This Bill is introduced for the purpose of remedying certain defects which have appeared in the electricity supply code. Sections 2 and 3 have their origin in a recent judgment of the High Court in a case in which a former employee of the board, who had been discharged from its service in the year 1933, succeeded in obtaining a judgment to the effect that his dismissal was invalid. The position is that former employees of local authorities were transferred to the Electricity Supply Board under the Act of 1927 with the same rights which they had when employed by local authorities. One of the rights of an employee of a local authority is that he cannot be retired or dismissed without the sanction of the Minister for Local Government. Subsequent to the transfer of those former local government employees to the Electricity Supply Board, the Minister for Local Government sought legal advice as to whether he was obliged to give prior sanction to the retirement or dismissal of transferred employees of the Electricity Supply Board. He was advised that such prior sanction was not required.
Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill, 1942—Second Stage.
Approximately what date was that?
About 1931 or 1932. I cannot be sure. It was before——
Before the change of Government?
I am not so sure of that. I was about to say that it was before this man Cox, who got the judgment, was dismissed; he was dismissed in 1933. The board acted on that ruling from that time until recently. A transferred officer was dismissed by the board in 1933, but in 1940 took proceedings against the board on the ground that his dismissal was invalid because the prior sanction of the Minister for Local Government had not been secured. The High Court ruled in his favour, and, in subsequent proceedings, the transferred officer concerned succeeded in obtaining a substantial sum, £2,100, from the board in respect of the salary he would have received if he had remained in the service of the board. We are not proposing to interfere with that judgment, but we are now proceeding to rectify the position. We are providing that the prior consent of the Minister for Local Government to the retirement or dismissal of a transferred officer is not required. We are maintaining the right of a transferred officer to appeal to the Minister for Local Government from the decision of the board to retire or dismiss him, and we are providing that, in the case of some other officers of the board who started proceedings on the same grounds subsequent to the decision in the one case which was decided, those proceedings will be estopped, but subject to the repayment by the board to the individuals concerned of the full amount of the taxed costs incurred by those individuals up to the date of introducing the Bill.
Another matter dealt with in the Bill is an amendment to Section 11 of the Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Act, 1930, which relates to the valuation of undertakings acquired by the board. Under that section, where an undertaking was acquired after 3rd July, 1930, the valuation for rating purposes was stabilised at that existing on 1st April, 1929. Representations were made that that restriction operated unfairly in certain cases, and it is proposed to remove it, thereby substituting with retrospective effect the valuation existing at the time when the undertaking was acquired. This amendment to the Bill removes a grievance which was particularly acute in the urban district of Killarney, where the valuation of the property acquired by the board increased considerably following acquisition. The local authority was entitled to collect rates only upon the basis of the valuation on 1st April, 1929, but was obliged to pay a contribution to the county council upon the basis of the higher valuation, and was, in fact, losing a substantial sum per year from the mere fact that the property had any valuation. This amendment will remove that grievance, and, as I have said, will remove it with retrospective effect.
A further provision of the Bill relates to certain employees of former undertakers, the Dublin Corporation and the Dublin United Transport Company, who lost their employment when the Pigeon House and Ringsend generating stations were closed down by the board. Under the Electricity Supply Act of 1927 those persons were awarded pensions based on service up to the time when their services were dispensed with. Subsequently, they were employed by the board after the re-opening of the Pigeon House station. It has been found that, under the law as it stands, the years of service with the board subsequent to the re-opening of the Pigeon House station cannot be reckoned to supplement, on their ultimate retirement, the pensions they already enjoy in respect of their services up to the closing of the station in which they had been employed.
The men, when re-employed by the board, did not receive full wages; they continued to receive their pensions, the pensions which had been awarded to them when their previous services had been terminated and also the difference between these pensions and the appropriate rate of wages. If the Pigeon House station, instead of being closed down and then reopened, had been maintained in continuous commission, the former employees of the station would have been entitled to count their entire period of service for pension purposes when they came to retire. Owing to the break in their service, they are not entitled to count the period of service from the time they resumed work. It has been decided that it would be unfair for the men to lose, for pension purposes, the period of time since they recommenced work. The Bill does not propose that they should receive two pensions, one in respect of former service and one in respect of their subsequent service. The period of their former service will be aggregated with that spent in the service of the board and the pension on retirement will be calculated on the total aggregate service. The men are given an option between the benefits of what may be termed the local government scale and a pension on the basis of whichever of the board's superannuation schemes is applicable to any particular case.
The only remaining feature is the provision to remedy a defect which has been revealed in connection with the prosecution of persons alleged to be guilty of the theft of electricity. The position is that the board, for purely legal reasons, finds that it possesses no effectual means of prosecuting in connection with offences of this kind, and it is considered that that defect should be remedied. The remedy is being accomplished in this Bill. These are the principal features of the measure and I recommend it to the Seanad.
I think the Bill should be accepted, because by it the Minister is remedying a difficulty which illustrates the complexities in respect of passing legislation. I have no great knowledge of the legal aspect, but the opinion of the Attorney-General, that an officer of the Electricity Supply Board could be dismissed without the prior consent of the Minister for Local Government, seems to be commonsense. Yet, it was subsequently decided not to be sound in law. The Bill makes it clear that the individual, having succeeded in his case in the courts, and got a substantial sum of money, will be left the rights accruing to him from the judgment and any other persons who got any distance with proceedings will have their costs refunded; but the position that the Electricity Supply Board, having taken people over, should itself be the judge on the matter of their dismissal, would appear to be the only reasonable and workable method, so that the Bill, in that way and in other directions, too, seems to be reasonable and should certainly get a Second Reading.
Despite what Senator Hayes says, the Bill seems to me to follow a very objectionable precedent, the taking away of the rights of individuals. When any citizen thinks he has a legal right-as has been shown in the decision in the case to which the Minister referred—I think it is very objectionable for the Legislature to deprive him of his normal right of appealing to the courts. This appears to be the position, that, whether by their individual contracts with local authorities formerly or by law, I do not know, but at any rate people have, as the courts have proved, certain legal rights and they are attempting to take the normal remedy that aggrieved citizens have at their disposal to enforce their rights by appealing to the law. Before the courts come to a decision we are asked to say that they have no rights in the matter, or to modify their rights in some way. That seems to be objectionable from every point of view. I know of no more objectionable procedure for a Legislature to follow than to step in and stop a case when it is in the immediate grip of the courts. I do not thinks the Seanad should swallow this Bill without giving consideration to that aspect. What has led to this Bill is the fact that there are outstanding rights, of which the Parliament is asked to deprive the citizens who believe they have these rights.
In reply to Senator Rowlette, I can only say that whatever rights these transferred officers employed by the Electricity Supply Board have, were rights given them by law. There is no question of the natural law. The Legislature, when it enforced the transfer of electricity undertakings to the Electricity Supply Board, with the accompanying staffs, decided upon giving these transferred staffs certain rights. What rights were given them were set out in the Act, and the interpretation of the Act is, of course, a matter for the court. It was not intended that they should have this particular protection, and they did not think they had it, but it is quite clear that if there had been agreement as to what was the correct interpretation of the law, this person who was dismissed, or those who were retired, would never have this claim against the board, because the only thing necessary to validate the procedure was the purely technical assent of the Minister for Local Government. If the Minister had been advised that his assent was necessary, that assent would have been given.
In the particular case of the individual who got the damages, there was never a suggestion that he was improperly dismissed. It was made quite clear in the courts that they were not attempting to pass any judgment upon the action taken by the Electricity Supply Board in dismissing him. I think he was properly dismissed. The only difficulty that arose was that this purely technical assent of the Minister was not secured. If the Minister thought it was necessary, it would have been given in that, and presumably in every other case. As a result of that flaw, in procedure rather than in law, this individual got a judgment by the court to the effect that he was still in the employment of the Electricity Supply Board because he was never validly dismissed, and he got this substantial sum of money in the form of salary in respect of the period that he was held to have been in their employment, even though he was doing no work for them. The other individuals who were retired on the grounds of old age or for other reasons then found, for the first time, that there had been this technical flaw in the circumstances of their retirement and they proceeded to take action for the recovery of their salaries from the board. That position is being put right.
I think I could have justified on general grounds a proposal here to reverse the decision of the court in the case of the particular individual who got a judgment there. We decided not to do that because of the general principle that hard cases make bad law, and because we regarded it as a bad precedent to establish, even though the circumstances were such as, on the face of them, to appear to justify the procedure; but we are now making the law clear on the point and in respect of the individuals who have started proceedings against the board, following on the judgement in the one case, we are ensuring that they will suffer no personal loss. The position they are being left in, however, is the position in which they themselves always thought they were, the position in which the board and the legal advisers of the Government thought they were, and clearly the position in which they were intended to be put by the Act of 1927, so that it cannot be said that they are suffering any injustice.
The Minister has said that the Government are securing the rights of these people individually?
Yes.
To the satisfaction of these people?
What I say is that we are providing that the board shall repay to them any costs they may have incurred in pursuing their actions prior to the introduction of the Bill.
But compensation for abolishing their rights?
Oh, no.