This Bill is being proceeded with merely as a precautionary measure. The main purpose is to enable the Minister for Local Government, if circumstances compel him, to postpone the holding of the local elections until September, 1943. I said "if circumstances compel him", because it has already been decided to hold the local elections, probably either on August 12th or August 19th. The precise date has not yet definitely been fixed, but I may say for the information of the House and of the country at large, the probabilities now are that the elections will be held on the 19th rather than on 12th August. If the elections are held, the only section of the Bill likely to be effective will be Section 5, which is necessary, first of all, to validate the proceedings which have already taken place at meetings of local authorities held between June 22nd and the 1st July last, and secondly, to make provision for the first quarterly meetings which must be held after the local elections, and at which the elections of lord mayors, mayors and chairmen of county councils will have to be proceeded with afresh. Section 6 gives the Minister power to remove any difficulties which may arise by reason of the postponement of the local elections, but it has been decided to hold the elections and the probability is that it will not be necessary to avail of the powers in Section 6.
Local Elections (Amendment) Bill, 1942—Second Stage.
Conditions now are very peculiar. Since the decision has been taken to hold the local elections, the situation has completely changed. I suppose we may take it that legislation which the House already has passed— the Managerial Bill—will come into operation immediately the new bodies are called together.
As soon as possible.
I take it they will be for some short time functioning with the powers which exist at present. What the people are concerned about is that, as far as one could read about the debate on the Second Stage, one got the impression from what the Minister said that it was hoped that we were going to have local elections for the purpose of getting administrators of the highest possible character. The hope also was expressed that this would be achieved without any set Party effort. It would be as well that the country should know at once where it stands in this, because, apparently from a statement which appeared in yesterday's paper, we gather that the political organisation of the Government Party has intimated that it is their view that local units of the organisation can select candidates, and we presume, rightly or wrongly, that these candidates would be selected as representative of the organisation.
If that is going to be the position, it ought to be clarified at once. From my contact with local opinion, I feel that while on the whole most of our administrators have made a very good effort to raise the standard of local administration, there have been failures here and there. The greatest failures have occurred in those counties or areas where the Party ticket system was developed to an extreme extent. We have a peculiar situation to-day. It is seven or eight years since the last elections, and we have a number of representatives on local authorities who have been working together for such a considerable period in harmony that the old lines of political division have, to a great extent, broken down. Men have come to recognise that political divisions are a hindrance rather than a help in local affairs and that the most effective administration is where the Party point of view can be left outside the council chamber and decisions taken on the merits of each case. Representatives of the different political Parties have accepted that position and now realise the worth of it. If we are going back again to contesting elections on Party lines, we are going back to the old position. I do not know whether the Minister realises that.
What I am really wondering at is how we can discuss the actions of political organisations here.
I do not want to get into a discussion on it, but I took it that the Minister expressed a desire to get away from the old position.
I expressed the desire that the elections would be fought calmly and that there would be no bitterness or factiousness as a result of them.
That is a different thing.
Perhaps I misunderstood the Minister. It is rather a different matter if we go on to try to organise political Parties and tell them to take whatever action they like. If the aim of the Government is to get the most competent administrators into local authorities, it is not going to be achieved by any encouragement to candidates on the part of the Government to run on a political ticket.
I think it is going to have a disturbing effect on local conditions from the aspect of our internal unity—a very important aspect. I had the feeling that we were going to have from the Minister, and those collaborating with him, some form of appeal to the citizens to realise that there was an obligation placed upon them to select candidates regardless of Party affiliations, or any other consideration, except their competence to run the affairs of the local authority, county council, urban council, or municipal body. If we are going back to the old system, I think it would be a retrograde step in our present conditions. No matter what you may try to do to mollify political influences, if you disturb men's minds in times like these, you cannot avoid the consequences of Party contests. I am aware that a number of people are quite convinced that this decision to hold local elections is in the nature of a try-out for a general election. That may not be anything like the fact, but, nevertheless, it is very unfortunate in present conditions that the Minister himself, especially charged with the great responsibility of local government, where the highest possible standard of administration should be aimed at by every public man, should find himself handicapped, as I think he must be, by what apparently is the decision of the Party with which he is associated, that candidates must be elected and the campaign run on Party lines.
I think that point has been sufficiently elaborated.
May I say, through you, Sir, that, so far as I know, no such decision has been made, except in the mind of Senator Baxter? If he would only read the newspapers with more care and attention, he would see that he has completely misrepresented what was done.
And, even if he did not, it would not be relevant to this Bill.
Might not the Minister for Local Government be out of agreement with the decision? Even if he were in agreement he is not responsible here for it.
It is not relevant to the Bill.
I am not going to continue on that line if it is out of order to do so. I merely raised the question because I felt, after the Minister's statement in the Dáil, that he was in earnest and concerned that we would get the best people into the local bodies. I am prepared to concede that that is the Minister's desire. Certainly, the people desire it themselves, and they feel that the local services can be run more efficiently if Party divisions are avoided. This Bill provides for postponement of the elections under certain circumstances, but I think that we must admit that except for Section 5, a great deal of it is out of order. Perhaps it is going to be healthy for our local affairs if we have our people stirred up and made to realise that it is their responsibility and obligation to take a close interest in the management of their local affairs. I do not mean that there are great signs of activity now, or any degree of considerable concern, and I feel that a great deal of the legislation passed already has been a factor in that. I had hoped that by raising the question I would have been able to get clarification of the situation, but if I am not in order in expecting it from the Minister, I have to be satisfied in accepting what he said.
Ba mhaith liom cúpla focal a rádh ar an gceist seo. I did not catch exactly who Senator Baxter suggested should select the candidates for the forthcoming elections.
That would not be relevant to the Bill.
I hope this point will be relevant. I suggested some time ago in this House that owing to present position, in the City of Dublin, at all events, it would be necessary for those selected as candidates to have a reasonable amount of time to prepare, for the following reasons——
Yes, that is relevant.
During the past couple of years, a considerable number of houses have been built in the suburbs in the City of Dublin. Some of them are very far out in the suburbs—beyond the Deaf and Dumb Institute at Cabra, in the North, and as far as the Half-Way House in Crumlin, in the South. As can be easily understood, it would be necessary to have some transport to bring those people to the polling booths which are situated in the districts in which they originally lived. It is evident from the newspaper report I have read, whether Senator Baxter has seen it or not, that it would be necessary to have some transport, but, apparently, we are not going to have any transport. This will make it very awkward for candidates in the elections. There is one other point: paper is now very scarce, and I do not know what can be done about the supply of polling cards and printed literature. That I think will also mean a very awkward situation for those who are contesting the elections. At a Dublin Corporation meeting very recently, when this question of the elections was discussed, I expressed the view that the elections should be held, in the hope of getting experienced and independent-minded candidates for election and in the hope that they would be elected. I am not finding any fault with the holding of the elections, but with the length of time given. I think it is too short. It will take at least a week before any candidate can be selected, and that will leave only about three weeks for the preparation of literature, polling cards, and all the other things essential for the holding of an election. Those are the complaints that I am making. As I said, I did not intend to introduce anything contentious, but I understood that Senator Baxter did make some reference to whoever would select the candidates, and I should like to know who that will be. As I see the situation, it is quite possible that we will have a multiplicity of candidates. That is my own opinion; I have not been speaking to anybody on the matter. I do not know who the candidates will be, but in my opinion it will be a case of everybody nominating a candidate of his own, and it is quite possible that there will be a very large number of candidates. That is all I wish to say on the matter, but I am afraid it will be a very awkward election.
Did I understand the Minister to say that the date of the election has been definitely fixed for 19th August?
Either 12th or 19th, but more probably 19th.
The reason I asked was this: a good many people had hoped— this being a very busy season of the year—that the elections would be held on 15th August, which is a holiday. If the elections are held on an ordinary week-day there may be many people who will not be able to leave their work in order to record their votes. On 15th August they will have to attend to their religious duties, and I think that would be a suitable date on which to hold the elections. If there is a good reason why that date should not be chosen, I suppose the Minister will be able to explain it. I do not want to be accused of being out of order again, but I should just like to refer to one matter. Down the country, it is found that the very best candidates are not usually the most ambitious, and unless there is somebody or some organisation to request those people to go forward as candidates, there will probably be no candidates at all. I think there is nothing whatsoever wrong with having it either on Party or general lines, as long as you have somebody to request the best candidates to go forward. Otherwise, I think that, down the country, you will not have sufficient candidates to fill the posts. The elections need not, and I am sure they will not, be run in any contentious way, but we should make an effort to secure the best candidates no matter to what Party they belong.
I should like to support the last speaker in appealing to the Minister to choose 15th August as the date of the elections. It is generally observed as a holiday and, provided the Church has no objection, I think that day would be very convenient for the public generally. The polling booths are usually situated near the churches, and when the people go there to discharge their religious obligations they can also discharge their obligations to the State without any inconvenience to themselves. At least 90 per cent. of the people will be going to some church on that day and, therefore, it will be no inconvenience to them to record their votes. Otherwise, I am afraid we will have a rather unsatisfactory poll. The working people generally observe 15th August as a holiday. This is a very busy season of the year and, on an ordinary working day, the people would be slow to leave their work and travel a distance of three or four miles to record their votes. I think that matter should be seriously considered, provided the Church has no objection. Elections have already been held on Church holidays, and I do not think any objection was raised from any quarter.
It seems to me that the only case for this Bill is that it is not intended to carry the Bill out and, as far as I am concerned, that is the only reason why I am in favour of it. I am glad the Minister has decided to hold the local elections. I have no sympathy at all with the point of view that, because there is an emergency, we should not carry on our business and attempt to carry it on properly. Also I have no sympathy with the attitude that people cannot express different points of view and at the same time be perfectly loyal to their country and prepared to act together in an emergency. I believe it would be a tragedy if the various Parliamentary Parties endeavoured completely to control local affairs; I think it would be a tragedy if all local affairs were to be fought on similar issues to Parliamentary affairs because I think Parliamentary business is, and ought to be, different to a great extent from local affairs. As far as I am concerned, I think it is a healthy thing and a wise thing that the elections are going to be held, and for that reason I am in favour of the Bill because the Minister says he is not going to carry it out unless he is more or less forced to do so. I do not know what he thinks might force him to do so; I presume that, in the present completely abnormal circumstances, he wants to have the powers but has no intention at present of postponing the elections. In that case, I see no objection to giving him the precautionary powers provided in the Bill. If it were proposed to postpone the local elections for another year or two I would vote against the Bill.
Mr. Johnston
I think it is a very good thing that these elections are being held. I have been a member of local bodies for a number of years and take a very great interest in them, and the holding of the elections will induce the people generally to take an interest in local administration. With regard to Senator Baxter's statement about interference by the different political Parties, I do not think it is right that they should interfere in local elections to any very great extent, but I do not think the political Parties should be ruled out altogether. I submit to you, Sir, and to the House that the best local administration from 1899 up to the present day was the result of the elections held on a purely political ticket in 1920. There never was a better local administration to my mind since it was first initiated in 1899. But I do not think it is right that the political Parties should select people merely because they belong to a certain Party, and irrespective of their suitability. A person belonging to any particular Party may be a very suitable candidate, and his suitability should be considered irrespective of Party.
With regard to the date of the elections, I have read some of the discussions in the Dáil and have discussed the matter with people in my own area, and a number of them are very strongly in favour of holding the elections on 15th August. I do not think they would care to have that established as a precedent, but it would be a great advantage at the present time. As Senator Cummins has pointed out, most of the polling stations are convenient to the churches, particularly in the rural areas, so that the people who are attending Mass on that day will be able to record their votes. If the elections are held on a week-day the people will find it difficult to leave their work. If the Church has no objection to the holding of the elections on that day, I would be very much in favour of it.
Would the booths be closed to allow the presiding officers to go to Mass?
As Senator Douglas has indicated, the Bill is good not so much for what it contains as for what the Minister has taken occasion to say. That is not contained in the Bill at all. What is really being supported is not a Bill to postpone the elections, but a Bill to hold the local elections on a date provisionally mentioned by the Minister. I am entirely in agreement with the Minister that the elections should be held. I read the Minister's speech in the Dáil and I had great difficulty in ascertaining where he was going but, eventually, he agreed with an amendment put down to the effect that the elections should be held. We ought to be sufficiently grown up and sufficiently strong in our national and public health to be able to hold local elections without getting abusive of one another or in any way hampering such co-operation as there is locally in matters arising out of the emergency. I took occasion to complain here before of the constant use of the word "politics" as if it were a dirty, low thing, of which people ought to be ashamed. Properly understood, I think that it merely means interest in matters concerning the State. Local bodies, in so far as they do local work, are engaged in politics. Their work need not be of the same kind—of its nature, it is not—as the work done here and in the Dáil and the lines of demarcation should not be the same, but I think it is true to say that, when people are elected to local bodies on political lines, they do succeed in avoiding the political differences which exist at the top in the doing of their local work.
The last Senator alluded to the good local government bodies we got in 1920. I think that he confused the word "political" with the word "national". The councils elected in 1920 were elected on a great wave of national enthusiasm and, in fact, did not belong to separate political Parties at all. There is hardly any analogy between that period and the present time. While it would be undesirable for political Parties to seek to monopolise representation, they may have a particular rôle to play. What was asked in the Dáil and what, I think, we should ask is that the elections should be conducted with a realisation of their importance, with a desire to get the best people elected and with no desire to create trouble or rowing. The difficulty is, I think, that when people stand up on a platform they do not make the type of speech which they intended to make. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health is, himself, a notorious example in that respect. If the Minister would exercise a self-denying ordinance and take no part in the elections, the national good might be served by the holding of the elections.
I suppose I ought to address myself to the issues outside the Bill which have been raised, and only refer to the Bill to confirm Senator Douglas's expectation, that I shall not avail myself of the powers contained in it unless I am compelled by exceptional or abnormal circumstances to do so. I should like to say, emphatically, that that is my intention. I have no prophetic vision, and I do not know what circumstances may arise in the future, but unless we have some sort of national catastrophe, the country may take it that the elections will be held on either the 12th or 19th August. In that connection, Senator Healy suggested that we were not allowing people sufficient time. He referred, particularly, to the position in Dublin. These elections will be held upon the register which came into force on 1st June last, and the qualifying date for that register ended in November, 1941, so that most of those who will vote at the elections will appear on the register as voters in respect of the premises in which they are now living. Accordingly, I think that the difficulties the Senator anticipated, by reason of the fact that there has been a considerable change over the past five or six years in the places of habitation of voters in the City of Dublin, need not be feared. In addition, we have asked the local authorities to bear in mind the difficulties which will be placed in the way of voters owing to restricted transport facilities, and to compensate for that by the provision of additional polling places.
May I briefly touch on the issue raised by Senator Baxter to say that he read more into my statement in the Dáil than an examination of the text would warrant. I did not ask that parties, groups or associations should abstain from participation in these elections. I think that that would be an unwarranted encroachment on the rights of association and the liberty to combine given our people under the Constitution. I did say that I hoped it would be possible for all parties to make an appeal to the electorate to conduct these elections calmly and with full advertence to the issues involved, to the importance of the functions which might fall upon members of the local authorities in future, and to the important part which these local authorities play in our national and civic life. I went further and said that an appeal might be made to those who were considering the putting forward of candidates in the elections to nominate persons who would have all the qualifications of personality and character which, in my view, are required for membership of local authorities. We want honest, energetic men, and men of capacity and vision on these boards. I hope that the efforts of those who have a voice in the selection of candidates, or, subsequently, in the election of candidates will be directed to getting the right type of men.
I cannot see that, in connection with these elections, any acute political issues will arise. In so far as Parties or organisations may concern themselves with the elections, the results, from the point of view of these Parties or organisations, will be satisfactory according as the proper type of candidate is selected and it is to be hoped that the people will pay more regard to the character and personal qualifications of the candidates than to the political ticket on which they stand. At the same time, that does not suggest that, if groups or organisations feel they have members particularly worthy or suitable for membership of public authorities, and if they feel it desirable to do so, they are not to put them forward. So far as the organisation of which I am a member is concerned, I gather that the National Executive decided in that regard to leave it free to members and branches of the organisation to put forward and support candidates or not as they, in their local wisdom, thought best. I gather that that is the view of other organisations as well.
Provided that the spirit of common citizenship which has animated all Parties in the State in recent years— I do not fix September, 1939, as the critical date—is maintained throughout the country, I do not think there will be any of the Party bitterness or bitterness amongst neighbours which is the one thing that people fear and deprecate in the holding of public elections for any office. With regard to the suggestion that the elections be held on August 15th, I may say that, unfortunately, difficulties have been encountered in that regard and, in deference to the views of others, I will not be able to fix the elections for that date. I do not think there is anything else I might usefully say in regard to the points raised in the debate, but I may add that it is not likely on this occasion at any rate that the Minister for Local Government and Public Health will participate in the elections or be guilty of those platform indiscretions to which Senator Hayes so feelingly and sympathetically referred. I hope that the elections will be conducted in the spirit in which this Bill was debated in the Dáil, and in the spirit in which the elections have been referred to to-day. If the elections are carried through in that way, I have no doubt that the results will be very satisfactory, from the point of view of all Parties in the State and from the point of view of the State, which is above all Parties.
When will the Committee Stage be taken?
There is a slight verbal amendment to be made in Section 5, to make it clear beyond all doubt that the mayors must be reelected at the quarterly meeting after the election. I gather that, though that was the intention when the 1937 Bill was being drafted and when this section was being drafted, some doubts have arisen, in view of which I would like to postpone the Committee Stage until next week, if the Seanad will be meeting then.