedy a clerical error. Did anybody ever hear of anyone getting up in Parliament to say there was a clerical error in an Act of Parliament, and in an Act of Parliament which taxed the citizens? This, we are told, is a Bill to clarify ambiguity, to rectify a clerical error. This is not a Bill to remove doubts. There were no doubts in the law as it stood. This is a Bill to change the law, not to remove doubts about the law. This is a Bill to change the law as it was passed under the aegis of the Minister's Government in 1933. It is a Bill to change the laws that existed and to charge the ratepayers of Dublin, in particular, with moneys which they were never legally liable to pay. That is what it is. It is a Bill to make the citizens of Dublin now pay retrospectively money which they were not in law bound to pay.

I would like to point out that there are much more important things in the world than Party advantages. There are certain principles which ought to be observed in government, in legislation and in taxation. One of them certainly is that money should not be taken out of anybody's pocket except by due process of law, and that money should not be taken out of people's pockets by retrospective legislation, which is exactly what the Minister is doing here. He told us, for example, that he did not go to the courts because he was not sure about the decision of the courts, and because that would be an expensive process. It may be an expensive process, but, if you look at the law charges of the Government— not only the Minister's Government but the previous Government—you will see that they have no scruples about bringing taxpayers to the courts and paying all the expenses. If they wanted to show that somebody must pay them 12/6 extra income-tax they would go to the Supreme Court. The Minister was not saving money when he did not go to the courts. He was saving his face, a different thing entirely.

Then he told us that no matter what the courts decided, he would have brought in the same legislation. Surely the Minister, in spite of all his sham battling, does not mean to tell us that if the corporation was not liable under the Principal Act to pay certain amounts, he would bring in another Bill to amend the law and make the corporation liable retrospectively after the court decision? Nothing would surprise me, as I said, but that would be a hard thing to do. First of all, we ought to understand what the Bill is about. There was a time when Ministers promised that they would abolish unemployment altogether. They did not succeed in doing that. They passed legislation to provide unemployment assistance, and they imposed half of the burden on local bodies by means of the Act passed for that particular purpose. The Minister knows that reference to debates in the Dáil or Seanad would not be allowed in the courts, that when you pass an Act, all you can rely on is what the words in the Act mean. He cannot quote the debates to show what the Minister for Finance, or the Leader of the Opposition, or the back-bencher from any place in particular, said the Act meant. He can only quote the Act.

The original Act was for the striking of a certain rate by the Dublin Corporation and other local bodies. The corporation struck the rate for a number of years in accordance with the interpretation placed on the Act by the Minister. Later on, when doing that, a doubt was suggested to them, and in accordance with their duty, which they could not evade, they sought legal advice. They made no attempt of any kind to evade liability, and no attempt to avail themselves of any ambiguity or clerical error. They simply did their plain duty in discovering what their liability was, and how much they were supposed to pay. They took legal advice and got a very clear and unambiguous opinion from senior counsel. That opinion was in two parts. In the first part, it said that they were liable to pay a special rate of 1/8 in the £ on the net valuation and not on the gross valuation. The second part stated that they could deduct from the next payment the amount overpaid in previous years. I am not discussing the justice of the matter—I am only discussing the legal aspect. The corporation, having got that advice, was absolutely bound to act on it. If they had continued to pay they would certainly have been surcharged by another Minister, the Minister for Local Government. There could be no doubt about it. Where a local body takes a legal opinion, the auditors of the Local Government Department will always take exception if the local bodies pay more than they are considered legally liable for. Therefore, the corporation acted on the legal advice they got, and if they had not acted on it, as I said, they might have been surcharged. Further, any citizen could have taken action in the courts and could not only have broken this particular rate of 1/8 or 1/10, but broken the whole rate as well, causing great expense and confusion in the city.

The Minister had a legal remedy open to him which he did not take. After all, if there was any weakness in the Principal Act, that was not the fault of the Dublin Corporation or any other local body. It was the fault of the Oireachtas, the Government and their advisers. What is happening now is the Minister for Finance is going to make the corporation pay for the mistakes with which they have had no concern whatever. The mistake was his, and he is remedying it at the expense of the people. The law determines what should be paid, and the corporation paid it in a particular way. It was a matter of accounting. If the Government, by any kind of mistake, made an over-payment, they would lose very little time in taking it back. For a number of years, I think, one of the Estimates contained a note stating: "This officer was over-paid, and annual repayments of the sum claimed by the Minister for Finance are being made." They have no compunction, when they make an over-payment, in getting the money back, but for the moment I am dealing with a particular point.

The purpose of the Act was to place a particular burden on the corporation. The burden of the corporation has, in fact, increased, and it is really extraordinary to have the Minister for Finance telling us that Dublin is a wealthy city and must pay its share. One would imagine from that that the city and the ratepayers were not prepared to bear their share. They are prepared to bear their share but they are concerned only to pay their legal share. It is not right for the corporation or any local body to pay money which it has been advised it is not legally required to pay.

The city is not a wealthy city—the Minister has seen to that. There is an immense number of unemployed. They come to Dublin from the country, so that Dublin has to solve to a large extent what are national problems in both unemployment and housing. I have heard a great many arguments in the other House, as well as in this House, but I never heard an argument like that of the Minister why Dublin should make an additional contribution to unemployment assistance. It is argued that the people who get unemployment assistance spend it in Dublin City and that Dublin should make an additional contribution on that account. I think the Minister hardly meant that. He simply threw that off at the time that he was wrestling with this particular problem.

There is another point. The Minister is collecting retrospectively from the corporation £63,000 which it never had any legal liability to pay. I would like to know whether he is going to try to collect it in one instalment. The rate will be struck next month. Is there any indication whether this sum must be paid in one year or whether it may be spread over a series of years? An amendment was moved in the other House asking that repayment should be spread over ten years. That may be too long and, perhaps, a period of two or three years would be more workable. Perhaps the Minister would give some information as to how he intends to impose this burden. It would be very unfair and unjust to expect payment in one year. Perhaps he could tell us if it is going to be spread over a period and, if so, over what period? Meanwhile, let me say that this Bill is not a Bill to remove doubts or ambiguities. It is a Bill to change the law and to make the corporation liable for payments which they were not liable for during the last seven or eight years.

Mr. Honan

From experience in other matters, I can well appreciate the Minister's point of view, because in the original Act of 1933 it called for 1/8 in the £ on all rateable properties and hereditaments, meaning exactly 1/8 in the £ on the gross valuation. If the Government had framed the Act, as it is done between county councils and urban councils, to say that they wanted a certain amount of money, it would be for the corporation to strike a rate which they would be sure would bring in that amount. For instance, county councils make demands on urban councils. They do not ask them to strike any particular rate but they demand, say, £5,000 from an urban council. A rate of 10/- in the £ on the gross valuation might be required to make up the amount but, in order to realise the demand, you have to strike a rate of approximately a shilling more to bring in the required sum. Whether there is ambiguity about it or not, I think it is fairly clear that the Government intended to get the effective sum that could be raised on the gross valuation by a rate of 1/8 in the £. Apparently the Dublin Corporation understood that quite clearly when they struck a rate of 1/10 in order to get the amount required on the effective valuation. I do not think there is much ambiguity about it at all except for the difference between the effective and the gross valuation. To my mind it is quite clear that 1/8 on the gross valuation was intended to be the rate under the Act.

Mr. Douglas

I agree very largely with what Senator Hayes said. In the course of his remarks the Minister, I do not know how many times, said that the object was that taxation should be properly and equitably divided. I do not think any of us wants to dispute that proposition, but you have to deal with the situation as it was presented to us. It is the kind of situation that not infrequently arises in business, and there is a fairly well recognised method of dealing with it. If, through an error, I as a businessman send out a wrong, quotation or put in a letter something which is not specifically clear, I stand by that until I find out that an error has been made. I then write and change the quotation for the future, and I state that it did not represent my intention. If there is a doubt, and it is decided that my quotation conveyed a certain meaning to my customer, I have to stand by it. That is the usual recognised practice. Local bodies, the Dublin Corporation or any other local body, are, if you like, in a subordinate position to the State. They are administrative bodies who have a duty to those to whom they are responsible, and they are placed, to my mind, in an extremely unfair position by the attitude adopted in this Bill. If an error is made in any Bill contrary to what the Government of the day who introduced it—assuming it to be a Government measure—intended, I do not think it is right that the Government should seek to rectify that error retrospectively and demand from some subordinate body something which that body found they were not, after the passage of the original Bill, liable for. I do not think that is a wise or sensible method of dealing with the problem.

I sympathise with the Minister's remarks in regard to litigation. In fact, if it were in order, I could criticise the action of the Government in certain cases that came to my knowledge where the Government for very small sums had gone to the Supreme Court at the expense of the taxpayer. To that extent, I am in agreement with the Minister to-day. I go further and state that if he had made up his mind that this Bill was to be retrospective, then there was no use in going to court, but I think where you had two statutory bodies, one the Government of the country and the other a local authority, and where there was a doubt as to the meaning of an Act, as far, at any rate, as the retrospective portions of it were concerned, if they both could not agree as to what was the right interpretation of the Act, or if they could not reach a compromise upon it, it would be definitely much better to incur the expense of going to court and have the matter put right for the future.

Involved in this measure is another matter. I have no doubt that the Government in 1933 meant that the amount should be collected on the gross valuation, but I think they were wrong in fixing it on the gross valuation. If the action of the corporation put it right, it is not, as the Minister said, inevitable that you must make it wrong again by doing, as he said, the right thing. There have been many cases where Acts of Parliament were operated on altogether different lines to those intended by the Government but yet all that turned out for the best. The Government does not always seek to rectify all these errors by legislation. I am not convinced at all that the gross valuation, which includes a large proportion of the valuation upon which you cannot collect rates at all, is the most equitable method of collecting the contribution towards unemployment. The more there are premises unoccupied within the area of any administrative body, the less able is that particular local body to contribute. The system adopted by the Government is the exact reverse of being equitable, and the more empty houses or empty shops there are in any district the more inequitable this method of collecting the rates becomes. I cannot agree that it is a proper and equitable division, as stated by the Minister, taking the country as a whole. I think I stated that at the time the original Act was introduced.

There are, therefore, two matters to be considered in connection with this Bill. One is that you are making retrospective the provisions of this Bill to 1933. I think it would be much fairer if the rate for this contribution were calculated on the actual valuation, even if there had to be adjustments in the rate the following year to compensate for that. In other words, the local authorities who suffer most as a result of bad trade, or through a depletion in valuation, should not be penalised by that fact, in relation to the amount they have to pay for unemployment assistance. There was another statement made by the Minister with which I also disagree. He seemed to imply that because one area—he referred to Dublin —had more unemployed than another it was better able to pay, because the unemployed spent this money in the city. Taking the country as a whole, does anyone really believe that those areas in which there is the largest number of unemployed are best able to pay this contribution? Is that not an absurd contention? The position is the exact reverse. The small amount which these men are paid—and goodness knows it is small enough—and which they have to spend would in no way make up for the contribution which a particular area has to pay. I think the principle as enunciated by the Minister is entirely fallacious and the position, as I say, is the exact reverse.

I also think it is a mistake to collect this contribution on the gross valuation. Secondly, I think it is quite wrong that when a dispute occurs between one legislative body and another —the local body though, in a small way, is also a legislative body—it should be settled by the stronger and higher body simply turning round and saying to the smaller body: "We will make you do it." Every effort should be made to have the dispute settled amicably, to adjust it legally and equitably. If it is impossible to arrive at a settlement by consent, the matter should be settled by law. If it were then found that the Government were seeking to enforce a wrong principle, by insisting that the contribution should be paid on the gross valuation, it would be quite proper to bring in a Bill by which the future working of the Act could be regulated. I think that the less retrospective legislation there is, the better it will be for all concerned. It causes discontent and it upsets arrangements which have been made in perfectly good faith in the past. I am not prepared to say that it should never be resorted to, but I do say it should be utilised only on the rarest possible occasions. It is a pretty well accepted principle that it is wrong to make a man punishable for something which was not an offence at the time he committed it. It is not a very far departure from that principle, which is so generally accepted, to say that it is not right to make ratepayers liable for something for which they were not legally liable at the time this rate was struck. On the whole I think the Bill is a very bad one.

Mr. MacEntee

I have never listened to so many specious arguments in my life as I have just listened to from Senator Douglas. He wound up with an attack upon this Bill upon the plea that it is proposed to be retrospective in its effect. It is not.

Mr. M. Hayes

It is.

Mr. MacEntee

It is immediate in its effect.

Mr. M. Hayes

And retrospective.

Mr. MacEntee

It merely clarifies and confirms the text of the original section.

Mr. M. Hayes

It alters the law.

Mr. MacEntee

How does it arise? It arises because another interest affected purports to put its interpretation upon an Act of the Oireachtas, and when the Oireachtas, which is the legislative authority, the law-making authority in this country, comes along and makes its position clear and plain on this matter and says: "If you have any doubts about what that section meant, here is another wording which is going to put it beyond shadow of doubt", we get this old red herring of retrospective legislation.

Mr. M. Hayes

It is retrospective.

Mr. MacEntee

And the Senator depicts for us all the evils that will follow in its train—the Constitution overthrown and the private rights of individuals filched away. But supposing we were to give way to the attitude taken up by those who are opposed to the Bill in this case, what would be the final result from the point of law and order? That every man can put his own private interpretation on an Act and can perhaps involve the State and the general public in all sorts of expense. We come along here, again, as I say, the supreme law-making authority in the country, and try, to the best of our ability, to make the meaning of the statute plain and clear even to the most deficient intelligence, and we have the allegation hurled at us that we are trying to enact a piece of legislation which is going to be retrospective in effect and going to have, from the point of view of the public liberties, all the ill consequences which Senator Douglas has put before the House.

Mr. M. Hayes

Would the Minister deprive the ordinary citizen or local body of the right to consult senior counsel as to their liability to pay particular taxes?

Mr. MacEntee

I would ask whether if the Senator had a difference of opinion with another citizen as to what was the proper interpretation to put on a contract which had been made between them, he would be prepared to accept the opinion of the lawyer on the other side as infallible, because that was the basis of his speech against the Bill?

Mr. M. Hayes

The Principal Act was not a contract; it was a law. We shall have to talk Irish because we do not understand English.

Mr. MacEntee

I prefer to deal with one or two of the other misrepresentations which Senator Douglas, perhaps unwillingly, allowed himself to make in regard to my speech.

Mr. Douglas

The Minister is very kind, but I did think that this applied to the position in 1936, for instance.

Mr. MacEntee

The Senator said that I had used the argument that because there were a greater number of unemployed in Dublin than elsewhere the wealthy community of Dublin ought, accordingly, to pay unemployment assistance at greater rates. I said nothing of the sort.

Mr. Baxter

What did the Minister say?

Mr. M. Hayes

We shall really have to speak Irish because we do not know English.

Mr. MacEntee

I said that, for certain reasons, unemployment assistance had to be paid at greater rates in the City of Dublin than elsewhere, and the Senator who interrupts me is the farmer's friend. I do not know what action he is going to take on the Bill, but if he votes against it, let the farmers, about whom he is so concerned, know this that he is going to ask them to foot the City of Dublin's bill in regard to this matter of unemployment assistance. However, that is perhaps a digression. What I want to come back to is the allegation by Senator Douglas that I used the argument that because there were a greater number of unemployed in the City of Dublin than in any other part of the country, Dublin ought, accordingly, to pay a contribution over and above that paid by the general body of taxpayers towards unemployment assistance. I repeat now that I said nothing of the sort.

Mr. Douglas

I accept that, but I certainly understood that from what the Minister said.

Mr. MacEntee

I did say that unemployment assistance was paid at higher rates to those who live within the boundaries of the county borough than is paid throughout the greater part of the country, and that, accordingly, since it was paid at higher rates, and since, of course, the money was spent in the city, I did not see any reason why the ratepayers of Dublin ought not to contribute towards this payment of higher rates. I did not say what Senator Douglas has said because, in fact, the proportion of the citizens of Dublin who are unemployed is very far from being the highest in the Twenty-Six Counties. There are congested areas and congested districts along the whole of our western seaboard, where the proportion of unemployment or under-employment is greater than it is in the City of Dublin, and one of the reasons why the Government feel constrained to come to the Oireachtas and to ask the Oireachtas definitely to put the Corporation of Dublin out of court in this matter is that, if we were to acquiesce in the position taken up by the corporation in this regard, we should, in fact, be putting a greater burden upon those areas, where, because of unemployment or under-employment, the need is very much greater than it is in the City of Dublin. That is one of the reasons for our coming here, and, so far from having used the argument which Senator Douglas ascribed to me, one of the justifications for putting the Bill before the Oireachtas is that if we did not do so, we would be accepting the position which he ascribed to me.

Another argument which the Senator used was that, if this were a transaction between ordinary private individuals, if, for instance, he had entered into a contract, or had sent out an invoice or account, and it had been shown to him afterwards that he had made an error, he would stand by the error. That would be merely in accord with the ordinary canons of good business, but if the private citizen stands by an error in business, it is his private loss. Nobody else is going to be damnified, but this is not a case of private citizens dealing with private citizens. This is a case where the Government is charged with the responsibility of seeing that justice is done as between one section of the citizens and another. We are trustees for the community as a whole.

It is upon the Government and upon the Oireachtas that the obligation rests of seeing that if, by reason of a dispute that has arisen, one section of the citizens is going to be prejudiced, and unreasonably, unfairly and unjustly prejudiced, by that action, those who cannot protect themselves and who have no other means of securing redress in a matter of this sort, are protected. The responsibility rests upon us, in such circumstances, of asking the Oireachtas to correct that situation and to remedy it, and that is what this Bill is doing. There is no use in setting up false analogies between what a citizen may do in his own private affairs and with his own private moneys, as Senator Douglas has done, and what is to be done with public moneys.

Mr. Douglas

I did not speak of a private person. I spoke of any business.

Mr. MacEntee

Yes, any business, but whether that be controlled by a private individual, a private person, or whether it be a corporation, it is a matter of their own private concerns and their own private affairs and moneys. This, however, is a case where public moneys are involved and, as I say, there can be no analogy between them. There can be no use in talking, as politicians often do, as if the moneys concerned in transactions of this sort were the private property of the Government. We are only here as trustees and custodians of moneys for the public as a whole.

Mr. M. Hayes

Like the Dublin Corporation. It is also a trustee.

Mr. Douglas

That applies to the Oireachtas as a whole.

Mr. MacEntee

I do hope that the members of the Dublin Corporation who are interested in this matter read the speech of Senator Michael Hayes, and I should like to be standing beside them when they were sending out a fervent prayer to the Almighty that He might save them from their friends. I think I never heard a more severe attack upon any body of public representatives than that which I have heard from Senator Michael Hayes. He has told us that there were no doubts whatever in this matter and that I have brought in this Bill upon false pretences.

Mr. M. Hayes

I did not use that phrase at all, Sir. I did not accuse the Minister of bringing in the Bill under false pretences. I hate accusing anybody, and I did not accuse the Minister, and anyhow he is far too clever for that.

Mr. MacEntee

Well, of course, the Senator did not say that exactly, but at any rate he implied it.

Mr. M. Hayes

No, I did not.

Mr. MacEntee

He said that the position is that the Minister has told the House that the Bill is necessary in order to remove doubts, and his next sentence was that there are no doubts.

Mr. M. Hayes

Hear, hear!

Mr. MacEntee

Well, if I bring in a Bill and tell the Oireachtas that the purpose of the Bill is to remove doubts, and if, a moment afterwards, the Senator tells me that there are no doubts, I do not know whether it is my veracity or my intelligence he is assailing, but certainly he is assailing one or the other. However, if there were no doubts in this matter, would the Senator explain to us how it is that for over four years the Corporation of the City of Dublin levied a rate the proceeds of which would be equivalent to 1/8 in the £ upon the gross valuation of the city? Does not that, at any rate, impugn their custodianship of the corporative rights of the city? Does it not reflect upon them? The Senator says now that there were no doubts. I will agree with the Senator to this extent, that for four years the corporation had no doubt as to what was the plain meaning of this section and, acting in that absence of doubt, proceeded, as I have said, to impose a rate on the effective valuation which would give us the equivalent of the statutory rate it levied upon the gross valuation of the city. Mind you, they did that also in the year 1938-39, and in sending out their demand notes they pointed out that the rate of 1/10 in the £ was being struck in order to enable the Dublin Corporation to meet its obligations, under the statute, to the Exchequer, in regard to unemployment assistance. The corporation did that, and must not have had much doubt when the rate was struck. Unfortunately, and perhaps somewhat conveniently—one does not know which— a doubt did arise——

Mr. M. Hayes

Yes.

Mr. MacEntee

——but it was only a half doubt, in the minds of the corporation. Unfortunately, I must say, we got the benefit of the worst part of the doubt because, while they collected some £170,000 from the citizens, they only paid into the Exchequer £118,000 and retained something like £50,000 or £51,000.

Mr. M. Hayes

But they retained that money legally for the citizens.

Mr. MacEntee

I do not know if they made restitution, but I do not think they distributed it amongst the citizens. At any rate, they collected that money on the plea that it was to enable them to meet their obligations to the Government and the public Exchequer. Out of £170,000 that they collected they paid us some £118,000, but I have not heard that they returned to the ratepayers any of the money retained.

Mr. M. Hayes

The Minister is accusing the corporators of doing something that they never did.

Mr. MacEntee

And so the State and the general body of the taxpayers were held up almost to public odium here in the City of Dublin because we were compelling the corporation to collect this 1/10 in the £, and yet, at the same time, the Dublin Corporation, having used us as the excuse, as the Senator says, proceeded to stick to the money.

Mr. Madden

Might I be permitted to ask the Minister what the corporation did with the balance of the money?

Mr. MacEntee

God knows, Senator, but all I am concerned about is that they did not hand that money over to the proper quarter. That is all I am concerned about.

Mr. M. Hayes

They did not misuse that money. They used it for the benefit of the citizens and to enable them to make a reduction in the following year, and the Minister knows that.

Mr. MacEntee

Does the Senator suggest that the Exchequer is going to misuse that money? Mind you, that has been one of the undercurrents and one of the innuendoes running right through this debate—that this money is being misused in some way by the Government. However, we can leave that for the moment. Let us see what was the other argument put up in order to justify the action of the corporation, not perhaps in withholding some part of the moneys due for the year 1938-39, but in going back and recouping themselves for moneys which, they held, had been overpaid in the preceding years. It was this: that the corporation took legal advice and got a clear opinion. Yes, but does the Senator think that we acted without legal advice? We were equally fortified with legal advice and we had an opinion which, we think, is as good, as reliable and as sound as the opinion which the Dublin Corporation had. We will put it on this plane at any rate: that it was at least as reliable. There may have been a great deal more consideration, perhaps, given by the legal advisers of the Government to this question than may have been given by the legal advisers of the Dublin Corporation—I do not know—but I do know that the whole matter of the drafting of this section was the subject of very serious and prolonged examination and consideration by our legal advisers when the Bill was going through the House, and that arose out of the fact that both in the Dáil and in the Seanad amendments had been put down which went to the root of this matter. We were satisfied, and those who put down the amendments were equally satisfied.

Mr. Madden

Might I respectfully ask the Minister a question, for my own information: how did the corporation satisfy the auditor about the using of the money not intended for the specific purpose on which it was consumed? If the Dublin Corporation had said it should have been given to the Exchequer, how did they satisfy the auditor on that particular point when the matter came up for revision and review by him?

Mr. MacEntee

I do not know whether it has come before the auditor yet, as I do not think the audit of the corporation accounts for 1938/39 has yet been undertaken. However, that is beside the point and does not affect the issue. The point was whether the corporation were entitled to act upon this legal advice in the manner in which they acted.

Mr. Hayes

Were they bound to act?

Mr. MacEntee

Well, let us say "bound to act" if the Senator likes that—were they bound to act, and retain the money.

Mr. Baxter

Is not that true?

Mr. MacEntee

Supposing they were advised that they were entitled to retain the money, I put it to the Seanad that we had legal advice on the other side which was equally strong. I am going further, I am saying that our legal advisers were likely to have given much deeper consideration to this matter than the legal advisers of the Dublin Corporation. That is not to impugn the care which the advisers of the Dublin Corporation might have given to a question of this sort. I am saying that the probability is there, because of the fact that when the original Act was going through this House this very question was raised in a net form on amendments put down. In considering those amendments, the phraseology and wording of the original section of the 1933 Act was very carefully scrutinised. Our advisers are, I think, as good and as capable as are to be found anywhere else. They advised us that the section as drafted could mean only one thing and that was that the poundage was to be levied upon the gross valuation of the municipalities concerned. That was their advice. Senator Hayes has said that the Dublin Corporation was bound by the advice of its legal advisers. Naturally, if we get legal advice on the other side, we are bound to act on it, too, in the interests of the general body of the taxpayers—which includes the general body of the ratepayers of Dublin. The obligation rested upon us just as much as it rested upon the Corporation of Dublin, to maintain the point of view of the general taxpayer as to how this issue was going to be resolved.

Mr. Fitzgerald

In the courts.

Mr. MacEntee

Ultimately, it could only be resolved in the courts.

Mr. Fitzgerald

That is the normal way.

Mr. MacEntee

The Senator says that that is the normal way. It may be in certain circumstances; it may be if the Oireachtas had not made it plain and clear—as, in my view, it did— what it intended this section to mean; and it may be if, at the end, the result might have been any different. It might be necessary or desirable to have the matter argued out in the courts, but here where, as I say, the debates in the Seanad and in the Dáil make it clear that the Oireachtas intended this poundage to be levied upon the gross valuation, what was the use of going to the courts to get a decision?

Mr. Fitzgerald

The Minister talks about the Oireachtas having made it plain and clear, but it seems to me that the only way in which that can be done is in the text of an Act. There is no use in talking about one set of legal advisers advising one thing and another set of legal advisers advising another thing. The only solution seems to be to leave it to the courts. The courts have been set up in this State to decide, not what is meant by speeches in the Oireachtas, but what is meant by what is actually set out in the text of the Act.

Mr. Baxter

That was the way in the case of the Constitution.

Mr. MacEntee

The fallacy in that argument would take too long to disentangle. The position was that the intention—whether they succeeded in expressing that intention without ambiguity or not is, perhaps, a question at issue—of the Oireachtas was clearly that this poundage was to be levied upon the gross valuation. All I have got to do is to turn up the text of the amendments which were put down in the Dáil and in the Seanad in regard to this matter. In the Dáil an amendment was put down by Deputy Corish to insert before the word "rateable" the word "effective". Now, the issue that has arisen in this matter is whether the poundage is to be levied upon the effective valuation. An amendment was put down, as I have said, by Deputy Corish, to insert before the word "rateable" the word "effective" so as to make it clear beyond doubt that effective valuation was intended. When the matter came up here, Senator Michael Staines had a whole series of amendments with, in some cases, "effective" and in other cases "assessable", but the whole purpose of those amendments was to confine the levy to the effective valuation. That was the point. Those amendments were defeated in both Houses of the Oireachtas; they were defeated because the Oireachtas decided that it wanted to have this poundage levied upon the gross valuation.

Mr. Fitzgerald

The Minister cannot say what the intention of the Oireachtas was. I may tell the Minister that, when I was in the Dáil, there were times when a clause of a Bill was before me and it seemed that there was a desire to attain a certain end, and I did not propose an amendment because I was satisfied that the Government was misinterpreting it. The Minister would not be able to determine my intention or the intention of the Oireachtas: the only way the State can know that is by the text of the document as determined by the court. If anyone were to get up and say that there were other intentions, it would be an arrogant action. Even the angels do not know the secrets of hearts.

Mr. MacEntee

Not being an angel, I have sometimes to read mundane documents, and know that, when a person proposes to insert the word "effective" in this particular section before the words "rateable valuation" it is the clear intention of the person who wanted to put that word "effective" in—if the record of his words means anything—to ensure that the section would be interpreted as the Corporation of Dublin interpreted that section in 1938/39. That is my view of the matter and I am perfectly satisfied, without dialectical hair-splitting, that that is going to be the view of the House in regard to this matter, just the same as it was the view of the Dáil in regard to it. I am afraid these digressions have caused me to wander a bit from the point.

I was asking what would be the upshot, supposing we allowed this question to go to the courts. As I said in introducing this measure, and I wish to make it clear again, if the courts had found that the section had not given effect to what was the clear intention of the Government of the day in regard to the financial structure of this Bill, all we could have done would have been to come here with a Bill of this sort, and re-establish the financial structure of the Bill as we had believed it to exist prior to the judicial decision. What is involved is this: whether we are going to fritter away the taxpayers' money on the one hand and permit the Corporation of Dublin to fritter away the ratepayers' money on the other hand, in order to arrive at the same conclusion, which is, that the financial provisions of the Bill should remain as the Government which introduced the measure intended them to be at the outset.

Mr. Hayes

Is the Minister seriously stating to us that, if the courts had found that the corporation's liability was for a certain sum for certain years, he would still bring in legislation to make the corporation pay retrospectively for those years, in spite of the court's decision? The reason he did not come to the courts was that, if the court decided against him, he could not do that.

Mr. MacEntee

Then it is not retrospective legislation.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 13th March.