Supposing that we had a more rigorously conscientious Minister, shall we say, than the present Minister for Local Government, and that he had to interpret the provisions in this section, and that they were so narrowly drawn as this amendment proposes, and that we had a certain number of Senators or Deputies habitually in opposition, and that he were to think that these men's political principles were odious, dangerous and subversive, it would be a very difficult task for such a Minister to have to declare that in his opinion the holder of a public office should be facilitated, that it would be in the national interest that he should be facilitated in the discharge of the duties of his political position. I do not want Senator Sweetman to put me in this position. I would much prefer that I should be allowed without any reference to national interest or this question of improving one's personal position in life, to decide the circumstances in which a holder of public office might function through a deputy. In this connection I must try and impress upon the Seanad the point of view which as the Minister immediately concerned, I expressed when this section was being discussed in Committee. I said then that I felt that in matters of this sort we shall have to rely, as is customary in matters of general administration, upon the desire of the responsible Minister to excercise his functions with strict regard to his responsibility to the Dáil but also with some regard to human considerations. I think that is how the people of this country would like to see the administration of this country carried on. Senator Sir John Keane feels that he can be omniscient and foresee all the circumstances that might arise in matters of this sort. I can assure him that he cannot. I have had before me people asking for special leave in very pathetic circumstances. The case could be that of a public officer who is the sole support of a widowed mother. The mother has been suddenly stricken down by ill-health and the officer might wish to have extended leave, not because she is ill herself, not because she is incapacitated, but because she is advised that her mother must be carefully looked after and she would like to be allowed to be relieved from the performance of her public duties in order that she might nurse her mother. Other circumstances might arise where the breadwinner of a family who has a son or daughter in the public services dies, and the affairs of the family might require the son's undivided attention for a prolonged period.
I think these are special circumstances which the Minister might justly take into consideration and, as a result, enable the holder of public office who was in such a position to function through a deputy. There are a number of other cases, some of them, perhaps, hypothetical, that I could cite as likely to come before me for my personal consideration where it is desirable that a person should be given authority to function through a deputy. These instances will, I am sure, induce the House to believe that if you are going to grant this discretion in one case, if you are going to give the Minister authority to act at all, in one or other of the cases that arise, it is wrong that such restrictive conditions should be imposed on him as are sought to be imposed here, because they would preclude him from considering others equally deserving. One must rely, in the last resort, on the desire of the Minister to do his public duty with, at the same time, adequate consideration for the human circumstances of each particular case. For that reason I am going to ask the House to reject Senator Sweetman's amendment, and also all those other amendments, such as amendment No. 20, which would, as I have said, seek unduly to restrict the Minister in his judgment of what are special circumstances. I am going to do that because I can see no other way in which the power given under this section can be made effective to deal with cases which at the moment we do not foresee and which perhaps might not be foreseeable, but which, if put up in concrete form, everyone would agree were cases which merited special consideration.
Perhaps I ought at this stage refer to a matter which has been the subject of some comment, and which has been again raised in this debate: that is the statement that there is a great deal of public uneasiness by reason of the fact that the holder of a local appointment has enjoyed extended leave of absence over a prolonged period. Now I think that if there is public uneasiness elsewhere than in the area of the particular authority with which the officer concerned was associated, it arises from a misunderstanding of the circumstances under which a temporary office was held by a permanent local officer. I think we have already found general agreement here in the Seanad that officers of local authorities if they are elected to either House of the Oireachtas ought to be facilitated in discharging their public duties. What is going to be the position of the holder of a public appointment who is not only elected to the Oireachtas but is also chosen by the head of the Government and accepted by Dáil Eireann for an even more important post. Is he to relinquish his whole-time appointment when, in fact, he knows that his tenure of his post as Minister, or as Parliamentary Secretary, may be of very brief duration? In the case which has been the subject of review recently the person concerned was a member of a Party which had not at first a majority in the House. When the Fianna Fáil Government first took office in 1932 it was in a minority in Dáil Eireann. It had a programme to execute which, in the circumstances of the time, seemed rather beyond its Parliamentary competence, because it was clear that the constitutional amendments which we then proposed to make, together with the policy which we had put before the people in regard to the financial agreement with England, were likely to involve us in acute political controversy here, and also, I may say, perhaps involve the people in such economic disabilities as might compel us to relinquish office before this programme was brought to fruition.
That our anticipations in that regard had some foundation is shown by the fact that the Government elected in 1932 felt it necessary to appeal to the people in 1933. Now, bearing in mind that you have there, I think, positive proof that the tenure of Parliamentary Office was precarious: bearing that fact in mind, would it be reasonable to expect a person called to the public service of the State to relinquish an office which represented a very great part of his normal income, an office upon which he depended for the maintenance of himself and his family, and an office which, once he had relinquished it, he could not possibly regain, because once the vacancy had been created another person would be appointed to the post, when in consequence of his service in the Ministry he might find himself rejected not merely by the Dáil but rejected by the people of his constituency at the succeeding election? Remember also that at that time there was no prospect of a pension or any other allowance for a person taking public office.
The 1933 election came along. The position was slightly different—was somewhat better, to put it that way, from the Parliamentary point of view —from what it had been in 1932. For now the Fianna Fáil administration had an over-all majority in Dáil Eireann. But it had not a majority in the Seanad, as it was then constituted. Not only that but we were involved in this constitutional and economic dispute with Great Britain, the outcome of which any prudent man could only regard as uncertain. Let me remind the House—this is, perhaps, an opportune moment to do so—that not one of our constitutional changes was carried out without very strong opposition not only in this country but on the part of the Government of Great Britain. There is no doubt whatever— we have on record statements by members of the British Government to prove it—that, if we had been prepared to compromise in regard to political issues, we could have had a very early and speedy settlement of the economic differences.
The position then was that the dispute with Great Britain was involving our people in great hardship. We all know how our farmers suffered during that period. None of us could say positively how they were going to react. Thank God-and we were grateful to them for it—they reacted as patriotic Irishmen. But they were suffering all through that period and those who were members of the administration were obliged to keep in mind the fact that, if the pressure became so intense that our agricultural population, and indeed all our population, broke down under it, there might be a change of administration in the morning. So that the person occupying a temporary position in the Government, sitting there as tenant-at-will of the Oireachtas and of the Irish people, had very little more assurance as to what his future would be than he had in the year 1932. That, of course, is a consideration which was bound to be in the mind of any man who had previously held a secure public appointment—a public appointment which, let me remind the Seanad, constituted his main source of livelihood.
