Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 26 Jul 1945

Vol. 30 No. 7

Appropriation Bill, 1945 ( Certified Money Bill )— Second Stage (Resumed).

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

Sir John Keane

I do not know whether, after listening to the long and rather tedious debate yesterday, I would be doing the right thing in congratulating the Minister in his new office, but, at least I am very glad personally to see him there, and I feel confident that our encounters, if there are to be any, in the future will be much more amiable than they have been in the past. I feel that we will have much more common ground on the question of finance than we had on questions that divided us in the past, and I wish the Minister all success in his new and very responsible office. I feel that we get few opportunities here for a broad survey of our financial position. After all, finance involves much more than budgets and figures, as it reacts on every aspect of our national life. We get very few opportunities in this House for considering the position of the country in its broad aspects. I have always wished that we might have some change in our Standing Orders whereby we should have the opportunity in some form of considering, more or less under the heads of the Estimates, public expenditure, but apparently we have inherited the system of the country across the water where the Upper House has very little power. I think we should have more to say in day-to-day administration, because we have in this House a number of people eminently qualified to speak on general subjects.

I should like to look to the future, and to consider the main facts of our national freedom. The first is the freedom of Press and publications. I am only going to dwell upon it except that one point emerges, of which I ask the Minister to make a note, as it concerns the Department of Justice. The Minister may know that I introduced a Bill last October to amend the present Publications Act, but I withdrew it on the undertaking of the Minister that the Government were going to proceed with legislation more or less on similar lines. That was last October but we have got nothing yet. I feel that the Bill that I, with the assistance of certain officers of the House, drew up could have been quite well passed into law and would have worked. It may not have been in the best form, and yet we have to wait 12 months to get this much-needed reform. I hope the Minister will see his way to convey these remarks to the Minister for Justice.

The next plank in our freedom about which I am alarmed concerns security, and, in view of certain remarks made yesterday by Senator Duffy, the freedom of our Parliament, as well as the right to have a Parliamentary Opposition. I think we have to look only at this House to realise how fortunate we are compared to many countries, in being allowed to have an Opposition and a free Parliament. A free Parliament involves as a very definite element—periodic elections. There has been no suggestion that that feature of our Constitution should be in any way impaired.

Now I pass to a very essential feature of any sound popular Government and that is the matter of education. I naturally can only be brief on the subject. I think it is to be deplored that we have no indication of any form of policy or views in the matter of education, in the matter of raising the school age, in the matter of widening and improving the status of teachers, and all those questions that engaged such widespread attention on the other side and which are very necessary indeed if we are to have a sound healthy democracy. The education of the people appears to me to be the very keystone to any stable Government. Some day we may be able to arrive through education at the position that the average elector, when inducements are offered to him for his vote by various Parties, will be able to say: "I know something about economics." I think we might reach the stage when the average elector, if he heard Senator Duffy yesterday, would say: "That man does not know what he is talking about in that respect" and that he will be able to reject views such as the House heard yesterday. Looking to the future, I feel that there is a pressing obligation on the Government to give us an indication of a forward policy in this matter of primary, secondary and higher education.

That leads me to another matter bound up with the education of our electorate and that is this question of an indication by the Government, in advance, of their plans. Perhaps this may be somewhat of a new method in popular Government. But I do think that what we have seen lately on the other side is well worth copying. The Government there come along and give a general indication of their plans in such matters as education, medical services and full employment. They are not committed to any such indication. It takes the form of a White Paper which is published and a period is allowed for free comment in the Press and on the platform. Then it takes the form of a resolution in the House. Not until these preliminaries have been gone through is the actual legislation introduced. I feel that that will be in future the standard practice in any country with a healthy, popular Government. I am concerned to see that there is little or no indication of that here. We should have those plans in advance. We should have an opportunity of criticising them. We should have resolutions and a debate on them in both Houses. Not until then should we have legislation introduced and put into force. Then I feel certain that we will be proceeding on a much surer foundation and that there will be far less misunderstanding in public debate.

There is another matter in connection with education in a healthy democracy and that is a closer liaison between the Civil Service and industry. We are approaching inevitably a period of more and more control. Control involves increasing power in the hands of the Civil Service, power to regulate industry and private enterprise of every sort and kind. I think there is a necessity for a little understanding by both sides of the problems involved. Naturally, the Civil Service have their side of the matter. You have to have a certain amount of rules and regulations which are inevitable in any form of control. There must be a very considerable element of rigidity. On the other hand, in industry there is the necessity for quick decisions and a considerable element of risk. I feel that it is most important that both sides should get to understand one another better. I think the Government should consider some form of what has been called by various names, such as an industrial staff college or summer schools, or some opportunity where, in an informal atmosphere, representatives of industry and the Civil Service could meet under social conditions, get to know one another better, have lectures and discussions, so that each side would go away with a better understanding of the other fellow's problems. I feel that what you might call some fraternisation of that kind is overdue. I hope the Minister will see his way to have the idea brought up at the meetings of the Government.

Now I pass to this matter which has created a considerable and, I think, a quite unwarranted sensation within the last fortnight and that is the question of what they call our sterling assets. I feel that, if Deputy McGilligan had never spoken in the way he did and if the Press had not made such a hullabaloo about it, we would not have heard anything of the matter at all, because the whole thing really, in essence, is perfectly simple. It appears now that the whole thing is being approached apart altogether from the fact that there has been a war and that the whole of this dislocation of our economy is inevitable in the circumstances of war. Our trade has always been with one of the major belligerents. That belligerent, in fighting not only for its own survival but, incidentally, for our survival too, has had to abandon some 70 per cent. of its export trade. Instead of making goods for trade and export, it has had to make munitions of war for export in a totally different form and, of course, the effect of that was a scarcity of commodities and capital goods for all forms of industrial purposes. That is the root and the occasion of the whole of this growth in what you might call our foreign investments.

Let us be more particular for a moment and try to analyse first of all what these sterling assets consist of. There is one very substantial element and that is the money which was previously used as working capital in trade. That working capital, not being required, has had to remain static or inert for the present. That money either has taken the form of short-term investments or it has been placed on deposit in the banks. That money is available at any time when the opportunity for purchases arises. Then there has been another form. Owing to the inability to buy goods, and owing also to the large amount of services which we have rendered to that belligerent, large sums of money have come to this country and very considerable sums of money have been available for investment. That money has been invested according to the wishes of the holder either in gilt-edged stocks or in industrials, as the case may be. When we talk of these things been liquidated, the thing has no meaning. Those are ordinary investments made by you or me out of our money that we have saved, and there is no question of their being repaid. Probably, the investor may not want them. He may not be in business at all, and it may be an investment, on the income of which he lives.

Now, we have heard various figures stated of the volume of these increased sterling assets. I do not know where these figures are taken from, but the only reliable figures that I know of, and that are available to everybody, are contained in the record of the increase in bank investments. The money held in banks has, naturally, increased in late years for the causes that I have mentioned, and that is reflected in their investments. Undoubtedly, bank investments have substantially increased over past years. I shall just give you some very general figures in regard to that. Mind you, this is not a problem connected with this war alone. Identically the same problem arose following the last war, and yet we did not have all the hullabaloo arising from that, that we have now. From the figures I have here, I shall give you a periodic picture of bank investments over a number of years. In 1895, the investments of all the Irish banks were in the nature of £18,000,000. In 1915 they had increased to £35,000,000, and in 1922 they had increased from £35,000,000 to £103,000,000. There was identically the same problem then as has arisen in connection with this war. So far as this war is concerned, the investments, in 1933, were in the region of £85,000,000. Then they dropped. I need not go into the reasons why they dropped. The money was being used at home, and also the repercussions of what was known as the economic war here had something to do with it, but they dropped to £69,000,000. Then, in March last, they had risen to £151,000,000.

Nobody will deny that it is inevitable that as a result of the war people should be anxious. You cannot have a war, where all resources are put into slaughter and destruction and the production of the munitions of war, without the fear of very serious consequences, and very grave anxiety as to the future. It was an especially anxious time for us because one of the main belligerents was our chief customer. We might have succeeded in preserving a neutral attitude with regard to our war status and our political status, but we could not and cannot divorce our economic status from that of the country with whom we chiefly trade. You can see, therefore, that whether we like it or not we made quite a substantial contribution to the war effort in Great Britain in that way and, naturally, were concerned as to the results. Great Britain was fighting for her survival, and we, by virtue of our position in regard to her, as our chief customer, gave our contribution, and thereby, if I may say so, have succeeded in securing our own survival.

Now, I want to deal with certain remarks that were made by Senator Duffy when he spoke. I think that he gave a totally false picture of our economic position. He described queues at the Permit Office waiting to escape from the miseries in our homeland. He did not tell us about the queues for the cinemas, queues of people who, apparently, have plenty of money with which to enjoy themselves. He did not say anything about the apparent prosperity in the country where, even in the small towns, there seems to be plenty of money for amusements and other things. I am glad to notice that the Senator has arrived just in good time. He did not tell us anything about the apparent prosperity in the country districts. He did not deal, although he could have got the figures, with the very large growth in bank deposits held by our farmers. As I say, he gave a false and untrue picture of the country. The country is not in the dire want that he suggested, and the people are not fleeing from a condition of poverty; but having established to his own satisfaction that the country was in a very desperate condition and wanted relief, he then proceeded to say how it is to be done, and suggests that it is to be done by breaking the link with sterling—well, I do not say breaking the link, but breaking the parity with sterling. Now, admittedly, this question of currency is a highly complicated and very technical question, and I am sure the Senator is aware that this matter has been twice closely examined by men of very high repute and who are acknowledged authorities on these questions of currency. There were also associated with them members of the Labour Party. I grant you, they did not always agree, but they were associated with them, and perhaps I might be permitted to say that some of those who disagreed gave very inadequate attendances at the inquiries on which the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Banking and Currency was based.

I think that that Currency Commission sat for four or five years, and went very carefully into this matter and gave reasons why we should remain bound to sterling. I am not going to go into the matter in detail now. The whole thing was set out in the report of that commission, which had closely examined the matter, and it was obvious to all of us, however we may lack expert knowledge, that if you want to trade with one country you will have to trade with that country on the basis of the same currency: that you do not want to have a fluctuating currency. However, with regard to the point Senator Duffy made, apparently, he was not altogether in favour of breaking away completely from sterling, but in some way or other to monkey about with the parity with sterling. He did not say how, but he referred to the breaking away by New Zealand and Australia. In that connection, I shall quote from the Report of the Currency Commission, page 133, paragraph 211, which is as follows:—

"It being agreed that a certain fixed relation to sterling must be maintained, the question arises whether the present parity is the appropriate one.

Firstly, we wish to point out that a change in the parity would introduce an element of uncertainty for the future as it would be impossible to prevent the anticipation of further changes. It would be natural for people to argue that what happened once might happen again. As the case of many countries shows at the present time, the existence of such a feeling is in the highest degree upsetting and a grave deterrent to enterprise and not least to the maintenance of low interest rates."

That is what the commission gave, after examination, as their deliberate opinion. If the Senator has another opportunity of speaking, I should like him to tell us how a mere alteration in parity would improve our position. Let me quote another extract from the report:—

"Thirdly, we may point out that in the actual situation a change of the parity in either direction would have undesirable consequences. If the Free State pound"

—we would say the republican pound now—

"became worth more in terms of the British pound, the consequence would be a fall in the payments that Free State producers would receive for their exports in their own currency. If, on the other hand, the Free State pound became worth less in terms of the British pound, the inevitable effect would be a rise in the cost of all imports and an accentuation of the present tendency to a rise in the cost of living."

The whole matter is far too complicated and far too serious to be dealt with in the manner which the Senator suggests. Here is a further extract:—

"With regard to the adoption of a ‘free currency', i.e., a currency free to vary upwards and downwards without limit to its exchange value, we have already presented what, in our opinion, are conclusive arguments from a practical point of view against any such choice."

I emphasise the following words from the report:—

"It remains to be said that no country has been able to allow such freedom of exchange movements, not excluding Soviet Russia, in spite of complete State control of that country's economy and finance."

I think that the House will agree that the matter is involved and far-reaching in its consequences. Currency affects the value of our savings and the whole store of our wealth. How does the Senator propose to deal with it? At present, parity is maintained by Act of Parliament. The Senator wants to leave it in the power of the Government, any day it thinks fit—perhaps in momentary panic—to alter that parity without the authority of Parliament. That is an astonishing departure from the democratic forms of Parliament in which I thought the Senator was a strong believer. There is no difficulty whatever in a democratic country in passing in a very short time an Act of Parliament which the people want. If we are to base our currency according to the whim of the Government at any moment, we should at least, reenact, alter or amend our legislation. I do not know if the Senator suggests that the Emergency Powers Act should be used to effect this purpose. The Government may not have the necessary power under the Emergency Powers Act but I think we can trust them, if they have those powers, not to use them in the way the Senator suggests.

What is the moral of the whole business? The moral is that, whether we are a republic or a member of the British Commonwealth, we cannot escape interdependence with our chief customer. That is plain for everybody to see to-day. What is the solution? The solution can only come by closer collaboration with the country with whom we are economically so closely allied. That is what makes me a little bit anxious about our present foreign policy. I am afraid, as I said a few days ago when the Taoiseach was here, that the atmosphere has deteriorated. Our prestige outside the country has, undoubtedly, grown worse, and we should make every effort to get back into closer collaboration with all countries involved in future world reconstruction. As Senator Douglas said, I do not understand this reference to going "hat in hand" to anybody. We should not stand upon any form of international or national punctilio, but should seek every opportunity of getting into closer collaboration with countries which are trying to work out the very complicated problem of a new international currency and the hundred problems involved in post-war reconstruction. I hope that the alarm—the completely false alarm —created by Deputy McGilligan's bombshell will at least have had the effect of showing the Government that, however politically independent we may be, we are bound up in the economy of Great Britain and of the whole world, and that we should seek every opportunity of lending our assistance in all the problems that will have to be dealt with in connection with world reconstruction.

Minister for Finance (Mr. Aiken)

I want to say how deeply grateful I am to Senators for their many suggestions as to how I should spend money. After sitting here all yesterday afternoon and portion of to-day, I feel certain that, if somebody gives me a couple of hundred million pounds, it will cause me no embarrassment! I shall know how to spend the money. A good suggestion as to how to raise money came from the Senator from Tipperary. I feel certain that, if nobody makes me a gift of a few tens of millions of pounds, I shall be able to raise a million or thereabouts by fines on the stray goats down in Tipperary.

A large number of questions were raised here yesterday and to-day. I shall have the remarks by Senators regarding Departments other than my own communicated to the Ministers concerned. One of the chief elements in the debate was the question of our sterling assets. As Senators know, this matter was raised in the Dáil last week and was dealt with fairly fully by me on that occasion. The fact is that we have some hundreds of millions of pounds worth of investments in England. Deputy McGilligan and others sought to establish that, at the moment, those investments were of no practical use to the country. Deputy McGilligan doubted that they would be of much use in the future. However, since the war, we have been able to translate about £78,000,000 worth of those sterling assets into goods, bought outside the United Kingdom. They were, at least, of so much use to us. It was also stated here yesterday that we would not be able to use those sterling assets to buy timber in Sweden. That is not a fact. We shall be able to buy timber and machinery from Sweden and pay for them in sterling. As a matter of fact, a certain number of orders for machinery and timber have been placed there already. To what extent we shall be able to transform in the future all the sterling assets we have in London into goods, I am not able to say. Naturally, we hope we shall be able to convert them into capital goods as and when we require those goods.

Before the war we cashed-in some of our sterling assets; between 1932 and 1939 we cashed in some of them and bought machinery and house-building materials, which we brought back here. If the Fianna Fáil policy had been pursued with greater vigour, and if there had not been so much opposition to it, I have no doubt that there would have been more factories built and more houses erected for our people. A great outcry was made that we were ruining the country because we were depleting our sterling assets, even though the result of our doing so was to increase the standard of living, especially in the matter of housing, for a large percentage of our people, and to improve their potential standard of life, particularly during such an emergency as we have passed through.

We had difficulty in getting goods from abroad during the past five years. I feel certain our difficulty would have been greater had we not been in a position to do as much as we were able to do for ourselves. I would not like to have offered any country a temptation by placing ourselves completely at its mercy for all the essentials of life if, at the same time, we were holding out against its general policy. We were able to maintain our attitude during the war not only because of the wisdom and courage of our young men, but also because of the fact that, in the last analysis, we would have been able to sustain life here on our own resources.

Much as I hope that Senator Sir John Keane and myself may be on common ground, and much as I hope that that common ground will be my ground, I cannot agree with him when he advocates interdependence as a desirable ideal in international life. What we want in this country is more independence, politically and economically. Political independence depends to a large extent, in the modern world, upon economic independence. I want to see, as far as we can do it, in the shortest possible time, this country becoming so economically independent that it will be able to carry on its normal life and give its people a fair and decent and healthy standard of comfort without being dependent upon foreigners for the vital things of life.

Coming back to the sterling assets, I do not agree that the British people will not be able to pay their debts, if they want to do so. I do not agree with Senator Johnston that it will take them 50 years to pay back what they owe to us, to give us goods for the sterling assets we hold, if we want the goods. The British, before this war, exported somewhere in the neighbourhood of £500,000,000 worth of goods per annum. During the war they have been exporting about £3,000,000,000 worth of goods per annum, munitions of war which were utilised against their enemies. I believe it is physically possible for the British, if they want to do it, to maintain a fairly high standard of living, a reasonable standard of living at home, and pay their debts within a reasonable time.

When the positions were reversed and the British landlords here were the creditors and our people the debtors, they insisted that our people should pay upon the nail, even though it drove their standard of living very low indeed. I feel, now that we are a creditor nation against the British, that if they want to have a reasonable standard of living they are entitled to it. I believe they can have that reasonable standard of living and pay back to the Irish people the goods and services which were given to them on loan and which are represented by our foreign assets in England. I believe that during the war their standard of living, even though it was not very high, was, if we are to judge from medical statistics, a healthy standard of living. If, during the war, they were able to have that standard of living and at the same time were able to export some thousands of millions of pounds worth of munitions of war and keep 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 of the cream of their people engaged in the distribution of those munitions, I feel that after the war, when they reach the stage where they will have reconverted their industry for the production of consumable goods, and put back into industry the young men who have been engaged in fighting during the past five years, they will have no difficulty in maintaining a reasonable standard of living and making a reasonable annual repayment of their debts.

Deputy McGilligan read out certain quotations in the Dáil and I am sure Senators have read many statements by people in public life in England, people high in industry and finance, which were rather gloomy as to the future of British trade and industry. I do not want to go into that matter very deeply. I will content myself by saying that there are more explanations to be given for the reasons underlying the making of those statements than were given by Deputy McGilligan. I do not like to mention Deputy McGilligan's name here but, unfortunately, it has been introduced by Senators. All I will say is that not all the statements the Deputy makes are very reliable. It escaped me in the Dáil, but I saw a scare heading in one of the evening papers, arising out of a statement by Deputy McGilligan, to the effect that we were not able to get Swedish timber because of the intervention of a foreign country. There was no truth whatever in that, and, as I say, the fact of the matter is that the Swedish Government is quite prepared to allow its citizens to accept our sterling assets in exchange for their timber and machinery. I see Senator Baxter here. He wanted us to do two things, so far as I could follow him, in relation to the American soldiers. One was to hold them up at the boat and ask: "Have you got any dollars?" and if they had not, to tell them to get out.

Mr. Baxter

Oh, no; do not misrepresent me.

Mr. Aiken

The other was to let them in and to make certain that they were nicely tucked away in a canteen, regimented and stuffed with propaganda. I do not think either of the two courses should be followed. We are allowing these young men in on the same terms as those on which we allow visitors from any country to come in. I do not believe they want to be "canteened" and looked after, night, noon and morning, and neither do I think they require to be stuffed with propaganda, night, noon and morning. They have had five years of propaganda and canteens, and I am sure the poor fellows want a bit of freedom. I would neither stop them at the boats nor carry out the propaganda which Senator Baxter advocates.

I do not think that foreign countries want to be propagandised about our stand in the war. We had Senator Douglas here yesterday saying that we should start a campaign abroad with a view to denying that the Irish people are pro-Nazi, pro-Fascist, and all the rest of it. The only people who ever expressed themselves as being pro-Nazi or pro-Fascist, so far as I remember, were Senator Douglas and his friends. I remember Senator Douglas waxing very eloquent on all the good things which the National Socialist movement had done for Germany, and which the Fascist movement had done for Italy, and voting against the Blueshirt Bill by which we attempted to prevent the growth of a similar organisation here or to keep it curbed.

Mr. Douglas

On a point of order, the Minister possibly is not aware that this charge was made by Senator Hearne, that I replied to it, and that Senator Hearne apologised by stating that he had since read the speech I made on the Blueshirt Bill, in which I did not say any of the things the Minister states with regard to the Nazi or Fascist movements.

Mr. Aiken

I have here the speech which Senator Douglas made on the Bill, and I ask him to deny whether he said these things or not.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Give us the volume.

Mr. Aiken

I will give line, chapter and verse. The volume is volume 18 of the Seanad debates of 21st March, 1934, column 785. Senator Douglas is reported there as having said:—

"There has been a great deal in these shirt or Fascist movements which cannot be criticised."

Mr. Douglas

Might I ask the Minister to read a little before that?

Mr. Aiken

I can read the whole speech; it is there to be read by anybody. All I am saying is that if Senator Douglas thinks that propaganda should be made to prove that the Irish people were not pro-Fascist, I think it is not worth while, because the only people who made propaganda of that sort were Senator Douglas and his friends. One of Senator Douglas's friends, at the time the Senator was making this speech, went down the country and said:—

"The Brownshirt movement has succeeded in Germany, the Black-shirt movement has succeeded in Italy and the Blueshirt movement is going to succeed here."

But it did not.

Mr. Duffy

As a matter of fact, he said it in the Dáil.

Mr. Aiken

He did, and, at the same time as he was saying that in the Dáil, Senator Douglas was saying this. The Senator, as on every other occasion, in this speech said two things —two-faced—but he cannot deny that he said this:—

"There has been a great deal in these shirts or Fascist movements which cannot be criticised. There have been discipline, good fellowship, readiness to sacrifice and the desire to reform, which are excellent things, and these have given the movements a wonderful appeal to the best of young men and women after the demoralisation of the war. I challenge anybody to deny that a great deal of good has been achieved in both Italy and Germany as the result of the Nazi and Fascist movements."

At the time his friends were going around saying that as the Brown-shirts had succeeded in Germany and the Blackshirts in Italy, so would the Blueshirt movement succeed here, Senator Douglas, while criticising some aspects of these movements, was emphasising his approval of the policy of his friends and in that way encouraging young men and women to go off into Fascist movements. At that time, they were calling me a Communist because I was against them, because we insisted that we should have a democratic government here and that if there was to be a change of government, it would have to be on a democratic basis.

On the same occasion 21st March, 1934, the Senator said:—

"I am satisfied that this youth movement, taking it all round, has been a good thing for the country."

We remember that Blueshirt movement, with its victory saluting, its shirted parades all over the place and the threatened march on Dublin which was stopped by Government proclamation. We know what would have happened here if there had not been a Government with the wisdom, the sense and the courage to stand up against Senator Douglas and his friends when they were attempting to put it over on the Irish people. That is pretty well forgotten and I think there is no reason why we should spend any money on sending missions abroad to prove that the Irish people are neither National Socialist nor Fascist. If they want to see what the Irish people stand for and what the Fianna Fáil Government stand for, all they have to do is to look at the democratic Constitution of this State which was put through the Dáil by the Fianna Fáil Government and approved and enacted by the Irish people.

Senator Douglas and his friend, Senator Johnston, and, indeed, Senator Sir John Keane to-day, wanted to suggest that the war which has just concluded was our war, that we had contributed to it and that the victory was ours. I do not agree, and I think, if we want to be respected abroad, we shall have to take our stand on truth. The truth of the matter is that this country, partitioned as it was by the British Government, refused to have anything to do with British crusades abroad for the freedom of other countries. There were certain of our young men who went off and joined the war and while one may admire their courage, I do not admire their good sense. They would have been far wiser if they had stayed here with their brothers who had both the good sense and the courage to join our Army and were ready to defend this country against all enemies. Had all the young men of the country gone off, we would not have survived. Let us get rid of this notion that we can in some fashion prove to the victors in the war that their victory is our victory. As a people we were neutral. As a people we tried to keep our men at home, advised them to stay at home and have the sense and courage to join our own Army and protect our own people. It has become quite apparent in recent months, that the more who went abroad to join foreign armies, the worse it was for our people in many ways. We were not in the war and we did not win the war; whoever are the victors in the war, they have won it for themselves.

Professor Johnston

What would have happened to us if the Nazis won the war?

Mr. Aiken

There has been a war in Europe and one contestant has been eliminated. I do not agree that the British people were fighting for our liberty in the elimination of one of the contestants for the domination of Europe. If they had been fighting for liberty, they did not have to lose a single soldier to give the Irish people the liberty that was their due in getting freedom for the 32 Counties. I do not want to make propaganda against the British, but, if people are going to make propaganda for the British at the expense of the Irish people, I am going to contest that all along the line. I think certain people, who are the spiritual fathers of those who, though they did not fight in the war, burned the Irish flag a couple of days after the war was over, should not have been as outspoken as they have been in the last few days. There would be nothing but contempt for our people if we were that type, the type of Senator Johnston's spiritual sons who had not the courage to go out and fight the war and who were cheering the victors a couple of thousand miles from the battle line when it was safely over. If it were our war we would have joined in it as the Irish people and anybody in this country who felt it was their war went off and joined in it. Those who remained at home should have more self-respect than to talk as Senator Johnston spoke here yesterday evening.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I think the Minister might inform himself as to the correctness of the facts on which he commented. I think he has even got the sexes wrong. That he is wrong in regard to one matter I do know with definiteness. I think he is also wrong with regard to another matter; but I am not prepared to state that definitely.

Mr. Aiken

I do not know what that cryptic remark of Senator Kingsmill Moore refers to. If he wants to explain I shall sit down.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I have taken considerable pains to find out the facts with regard to the incident to which the Minister refers. Certain facts I have ascertained with some definiteness. Some others are yet in dispute. The one fact that is definite is that the unfortunate incident to which the Minister refers, and which I shall not attempt to excuse or to palliate in any way, was caused by certain persons proceeding to attach the Union Jack to a lamp-post outside Trinity College and to set fire to it. I have taken the greatest care to find evidence as to that. The next point, as to which I am not able to speak with such definiteness, is that I understand it was not a man but a woman who more or less lost her head in a moment of irritation and set fire to the Irish flag. I am not able to speak with complete definiteness about that, though I am about the other.

Mr. Aiken

I would advise Senator Moore to look at certain photographs which appeared in the newspapers here and see whether the individuals who were on top of Trinity College were young men dressed as young women, or young women dressed as men.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

There were both men and women on top of the college.

Mr. Aiken

The majority of them appeared to me to be young men of military age who were celebrating the victory very far from the battle line. Honestly, the vulgarity of the whole thing is disgusting.

Professor Johnston

May I protest against the Minister's statement that these people who were guilty of this deplorable act of burning the Irish flag are spiritual sons of mine? I claim to be an Irish citizen, and I think that should be fully admitted by everyone.

Mr. Aiken

I am not denying the Irish citizenship of Senator Johnston at all but I do say that when he claims that the British victory in this war was his victory, he should have been there to win it. I just want to say something about another remark of Senator Johnston in relation to myself. I cannot claim to have kept the country neutral all alone. The Irish people were neutral. I had a very good staff in the Censor's office to assist me in the operation of the duties assigned to me regarding the policy of neutrality. I am very glad that the Irish people had the power through their Ministers to prevent the Irish nation behaving during the five years of war as the two crowds behaved round Trinity College on V day. The fact that we had a system of censorship in control here prevented that and enabled us to go on with the work and to do the jobs the nation required.

One last word and I say it to Senator Baxter. I do not believe that the young American soldiers who are over here want any propaganda as to why Ireland remained neutral in the war. I am perfectly certain of that. You had the British Government going off saying they were fighting for the freedom of nations in Europe. You had also the Japanese making an attack on India and saying that they were going to fight for the freedom of India. No American soldier would expect that when the Japanese were going off to fight, as they alleged, for the freedom of India, they should have been joined by the Chinese in that fight for the freedom of the Indians. The Chinese had a job of their own to do, and we have a job of our own to do. If we are to make any progress in the future, those who are in favour of the development of Ireland in every way, culturally, economically and socially, should accept the laws of the Irish people and loyally abide by them, and should accept the policy of the Irish people in time of war. During the war it was very easy indeed to keep down the belligerency of a lot of people who have spoken very belligerently since the war ended, and the people who are talking belligerently now are earning nothing but contempt for themselves, and, to the extent to which they can be held to represent the Irish nation, they are earning contempt for it. Just take one of the leading articles in the Irish Times a few days after the war ended, showing how belligerent they would have been only that the staff had to think of the interests of their shareholders. A nice thing that was for the British people to read after having lost their young men, after having lost millions of houses, and sustained thousands of millions of pounds worth of damage to property. Instead of gaining respect for themselves, they earned only the contempt of the people to whom they were addressing that sort of propaganda.

There was one other rather large matter which was raised yesterday by Senator Duffy. It was in relation to what he called the link with sterling. We are on parity with sterling, and, according to law which cannot be amended except by the Oireachtas, whenever a person presents a British £ to our exchange authorities he has to get an Irish £ in exchange. I believe that the interests of this country are best served at the present time by retaining parity with sterling. I am not tied mentally to sterling. If Senator Duffy can prove to me that we should change the parity exchange, and either appreciate or devalue the Irish £ in relation to sterling, I am prepared to put forward proposals to the Government and to the Oireachtas to change it. But the first thing I think Senator Duffy should do is to break the mental link with sterling, and tell us, if he detaches the Irish £ from the British £, whether he is going to make the Irish £ worth more British shillings or less.

I think the principal effect of changing the parity with sterling would be not to alter the fundamental trading conditions with Britain or elsewhere, but to alter the relations between those who depend upon exports for a living and those who depend upon imports for sustenance. If, to-morrow, we were to make our Irish £ worth two British pounds, we would help the importers and penalise the exporters, but, if we were to make the Irish £ worth only ten British shillings, we would help the exporters and penalise the importers.

Mr. Duffy

Or vice-versa?

Mr. Aiken

No. If I have a cow to sell in the morning, and we are at parity, I can get £40, say, here or in England, leaving aside, for the purpose of convenience, the freight charges. If we were to make the Irish £ worth two British pounds, and I sell the cow here, I get 40 Irish pounds, and can exchange them for 80 English pounds. That certainly would encourage imports. If the reverse happened the tendency would be to keep them at home. As I said, I feel that Senator Duffy should first of all break the mental link with sterling. Before he speaks again on that particular subject, let him follow out exactly the changes that would be made in the relationships between the various sections of the community here if his advice were adopted—either to appreciate the Irish pound or devalue it in terms of sterling. I think he will find that, in the last analysis, a change should only be made if we are prepared or if we wish to alter the relationships between exporters and importers. If we want to encourage exports and to discourage imports, then we can devalue our £, and if we want to do the reverse we can appreciate our £. As I said, I do not believe that we should depart from parity with sterling at the moment—not that I feel in any way bound to sustain it one day longer than it suits this country. If I thought that to-morrow we should alter it, I would have no hesitation in or sentimental inhibition against coming to the Dáil and asking for the power to do it.

I think Senator Duffy misread the statement which was made by the Taoiseach many years ago when he was talking about the influence of the Bank of England on our life here. There is no doubt that the Bank of England, particularly before the establishment of the central bank here, had a very great influence on our banks, and that our banks tended to keep in line with the general credit policy of the Bank of England, but since the passage of the Central Bank Act the power to influence the activities of our banks resides in our own Central Bank Board and not in the Board of Governors of the Bank of England.

Mr. Duffy

Would the Minister develop that point—as to how the control is exercised by the Board of the Central Bank?

Mr. Aiken

By the Board of the Central Bank here? First of all, they are directed in one clause to make sure that, in everything which pertains to the control of credit, the predominant motive shall be the welfare of the Irish people as a whole. That is their general direction. As men of honour, when they accept posts as governors or members of the Central Bank, I feel certain that they will do all that is in their power to carry out that legal direction.

Mr. Duffy

May I put this to the Minister? While I recognise that it is stated in, I think, Section 6 of the Central Bank Act that it is the function of the bank to have regard to the interests of the Irish people, I think it is still mandatory on it to maintain the parity with sterling, whether that is in the interests of the Irish people or not.

Mr. Aiken

The parity with sterling has nothing to do with the credit position here.

Mr. Duffy

Surely, it has something to do with the flow of money.

Mr. Aiken

It has nothing to do with the flow of money. If the Senator devalued the Irish £ in the morning, he would certainly have to institute, at the same time, a very rigorous exchange control. I doubt even in the case of two countries living side by side and having, as we have, in one portion of the legal territory a land frontier, whether we could prevent black marketeering going on and an exchange taking place between the British and the Irish pounds that would almost inevitably bring them to parity: I think that if we attempted, for reasons of our own, to have a policy here to force a big difference in the parity of the two exchanges, that the black market would bring them almost to parity in a very short time.

Mr. Duffy

What I had in mind was that if the Bank of England devalues its currency it is devaluing our currency at the same time, so long as we are obliged to provide pound for pound for the British.

Mr. Aiken

The British have not devalued their pound so much in this war. Their cost of living is only 30 per cent. above what it was pre-war, and I do not think that, generally speaking, they are either going to devalue it very drastically or appreciate it very drastically in the future. It would not suit the British to follow the crazy financial policy which they followed after the last war, first of all to drive up the cost of living to an enormous degree, and then to have a restrictionist policy which flopped prices overnight. I think that one of the things they have learned in this war is a reasonable control of economics and finance, and that for the sake of their own people, and not for the sake of our sterling assets, they are going to keep a reasonable steadiness in the cost of living, and that their pound should have a reasonable value, not only at home as reflected in the cost of living, but abroad in order that they may maintain their trade.

A number of smaller points were raised in the course of the debate, and if Senators will forgive me—I know that they want to get on to another subject—I do not propose to say more than this: that I took a note of all the points raised and will bring them to the attention of the Ministers concerned. In conclusion, I would like to thank the Senators who have congratulated me on becoming Minister for Finance. I may be a new-born Minister for Finance, but I have been a long time a Minister. I recognise pretty well that the congratulation expressed to a Minister is only done as a lively anticipation of something to come. I only hope that I will be able to be as generous as some Senators hope I will be. Senator O Máille is very hopeful that I may be able to do something for muintir na tuaithe. Duairt sé gur mór le rádh iad. Más mór le rá iad, is mór atá le rá aca. I hope that we will be able, as time goes on, not only to improve the standard of living of the people of the country but of the people in the towns as well. I would like to say that I agree with Senator Duffy, by and large, that the only way we can increase our standard of living here is to have a greater production of the goods and services which we will be able to exchange among the Irish people. I would not be afraid of increasing Government expenditure in terms of pounds, shillings and pence if that expenditure was decreasing in terms of the total national income. At the moment, if we are spending one-fifth of £250,000,000, I would not object to spending a little bit more than one-fifth, if our income reached £500,000,000. All we can do is to hope that, with the increasing availability of material, we will be able to put the men to work on that material in order to increase the general output of the goods and services which the Irish people require. In my opinion, the best asset that we can have is the productivity of our farms and of our factories. The hardest possible exchange—we hear a lot about hard currency—and the hardest possible currency is the currency in the exchange of goods and services among the Irish people, because that is a currency that we do not have to go looking for abroad. It is always available to our people. If the people of the towns are producing boots and clothes for the farmers they can always go with that currency to the farmers for their wheat. I hope that, as the years go on, we will follow out the sensible policy of securing, as far as it is possible to do so, that all the essentials of life will be produced here and will be available to our people whether there is peace in the world or war in the world.

An Cathaoirleach

The specific matter of which notice has been received from Senator Kingsmill Moore, namely the dissolution of the Board of Cork Street Hospital, will now be taken.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I desire to call to the attention of this House the last discreditable action of the Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government in the long, bitter, determined and unworthy campaign which he has carried on in order to secure his domination over one of our greatest Dublin hospitals. I refer, of course, to the recent dissolution of the Board of Cork Street and I use the word "the Parliamentary Secretary" instead of using the word "the Minister" with study and deliberation. To the Parliamentary Secretary, not so long before he took the course of ordering an inquiry, were delegated the powers of the Minister in so far as they dealt with public health. He is a fledgling if not yet a full-fledged Minister and during the period with which this inquiry dealt and with which I will have to deal there have been several Ministers for Local Government but only one Parliamentary Secretary, who dealt immediately with the hospital of which I am talking and with the greater part of public health. Lastly, I believe, though not with quite the same conviction that I believed it yesterday—yet I still believe —that the Minister himself did not know or approve of the action that was taken or, if he did know and approve of it, that he did so trusting, somewhat implicitly, to the good faith and the accuracy of the statements which were made in a document published under the authority of his private secretary which has now, to the discredit of this country, in a way that will be felt for years, received the quasi-governmental sanction of a White Paper. Three times the Minister has quoted from that document. Three times he has quoted the same passages. Three times he has based his case upon the statements in that document having reference to the repairing and painting contract.

I will show you, A Chathaoirligh, and I will show this House that with regard to the repairing contract that document is very little more than a concatentation of falsehoods, that it is false by assertion, that it is false by an omission, which can only be deliberate, of relevant facts, and that it is false by innuendo. When I come to deal with it I will not do that on any fallible oral testimony, I will do it by contemporary documents, most of which are now in the possession of the Parliamentary Secretary and all of which were in the procurement of his inspector who held the inquiry. Therefore, as I do not believe that a Minister of this State would quote to the Dáil and twice seek and obtain publication in the papers of a document which he knew was false in the way I have described this and in the way in which I will prove to this House, I still continue to say that I do not think the Minister knew and approved of this action, in the sense that he did not know or approve of an action except on the facts put before him and the allegations in the paper prepared on the authority of his Parliamentary Secretary.

Now, those are my reasons for concentrating my remarks on the Parliamentary Secretary but, of course, for a long period the Minister was in titular and indeed in real control and therefore if I use the word "Minister" in regard to the earlier portions of these transactions you will realise that I am using it because he is responsible for the Department and that he will have to answer for it.

What are the facts? I shall have to review a good many, but for the moment I will start with what I will call the last action in this campaign. In August of last year, three members of the Dublin Fever Hospital Board, familiarly still known as Cork Street Hospital Board, wrote to the Parliamentary Secretary a letter making complaints against their colleagues. Their action was certainly precipitate because their inquiries and their suggestions could have been answered very easily if they had sought knowledge from the older members of the board who had been present at the time of the transactions that they impeached, if they had supplemented their very exiguous knowledge of fever hospital administration by consulting the medical superintendent or if they had taken the trouble to look up their own minutes and documents. It was, I think, not only precipitate but, inasmuch as there was no notice given to their colleagues, it had an element of discourtesy. It was foolish, because however bona fide their action, it left them open to the suspicion that their action was, if not dictated, at least suggested by the Parliamentary Secretary who had, not so very long before, assumed his new apparel. But those are small matters. I am not here to reflect upon any individuals who do not hold a responsible capacity.

Having received this letter, the Parliamentary Secretary who, I suggest, had been watching for years for a chance, acted with a celerity which must be very unusual in the annals of the Local Government Department. For, this Department—which had waited for two and a half years before saying "yes" or "no" to the site of a hospital, which had waited for 16 months before they would sanction the provision of a new disinfector for a fever hospital when the other one was both out of date and worn out, which had omitted for eight months to answer a letter requesting sanction for an X-ray plant when all the X-ray plants were being snapped up at the beginning of the war—this Department, in approximately six weeks, and on complaints which in the face of them bore the mark of triviality, ignorance and recklessness, ordered a public local inquiry. In order to have it, the Parliamentary Secretary made an Order adapting the Dublin Fever Hospital Act and applying to it the powers and provisions which would enable him to hold such an inquiry. It must, of course, have been obvious to the Parliamentary Secretary that the complaints were such as I have described—trivial, mistaken, or reckless, and so the Parliamentary Secretary did his best to shackle the board and to put difficulties in their way, just as difficulties have been put in my way in trying to bring the facts before you to-day. Even though the solicitor for the board has applied for liberty to inspect their minutes and their documents, he has been refused; although an application has been made to allow an independent architect to inspect the buildings and to inspect the state of the paint at the present moment, that liberty will not be acceded. Accordingly, I come before you to a certain degree muzzled but, thank God, not gagged. In the same way, an attempt was made to hamper the board in their defence. The Parliamentary Secretary was asked, on behalf of the board, if he would indicate those matters into which he desired to make inquiry, in order that the board might instruct their counsel and prepare their defence. The Parliamentary Secretary's answer was twofold. Those Senators who have the White Paper will, I think, have it in front of them. He replied, on the 10th October:—

"With reference to your letter of the 9th instant regarding the forthcoming public inquiry, I am directed by Dr. Ward, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, to state that the inquiry will be concerned with the performance of their duties by the Dublin Fever Hospital Board and no particular matter or matters coming within the scope of the inquiry can be indicated in the manner desired by the board."

He followed that up by a statement that the inquiry would cover all matters which had come into existence during the whole course of the board's own existence.

A criminal is entitled to a copy of an indictment and to the evidence against him; in civil actions, the questions to be fought out at law are knit by an elaborate system of pleadings; and in an arbitration you have a reference which sets out the questions at issue; but this board of Dublin citizens who had given, every week, time, labour and experience—one of whom was in that very year completing his 40th year of service on the board— were not to be given any indication of the particular matter or matters with which they were to be charged. They were to be compelled, without notice or without an opportunity of preparing evidence or argument, to answer for everything that they had done over a period of eight years. I wonder how many of the Senators in this House would like to be called upon, at a moment's notice, to explain everything, not merely what they had done over eight years but what was, falsely or not, charged against them that they had done over that period.

The inquiry was duly held and it lasted for eight days. It was held before Dr. McCormack, who I believe to be the senior medical inspector of the Local Government Department, a man who had held the important Ring Inquiry and a man who is reasonably well known in Ireland. He proved himself, in the opinion of everybody who attended the inquiry and to whom I have spoken—and that includes people on all sides; it includes the Press; it includes members of the board representing different viewpoints; and it includes most of the professional gentlemen—to be able, fair, quick and conscientious. For that reason, taking the opinion of my brethren at the Bar and the other professional men who were there, I believe that his report is one on which reliance can be placed.

Before the inquiry had gone on very long, it was obvious that the complaints which had been lodged by the three nominees of the Minister—or perhaps I should say the two nominees and one person who was both nominee and representative—were such as I have tersely described them. It had not occupied more than three days before the current jest was to ask when the next inquiry would be held, and when the person questioned asked: "What inquiry?" the answer was: "The inquiry as to what justified the Parliamentary Secretary in wasting public time and money as it is being wasted." Certainly, before the inquiry was finished, it was clear to everybody that, in the view of the man appointed to hold it, no charge against the board had been in the least substantiated, and that in his opinion the board was both competent and conscientious.

Senators who are not men of the law may not realise that it is part of the function of a judge to indicate his mind to counsel when that mind is satisfied, as, if he does not do so, counsel may waste public time and public money in unnecessary cross-examination and in duplication of evidence and witnesses, where the person listening to the evidence is already perfectly satisfied. I am authorised to state, by the counsel who represented the board, that it was so abundantly clear that the inspector was satisfied that the charges were either trivial, ignorant, unfounded or reckless that he (the counsel for the board) cut short his cross-examination and did not bother to produce a great amount of his evidence.

Just as a good judge will indicate when he is satisfied that there is nothing in an allegation or that he is satisfied that a certain witness is mistaken, so it is part of the duty and etiquette of the profession to which I belong not to waste time or money when such clear indications have been given by manner, expression or question. I state that, after inquiry from innumerable sources, I have not yet found one person to say that it did not seem apparent that the inspector was perfectly satisfied that nothing of the least substance could be urged against the board.

In view of these facts and the result of those inquiries, I now state that, if a report was put in by the inspector adverse to the board, then that inspector must have been deliberately misleading experienced professional men—and that is a thing which I do not believe he would have done. If I now, as I have done before and as many others have done, call for the production of that report, it is because I do not believe that the inspector could have deceived experienced professional men deliberately and because I trust also to their judgment as to what indications of the decision were given.

When the inquiry was finished I do not suppose there was a single person, even among the complainants, who was not aware that the charges, in so far as they affected the board, had been met and dealt with. I doubt whether there was a person in Dublin, except those who may have been in the confidence of the Parliamentary Secretary, who thought for a minute that anything would happen except that the board would be continued in office.

It is probable that most people did not think the inspector's report would be published, for the simple reason that, if it followed the facts as proved, it would reflect upon a person who had ordered such an inquiry and the people who had requested it. But, as this question of the publication of the inspector's report has been so much canvassed, it is, perhaps, fitting that I should deal with it now. There is no mystery about it, although the letters which have appeared from one person or another in the Local Government Department would suggest that there was. Such reports cannot be forced from the Minister in a court of law. As the law stands at the present moment the Minister can take a stand and say: "I will not produce it." But such reports are published, and I happen to have come across to-day a report of an inspector who was sitting almost contemporaneously with Dr. McCormack. I have in my hand the report of a Local Government inspector sitting, hearing and investigating the accident on the Great Southern Railways at Straboe. He was a Local Government inspector, and lest anybody should think that I am trying to mislead, I should say that he was sitting under the instructions of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. But it was a local public inquiry, and what is more, I have been informed, although I have not been able to get it into my hand, that when the local public inquiry was held into the Cork fire for lack of efficiency of the fire brigade, the report of the Local Government inspector in the public local inquiry was circulated to all persons concerned.

Senators may accept it from me that there is nothing to prevent the Minister for Local Government publishing this report to-morrow if he likes. The Minister for Local Government has taken the point that in a House of Lords case, reported in 1915 Appeals Cases, if my memory is correct, the House of Lords decided that a litigant who was appealing from the decision of a local authority to the Local Government after an inquiry had been held locally by a Local Government inspector, could not, as a right, and as a condition precedent to having his appeal dismissed, demand that particular document. That was a case decided under another Act, the 1909 Housing Act. All it decided was that a person was not entitled as a right to have the report produced as a condition precedent to having his appeal dismissed. The judges did say that they thought it would be wrong policy if these documents could be always produced, or rather if the production of them could be always enforced by any person. They pointed out that on many occasions it would be useful or advantageous to do so. This occasion they considered was not necessarily one of those. I imagine that the general public will consider that it would be both useful and advantageous in the present case to see the report of the inspector and to compare it with the version of the Parliamentary Secretary who has authorised the publication of a document of his own, shown to be false by the original documents in his possession. If he had said nothing he might have some case, but as he has abused his position to issue a false and libellous document it does not come well from his lips to say:—

"I will make no disclosure of a document representing the views of the person who heard the evidence, who was put there to be in an impartial and quasi-judicial capacity."

There is another legal point which has been taken by the Parliamentary Secretary, which it will be also convenient to deal with now. I do not deal with the confusion of views which have appeared in some of the letters from the Minister's Secretary. But the Parliamentary Secretary, in the last document which he has circulated to members of this House, the documents accompanying the White Paper, points out that there is no statutory authority for an inspector to find facts. I have not quoted that verbatim, but Senators who have the document in front of them will probably correct me if in any way I misquote. Of course there is no statutory authority. Statutes represent, I suppose, less than 1/20th of the law of the land, but there is authority going back through centuries of the common law founded on the commonsense of mankind, which all of you possess. Only the person who has heard a witness can form an opinion of his veracity. Where there is a conflict of testimony, no administrative officer sitting back in an office, with the transcript of notes in front of him, is qualified or capable of forming an opinion as to where the truth lies. It is only the man who sees and hears a witness, who can hear the catch in the voice, the breathing, who can see the twitch of the mouth, the appeal of the eye to counsel, the look on the face, the sudden consternation, can do so, and that is why, when 12 jurymen, who may or may not be very ignorant men, have come to a conclusion on facts, as to which there is some evidence before them, the five judges of appeal in this country, who have spent their lives estimating evidence and learning law, will not interfere with the verdict, if there was evidence before them and if any 12 honest and reasonable men could by any possibility have come to such conclusion.

But the Parliamentary Secretary apparently takes the point that the only man who can find facts as opposed merely to hearing evidence, who can come to a conclusion from the oral evidence in front of him as to where the truth lies, is not to find facts at all; nor are his opinions to be considered, nor are we to know what he thought. Some higher, or indeed lower, official, sitting at his desk in an office with a transcript before him, in which the black lie has got exactly the same value as the white truth, can do practically what he likes and can produce selected extracts to try to cover the misdoings of the Parliamentary Secretary and those who are behind him in this. That is the contention. Does it appeal to you? Has it ever appealed to anybody with any knowledge of the world, any experience, or any commonsense? So much for the legal contentions of the Parliamentary Secretary. One does not support him in the exercise of his discretion in not producing this document. The other is fallacious in so far as it suggests that, because there is no statutory obligation, all the experiences of the common law of mankind are to be thrown overboard.

One month expired, and two, three, four, five and six months, and at the end of six months the Parliamentary Secretary produced an Order whereby he dissolved the board. It is a matter which struck people who read that Order that from beginning to end of it there is no reference to the inspector's report. That is another matter which makes me think that the inspector did not falsely mislead counsel, but that his mind, as indicated in the course of the inquiry, was his mind as it must have been indicated in the report, because even the Parliamentary Secretary did not venture to pass his judgment upon anything in the inspector's report. But he did another thing. He attempted to substitute to the public the document prepared and circulated on his own authority, but written by whom I know not. When first I read that document it was perfectly clear that it was one-sided, unfair and perverse. In a quarter of a century of legal experience I have never come across any document emanating from a responsible source which bore on its face such clear evidence of being unfair, one-sided and perverse and, before I finish, the Seanad will be able to judge whether my words are too strong.

But there was another thing which struck me as I read it. It has fallen to my lot to read very, very many statements made by men who are guilty and who seek to put some extenuation, some excuse, or some colour upon their misdeeds. There is a certain flavour about this document. There is an avoidance of the important issues and a concentration upon trivialities. There is a deliberate suppression of the important facts. There is a playing with words. There is an occasional thumping lie. As I read through the document, before I got to the end, I recognised it for what it was—the evasive excuse of a guilty man who had done a dishonourable act. That is my verdict upon that document and I will prove to you instances of this dishonour in the very portions of that document which the Minister has selected as the ground upon which to fight.

Some of you will probably have in your hands this White Paper. On pages 21 and 22, you will find statements in reference to two contracts entered into by the board. When the matter was raised in the Dáil, the Minister for Local Government, no doubt believing the facts therein stated and loyally standing over his Parliamentary Secretary, based his defence upon the matters appearing from the bottom of page 21 to the top of page 23. Subsequently his secretary wrote and asked to have those portions put before the public as the matters which the Minister thought to have justified the action. This morning I see that, in a letter from his secretary, he has again requested that these portions be published and on them bases his claim that there has been maladministration. I do not know whether it is permissible, when a document states the opposite to a contemporary document in the hands of the Parliamentary Secretary, to say that it is a lie. I am not quite familiar as to what justifies me in saying that. Therefore, I will content myself by saying——

Mr. Hearne

A terminological inexactitude.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Thank you. I will content myself by saying this, that dealing first with the contract for general maintenance work, which comes first in time, I think there are ten direct falsehoods, three important ommissions which amount to falsehoods —because nobody could have avoided seeing their importance—and about three obviously false innuendoes. Senators will follow me when I read, first of all, the account given in the White Paper, published on the authority of the Parliamentary Secretary as reasons and excuses for the action which he has taken, put before the public and the Dáil. At the third paragraph, on page 22, it is written as follows:—

"In the case of a contract for general maintenance work which was also investigated at the inquiry the board selected the second lowest tender. There were apparently no steps taken to ascertain whether the contractors who submitted the lowest tender would carry out the work at the amount specified by them. It was stated in evidence that they had omitted to provide for certain works and had not included a sum for contingencies. None of the tenders obtained by the board had reference to priced bills of quantities. A schedule of prices only was required in connection with the work and in the circumstances it was improper for the board to proceed to the acceptance of a tender without ascertaining whether the contractors who submitted the lowest tender were prepared to carry out the works for the bulk sum specified by them.

"The position was further aggravated by the fact that the contractors whose higher tender was accepted were allowed an addition of 10 per cent. to their tender to cover increases in cost of materials. If such a concession was sought by one contractor it should not have been granted without first ascertaining whether or not the contractors who submitted tenders would demand a like addition. The board's action was improper. As in the case already referred to, the board showed a disposition to allocate work to a particular firm without due examination. Moreover, the evidence showed that, in addition to the allowance of 10 per cent. granted by the board to cover increase in cost of materials, the contractors were asked to undertake extra works, some on the basis of time and cost of materials, with the result that the total expenditure exceeded the original contract amount by about 50 per cent."

Now, that is a short and pungent description of a board which was careless, incompetent and, very possibly, corrupt—if the facts were as stated— but nearly everything in that statement is shown by contemporary documents to be a falsehood, if not a deliberate falsehood. The argument, a Chathaoirligh, begins by a statement that: "None of the tenders obtained by the board had reference to priced bills of quantities", and that "a schedule of prices only was required in connection with the work". That is the statement on which the argument begins and even if it were correct the argument would be entirely unsound, but, unfortunately, both of those statements happen to be the reverse of the truth. In spite of the difficulties which have been put in my way I have managed to secure certain documents, and the first document which I hold in my hand here is the specification of the work to be done on the hospital, prepared by Norman D. Good, Member of the Irish and British Institutes of Architects, and a very well-known architect. I turn to Clause 13 of this, and I find:—

"Any extras or omissions are to be measured and valued by the architect at the rates contained in the contractor's priced bill of quantities on which his tender is based, and, where same may not apply, at rates proportionate to the price therein contained. For this purpose the contractor shall deliver to the architect a priced bill of quantities before the contract is signed."

I have read through this specification from beginning to end, and unless it has escaped my eye there is no reference from beginning to end to a schedule of prices. It is to be based upon a bill of quantities, which bill of quantities, signed, is to be handed over after the contract is signed; and yet we are told that a schedule of prices only was required in connection with the work. There are two falsehoods in that statement, but it goes on:—

"None of the tenders obtained by the board had reference to priced bills of quantities."

Well, gentlemen, I hold in my hand here a priced bill of quantities, of between 40 and 50 pages, submitted with his tender by the successful contractor. I hold also in my hand a less elaborate bill of quantities sent in by the second contractor. There were five contractors, but these are the bills of the two contractors who have been referred to by the Minister. This second document, as I say, is not so elaborate—I think it is only eight pages—but in this matter I think—and I will be guided by the experience of Senator Hearne—that it can fairly be described as an extended tender with all necessary quantities put in.

Professor Magennis

I am loath to interrupt the Senator, but would he say if the matters he is now quoting were inquired into by the inspector.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I shall answer that in two ways. If Senator Magennis will notice, these are matters which have been alleged to have been inquired into in so much as the whole of this contract has been inquired into. Secondly, they are referred to in the letter, which I shall now read, which was read at the inquiry.

Professor Magennis

Thank you, that is all I wanted to know.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I imagine that it is probable that the inspector relied upon a contemporary letter from the architect stating these facts, but that the actual bills and specification were within the procurement of the inspector is undoubted. They were there to be had, if he did not accept the other evidence, and even supposing they were not, upon what authority does a Parliamentary Secretary issue a document libelling people, without troubling to find out the facts? Could he not have got them as well as I have got them? Now, those are the initial falsehoods upon which this paragraph is based, but only the beginning. The paragraph says:—

"In the case of a contract for general maintenance work which was also investigated at the inquiry the board selected the second lowest tender. There were apparently no steps taken to ascertain whether the contractors who submitted the lowest tender would carry out the work at the amount specified by them."

Senators will, perhaps, accept it from me as a compendious statement, the details of which I will prove subsequently, that the tender accepted by the board was at least £300 lower than any other tender sent in. I will now explain that statement. The original specification by the architect, at paragraph 34, said that the contractors must provide the sum of £200 for contingencies. Now, to those members of this Seanad who do not know what a contingency sum is, I will explain it very shortly, and again I, as a lawyer, will subject myself to correction on the practical side by my friend, Senator Michael Hearne. A contingency sum is a definite sum which is fixed by the architect and with which the contractor has nothing to do. It may be £200, £300 or £400, but the contractor cannot alter it in any way. It is there as against unexpected things which may occur when the work is being done, and it may or may not be used. It is like the symbol x with which we were so familiar as boys—a definite sum settled by the architect before the tender is sent in. The contractor tenders to do the works for a certain figure and to that figure automatically is added the £200 which the architect has provided. The contractor may add it himself; he may say: "I will do the work for £2,000" and then add the £200 contingency item or he may, perfectly correctly, merely send in his account for the works he proposes to do. He may say: "I will do the work for £2,500" and leave it to the architect to add this sum of £200. The point is that, when you are comparing contracts, you must compare the sums sent in either with the addition of the contingency item or without it. You cannot compare the tender of one person who contracts to do the work without adding on the contingency item with that of another person who has added on the contingency item. If I have been in any way incorrect in stating the facts, I hope that Senator Hearne will correct me. I think that he will agree with me that, in comparing extended contracts, one must compare them either with or without the addition of the contingency item. It must be either in both or out of both.

Mr. Hearne

I dislike interrupting the Senator and breaking his line of thought but it is not the practice, in tendering on a specification, to leave out any sum which may be included. In the event of a contractor tendering at a lump sum—say £5,000—on a specification which states, in one of its clauses, that £200 is allowed for contingencies, that tender of £5,000 is deemed in all cases to include the £200.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I agree with the Senator. If I said anything opposed to that, it was not my intention to do so. May I make this matter quite clear: when a contractor sends in an extended tender and the figures in that tender, when added up, come to the amount which is set out at the bottom, and those figures do not include the contingency item, then, to compare it with the tenders of other contractors who have included the contingency item, you must add on the contingency item?

Mr. Hearne

Agreed.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

For the purpose of comparison, the architect must add on that item. What happened in this case was: the contractor, whom I shall call Contractor A, sent in his bill which was £143 less than that of Contractor B. That was his tender but when his extended tender was looked at—the items which he had put in— it was found that he had omitted to add on this £200, which was added on by Contractor B, so that, by a simple mathematical calculation, which, I imagine, it was within the power of a senior official of the Local Government Department to make—by adding on the £200 which had been left out—Tender B became £57 lower than Tender A. The matter did not rest there. The architect, for the purpose of having complete fairness, required the three lowest tenderers to itemise their tenders and it was then found that the contractor who, on a mere cursory glance at the tenders, would seem to have contracted at the lowest figure, had not contracted for all the works at all. He set out the works for which he contracted. His figure did not represent a contract for the works in the specification, as prepared by the architect, but for, approximately, nine-tenths of the works only—quite apart from the contingency item. He had left out works which were valued by the architect at about £280, in addition to the contingency item of £200, so that the contractor to whom the contract was awarded was, somewhere between £200 and £300, the lowest tenderer. I propose to read the architect's letter, which was put in evidence at the inquiry and which is marked on counsel's brief as having been put in evidence. I shall also read the contemporary minute of the board which sets out these facts. I hope some Senator will be able to explain to me how a White Paper is issued—under the authority not only of this Government but, to a certain degree, pledging the authority of this land—which, when the letter and minute I propose to read, are now, and were then, in the possession of the Parliamentary Secretary, states:—

"In the case of a contract for general maintenance work, which was also investigated at the inquiry, the board selected the second lowest tender. There were, apparently, no steps taken to ascertain whether the contractors who submitted the lowest tender would carry out the work at the amount specified by them."

May I now read to the House the report of the architect to the board on the examination of the tenders? While I am finding the place, may I call the attention of the House to the fact that nowhere in the course of this White Paper statement is there mention of the fact that, from beginning to end, the board acted on the advice of a qualified competent and experienced architect and that it put all the matters before the Local Government Department, which, at the time, raised not one word of objection? Those are matters which I call omissions with such serious elements as to be the equivalent of direct falsehoods. Now, listen to the letter of May 6, 1941, by the architect who had drawn up the specification. He had before him the bills of quantities and, in pursuance of his duty, he had examined them and was reporting to the board. This letter is written to the registrar of the board for submission to the board:—

"Dear Sir—With reference to your letter of the 10th April, including tenders from the following firms"—

I propose to follow the good example of the Minister for Local Government in not citing the names of firms or the names of individuals from the beginning to the end of my speech. If I do so, it will be by inadvertence and I hope Senators will forget it. The six firms who then tendered are set out and the architect says:—

"I have examined these contracts and find the lowest tender is that of Messrs. A at £2,395."

Then he goes through them.

"You will recollect that, when the estimates were submitted, Messrs B enclosed their original, priced bill of quantities, showing how they had arrived at their price."

It is somewhat difficult to reconcile that with the statement which I have read from the White Paper.

"For the purpose of comparison of the prices, I requested the three lowest contractors to submit to me details of how they had made their estimate."

"On going through those details, I find that Messrs. A have omitted the contingency item of £200, all painting of the woodwork in the nurses' home, which would amount, approximately, to £150 to £200, all work in the House of Recovery and a number of smaller items. You will see that Messrs. B's price is £143 17s. 6d. higher than that submitted by Messrs. A, but as Messrs. A have omitted the contingency item of £200 and, in addition, other large items, their estimate is considerably more than that of Messrs. B."

and he finishes by saying:—

"Under the circumstances I would recommend your board to accept the estimate of Messrs. B at £2,539. They are reliable contractors and have carried out work for the board before."

Now, the important point is this, that the architect employed by the board, and who had drawn up the specification, went through the extended tenders and reported that, although the mere setting out in a column of the figures would show that Messrs. A's figure was £143 lower, on inspection it was found that you had to add £200 on to that for the contingency items and that even when you had done that, they had contracted for only nine-tenths of the work because they set out, they fairly and rightly and properly and honestly set out, in their extended contract, in their bill of quantities, the work they were contracting to do and the prices they were putting for it and the total of the work they were intending to do came to the total amount of their tender, without the contingency estimate and without all these large items.

I have been dealing entirely with contemporary documents. The House may take it from me that I have also ascertained, by inspection of the contemporary pencilled jottings, that the work on the House of Recovery was estimated at in or about £50 and the total of the other small items was in or about £30. So they had left out work of £280 as well as the contingency item of £200. I think the House will be inclined to agree with me that the architect went to a certain amount of trouble, as was his duty, to ascertain what was the lowest tender, and yet we find it stated in this White Paper, and three times relied upon by the Minister, that the board selected the second lowest tender. "No steps, apparently, were taken to ascertain whether the contractors who submitted the lowest tender would carry out the work at the amount specified by them" is the false statement in the White Paper. It is perfectly clear that they were asked to extend their tender, and did so, but even then the total of their figures showed that they had left out the contingency item and a lot of other work. Leaving out the contingency figure, which Senator Hearne agrees must be added on at once, that puts them at £80 higher than the tender which was accepted.

What can be the excuse for a document issued by a Parliamentary Secretary and given, in spite of my express warning, the dignity of a White Paper —for I went out of my way, privately and otherwise, to give the warning that I could prove these documents to be compounded of lies in the very passages which had been relied upon, and yet it is given the authority of a White Paper? What can account for those statements? One of three things only —either gross and wilful carelessness, or a deliberate intention to deceive the public in order to save the face of the person who had dissolved the board, or that recklessness, whether a thing be true or false, which comes to people who are dizzy and blind and drunk with power, and who care not for the feelings of individuals, provided they can state a thing in the hope that it is not found out.

But the matter does not end there. I could understand anybody compiling a paper, turning over two pages at once, being tired or sleepy, or forgetting a document. That was not done. Look at the next sentence and at the perversions contained in it. "It was stated in evidence," says this document, "that they had omitted to provide for certain works and had not included a sum for contingencies." It was not stated in evidence. It was proved beyond yea or nay by contemporary documents. Take the minute of the board which followed upon this— and the minutes of the board were all directly in front of the inspector. The minute gives the ground for accepting the tender. Listen to the minute of the board of the 8th May, 1941:—

"The following report, submitted by Messrs. Good, architects, was read:—

The six tenders were as follows:—"

They are then set out.

"In view of the fact that Messrs. A omitted to provide in their tender for works exceeding £350 in value, Mr. Good's recommendation that Messrs. B's tender in the sum of £2,539 be accepted, was agreed to. The assistant registrar was instructed to request the Minister's sanction to the acceptance of this tender."

So that, from the very beginning, the Minister had the facts before him, and yet, notwithstanding that these facts were before him at the time, and were before the inspector, who heard and, I have no doubt, reported on this, because it is one of the matters which the Parliamentary Secretary had under investigation, we have a statement that the board selected the second lowest tender and that there were no steps taken to ascertain whether the contractors who submitted the lowest tender would carry out the works for the sum specified by them. They were particularly asked to itemise and extend their tender, which they did with the greatest fairness and frankness.

And this is the most miserable performance of all, "It was stated in evidence"—showing that these facts were known to the writer of the letter, showing that he was aware of their vital importance and how they blew his statement into smithereens. He attempted to cast a slur on them, as if some Jack in office, in a moment of invention, had said a thing in the witness box which obviously was untrue, and so was being dismissed by the author of this paper. It was proved by documents which came into existence three years before this inquiry, documents which constitute the facts and not documents which state them.

But how does it go on? I have dealt with the first paragraph, except for the comment:—

"In the circumstances, it was improper for the board to proceed to the acceptance of the tender without ascertaining whether the contractors who submitted the lowest tender were prepared to carry out the works for the bulk sum specified by them."

Well, they did. They asked them to show how the bulk sum was made up and it was shown that the contingency item had been left out, as well as the other.

How does this egregious and unspeakable document go on in the next paragraph? It says:—

"The position was further aggravated..."

That is merely a repetition of the lies I have already disposed of. To say that the position was further aggravated suggests that there was a position to aggravate, and if you repeat a falsity twice, you do not make it more true. You merely increase the gravity of your first statement.

"...by the fact that the contractors whose higher tender was accepted..."

And there again there is a repetition of the lie because the higher tender was not accepted.

"...were allowed an addition of 10 per cent. to their tender to cover increases in cost of materials."

In those words, "were allowed an addition of 10 per cent. to their tender to cover increases in costs of materials", there are at least two, and possibly three, false statements. Not one penny was allowed to these contractors to cover the cost of their materials or otherwise. Under the obligation which was written in the contract, and written in it after the Minister had been consulted, there was a legal obligation upon the board to pay the contractors any sum which represented an increase in cost of materials and a legal obligation on the contractors to deduct any sum which represented a fall in the cost of materials.

I propose to deal rather more fully with this so-called war clause, but for the moment the House may take it that it was in the contract and was inserted without any objection by the Minister to whom the matter was referred. When the architect went into the matter at the conclusion of the contract, the contractors satisfied him that materials had risen by 33? per cent., but the legal claim which they had for 33? per cent. was compromised for a claim of 10 per cent., so that not only did the board allow nothing but they got an advantageous bargain. They would have had to pay 33? per cent. on the cost of materials because they had risen in price and they actually paid 10 per cent.

May I read now the contemporary report of the architect which I assume Senators will not accuse me of having invented? It reads:—

"With regard to the war emergency clause, Messrs. B. have submitted to me a list of the percentage increases in the cost of material between 1941 and 1943 which in this work comes out at an average of 33? per cent. They have, however, agreed to accept an increase of only 10 per cent. on the materials alone, which in this case amounts to £107. I have checked through the contractors' statement of account".

That is the architect's report to the board—£107 being 10 per cent. on the cost of materials, when they had gone up by 33? per cent., so that to state that one penny has been allowed is a falsehood and must have been a conscious falsehood to the writer of this document.

But it does not rest there. What does this document say? It says that the contractor whose higher tender was accepted was allowed an addition of 10 per cent. not on the cost of materials but on their tender. The tender was for £2,539 and 10 per cent. would represent £253. That is the statement—that they were allowed £253 when the amount paid to them under the contractual liability was £107, so that there are two culpable falsehoods in that: the statement of the amount of £253 instead of £107, and the statement that it was allowed, that is to say, granted voluntarily without any need for it by the board.

Mr. P. O'Reilly (Leitrim)

The Senator has stated that the war clause was inserted in the contract after the matter had been submitted to the Minister. Why was the war clause not inserted when the matter was being dealt with by the Department? It was probably a slip on the Senator's part.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Thank you. It was submitted to the Department whether it should be inserted in the contract or not and the contract was finally signed after the Department had said they thought it was a matter for the discretion of the board, but I intend to deal with the war clause in some detail. I was in fact about to deal with it on the next sentence, which reads:—

"If such a concession was sought by one contractor it should not have been granted without first ascertaining whether or not the contractors who submitted tenders would demand a like addition. The board's action was improper."

Read literally, that sentence, of course, means absolutely nothing, because how, when a contract is finished and when, even if the statement is correct, an addition of 10 per cent. was being given, you could then go back to the earlier tenderers and say: "Will you tender to do it over again?" I cannot understand. But I am not making small points. That is a meaningless sentence, but I rather gather that what it means to suggest is that this war clause, which was inserted after the tender but before the contract, should not have been inserted.

I shall now deal with that. Owing to the delays involved in the Local Government Department routine, a matter of over four months—nearly five months—elapsed from the time the tender was sent in to the time it was accepted. Senators will, perhaps, accept it from me as being correct in law that when conditions have changed owing to the delay of one side of a prospective contract, the other side are not bound. As the Parliamentary Secretary has recently apparently taken to interesting himself in law reports, I will give the authority for that. It is the case of Bush v. Whitehaven Trustees, reported at Second Hudson, on, I think, page 122. That is just to satisfy the recently-evinced craving of the Parliamentary Secretary for details of law reports.

The position was then that when the tender was finally accepted, there had been an increase in the cost of materials. To meet the fluctuating conditions of contracting and materials in the war, there had been introduced a perfectly well recognised war clause which was, if I may use the phrase, an up-and-down clause. If materials went up in price, the contractor was not to be at a loss, and he was to be paid the amount of the increase in the price of the materials he had to buy—if they went up by more than 5 per cent.; if the price went down the employer was not to be at a loss. The amount by which the price of materials went down was deducted from the original amount sent in by the contractor. If, on this occasion, for instance, England had thrown up the sponge, a lot of these materials would probably have come in much cheaper and there would have been a reduction. But when it came to be signed the architect for the board again wrote to the board as follows—I am reading a letter of the 3rd September:—

"With reference to above work I have now had the contract completed by Messrs. B. in accordance to their estimate which was accepted by your board and I now enclose forms for the board's signature. I might mention that on the last page of the agreement the war emergency clause as approved by the Master Builders' Association has been included. It is the usual clause in all present-day contracts of any size".

It will be known to contractors here that the master builders would not enter into any contract of any size in which that clause was not inserted. The board on receipt of that letter asked Mr. Good to furnish them with further particulars with regard to this war clause and on September 16th——

Mr. Ryan

Of what year?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

September 16th, 1941. In response to the inquiry of the board the architect wrote:—

"With reference to your letter of the 5th inst. regarding contract for the above, I note your board requires further information before the contract is completed. With regard to the war emergency clause, this provides for adjustment either by way of increase or decrease in the cost of labour, should such cost vary in excess of 5 per cent. but the contractor shall bear any increase up to 5 per cent. In this connection you will recollect that Messrs. B's. estimate was submitted in February and was not accepted until the latter part of August. I understand that all Board of Works contracts over £100 include the war emergency clause and I consider it only right that it should be included."

There, again, are two letters of the architect saying it was right and proper that it should be included. But the board, that is accused of taking no steps to be careful, called the architect before it and satisfied itself. Having done that, having called the architect before it, it made the following minute on the 25th September, 1941:—

"Letters dated the 16th and 22nd September, 1941, regarding the war emergency clause, bills of quantities and extras on Red House and Matron's House were noted and it was resolved (Mr. —— dissenting) that Messrs. B should be allowed to include a war emergency clause in their contract, subject to the approval of the Department of Local Government and Public Health."

And the answer from the Department of Local Government and Public Health received on the 18th October —it is remarkable because they took less than a month to reply—is this:—

"With reference to Mr. Howett's letter of 27th ultimo, I am directed by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to state that as already intimated, as the expenditure for certain repairs and maintenance works at Cork Street Fever Hospital and Beneavin Auxiliary Hospital will be defrayed out of revenue, the acceptance of a tender is a matter for the Dublin Fever Hospital Board. The question of the inclusion of an approved war clause in the proposed contractor's agreement is also a matter for the discretion of the board."

Having regard to the statement made in the White Paper about bills of quantities I should like to call the attention of the House to the wording of the contemporaneous letter from the Department saying:—

"As regards the inserting of any extra work not included in Messrs. B's contract and the bill of quantities—"

There it is on their own file, although it is stated in this document slandering the board that none of the tenders obtained by the board had reference to bills of quantities. Is it not well that we asked for the report of the inspector? So this matter, carefully gone into by the architect, the result of two letters and personal attendance by him was submitted at the time to the Local Government Department, which could have disapproved of it then—and then was the time to do it— is now brought up in a White Paper as an instance of corruption against honourable men and women. Do you not think that the Local Government Department could have discovered it when it was submitted to them? Do you not think that they were wrong in their statements about bills of quantities when they had it on their own file, and that they should have hesitated before making direct assertions to the contrary in the White Paper?

But let us go on. This is the last matter I shall deal with before the tea adjournment. The Parliamentary Secretary states that "the board's action was improper. As in the case already referred to, the board showed a disposition to allocate work to a particular firm without due examination". I have shown that sentence to many people and most of them took out of that statement the suggestion that the firm which had the painting contract and the firm which had the repair contract were the same firm. I state now that they were completely different firms. I believe the author of the document meant that suggestion to be taken out of it. The statement in the White Paper is: "As in the case already referred to, the board's action was improper". Then we have the statement that "the board showed a disposition to allocate work to a particular firm without due examination." That, Senators, is not an accusation of carelessness or incompetence. A disposition to allocate work to a particular firm without examination is an accusation of corruptness. What words can I use to express the blazing unfairness of a statement like that about members of the board when the author of that document was piling falsehood on falsehood and preparing to ram them down the necks of the public as if it were a capon, forgetting that there are still left some men and women who can feel a stain as a wound?

He was accusing them of corruption with the facts in his hand. Having put lie after lie in the paragraph before it, did he not consider what the effect of that might be on men and women who have still some honour left? In face of that document the Parliamentary Secretary takes refuge in the Arlidge's case. Is that the action of a man? Is that the action of a Parliamentary Secretary? Is that an action which is going to commend itself to the public, the issue of base libels and very disgraceful and shameful statements in the guise of a White Paper? When you have the truth in your hand, on your table, in your office, and when you are asked to repair the wrong you have done and publish the report of the person who presumably made a fair report, you run off like a little whipped child to the Law Library and say: "The law says I cannot be forced to publish it". Are you proud of that attitude in a responsible Parliamentary Secretary already drawing around his shoulders the cloak of a Minister of State?

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7 p.m.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Having dealt somewhat fully with that last blazing piece of unfairness, I can perhaps be shorter over the rest of this contract. It goes on to say:—

"Moreover the evidence showed that in addition to the allowance of 10 per cent.——"

Here I would again call attention to the trick of the writer of repeating a statement, and a false statement, which has been made earlier.

"—granted by the board to cover increase in cost of materials the contractors were asked to undertake extra works, some on the basis of time and cost of materials, with the result that the total expenditure exceeded the original contract amount by over 50 per cent."

The House, no doubt, will be surprised to hear, after the earlier portions with which I have dealt, that that statement approximates to a correct one. It is perfectly true that when the scaffolding was up and when the works were opened it was found that a great deal more repair work was necessary than had at first been thought. Those of you who have had experience of repair work to buildings which are near the close of a third half century will not be very surprised at that. The certainty of increased work had been reported at an early stage by the architect to the board. The architect had suggested that, in his opinion, this work could be well done on a time and material basis, he, the architect, checking the weekly time-sheets and going through all the invoices for the materials, and when the matter was referred to the Local Government Department they made a perfectly correct suggestion that wherever possible estimates should be got. The board and the architect followed that suggestion wherever practicable.

Of this extra work, work to the value of £800 was done on estimates submitted before it was touched. Only £200 worth of work was done on a time and material basis, the architect checking all the time sheets and examining all the invoices, and about £150 worth was done under the specific provisions as to extras of the original contract. Senators who know something about contracting and building will realise that that is a very normal occurrence in the case of old buildings, and that, as regards the suggestion which is contained in this paragraph, apart from the false innuendo with which it begins, there is nothing very remarkable in doing £200 worth of work on a time and material basis in a contract which was originally £2,539, Senators will, I think, find it hard to quarrel with those figures. The figures which I have given the House are taken from the architect's final report and if anybody questions them, I will read the report which I now have. I think Senators will have realised that any statements I have made have been checked by contemporary documents. I propose, to a certain degree, to shorten the length of my speech by merely asserting that the documents are here and are open to inspection by those who desire to see them. I may add, that the documents will, subsequently, be circulated to Senators in a printed form by myself.

Mr. Quirke

I suggest that the Senator should read the documents so that they will be on the record.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Very well. I propose to read from a document of the 22nd April, 1942, which is the final report of the architect to the board. In the last paragraph he says:—

"I have checked through the contractor's statement of account. The matter stands as tabled hereunder: amount of contract, £2,539; amount of accepted estimates, £812 10s. 2d.; amount of extra works, on a time and material basis, £208 8s. 7d.; additional pointing of roof and water pipes, £28 4s. 6d. (I may say that latter figure came out of the original contract). Guarantee bond, £19 11s."

The increase in cost of materials with which I have already dealt under the contractual provisions, was £107. Then there are two items of extras: extra on hospital buildings, £46 15s. 4d.; extra on Beneavin Home, £68 9s. 6d., making a total of £3,829 19s. 1d. Senators will now realise that, although I substituted the round figure of £800 for £812 10s. 2d., and the round figure of £200 for £208, I was not attempting to mislead the House.

I have now dealt with the repairs contract and will be able to deal more shortly with the contract with regard to the painting because that errs more by the omission of facts and by innuendo than by a direct statement of the truth. The facts with regard to the painting contract are as follows. At the time when this contract became necessary there was no longer a standing architect to the board because the Minister's representatives had objected to the expense involved. There had, however, been added to the board a person who, as far as painting is concerned, is probably one of the greatest experts in Ireland. He is a director of a building firm which, if not the largest, is certainly one of the three largest in Eire, and he is a person who is entrusted with most of the expert estimating by that firm. Accordingly, when it was reported to the visiting committee that repairs were necessary, the board referred to him to draw up the necessary specification, being urged to do so because of the necessity to save expense and because there was no constructional work involved. It was merely external painting. The expert concerned drew up a specification, and on his specification tenders were advertised in the ordinary way. In response to the advertisement only two tenders were received, one for a sum of £566, and one for a sum of £944. That is to say that, as far as the painting contract is concerned, there was a difference of approximately 70 per cent. between the two contracts sent in. I need hardly remind the House that there was the usual provision in all these tenders, that neither the lowest nor any contract need be accepted. Now, a difference such as that very properly puts a building owner on inquiry, and the board did not do anything hasty. They submitted the two tenders to the expert who had drawn up the estimate.

Mr. Quirke

The expert being a director.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

The expert being a director of one of the largest building firms in Eire, a firm which, I may say, had never undertaken a contract for this hospital, and a firm that was not contracting on this occasion. He reported that he had gone into the matter, and that the lowest figure of £566 was, in his opinion, one which did not permit of the work being done so as to show any profit, unless either the actual work was scamped or that the materials were inadequate by reason of being of improper quality or from being too much thinned by one of many solvents, a matter which, unless you employ an expensive clerk of works, it is almost impossible to find out, and even then it is frequently difficult to find out.

Again, the board did not act hastily. They determined that they must be guided by getting further tenders, and they, accordingly, asked five of the best known Dublin firms whether they would tender for this contract upon the specification that had been prepared. That practice has been criticised in portion of the Minister's speech and in the White Document which I shall read. I have made inquiries and I have found out that it is sometimes sanctioned expressly by the Department of Local Government. In this case it was a practice which had been followed before upon the suggestion of the Minister's representatives for the purpose of saving money and in a case such as this, where only two tenders had been received in response to the advertisement, it was a perfectly proper thing to do. On another occasion, where the Department of Local Government had required a contract to be readvertised, the Department of Local Government, which had refused to sanction a tender for a certain figure had finally, as a result of the readvertising, to sanction a tender for a higher figure because no lower figure was put in and in the meanwhile expense had gone up and the contractor would not complete it for his original figure.

Accordingly, these firms were asked to tender and of those firms, three tendered. Here is the important point. All of the three firms that tendered tendered within £100 of the original higher figure. Actually, one was £3 lower but he had left out rain-pipes and on making the necessary adjustment he was slightly higher than the original higher figure, but all were within £100 and all of them were approximately 70 per cent. over the lower figure.

Mr. Quirke

I should like to ask the Senator if it is not a fact that the firm which quoted at £566 was in fact the firm that did the interior decoration of the Department of Industry and Commerce building in Kildare Street, and, if so, why was it suggested that they were not capable of managing their own business?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

The answer to that is that I have not the slightest idea whether they were or not. The Senator may be correct but I do not know.

Mr. Quirke

I am correct.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Well, I will accept it from you, but let us go further. The board had first of all been advised by their expert that this figure was not a commercial figure; secondly, they had their expert confirmed by the fact that all the firms who tendered were within £100 of the higher tender and were still 70 per cent. over the lower tender. But again, the board did not act hastily. The board did not accept, even with that, the higher figure. They accepted it subject to the sanction of the Department of Local Government. Here it is important to call Senators' attention to the fact that this board is under no liability to get sanction from the Department of Local Government for a contract such as this.

The House already has had read to it a letter in which the Department of Local Government pointed out that it was a matter for the discretion of the board and that they were not inclined to interfere in connection with the large repairs contract. Under the special Act, this board was entitled to select what tender they liked and not to submit it to the Department of Local Government at all but the bona fides of the board is shown by the fact that although they were entitled to accept the higher tender they only accepted it subject to the sanction of the Department of Local Government. I can see that Senator Hearne rather questions that statement. I have here, and will show to Senator Hearne, an advice by a very eminent counsel, now a very eminent judge, to that effect, and that is because it is specially provided by Section 40 of the Act under which this Dublin Fever Hospital Board was set up that they are to have all the powers which an ordinary hospital board would have in the management of its own business. They are not a local authority. They have got a complete and unfettered hand and discretion except in a few matters which are specially set out in the Act and upon which they must obtain sanction from the Department.

Professor Magennis

Senator Kingsmill Moore said it is not a local authority. He may be right but I should like to ask him is he quite sure of that statement because the Order abolishing the board declares it to be so. If he likes, I shall read it to him.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I am quite certain, Senator Magennis, and I will tell you how. You will find, if look through the Act, that for certain limited purposes it is deemed to be a local authority.

Professor Magennis

Yes.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

That, of course, in itself, is a conclusive statement that it is not.

Professor Magennis

It is stated, though, unfortunately:—

"AND WHEREAS under subsection (2) of Section 38 of the Dublin Fever Hospital Act, 1936, as adapted by the Dublin Fever Hospital Act, 1936 (Adaptation) Order, 1944, the hospital board is deemed to be a local authority within the meaning of Part IV of the Local Government Act of 1941".

And then it goes on to say:—

"NOW THEREFORE, the Minister, in exercise of the powers vested in him——".

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Without knowing it, Senator Magennis has just said what I said. It is deemed to be a local authority for certain limited purposes. One of the purposes for which it was originally deemed to be a local authority was for Section 172 of an earlier Act which gave power to hold local inquiries.

Professor Magennis

Yes.

Mr. Hearne

I should like to suggest that you, Sir, leave the Chair and that we send for the President of the High Court to finish this.

Professor Magennis

I interrupted the Senator because I know he is always ready to accept correction.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Yes.

Professor Magennis

Senator Kingsmill Moore distinctly said it is not a local authority.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Yes. I say so. I am anxious to satisfy you on this point. It is not a local authority. For two or three purposes it is deemed to be a local authority.

Professor Magennis

Yes, and, therefore, for these it is a local authority.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Yes. For the purpose of having a local inquiry it is a local authority but for the purpose of submitting its contracts to the Department of Local Government it is not.

Mr. P. O'Reilly (Leitrim)

In so far as the Minister has power to dissolve it as a local authority, it was a local authority.

An Cathaoirleach

I think it would be better if the Senator were allowed to proceed with his speech.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I am obliged, but I want to make it clear that I do not in the least resent interruption in the way which frequently happens to me. What I was pointing out was that this board was not under any obligation to ask sanction from the Department of Local Government.

Mr. Quirke

Why did it ask?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

For the very simple reason that it had first of all consulted an expert, secondly, consulted its own commonsense, seeing that the other tenders were near the higher one, and thirdly, it required the advice of the Department of Local Government on the subject. It did so as a matter of courtesy, as a matter of prudence and in order that the Department of Local Government, if they had anything to say about it, might say it then, not do as it did in the repair contract—apparently approve of it and then, four and a half years afterwards, pretend they heard nothing about it and raise a row. That is why, Senator Quirke, they asked it. The fact remains that they did ask it and the Department of Local Government then, as they were perfectly entitled to do, asked for further particulars. They got particulars of the firms; they got particulars, though, I think, not quite as full as they might have got, as to the objections which had been made to the lower contract. They suggested that further inquiries should be made about this firm and the work that had been done. The board made those inquiries. They had the advantage of the personal experience of Mr. Commissioner O'Donovan, who found out a firm for which it had been doing work and spoke well of it, and they gave it then to the lower contractor.

What can you expect more of a board than to consider the advice of their expert, to consider the facts as shown by the tender, and to ask the advice of the Department of Local Government? Does that show a careful and conscientious working, and does it show scrupulousness? I submit that it does.

Now let me read to you the documents which prove what I have said. I will read them rapidly, as I intend to circulate them:

"30th March, 1944: The Report of the Visiting Committee for March was read and it was decided that tenders be obtained for the painting of the exterior woodwork of the hospital and that Mr. X. be asked to assist in drafting a specification for this work."

That is the gentleman to whom I have referred. The inspector, no doubt, knew his qualifications, and the Minister could easily have found them out, but he has thought fit not to mention this in the statement he gives as to the painting contract.

"4th May, 1944: Tenders were received from Messrs A and B and it was decided to refer them to Mr. X for his observations.

11th May, 1944: Tenders were considered from Messrs A and B and it was decided to invite further tenders.

1st June, 1944: Tenders for external painting were considered from five firms, at the following figures: £566; £939 15s. 4d.; £944 5s. 3d.; £955 2s. 6d., and £1,031 3s. 9d."

Senators will see that there is a gap of about £400, or nearly 70 per cent. between the lowest and the second lowest, while all the rest are covered by £100, providing complete corroboration of the expert's view.

"It was proposed and seconded that the tender of Messrs. B be accepted (as this included replacement of broken pipes not included in another tender) subject to the sanction of the Department."

"22nd June, 1944: The following letter from the Department of Local Government and Public Health was read: 21st June—inquiring whether the tenders received for external painting were obtained as a result of public advertisement or whether selected firms were invited to tender and whether all firms tendered on an equal basis. It was decided to furnish the information requested."

A letter was written to the Department on the 22nd June, as follows:—

"In reply to your letter of the 21st instant with reference to tenders for external painting at Cork Street Fever Hospital, I am instructed to state that an advertisement was published in the three daily papers inviting tenders for this work and only two replies were received."

Then the names of the original tenderers, the firms invited to quote and the figures are given. Would Senator Quirke like to hear them?

Mr. Quirke

I am not a bit interested in hearing them.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

The Extract from the Minutes of the Proceedings continues:—

6th July, 1944: The following letters from the Department were considered: 5th July—requesting details of the reasons on which the board based their opinion that the tender of Messrs. A. was too low for the work to be carried out. The Registrar was instructed to supply the information requested.

7th July: To the Secretary of the Department from the Registrar: In reply to your letter of the 5th instant with reference to the acceptance of the tender of Messrs. B. for external painting, I am instructed to state that the reason the Board based their opinion that the tender of Messrs. B. was too low for the work to be properly carried out was on the advice of a member of the board connected with the building trade who was of opinion it would be necessary to use paint of an inferior quality which would not have the lasting power of paint of first-class quality."

That was rather summarised. I have ascertained that the actual thing said was longer, but I have summarised it:

"3rd August, 1944: A letter from the Department was read and noted, 28th July, stating that the reasons for not accepting the tender of Messrs. A. are not understood, having regard to the provision in the specification that the paint should be ‘first quality Duradio, helium or other approved, in colours to be selected by the hospital board.' It was decided that Messrs. A. be asked to furnish references and particulars of recent work carried out.

10th August: A letter was read from Messrs. A. furnishing particulars of recent work. It was agreed, subject to the sanction of the Parliamentary Secretary, to accept the tender of Messrs. A. for external painting at £566. It was further decided that the senior hospital painter should supervise the work carried out by this firm. In this connection, a letter was read from Mr. O'Donovan, County Commissioner, County Dublin, stating that a certain other firm had confirmed that Messrs. A. had done satisfactory work for them over a period of years."

You will notice that the Local Government Department there raise a perfectly correct point, in so far as the specification of the type of paint is concerned, but they do overlook the possibility—and here Senator Hearne will bear me out—that it is possible to thin the paint to a very considerable degree.

Mr. Quirke

Why were not Messrs. B. asked to say what works they had carried out?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Because the board were advised that Messrs. B. were a commercial firm. The Senator has forgotten that.

Mr. Quirke

I have not forgotten. They were advised by one member of the board to do so.

Mr. Hearne

Has Senator Kingsmill Moore forgotten that this was given to the lowest tenderer?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Have I misled Senators?

Senators

No, no!

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

In order that it should be certain that a tender, which the board were advised was so low as to raise suspicions as to whether it could be commercially done, was a suitable tender for acceptance, before giving it to the lowest tenderer, inquiries were made as to the work which he had done in the past and when it was found that he had done good work recently it was given to the lowest tenderer. At no time did the board purport to give it to the highest tenderer. All they did was to say that, having regard to the advice they received, they would give it to the highest tenderer if the Local Government Department approved. They were not obliged in any respect to put the matter before the Department, but were doing it merely for their advice.

Mr. Hearne

In the first instance, was it not decided by the board to accept the highest tender?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

No.

Mr. Hearne

It was.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Subject to the sanction of the Local Government Department.

Mr. Hearne

I suggest that that is a quibble.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Let us get this clear. If the board were obliged to get the sanction of the Department, it would be an acceptance merely subject to sanction. As they were entitled to accept any tender they liked on their own responsibility and the Local Government Department could not say that it was illegal, or even say "Boo" to them, when they accept it in that form it is equivalent to saying: "We think you should take the highest tender, but we are sending it over to you to say whether you approve of it or not."

Professor Magennis

But was it not a fact that the three despised members forced that situation on the remainder of the board—that they reconsidered the position?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

No.

Professor Magennis

What evidence is there that it was not? The White Paper distinctly mentions Mr. Litton's evidence. However, I will say no more just now in criticism of this.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

The White Paper has got a habit of referring to oral evidence only and I have pointed out that I am dealing with documents. I have already shown that the White Paper has tried to discount documents, by trying to show that it is a mere allegation. The White Paper says:—

"The next matter which was the subject of investigation was the arrangement made for the painting of the exterior woodwork of the hospital and nurses' home. In May, 1944, tenders for painting the exterior hospital buildings were received from two contractors."

No mention, you observe, that the specification had been drawn up by an expert, and that the tenders were referred to him.

"One of the tenders amounted to £566 and the other to £944 5s. 3d. The board then decided to obtain further tenders, but instead of readvertising the work they invited quotations from five other firms, three of whom submitted tenders."

That phrase "instead of readvertising the work" suggests that there is some legal obligation or some proper obligation to readvertise. That is not so.

"On further consideration they then decided to accept the tender for £944 5s. 3d."

Professor Magennis

On further consideration?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Yes, on further consideration, since before they decided that, they had referred the matter to their expert and they had compared the run of tenders which had come in. They found that there were four within £100 and one was £400 lower.

"they then decided to accept the tender for £944 5s. 3d."

It does not state that, although they were entitled to accept it themselves, they only accepted it subject to sanction.

"When they were requested to submit the reasons why the firm which submitted the lower tender of £566 could not carry out the work properly, it was stated by the board that the decision was taken on the advice of a member of the board who was of opinion that, in order to carry out the work for the price quoted it would be necessary to use paint of an inferior quality."

As I have said, it is only omissions I complain of up to that.

"The main facts which emerged from the evidence at the inquiry was that the board sought quotations from firms which had made no response to the public advertisement inviting tenders for the work. That course was very irregular. Such a practice if generally adopted would undermine the basis of competitive tendering."

That is a perfectly unjustifiable statement. In the first place there is nothing irregular about it. It is sometimes sanctioned by the Local Government Department, as I have found out. If Senators consult the statutory provisions in regard to this board, it will be found that the board is entitled to do anything which the ordinary hospital board would do. Never has it been suggested that it is necessary, when work is once advertised in the newspapers, to readvertise on a second occasion. The experience of this board in the past has been that that was not successful, and it was the Minister's representatives who on other occasions suggested saving money by requesting qualified and responsible firms to tender. "Such a practice if generally adopted would undermine the competitive basis of tendering." Such a practice would undermine that basis of tendering if members went outside and said what tenders had been put in, and told people competing. The fact that such a thing was not done is conclusively proved in this case, as the tenders which came in subsequently were all higher than the highest received and within £100 of it. If anybody had known the facts—Senator Hearne shakes his head.

Professor Magennis

We know the practice of tendering as between various firms in a ring.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Do you not know that the practice of asking firms to tender is a perfectly ordinary practice here?

Professor Magennis

I do.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Why speak of it, then, as being irregular or as being against the basis of competitive tendering? Senator Magennis has produced an argument which is applicable to any contract that is advertised. It is open to firms, when there is a contract advertised, to tender if they want to do so. The practice to which I alluded is quite relevant. I agree that it is advertised. That may be done, but it can be done just as readily in this way, having once advertised, as to readvertise. The practice of asking specified firms to tender does not in any way make the practice irregular.

Professor Magennis

I interrupted not with regard to the fact that these things are done, but because Senator Kingsmill Moore is founding an argument that is not in harmony with it. It proves nothing.

Mr. O'Dea

Does Senator Kingsmill Moore suggest that it is usual, after tenders have been opened, to ask for quotations from other firms? I never heard of it.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

It is not the usual practice, but it is a practice which, unless members are dishonest, is not objectionable.

Mr. O'Dea

Where tenders have been received! It might be possible where no tenders were received. Where tenders have been received, did you ever know of cases where any other firms were asked to tender?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Yes, there is no difference.

Mr. Quirke

Why advertise in the first instance?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

The answer is there is a provision in the Public Health Acts whereby it must be initially advertised. There is no other provision.

Mr. Quirke

Why invite other tenders after opening tenders? I think the thing is absurd.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

With regard to these matters, I think I might have more experience than the Senator.

Mr. Quirke

Not half as much.

An Cathaoirleach

I suggest that Senators might take notes of these points for their speeches subsequently.

Mr. O'Dea

I want to have no disagreement about this matter. I do not want to misunderstand what Senator Kingsmill Moore stated. He left me under the impression that even after tenders are opened other tenders would be invited. I should like him to be positive about that, and to give instances. I never heard of it.

Mr. Quirke

I want to say that I have as much experience of public and private boards as other people, and if any suggestion of the kind were made on any board that I have anything to do with, I would resign immediately.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

All I know is that I have made inquiries and I have been told that, for the purpose of saving expense, it has been done. I have further made inquiries from sources which are intimately familiar with the practice of the Local Government Department, because they have to deal with it, and I am told that the Department itself has sanctioned this practice, and has sanctioned it within the last few months. I pass from that now.

Mr. Madden

In order to clarify the position, did I understand Senator Kingsmill Moore to say in the course of his remarks that this contract was first advertised, that nothing materialised, and that in the second instance, there was no need to readvertise, or that it was a matter of common procedure? Is that correct?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I do not think it is quite correct. It was advertised and there were two replies. No second advertisement was issued.

Mr. Madden

That is completely at variance with the procedure that operates through public bodies. I have been for over 30 years associated with public boards, and if there was a serious discrepancy between quotations we turned to the engineer, and told him there was a serious discrepancy or that something was wrong. The board then decided the matter by vote or decided unanimously to readvertise. The next thing I want to say is that I want to endorse what Senator Quirke said. Every time we considered tenders at the old boards of health the tenders were opened by a couple of members selected for that purpose. I was doing that duty for years. Tenders were opened with meticulous care and with a strong sense of conscientious duty on the part of members. There was no interference with the tenders and if the lowest tender was not accepted, the higher one would be submitted for the imprimatur of the Local Government Department.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

What was done in this case was done before without objection by the Local Government Department. That was when once an advertisement had been put in, and the answers were not considered satisfactory, they invited reputable firms to tender, of course, without letting them know what the original tenders were, but in order to save the cost of readvertising when the original advertisement had not produced sufficient replies. Firms whose reputations are beyond question were asked to tender on the original specification. Sometimes they did and sometimes they did not. But I am informed—and this is a matter as to which I am not speaking from a document and therefore I am subject to correction—that the practice of asking other firms to tender was one which had been advocated by the Minister's representative as calculated to reduce costs. However, I do not want to get into unnecessary altercations with my friends.

Mr. Quirke

I congratulate the Senator on having saved about 10/-, rather than readvertise a contract of approximately £1,000. They would not readvertise and the excuse is that they saved about 10/- or £1.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I have already pointed out when the Senator was not here that, on an earlier occasion, when a contract was readvertised because the Local Government Department would not sanction a certain tender, what happened was that the Local Government Department had subsequently to sanction a higher tender because nobody else tendered as low as the original person and he would not do it for the amount of his original tender. The Senator was not here when I mentioned that.

Mr. Quirke

The Senator is making very bad headway. You cannot scuttle a ship by getting underneath it.

An Cathaoirleach

I think the Senator would make better headway if there were fewer interruptions.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

The White Paper continues:—

"When the Board were not satisfied with the tenders originally received and further quotations were required the work should have been readvertised. Mr. Litton in his evidence stated that when it was intended to give the contract to the higher tenderer he proposed that it should be deferred so that, before accepting the higher tender, the board could at least make inquiries as to the capacity and reputation of the contractor whose tender was the lower. It appears from Mr. Litton's evidence that his proposal was turned down although he states that there is no record of his proposal in the minutes of the board.

When the proposal of the board to give the contract to the higher tenderer was not sanctioned, the board finally accepted the lower tender. On the evidence submitted at the inquiry the Fever Hospital Board did not act properly in accepting the higher tender in the first instance. Had full discretion in this matter rested with the board it is evident that the funds of the board would have had to meet an extra charge of approximately £370."

Now I have the following remark to make. Full discretion rested with the board, if they liked to exercise it. If it is suggested that there was anything corrupt, I tell the House that as a matter of law the board could have accepted that higher tender and need not have submitted it for the advice of the Local Government Department. The fact that they did so is a complete answer, because they chose to take the advice. I would, however, say this: The Local Government Department themselves did not require this to be readvertised. They sanctioned the subsequent acceptance of the lowest tender, and they never suggested that the board should readvertise. If they wished to suggest it, then was their time to suggest it and not subsequently to make remarks like this. If the Department thought there was anything wrong, it was their business to send a memorandum to the board that they thought it should be readvertised, both then and on future occasions. It is a little bit late in the day, when the matter was submitted to them for their advice and their advice was followed, to raise a complaint about the procedure to which they never adverted then, and to suggest that the board, if it had been left to their discretion, would have accepted a higher tender wrongly, when it was fully in their discretion to do so and they did not do so.

I have dealt with the two matters on which the Minister has relied on three occasions. The Minister has chosen his ground and I have met him on his ground. I do not propose to go through the rest of this White Paper. In case the Parliamentary Secretary should take heart from this, may I say that is only a statement, and that I do not propose to deal with it now? It will all be dealt with faithfully and in time. But, for the moment, I have dealt only with the questions on which the Minister so far has attempted to justify the action taken.

Now it is necessary for me, in order to show the full monstrousness of the action taken, to touch very shortly on some past history. In the year 1801, before Napoleon became Emperor, there met in Dublin a body of public-spirited citizens, all members of the Society of Friends, for the purpose of supplying hospital accommodation for those sick of fever, and they chose as their maxim that nothing should be necessary to procure admission to this hospital except manifest poverty and disease.

That was the maxim of the hospital. Within two and a half years—I ask Senators to note the time—these charitable citizens of Dublin had gathered together the money for the building of the hospital, had inspected and chosen the site, had put up plans for competition, had chosen the plans, examined them and passed them, put the work out to direct contract, built the hospital and had it in full working order —all within two and a half years. Throughout the great epidemics of the 19th century this hospital was a shield against typhus and smallpox and all the other diseases which threatened the poor of Dublin. For 136 years it was carried on faithfully by the successors of that original body who had founded it and had so proudly and confidently named it the House of Recovery. In 1903 they were incorporated by charter. This is not the place to pay tribute to them, it has been done so often and in so many places. If Senators wish to know more of their reputation, I refer them to the Hospital Commission Reports, to the debates in the Dáil on the First and Second Reading of the Fever Hospital Act and the debates in this House in 1942 on the County Management (Amendment) Act. I do not propose to go over these tributes again.

Towards the end of the period when it was in the hands of trustees, this hospital, which I have described as a shield, with the new discoveries made there for treatment and with the new serum, in the hands of the present medical superintendent appointed by these trustees, became not merely a shield but a sword against death itself. It is perfectly true to say that the buildings were now reaching their span; they were put up in 1804. There was a steady increase in the numbers looking for admission. Another change had taken place. Since the introduction of the hospitals sweepstakes the fount of private charity had to a certain degree dried up until only about 27 per cent. of the money that was utilised for the hospital in the year was supplied out of the private finances of the board and the rest, according to the public health legislation, was supplied by those local bodies who sent in patients to be treated there.

Accordingly, when the Hospitals Commission in 1933/4 came to look round, they cast their eyes on these old buildings. They found them still full of the same pride, the same hope and the same enthusiasm. But they found them nearing the end of their span of life. They were like an old body still with the spirit and the fire of its youth and with supreme absorption in the patients. But the body was tired and it was not going to last much longer. Therefore, the Hospitals Commission in their first report stated that it was time a new fever hospital should be built, an hospital of 400 beds expandable to 600. They said, moreover, that the matter was so urgent that there was no time to put plans up for competition. They further recommended that having regard to the fact that a large proportion—the largest proportion—of that income was now contributed by local bodies, the board should be enlarged by having local bodies represented on it, and should form a new board. The trustees never raised one word of dissent. Faithful to what had always been their object, the welfare of the Dublin poor, they agreed at once to give over their site, their hospital and their equipment, their nurses and their officials—to give over their private funds amounting to, approximately, £40,000, and also the funds allocated to them from the Hospital Sweepstakes, which amounted to something between £50,000 and £60,000. All these things they said they would do, and would do willingly; they would hand over to the new board all these things for the object of starting a new hospital. They handed over more than that. They handed over their traditions, their traditions that the care of the patients and the welfare of the patients was the first thing to be considered, and not, as the Department maintains and as is on record in a letter from the Department, that above all things economy was paramount.

They further agreed without the slightest question to having the board enlarged by the addition of other representatives and, accordingly, in 1936, the Dublin Fever Hospital Bill was introduced, piloted by Dr. Ward, and having, as you can see from Dr. Ward's speech, two objects: first, to build this new hospital, which was to consolidate accommodation for the treatment of fever, and, secondly, to enlarge the board by the addition of representatives from local bodies. Those were the objects of the Bill, and it followed in a great many respects the report of the Hospitals Commission. But it did incorporate one curious provision, which I do not think would have been incorporated if the Seanad had then been in existence. Either by a piece of political acumen or political imbecility, in addition to those people recommended by the Hospitals Commission to be added to the board, the Bill added three representatives of the Minister. I have referred to that as a piece of political imbecility. I do so because I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not blame the representatives of the Minister who, from the beginning, were put in an almost impossible position.

Officially, the Minister was to correspond by his letters. He was to hear, through the minutes which were sent to him every week, and the correspondence sent out to his Department from the board, what was going on. Unofficially, he had eyes, ears and a mouth in anything that was said or done by the board. Officially, he could be unaware of a thing; unofficially, he was perfectly aware of it. Officially, he could keep silent; unofficially, he could urge a particular course by the mouths of his representatives. And I want to say this, in justice to the representatives of the Minister—that they were put in a position which I think was an almost impossible one. After each board meeting they were found going hot-foot to the Custom House, so much so that there is a minute of the board on record complaining that they were given access to the Department while no other member of the board was allowed to go there. I think that practice was unfair and that it was bound to give rise to a certain amount of friction and suspicion. One of the representatives that I had in mind was a fine, strong, clean fighter, who put forward her views vigorously and nobody objected to that. It is not the Minister's representatives personally that I attack in that regard. They were in an impossible position from the beginning.

Now, after two and a half years, the period which it had taken to collect the money, put up the buildings, and get them into operation in the case of the first hospital in 1804; at the end of two and a half years from the date on which the committee set up by the Minister to consider a site for the new fever hospital reported on their selected site, the Local Government Department had not yet been able to say yes or no to the site, although the urgency of building the hospital had been stressed by the Hospitals Commission. The Parliamentary Secretary, to excuse himself, has referred to this in a memorandum which he has circulated to members of this House. Now, I can understand anybody being inaccurate in a speech, but if you have been inaccurate in a speech, I think it is unfortunate to print that speech some years after wards, when you have had an opportunity of correcting the inaccuracies. The Parliamentary Secretary, first of all, excuses this delay on the ground that the Hospitals Commission had recommended a site of 30 acres. Actually, what the Hospitals Commission did recommend was a site that should be not less than 30 acres. Fifty acres had been selected for the main building, 30 acres for certain subsidiary matters, and 20 acres for the smallpox unit which, according to the directions of the Hospitals Commission, had to be situated at a safe distance from the other buildings. It is further stated as an excuse that there was a survey of County Dublin with regard to a site for a sanatorium, but the site for the fever hospital, I think, was chosen before the search for a sanatorium site began, and I do not see why the choice of site for the fever hospital should be in any way postponed for the choice of sanatorium site. The Parliamentary Secretary goes on to excuse his delay by saying that the site chosen was one subsequently rejected for the sanatorium. It should be obvious that the considerations governing the choice of a site for a sanatorium are different from those operating in the case of a fever hospital. The fever hospital has to be near the town, whereas the sanatorium should be as far away in the country as is reasonably possible. However, these arguments are vitiated when I tell you that recently there actually was an application for 30 acres of this very site to be used for the sanatorium, which was refused by the board.

That is an answer to the Parliamentary Secretary when he says that because this site had been chosen for a sanatorium and rejected, there was something against it for a fever hospital. Take another instance of Departmental delay. The board at that time had a disinfector which had been set up in 1902. It may have been in 1903, but I think it was 1902. It had ceased to comply with the requirements of a modern fever hospital at the end of 30 years. It was worn out, and the board asked for sanction to get a new one. The sanction was refused for 16 months, until the people who were carrying the insurance of the hospital refused to carry the insurance further because of the danger which arose from this inefficient disinfector. They said that they would not carry any further insurance unless repairs were done which would exceed, in fact, the cost of a new one, and only then was sanction got from the Local Government Department.

Take next the delay as to the X-ray equipment, one of the matters actually raised at the inquiry. At a time shortly after the war, when X-ray equipment was becoming unprocurable—it was being snatched up everywhere—the hospital had an opportunity of getting a plant for, approximately, £300. It had been very slightly used and was a bargain, which was open only for a limited time. They wrote to the Local Government Department, and went on writing. It was eight months before they got their first answer and then it was only a query. In the meantime, they had properly bought that equipment and that was one of the matters brought up against them at the inquiry.

This board have not been subservient to the Local Government Department. They have acted on counsel's advice. They were advised over and over again that the contentions of the Local Government Department were not legal and were unwarranted. They were advised, in connection with that particular disinfector, that they did wrongly in attending to the Local Government Department; that if the dangers which were only avoided by the most scrupulous attention and by sending out many articles to be disinfected, had come about, a jury would have been entitled to find a verdict of gross and wilful negligence, and counsel—now a very eminent judge—added: "I will not specify against whom." They were advised that it was quite unnecessary for them to pay attention to the contention which had been put forward by the representatives of the Minister —not on their own responsibility, I have no doubt—that sanction was required for every little twopence-halfpenny requirement—a few bed pans or some ward crockery. They submitted the result of this advice to the Local Government Department. Quite frankly, where they were being asked to do things that they thought illegal they fought; where they were being asked to do things which, they thought, were not in the interests of their patients, they fought, on the advice of counsel, and they won. Throughout this period, there was attempt after attempt to interfere with them but they did not pay attention to those attempts and they succeeded in proving their points. That is why they are being abolished.

There is only one further matter which I shall mention. It is, probably, within the knowledge of Senators that the number of nurses from time to time needed in a fever hospital varies very greatly, according to the nature and the causes of epidemics. You may have children suddenly paralysed with diphtheritic paralysis who have to be put into breathing machines and who have to be watched by nurses night and day. Or you may have cases of cerebrospinal meningitis, which will probably require the attendance of two nurses, night and day. It is impossible to ensure that your ordinary staff will be adequate to cope with emergencies and this hospital was forced to get in temporary nurses in emergencies. The Local Government Department go so far in their attempts to dictate and dominate that they actually send a letter to this effect:—

"Any increase in respect of special duty or for emergencies should be reported to the Department for approval before the addition to the existing staff is made."

You get two cerebrospinal meningitis cases coming in at 3 o'clock on Saturday and you are to let them die, so that you may wait until Monday morning and get approval for procuring the necessary nurses from the Local Government Department. These are merely some examples of the total incapacity and the many shortcomings of the Local Government Department in attempting to administer a great fever hospital.

I do not deny for one moment that this board had inherited the traditions of the old trustees and fought for the welfare of their patients, their nurses and their staff. They were more than once in conflict with the Local Government Department. The first attempt to bring them under the control of the Local Government Department more directly than they were under the original Act, was made in the County Management Act. In that Act a clause was inserted providing that a manager might be put over any board of which more than 50 per cent. of its members were elected by the local authorities. It was pointed out by the late Senator Rowlette in this House— many of you will remember his speech —that this would apply to Cork Street Hospital, and he suggested an amendment. The Minister said that he regarded the claim made for Cork Street very sympathetically. But, as Senator Rowlette remarked, when he got back to the atmosphere of the Department, his sympathies chilled. Possibly, the Parliamentary Secretary pointed out that it would be very desirable, from his point of view, to have control by a manager in the case of Cork Street Hospital. The Minister came back and said he could not accept the amendment, but he did give this guarantee, both publicly and privately: that no manager would be put into Cork Street Hospital unless an Order had been specially laid on the Table of both Houses for 21 days, so that it could be discussed. That method of obtaining dictation over this board was stopped, because it would have required a debate in both Houses before it could be done.

There was no further attempt to get control so long as the Minister was there as Minister but it was not very long after the Parliamentary Secretary got uncontrolled rights to order an inquiry, such as this, before we find such an inquiry being held. I challenged before, and I challenge again, the bona fides of the ordering of this inquiry. I believe that this inquiry was ordered only as a smoke-screen. I believe that the evidence given at it, when heard by an independent person, justified to the hilt this board in all its actions. I believe that that was indicated at the time and I believe that, if that report is discovered, that will be found in it. I charge that this White Paper has been issued, after a warning from me, full of statements of the gravest falsehood and I call upon everybody in this House, irrespective of his political affiliations, and upon everybody in the Dáil, and upon the Government, and the Taoiseach to see that the falsities and innuendoes herein contained are exposed now. Do not be afraid: they will be exposed some time if I live to do it. But I am calling upon every man to demand that they be exposed now and refute that bitter, bitter saying on which, I think the Parliamentary Secretary must be resting himself:

"When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;

The truth is great and shall prevail

When none cares whether it prevail or not."

Professor Magennis

Senator Kingsmill Moore has set me a very hard task to follow him in the evidence which he has given but which was not given at the Local Government inquiry. Before I proceed to deal with him in detail, I draw the attention of the House to this footnote to the White Paper on page 11:

"The inquiry was held on the 13th November, 1944, and subsequent days. The Minutes of Evidence are being printed and will be put on sale, price 2/6."

Now, I have no copy of the Minutes of Evidence nor, of course, has any other member of this House. We have no access to the evidence; we merely know what was deposed to on oath from the quotations in the White Paper. Furthermore, approach to the subject is rendered all the more difficult and obscured by the play he has made with the word "board." The board, I now learn, means the board that inherited the traditions of this old distinguished charity.

I have nothing but admiration for the great charitable work of the Society of Friends—this is not the only institution of charity for which the City of Dublin is indebted, and nothing that I have to say in any way impugns the credit or the glory of the Society of Friends in their charitable work. But the approach, I repeat, to the subject is obscured, darkened, camouflaged by this constant speaking of the board, meaning the seven members who represent the trustees. Now, I may read here from the White Paper who are the members——

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I must apologise for interrupting the Senator, but I have never referred to the seven trustee members of the board from the beginning of my speech to the end.

Professor Magennis

I have a note here: "The board which was never subservient to the Local Government Department" and "the board which has inherited the high traditions of the old trustees—"

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I was referring to the Dublin Fever Hospital Board.

Professor Magennis

What was the Dublin Fever Hospital Board, after the Act of 1936 was passed?

Section 8 of that Act provides:

"The hospital board shall consist of—

(a) seven members (in this Act referred to as city members) elected, in accordance with this Act, by the Corporation"——

The corporation was in existence at that time.—"Seven members ... elected, in accordance with this Act, by the Corporation" has had to be modified in view of intermediate transactions—

"(b) three members (in this Act referred to as the board of health members) elected, in accordance with this Act, by the board of health,

"(c) seven members (in this Act referred to as extraordinary members) elected, in accordance with this Act, by the extraordinary members electorate,"—

These are the "seven trustee members." Then we have—

"(d) three members (in this Act referred to as appointed members) appointed, in accordance with this Act, by the Minister."

These are the unfortunate three who came in for much denunciation in the speech in the Mansion House and elsewhere because men are the nominees of the Minister——

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

On a point of fact, I want to prevent Senator Magennis making a mistake. Of the three who made the complaints, only one was a representative appointed by the Minister; the other two were nominees who had been appointed by the Minister instead of the board of health.

Professor Magennis

I am coming to that.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

They are not the three representatives mentioned there.

Professor Magennis

Well, they are in effect, and they are so dealt with, in effect, in this anonymous contribution to his side of this controversy. I shall have occasion to quote from the able brochure that I am referring to, which appears under the title of "Justice," for there is a remarkable consilience not merely of view but of language, between it and the speech to which we have just listened. Surely this is more than a literary coincidence? I leave the matter there.

Now, the hospital board should mean the hospital board of 1936 creation, and, as I have mentioned, this brochure, which bears no one's name and is entitled "Justice", deals exactly in the same ambiguous fashion in the use of "board". For example: "An old and honourable hospital board has been abolished, utterly and without justification, by a Parliamentary Secretary." That appears on page 3. "In 1936 an Act was passed, the new board was formed, and authority assumed by the Local Government Department." The complaint here, that an old and honourable hospital board has been abolished, reminds me of a famous anecdote. A number of French academicians gave this definition of a crab: "A crab is a small, red fish which walks backwards." They had the good sense to submit their definition to the greatest naturalist of the day, Cuvier. Cuvier, with all the brightness of a Frenchman, said: "Excellent, gentlemen, excellent, with just these three exceptions: first, a crab is not a fish; second, it is not red; and third, it does not walk backwards. With these slight exceptions, the definition is perfect."

"An old and honourable hospital board has been abolished." That, I say, is a perfectly correct, historical statement, except that "an old board has been abolished" is not the fact. It was a new board, established in 1936, that was abolished. That is one of the things on which Senator Kingsmill Moore dwelt and there was a note in the voice that spoke the words which seemed to bleat resentment at the suppression of the old and honourable tradition-bearing board by a new one which included representatives of the people and nominees of the Government.

Now, we get down to bedrock of all this matter in the reference to the Minister's nominees on the board. If I may return to it, the pamphlet "Justice" says: "This is not the place for entering into a description of the subsequent policy of the Department. It has been dealt with, and will be dealt with again in another place"—a promise of the oration with which we have been entertained to-night. "[All] was terminated in 1944 by the action of three members of the board, all of them nominees of the Minister."—"All of them nominees of the Minister" is printed in italics. That is a perfect explanation suggested in italics: the enormities, the wrongdoings, all the unjustifiable things which are put forward as justification for the speech to-night. It is not the only occasion in which the pamphleteer, shall I say, unmasks himself for a moment. It proceeds in a very calm and a very able, simple, narrative form, but here and there there is a decline from that high level, as in the present case. Senator Kingsmill Moore began to-night with a sneer at these representatives, the Minister's nominees. I resent these insinuations against Government nominees. As Jack Point says: "Look you, I am concerned in this." I am a nominee of the Government on the Senate of the National University, the governing body of University College, on the governing body of the National Gallery, as a member of the Censorship of Publications Board, and I think I am entitled to resent any insinuation that because a man holds an office or is a member of a board on the nomination of the Government he is an untrustworthy person, someone who will be suspected of being merely a listening centre for the collection of secret information. In other words, he must be false to the ordinary honourable undertakings of a member of a board through concern for the requirements of the Government. It is an insult both to the Government and to the men they appoint, and I am astonished that a lawyer of such eminence as Senator Kingsmill Moore should echo the sneer.

We do not know what the evidence given by the three men is, but we do know what the White Paper—which is not to be believed, according to Senator Kingsmill Moore, but which I believe— sets out in a letter addressed on 27th April, 1945, to the commissioner, Mr. Lysaght, appointing him to exercise the powers of the board, in relation to the defects in administration which the evidence at the inquiry disclosed—I may explain that I emphasise these words: "to exercise the powers of the board in relation to the defects in the administration which the evidence at the inquiry disclosed", because they have a very important bearing on Senator Kingsmill Moore's argument. The letter reads:—

"I am directed by Dr. Ward, Parliamentary Secretary ... to draw your special attention to the defects in the administration which the evidence tendered on oath at the recent inquiry disclosed, and in particular to the following matters referred to in the memorandum submitted to the Minister on the 3rd August, 1944, by Messrs. M.O Foghludha, F.H. Litton and Michael O'Leary, members of the board."

The action of the Parliamentary Secretary is based upon the evidence tendered on oath and the memorandum of these three. This extraordinary "Justice" takes him to task for not saying that his case is founded on the "report" of the inspector—meaning by "report" a verdict. He does not say so because it is not founded, and does not profess to be founded, on a finding of the inspector, but on the evidence elicited by the inspector conducting the inquiry. A propos of that, Senator Kingsmill Moore, who is a lawyer and ought to know better, committed himself to the statement that an inspector of the Local Government Department conducting an inquiry is a judicial character.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

"Quasi-judicial" was my phrase.

Professor Magennis

Quasi-judicial means more or less, so to speak, or in a manner, judicial. It shows a consciousness on the part of Senator Kingsmill Moore that to say he was a judge would be untrue, but, as his case requires the inspector's work to be regarded as work of a judicial character, quasi-judicial is a convenient subterfuge.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

On a point of fact and of law, may I say that nobody is a judicial character unless appointed to be a judge, either by the Constitution or by the law. There are a number of people who exercise quasi-judicial functions and who are bound by the principles of the judiciary.

Professor Magennis

I am one of them.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I know, and there are others.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

The question in this case appears to be whether or not he was bound to make an award.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Magennis may proceed.

Professor Magennis

With reference to the last interruption of the Senator, may I read from "Justice."

"Only the inspector, the Minister and his secretary know the contents or tenor of the inspector's report; but the seven members of the board, who are also the representatives of the original committee of management..."

—that is, of the board which had preserved the high traditions of the original foundation—

"... who have called the public meeting on the public demand, are willing to stand or fall by that report. They are so confident of the justice of their case, so convinced that an impartial study of the evidence..."

—which we have not got, by the way—

"... must prove this, that they are willing to rely upon the verdict of that official of the Department whom the Department appointed to conduct the investigation."

They demand a verdict—the "verdict" of an official who can pronounce no verdict—and they base their case on what that "verdict" will be. They are so confident that it is in favour of the seven members preserving the high tradition that they "demand" that that verdict be made public. In view of this brochure and the remarkable consilience of statement and wording with the Senator's speech which it displays, I am entitled to suggest that it was composed under the influence of the Senator, and when the Senator therefore, in opening his speech, used that language with regard to the inspector, he used it deliberately to give the impression that an inspector's report bears the character of a quasi-judicial document.

What is an inspector's "report"? A section of the Dublin Fever Hospital Act, 1936, declares that the statutory duties of the Minister for Local Government—duties which must be carried out—must be carried out on full information. The Minister, or his deputy in this case, the Parliamentary Secretary, must employ officials to investigate and collect information, not being a divinity omnipresent. He must have, to use the happy phrase of Senator Kingsmill Moore, eyes and ears, and the inspector appointed by him to conduct a public inquiry becomes his eyes and ears: he has to get all the information that it is possible for him to collect, to get it on oath, and he furnishes a report embodying all that he has secured as the harvest of inquiry. It is suggested here and in this very plausible pamphlet——

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

May I correct the Senator? He has referred to this as my plausible pamphlet.

Professor Magennis

I did not say his plausible pamphlet. I said "this plausible pamphlet."

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I thought the Senator said "his plausible pamphlet." I just could not hear the Senator correctly across the floor.

Professor Magennis

I am sorry I am not able to speak like the Senator. "This plausible pamphlet," I said, for I think anyone who reads it will find it is a long way a better indictment of the Parliamentary Secretary than the Senator's speech, because it is so artfully written that it wins the reader's confidence: he feels himself insensibly drawn towards the side of the writer if he does not know a little more or is not old enough to be on his guard against its insidious and attractive exposition. I was on the subject of the function of inspectors of the Local Government Department which is to furnish all the information the inspector can secure through an inquiry on oath.

It is upon these reports of information that the Minister, or the Parliamentary Secretary deputising for him, has to found his judgment. Senator Kingsmill Moore in his letter to the Irish Times of yesterday had the audacity to put the word “findings” in connection with the Minister for Local Government in quotation marks as if they were not properly findings. He speculates on the report of the inspector and declares that the report of the inspector will give another picture of the board than that given by the student of the report's content. He has the audacity to speak of the findings of the Parliamentary Secretary, whose business and whose duty it is to find a verdict—a statutory duty— contemptuously. I see Senator Kingsmill Moore shakes his head.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Because I have possibly misled the Senator as to what is a finding of fact. A finding of fact cannot be made where there is inconsistent oral evidence by anybody except the person who heard it. The determining of what to do is a different thing. A finding of fact can only be made by the person who heard it.

Professor Magennis

May I ask the Senator a question? When the Parliamentary Secretary set up this inquiry was it not in response to a memorandum received from three members indicting the board?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

If you ask me what I think about it, that was the ostensible reason.

Professor Magennis

That is sufficient for me: he set up an inquiry into facts. But the real purpose which this atrocious conspirer against justice and right had in view was a sham inquiry. That was the indictment made here to-night. It was the indictment also made by most of the speakers in the Mansion House—I am afraid the Senator wishes to suggest that I am misrepresenting him?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Not consciously.

Professor Magennis

Very good. I mentioned the Mansion House meeting. There is internal evidence in this pamphlet "Justice" that the writer— or the writers of it; it may be a joint one—was responsible for calling the meeting in the Mansion House. Is that challenged?

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Yes.

Professor Magennis

It seems the fashion to challenge everything I say.

Mr. Baxter

You are looking for challenges. Take no notice of them. Go on.

Professor Magennis

"The seven members of the board who are also the representatives of the original committee of management, who have called the public meeting on the public demand——

Mr. P.J. O'Reilly

I should like to raise a point of order. I would suggest that the majority of Senators present are suffering under a great handicap because we have not the document which Senator Magennis is reading. What is before the House is the White Paper issued by the Minister, together with the statement of Senator Kingsmill Moore. I have not the document which the Senator is reading and I think many other Senators are in the same position. We find it difficult to follow Senator Magennis's argument. I think we should stick to the White Paper.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The matter before the House is the abolition of the Board of Cork Street Fever Hospital, and Senator Magennis is in order.

Mr. Hearne

May I say that I have got a copy of this pamphlet which was sent to me through the post marked "personal". I know at least four other Senators around me here who also got copies in the same way.

Professor Magennis

"The seven members of the board who are also the representatives of the original committee of management who have called the public meeting on the public demand—". The word "we", the first person, is then used on the last page: it lends itself incautiously to the interpretation that the writer is one of the seven. "The seven members of the board who are also the representatives of the original committee of management, who have called the public meeting on the public demand—". Observe the board dissolved had 20 members and the board means 20 members, but there are only seven figuring in all the letters to the newspapers and figuring here in this document as the board, which makes it very clear indeed that there was a cleavage in the board. I shall deal with that presently as a separate item. For a moment I shall refer once again to the extraordinary consilience of view on the part of the speakers reported in the papers and the pamphlet I have read. There is the same consilience of view between the speaker to-night and the speakers in the Mansion House.

This is a charge against the Government. The doctrine of collective responsibility in the Constitution makes it a charge against the Government, inasmuch as it is a charge against the policy pursued by one of the Ministers. Now this is a highly worked-up charge, this accusation of the sham inquiry. The extraordinary thing is that not only are we to believe that the Parliamentary Secretary is a scoundrel but we are to believe also that he is clumsy in his performance. That was the suggestion of one of the speakers at the Mansion House. It is not worth mentioning his name, but I suppose I shall be challenged again as to the accuracy of the quotation, and I may inform whomever wishes to interrupt me that I have a copy of the Irish Times with me as a precautionary measure. He declared that the Parliamentary Secretary is a clumsy practitioner; he is a clumsy practitioner if what is alleged here is true. Whom did he select to conduct this inquiry—a sham inquiry to find a “verdict” in favour of the preordained termination of the board? He did not select—I suppose I should not suggest that there is any such thing—an incompetent Local Government Board inspector; he picked the very best. Here is a tribute paid to the inspector, and it was paid by the Senator also: “The inquiry was held, and lasted from 13th to 22nd November. It was conducted by a senior inspector of the Department, whose experience, impartiality, and justice became obvious as the case proceeded. The administration was searchingly examined, witnesses questioned, documents, books and files scrutinised, charges investigated.” That is a glowing tribute to the Government official whom the Parliamentary Secretary chose as his tool in a sham inquiry to report in favour of what he had already made up his mind to be his finding. Is this credible? I give a Secretary of Health credit for more ability, especially if he be the scoundrel that the Senator proclaims him.

They do not all speak in the same language with regard to the Minister for Local Government. One of the speakers in the Mansion House, who made the charge of "sham inquiry", declared the Minister for Local Government an unmitigated scoundrel —that is a short summary of what he said about him. He said a whole lot of things, but one of them is that the Minister was deliberately false. He is a member of the Bar, a senior counsel.

Our friend the Senator acquits the Minister of any criminality in the matter. He is willing to let him off with a caution to be more careful next time before accepting the statements of his officials, but Mr. Wood challenged the Minister as a dishonest man and an unreliable Minister.

It seems, according to one of our colleagues, that I am not to refer to any contribution from the accusers except to refer to what has been said here to-night. Surely, we are all men who read at least one newspaper—I read only one —and we know what is going on. We know that this dismissal not of seven but of the whole board of 20 has been made the occasion of a campaign against the Government. It is seized as an opportunity to heap obloquy upon the Government. Now that the censorship on newspapers has been removed, all the pent-up passion, all the pent-up venom, all the anti-Government virus that were repressed under the censorship of newspapers have found vent at last in this.

They called a meeting in the Mansion House, and they carefully selected the speakers who knew little or nothing at all about the facts and, are, therefore, unlimited in their utterances, without any regard for fact or fairness. I make one exception. I am bound to make one exception, and that is Dr. Moorhead. Dr. Moorhead prefaced his remarks by saying he was present at the meeting simply as a member of the public. That, by the way, is impossible. A man of his greatness in the profession, a man of his standing— he is President of the Medical Council —cannot speak at a meeting concerning a hospital board as a private citizen. He is speaking with what, for the general public, is the voice of authority. I think it well, for fear that by some slip of the tongue I should misrepresent him, to read what he said: "Dr. Moorhead characterised the Government's action as arbitrary, petulant and autocratic", reports the Irish Times. He added:—

"I feel certain that if, within the last few years, we had heard of such action coming from Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany we would have held up our hands in horror and have said, ‘Thank God, we are not governed in that way.'"

Now, I forgive Dr. Moorhead for not knowing the facts of legislation. The 1936 Act was a perfectly legal Act; it was not a confiscation. This pamphlet, "Justice" to which I am referring so frequently, speaks with a certain amount of feeling of the taking over of the old charity institution by the Act of 1936, and it is quite natural. But Dr. Moorhead was not aware that everything which has been done has been done under two Acts, the Act of 1936 and the Act of 1944, and an Order made under the Act of 1944. To speak, therefore, of the action of suppressing the board as an act such as might be attributed to Hitler or Mussolini is certainly lacking in professional calm.

By the way, in his letter yesterday to the editor of the Irish Times, Senator Kingsmill Moore quoted certain judgments: Viscount Haldane: “The Local Government Board must act judicially and without bias”; Lord Shaw: “It must do its best to act justly and to reach just ends by just means”; Lord Parmoor: “The respondent is entitled to have the matter determined in a judicial spirit.” But the moral is that the Ministerial action is also entitled to be reviewed in a judicial spirit. Lord Moulton may be also quoted: “The Local Government Board must preserve a judicial temper and perform its duties conscientiously with a proper feeling of responsibility.” I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.

The Seanad adjourned at 9 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. Friday, 27th July, 1945.