Before the Minister enters on this Bill, I understand that this Second Stage is going to be passed. I have no objection to the Second Stage being passed and it could be passed very rapidly. I take it that the arrangement made at the Committee on Procedure and Privileges will be operative, that is to say, that the Second Stage will be taken now and the other stages will be taken at the first meeting after Christmas. If that is so, I was going to suggest, as people have difficulties about conveyance, that we could be satisfied with a very brief debate on the Second Stage because the Bill is of such a nature that anything anybody wants to raise can be quite easily raised on the Committee Stage. I say that with no endeavour to delay the Bill. Simply, it can be disposed of on the first day of sitting, the 15th January.
Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 1946—Second Stage.
I should like to ask the indulgence of the House to stress that the Bill is a very urgent measure and that, so far as I am concerned, I should greatly appreciate it if the House could see its way to give me all the stages of the Bill this evening. As Senator Hayes has rightly pointed out, the Bill is a Bill with the principle of which we either agree or we do not. It is essential and necessary in the public interest that all our manifold services for the prevention of hardship and the relief of distress and destitution which are now scattered over three Departments of State should be consolidated in one Department and under one Minister who would be responsible to the Government and to the Oireachtas for the proper co-ordination, reorganisation and development, if that is considered wise, of these services. Likewise, the problems which now affect the public health have become so complex and the necessity to safeguard the health of the individual in the interests of the State and of the community as a whole has become so generally recognised that, for that purpose, and for the purpose of doing this more effectively than it has hitherto been done, we should have a Minister who would be solely responsible for the initiation and administration of such measures as in his judgment and in the judgment of the Oireachtas would best conduce to the preservation of individual health and the prolongation of human life. It seems to me that if we are satisfied that these developments are essential in the public interest this Bill might be quickly and rapidly disposed of.
I should like to ask the Seanad to accept my point of view and the point of view of the Government in this matter. Therefore, Sir, I would like to press that all the stages of the measure be taken before the Seanad adjourns for the Christmas holidays. This Bill is essentially a Second Stage Bill. The only amendments of significance which could be put down in Committee would be to delete Section 2 or to delete Section 3. To delete Section 2 would be tantamount to the rejection of the proposal to establish a Department of Health. To delete Section 3 would be to reject the proposal to establish a Department of Social Welfare. Both these proposals are so closely interlocked that if one is rejected the other must fall with it and, if that other fails, then the whole Bill must go.
Accordingly, if the Seanad wishes to oppose the establishment of one or other of the new Departments, whether it be the Department of Health or the Department of Social Welfare, then I suggest that the more consistent and the more convenient thing to do at this stage would be to defeat the Bill on the Second Reading.
I feel sure the Seanad does not want to reject the Bill or to resist the establishment of any one of the new Departments. Public opinion, as manifested by the votes in the Dáil, is behind this Bill. The measure was supported in that House not only by the majority Party, the Government Party, but by two other Parties and by some Independents. With such a measure of support, there can be no doubt that the Bill will become law in due course and the only question that arises for consideration now is, when? I would urge the Seanad very strongly, plead with it, even beg of it, to allow it to become law before the close of the year, that is, in effect, to become law before Christmas.
There are very strong reasons for that request. Very critical questions of principle relating to a number of important proposals affecting the health and the welfare of the people remain to be finally determined by the Ministers who will eventually be responsible for health and social welfare. These Ministers have not been appointed yet and they cannot be appointed, even in petto, until this Bill becomes law. Meanwhile, not only have these decisions on policy to be deferred but important administrative questions cannot be dealt with so long as the present condition of what is virtually an interregnum remains. Naturally, the House will understand that the position in which myself or the Minister for Industry and Commerce find ourselves at the moment under this Bill, which is to divest us of powers and functions which we at the moment exercise, is that we will hesitate to use these powers to settle large issues which within a few weeks from now may become the responsibility of a colleague. Hence the present position of this Bill inevitably conduces to administrative delay in dealing with important proposals. That delay must occasion a great deal of inconvenience, perhaps even of hardship, to those who may be concerned with these matters, who may be concerned as persons administering voluntary hospitals or charitable institutions or may be concerned, say, as the staffs of mental hospitals, who will come within the ambit of the new Department of Health. I am sure that it would be far from the mind of any member of the Seanad to prolong a state of affairs in which these delays are occurring.
A further consideration which I would urge on the House is the fact that, unless the Bill becomes law before Christmas, it will not be possible to prepare Estimates for the new Departments and to secure the approval of the Minister for Finance and the Government for them in time to submit them to the Oireachtas next February with the general volume of Estimates for the other public services. It will not be possible, therefore, to include any provision for the new Departments in the Vote on Account. Separate Votes by way of Supplementary Estimates will then have to be taken for each of the new Departments and this procedure, as the House will appreciate, will involve heavy additional demands on Parliamentary time during the busiest period of the financial session. Perhaps even more undesirable consequences will follow if the Bill is not passed before Christmas for then we shall have the fact that the services which will be eventually brought under the Minister for Social Welfare will be provided for in the Estimates for one or other of the three Departments which at the moment administer certain of these services. These Departments will be the Department of Finance—the Department of Finance in so far as the Minister for Finance is responsible for the Estimate for the Revenue Commissioners—the Department of Industry and Commerce, and the Department of Local Government and Public Health. The existing services within the new Department of Health which, in due course, will be controlled by the Minister for Health, will be provided for in the Estimate for the Department of Local Government and Public Health. But, unless the measure now before the House is passed, as I want to emphasise again, before Christmas, when the new Departments of Health and Social Welfare are set up, then simultaneously with the Supplementary Estimates which must be introduced in order to provide for them, additional Supplementary Estimates will have to be introduced in order to provide for the requirements of the new Department of Local Government, the pruned Department of Industry and Commerce and the reduced establishment of the Revenue Commissioners. All these Supplementary Estimates, let me repeat, will have to be brought in and passed in order to cover services already provided for in the general volume of Estimates. Inevitably the result, I suggest, will be to create public confusion——
Red ruin and the breaking of the law.
——public confusion, in so far as the Oireachtas and the country will have no clear picture as to what the new Departments are going to cost nor, indeed, any real idea as to what is going to be the real cost of the public services as a whole. I am stressing this, but I am not stressing it in order to try to create any erroneous impression outside of the seriousness of the situation which will obtain if the Seanad refuses to carry all stages of the Bill before Christmas. I am stressing it in order that each Senator may realise what is going to happen. All this confusion and inconvenience, and all these grave disadvantages, can be avoided if the Seanad agrees to take all stages of the Bill this week or, if not this week, all the remaining stages next week. I would urge very strongly that this should be done. In urging this I am not losing sight of the fact that the Seanad Committee on Procedure, I understand, decided to-day not to take the Committee and Final Stages until 15th January. But the Committee in coming to this decision did not ask for the views of the Government in the matter—perhaps quite justifiably because the Seanad admittedly is master of its own procedure and, in matters of this sort, may act as its own judgment and consideration for the public interest may direct. I feel certain, however, that the considerations which I am now arguing on the House were not before it when it came to this decision to-day. If they were, I am sure that the Committee, recognising the force of them, would have decided to dispose of the Bill before adjourning for the Christmas Recess.
In view of the late hour, the Seanad may not consider it advisable to take all the stages of the Bill this evening. Even if that is the case, I would press the House to meet next week on Tuesday, 17th or Wednesday, 18th, to take the remaining stages then. I am not unaware that in asking this I may be putting members of the Seanad to some inconvenience but, as I have pointed out, public considerations for the urgent enactment of this measure which will so radically affect our services for preserving and maintaining health and for preventing and alleviating hardship and destitution, are so great that I am sure no personal considerations will be permitted to count in the matter. I feel, as I have said, that if any attempt had been made to consult the Government before the Seanad Committee took the decision I understand it took to-day, there would be no question but that this Bill would be disposed of before the House rises for the Christmas Recess. I pointed out, and I think it is now admitted, that the Bill is urgently required, that the reforms it proposes to institute are recognised as necessary in the public interest so that it is not necessary for me to go into any prolonged explanation of its provisions. I, therefore, content myself by asking the House to give full weight to everything I have urged and to give me all stages of the Bill, if not this evening before the House rises, then next week.
The Minister is a regular bogey-man. I never heard the like of his story. He made our flesh creep. If this Bill, which the Minister delayed in the other House, which was held up because of the Minister's own performances there, is not passed through all stages now, all kinds of catastrophies and cataclysms will occur in the country. Surely the Minister cannot believe that. It is just nonsense. Nobody here is considering his own personal convenience or inconvenience. The situation is quite a simple one. The Committee on Procedure and Privileges contains members of all Parties. Why did not the Minister tell the members of his own Party on that Committee the long story which he has told us?
There are no Parties here.
There are people in this House who, to the best of my knowledge and belief, have considerable sympathy and contact with the Minister for Local Government. Apparently, the contacts are very remote, because none of them knew yesterday anything about the extraordinary situation which would arise if we did not give the Minister all stages of this Bill to-night. The question is not one of personal convenience. It is a question of how this House should do its business. The Minister devoted more than 20 days of the time of the Dáil to a Public Health Bill which, but for the fact that the Opposition were intelligent and tenacious, would have got through the Dáil and occupied our attention here. The Minister, in that event, would now be urging us to repeal that measure so as to enable him to pass this Bill through. Is not that true?
If that question is addressed to me, it is not true.
I should not think of addressing a question to the Minister. He might reply at length. It is because of that lack of understanding and bad arrangement of business that we are presented with a great deal of work which could only be transacted under the duress of long speeches. I do not want to delay this Bill. So far as this House is concerned, the Committee on Procedure and Privileges has always been unanimous in its arrangement of public business. We have always been accommodating—on all sides—with regard to the convenience of Ministers. On the other hand, Ministers have always shown themselves willing to come here to discuss motions and the different groups in the House have shown themselves willing to accommodate one another. So far as this Bill is concerned, I do not accept for a moment the view that, having done without those two Ministries for the past 25 years under two Governments, and for the past 15 years under the present Government, there will be a dreadful disaster if we delay this measure for three weeks. That is a childish submission. When referring to the Estimates, in dealing with the question of procedure, the Minister said he could bring in a Supplementary Estimate, but he hastily added, looking across at me: "Bringing in a Supplementary Estimate is a dreadful business and causes tremendous administrative inconvenience". It does not—and well the Minister knows it and well I know it.
What we should do is transact our business in the way we said we would transact it. I do not believe that the Minister will be inconvenienced by our doing that. There is no reason why the Minister should not assume that the Bill will be passed and proceed to discuss the financial arrangements with the Minister for Finance. One would imagine that the Minister for Finance was a remote ogre—remote from the Minister and from the two Ministers-designate. Surely the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Finance live and have their being in close contact. Surely, there is no difficulty in assuming that this Bill will become law and leaving the two Ministers-designate to decide upon policy and settle matters with the Minister for Finance.
We are now fond of British precedents. The British recently decided to set up a Ministry of Defence. Mr. Alexander was mentioned in the papers as the Minister-designate for Defence before the Bill was passed into law— I do not know whether it is yet passed or not. At any rate, the course the British adopted gave the British Parliament an opportunity of discussing the whole matter. If a Parliamentary Secretary is to be appointed to one of these posts, why not proceed in the same way? Instead of breaking arrangements, it would be much better if the Minister would make known beforehand what he wants. If he had done so, we could have considered this matter yesterday. I do not think that there is anything in the Minister's argument. It is simply a matter of the Minister's Parliamentary business having been badly arranged in the Dáil. We gave the Government yesterday and to-day all stages of a number of Bills. By doing so, we stultify ourselves as a House. It is not a matter of personal inconvenience. I am a resident of Dublin and I have no objection to meeting to-night or Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday of next week. But we are stultifying ourselves by running all these Bills through.
When the Minister tells us elaborately that we can only amend the Bill by rejecting its principle, he is really telling us something he does not know very much about. He may be humbugging himself in endeavouring to humbug us. It would be better for us, for the future of the House, for our relations in the House and for our relations with Ministers if we were to keep to the arrangement made, not because we object to doing work at any time, but because a House of Parliament should work on some definite scheme. I have a great objection to any Minister coming in here and holding up the big stick and saying: "The public want this". The public may want it, but they have been 25 years without it and the Minister is responsible for 15 years of that delay, if I am to use his line of argument. Yet we are going to create a dreadful situation by forcing him to wait for less than a month. The simple procedure would be to take the Second Stage of this Bill to-day and give the Minister all the remaining stages when we meet after Christmas—whether on the 8th or 15th January. Instead of discussing the Bill in this atmosphere, better discuss it intelligently and calmly, with some little time on our hands, after Christmas.
I think it can be said that we never held up a Bill in this House since 1938. No effort was made to do so. We had nothing but reasonable discussion and it is most unreasonable for the Minister so to arrange his Parliamentary business that he confronts us at 11 o'clock at night with a Bill that makes very important changes in public health administration and asks us to pass all stages to-night or to meet with a scrap House within a few days of Christmas and pass it. Would it not be better to get the Bill on the 15th or 8th January? I do not know whether the Minister ever heard of this story: When the General Headquarters Staff of the Irish Army were taking over from the British, they were met at the gate by a fuming sergeant-major who said: "Gentlemen, you are three minutes late." A member of the general staff said: "You have been here for 700 years and a few minutes more will not do you any harm." This Bill has been 25 years off the stocks and a few weeks more will not do any harm. Everything the Minister wants to do, he can do in Government circles and with the Minister for Finance without this Bill coming into law. I do not want to prolong discussion but I suggest that, for the sake of the goodwill that exists in the House and for the sake of the good name of the House, we should adhere to our own arrangement. I do not think that it will do any harm and the Minister can get the Bill on the 15th or the 8th January.
With your permission, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, I should like to intervene to point out a matter which may be of some importance. Perhaps my idea springs from my abysmal ignorance. In the Acts which this Bill proposes to amend, the Minister is called the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. There is to be a new Minister for Health and it seems to me that it would be logical to suggest that there should be a change in the title of the Minister. As the title is, I presume, included in the Acts which we shall amend, it might be necessary to put into this Bill a clause making the necessary amendment of the title.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
That would be a Committee matter.
Could we not come to a conclusion on the matter I have mentioned before dealing with the Second Stage?
I was under the impression that this was the Second Stage debate.
I do not object but it was not a Second Stage debate. The Minister is not so naive. He did not tell us a word about the Bill. He acted the part of the bogey-man. He wove pictures of horror to frighten our childish imaginations.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The question is: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
I should like to conclude.
On what is the Minister concluding?
On the motion: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
Other people desire to speak, and we are entitled to speak on this motion, if it is a motion that the Bill be now read a Second Time.
I do not think it is.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
That was the question proposed before this discussion started.
As the time available for the consideration of the Bill has been raised, I want to point out that pressure was used in the other House for several years to induce the Government to introduce a proposal of this kind; the resistance to the demand came not from the Opposition but from the Government. I looked through the debates recently to see exactly how this Bill came into being. I did not go back very far—merely to 1942—and I find the Taoiseach there strongly resisting a proposal to set up separate Ministries to deal with social welfare and public health. As a matter of fact, here is a rather interesting thing. On 17th February, 1944, the Taoiseach said:—
"The present system of administration of social services is efficient and economical."
He was then resisting a suggestion that there should be a separate administration for health and social service matters, but, three weeks later, the present Minister for Local Government made a speech at a meeting of the Medical Society of U.C.D. in which the introduction of this Bill was first announced. That was back in March, 1944, two years and nine months ago.
The Bill arrives here now and we are told that it must go through all stages before Christmas. I do not think that is true; if there was that urgency to have this Bill enacted and made law before the end of the year, it should have reached us in reasonable time. There is a good deal which could be discussed on the Second Stage, and, in fact, the debate on the Second Stage might and should cover a considerable amount of ground, unless we are to take the Bill and say it is all right because it is introduced by the Government. We cannot do that. So far as I know, we have no knowledge of what services are to be administered by either of the new Departments, and members of the House might like to offer suggestions as to the manner in which the administration of the services should be arranged.
On many occasions I have drawn attention to what I consider our wasteful method of administering the public health services. I was interested to read the debates in the Dáil in which the Minister expressed the view, in introducing this Bill, that the Government were ahead of public opinion. He seemed to be rather nervous; he felt he had to make a case that would convince the public that there was need for these two additional Departments. I do not know on what that view was based, except perhaps the fact—and this is very noteworthy— that, apart from Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, only 30 members of Fianna Fáil Party in the Dáil voted for the Second Reading of the Bill. That is a very alarming feature—that only 30 members of the Minister's Party, apart from Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, voted for the Second Reading. I am, therefore, assuming that the speech in which the Second Reading of the Bill was recommended to the Dáil was addressed, not to the country, but to the members of his own Party, who apparently were either hostile to the measure or so indifferent that they did not come in to vote for it.
Would the Senator tell the House how many members of his Party voted for it?
Not very many, but, of course, it is not our Bill. It is the Minister's Bill. I would say, however, since the point has been raised by the Minister, that we have not been indifferent to this question and that we helped to shape the public opinion for the Minister which he so much desires to cultivate now. I remember writing a memorandum for the Minister back in 1935. I was a member of a commission of which the Minister did me the honour of making me a member; I wrote a minority report in which I made a recommendation of this kind, although I must say it was a very attenuated one, because strictly it was outside the terms of reference of the commission. Long before that, in June of 1926, I was asked by the Irish Trade Union Congress to prepare a report for them on the reorganisation of the social services, and I did, in fact, write a pretty lengthy report. The Minister will be aware of this because I know he has access to the reports of the Trade Union Congress. He has quoted them frequently. What it is important to bear in mind, however, is that the recommendations I submitted to Congress 20 years ago were adopted unanimously by a body representing 250,000 people.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Now that we have the Bill before us, would the Senator deal with it on Second Reading?
I was dealing with the fact, which is important, that the Minister felt he was in front of public opinion, and made a very long speech in the Dáil trying to convince the public that there is a case for this Bill. I am trying to point out to the Seanad that there is no need to make that case, because public opinion was converted 20 years ago, not by the Minister, but by those of us who are now accused of trying to delay or destroy this Bill. My main anxiety, however, in regard to the Bill is that there is nothing in the speech made by the Minister in the other House—he has made no speech here in support of the Bill—to indicate that the new situation will be better than the old.
We find the most extraordinary arrangements in existence for administering social services. We have widows' and orphans' pensions administered by a special section of the Department of Local Government, and children's allowances by a section of the Department of Industry and Commerce. In this connection, it is interesting to note that when I made inquiry in certain circles as to why, of all things in the world, the Department of Industry and Commerce was saddled with the administration of children's allowances, I was told that as the only official on the Departmental Committee in favour of recommending the payment of children's allowances was the representative of the Department of Industry and Commerce, the committee decided to hand the unwanted baby to that Department. That was the only explanation I could get for it.
The whole system of administration is lop-sided with the result that we have a multiplicity of Government inspectors all over the country. It is nothing uncommon—at least, some years ago, I remember it was nothing uncommon—to find three or four Government inspectors in one town on one day, simply because different kinds of inspectors were working for different Departments, doing work which was very closely related, so far as the lives of the people are concerned. I am anxious that we should have some assurance that when this Bill becomes law and these two Ministries are established, there will be a proper rearrangement of the activities which we call social services and that matters, for instance, like workmen's compensation, unemployment insurance, health insurance, children's allowances and all such services will be brought together under one Department. I do not know whether that is the intention or not. I think I remember reading somewhere that the Minister said there was no intention to bring workmen's compensation under the administration of either of these Departments. That means, therefore, that so far as that service is concerned —and everybody in the House knows that it is a service closely related to the health insurance services—it will still be administered by the Department of Industry and Commerce. That certainly seems to me to be a lop-sided arrangement.
Then, again, there is the statistics section of the Department of Industry and Commerce. To the ordinary person it would seem obvious that a section of a Department which deals particularly with vital statistics should be administered by the Department of Public Health or the Department of Social Welfare rather than it continue an offshoot of the Department of Industry and Commerce, as it is now. I do not want to cover all these grounds. I am drawing attention to the fact that a number of questions which ought to arise on this Bill and which ought to be discussed—questions and services in regard to which members of this House have had experience —that an opportunity of expressing an opinion on them should be afforded to those Senators. I do not think the Minister should resent these opinions being expressed. I do not think it is in any way offensive to him that members of the House who have had experience of the administration of these services should tell the House and tell the Minister the conclusions which their experiences have forced upon them. The conclusion forced upon me over very many years of close association with the administration of some of these services is that there was, in fact, such rivalry between Government Departments administering services which are normally interdependent, that it was utterly impossible to make headway in regard to any kind of improvement so far as administration was concerned or so far as giving service to the public was concerned.
I do not want to hold up the House at this hour. My attitude towards the Bill generally is that I am in favour of it, and I am in favour of the Minister getting the Second Reading to-night. I am also in favour of giving him the remaining stages of the Bill as rapidly as possible. I do, however, want to urge on the House—I have done so on other occasions when this issue has arisen—that it has no right whatever to set up precedents by which members abrogate their functions when they give all stages of a Bill at the one sitting. When members do that the House is denied the opportunity of considering the Bill in the light of the explanations given on Second Reading. In my view there should be at least one week's interval between the Second Reading Stage and the Committee Stage of any Bill.
I am not concerned when I am told that we cannot amend this Bill. I believe that we can amend it. Senator Mrs. Concannon has already drawn attention to a proper point for amendment. I want to draw attention to the fact that, so far as this Bill is concerned, it proposes to establish two new Departments without telling us what is to happen to the existing Department of Local Government. I assume that that Department will change its name unless it goes altogether.
Frankly, I want to say that I am not enthusiastic about the establishment of two new Ministries if it means that, by doing so, we make an addition of two to the existing 11 Ministries maintained by this State. Frankly, I do not look with enthusiasm upon the establishment of 13 Ministries for this State, because it is not merely that you are going to appoint 13 Ministers, but that you are going to appoint 13 permanent secretaries, 13 private secretaries to Ministers and 13 private secretaries to 13 secretaries of Departments. You will have, as well, a whole hierarchy of principal officers, assistant principal officers, higher executive officers, and so on. All that will follow on the establishment of two additional Ministries. We have no estimate, and as far as I know the Dáil had no estimate, of what the additional cost involved by the establishment of these two new Ministries is going to be. I am going to hazard a rough guess, and it is that every time you establish a new Ministry in this country you incur an additional expenditure of £10,000 a year without increasing the personnel of the Civil Service, and without recruiting one new civil servant. The rearrangement of Departments and the establishment of the new hierarchy of civil servants will add £10,000 a year to your administration. That is what is involved. I think the Minister might have addressed himself to that point, and told us that certain other Ministries will disappear when these two new Ministries are established. I would be glad to hear him say that the Local Government Department, as such, would disappear. I would be glad to hear him tell us that certain other Ministries would disappear because, in my opinion, there are at least two or three other Ministries for which no case can be made.
I do not propose to hold up the House any longer. My view is that there ought to be one week's interval between the Second Reading and the Committee Stage of a Bill. I should point out, however, although I am a member of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, that I was unable to be present at yesterday's meeting. Therefore, I was not a party to the agreement which was reached between all the members of the Committee. While I am very strong in the belief that this House would be wise in honouring these agreements—they have worked well so far as my experience goes—I still would not raise any objection to the House meeting again next week if that suited the convenience of the members for the purpose of considering the remaining stages of this Bill.
This is a most peculiar position in which the House finds itself at this hour of the night. The House is not to be blamed for that. I want to protest as strongly as I can against the position in which the Minister has placed the House. I think that he has been quite unfair not only to members on this side who try to do the work of the House but to all those who support his own Party.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I would suggest to the Senator that he should address himself to the question before the House which is that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The other question that he is dealing with can be discussed when we come to fix the date for the next stage of the Bill.
Very well, we can discuss it then. Unfortunately, the position that I find myself in is due to this, that the Minister discussed the question whether or not the Bill should be taken to-night. He did not discuss the Bill at all. I had not the opportunity which Senator Duffy had of reading the debates on the Bill in the other House. The Minister, when speaking here to-night, gave the House no justification and no reasons at all as to why the Bill should be passed. He did not tell us what he proposes these new Ministers are to do. Instead, he warned us of all the tribulations that we would have to face if we did not get the Bill through immediately. Senator Hayes said that the Minister spoke like a bogey-man. In fact, he made me feel as if the new microbes which the United Nations Organisation has been talking about are soon going to be released on us—that is if this Bill is not put through.
Senator Duffy raised certain problems with regard to the Bill from his angle. He is prepared to assent to the proposition that the Bill should be read a Second Time. I may say that I am not influenced to the least extent by anything that other Senators have said on this matter. I do want to say that I cannot pretend to have any enthusiasm for this Bill, apart altogether from the fact that the Minister and his colleagues in other days were of the opinion that this State had too many Ministers and also apart from the fact that as Senator Duffy has said we are going to, under this Bill, add to the number of Ministerial offices and to the whole hierarchy of Government. What I greatly fear is that, in certain respects, administration may very well be hindered by this breaking up that we are going to witness through the operations of this Bill. You are going to have at the centre in Dublin three different chiefs and three different Departments. What I am thinking about is, what is the position in the country going to be so far as the local authorities are concerned? What are to be the responsibilities of a county council and of a county manager? I am anxious to know what the responsibility of the county manager and of the county council is going to be for what may be termed local government, and, in addition, for public health and social services as well?
When one local authority is supposed to play its part in the administration of all these three services, what will you come up against? At a meeting of your county council you will have to deal with the three Departments. When you attend your meeting once a month what do you find? You find something that could be settled by one Department passing a communication across to another and it cannot be decided by the council, simply because you have sectionalised the whole administration of local government and public health. You have got yourself into a position where the local people, when they meet in their local councils, have to deal with three sets of officials. They have to endeavour to settle all these problems, problems which apparently cannot be settled by a Government Department except by breaking it up.
We will have considerable confusion arising out of this. I do not know who will be responsible for the other kind of problem we had earlier to-day, with regard to our rating and expenditure. I do not know whether the Minister for Public Health will be the dominant Minister in regard to the expenditure of a particular local authority, or will we have three Departments, each separate and distinct, acting without cohesion or any knowledge about what they want to have done. Consider the position presented to the local authority, which has to co-ordinate the activities of all these Departments in its local domain. When we are in a situation like that, when public health services are making certain demands that the Minister for Local Government may turn down, where will the local authorities come in?
There may be answers to all this, but I have not heard them. We have not been vouchsafed by the Minister any sort of information or entertained to any kind of debate on the value of the measure such as one would expect. There is the fact that this Bill will definitely involve local people in considerable additional expenditure by the implementation of many, perhaps necessary but very grandiose, schemes. We may not be able to pay for them, but we will find imposed on us the obligation to pay for them. Nobody in the country, or who represents the people of the country, can have any enthusiasm for this. Nobody who is aware of the burdens that we have to bear in the matter of local taxation could be enthusiastic about this.
The Minister wants to divest himself of responsibility and he wishes to pass these burdens on to other people. I do not believe that what the new people who will begin their careers as Ministers will initiate could be so revolutionary that the Minister, through the existing Departments, could not put it forward. I feel the Minister has been stressing unduly the importance of this measure to the country. We will go on, to a certain extent we must go on for some considerable time, very much as we have been going.
The Minister, when speaking to-night, did not say anything to convince me of the value of this measure. I would like to have had a much more frank and better informed debate upon it than the very brief outline of the proposals which the Minister gave. So far as I am concerned, while I am prepared to permit the Second Reading to go through, I cannot pretend to have any enthusiasm for the measure. I believe that not alone will we live to complain about the additions to Ministerial offices that we are now creating, but we probably will live to discover that the high hopes the Minister has in mind as to what will arise out of the passing of this measure will scarcely be justified.
I confess that I find myself in exactly the same position as that occupied by Senator Baxter. Coming from a county that two years ago was responsible for the repayment of loans equivalent to almost the entire valuation of the county health district, I could not be expected to be enthusiastic about a measure—and the people I represent could not be enthusiastic about any Bill—that does not promise relief from the burdens placed upon the community there. The rates in my county have sky-rocketed for the past ten or 15 years and the people look upon this Bill as an opportunity for the creation of two more Ministers for the purpose of having salaried positions with the usual staffs attached. The people are not enthusiastic about it. I am not enthusiastic and I am afraid that if some relief is not given very soon to the people, this might well be the last straw that will break the camel's back.
I should like to say a few words in reply to everything that has been said in the Seanad. First of all, it is quite untrue to suggest, as Senator Hayes suggested, that the Minister confronted the House with this Bill at 11 p.m. I am not responsible for the manner in which the House conducts its business. There have been measures of considerably less importance than this discussed at length here to-day. This Bill left Dáil Éireann on the 4th December with a majority of three to one in support of it. The Standing Orders of the House require that only three days' notice shall be given of any measure which has been passed by Dáil Éireann and, after the third day, it goes on the Order Paper for the Seanad. Whether the Seanad meets to consider that Bill as a matter of urgency or not is a matter entirely for the Seanad itself. If the House is now discussing this important measure at 11 p.m. that, I suggest, is due to the obstructive speeches which have been delivered in this House upon other measures and the purpose, of course, can clearly——
On a point of order——
I listened to the Senator with a great deal of patience. May I be allowed to speak without interruption?
On a point of order. What is the motion before the House —is it the fixing of the next stage of the Bill or is it the Second Reading of the Bill?
The Second Reading.
All of this is relevant, in view of the fact that Senator Duffy took us back almost to pre-historic days when he reminded us of the report which he wrote in 1926 urging that a Ministry of Health or Social Services should be set up and telling us that in the year 1935, taking advantage of a commission to which I appointed him, he had urged that a similar reform should be instituted. He told us that the Party in the other House with which he is affiliated has for several years been urging that these two Ministries should be set up, and to-night we have had an exposure of the hypocrisy which has characterised the proceedings and the attitude of Senator Duffy and his Party in relation to these important problems. Senator Duffy is adopting tactics which would have done credit to Joe Biggar in Westminster.
On a point of order, I protest vehemently.
It only shows the shallow insincerity of the Senator.
Will the Minister indicate what he means by obstruction?
That is not a point of order.
The Senator stated that his Party had been supporting and urging this reform. The measure of the Labour Party's support for this reform is, perhaps, truly indicated by the fact that the Senator has refused to facilitate the passage of this measure.
That is not so.
I have been in favour of the passage of the measure. It is completely untrue to say that.
It is not true. The Minister must at least be truthful.
It would be advisable for the Minister to deal with the Bill itself.
Of course, Sir, I accept your ruling most willingly. But I am dealing with the suggestion made here that the Minister confronted the House with this Bill at 11 p.m. I have pointed out that this Bill left Dáil Éireann on December 4th and could have been considered earlier. I was going on to refer to the measure of support which this Bill received in Dáil Éireann and to point out that it is not inconsistent with the attitude that Senator Duffy has taken up here that, when the division was taken in Dáil Éireann on the question that the Bill should be given a Second Reading, only Deputy Corish out of all the members of the Labour Party——
May I make a point of order?
The Senator may.
Is it not contrary to the practice of this House that we should discuss the actions of individual members of the other House? That has been ruled on over and over again. Surely we should not now enter into a discussion as to what a particular Deputy did during a division in the Dáil.
Least of all by a Minister.
Is not that so?
I would ask the Minister to deal with the subject matter of the Bill.
I have addressed myself to one aspect of this Bill which, I think, is a comprehensive one. Senator Hayes has already admitted that, so far as he is concerned, he has nothing to say in opposition to the principles of the Bill.
I admitted no such thing.
He told the House he was prepared to give this Bill a Second Reading, but only a Second Reading. My response to that statement is, "thank you for nothing". If we are not to get all the stages of this Bill to-night, I am quite prepared to hold the Second Reading over until the Seanad meets again on whatever date may suit the convenience of the Opposition——
That is another unfair statement.
——whatever date will facilitate the Opposition in the obstructive attitude they have taken up.
There has been no obstruction. That is absolutely untrue.
If the principle of this Bill is acceptable to Senator Hayes, if he is prepared to give it a Second Reading to-night, there is no reason why he should not be prepared to give us all stages of the Bill. Senators Hayes, Baxter and Duffy are the only Senators who are standing in the way of that. There is no doubt but that the majority of the Seanad are prepared to facilitate the Government in this regard, because they are concerned with the welfare and health of the people, and know that this Bill is urgent.
They were not told it yesterday.
The position created by the introduction of this Bill is quite different from what has prevailed during the past 25 years. I have pointed out that at the moment we are living in an interregnum. There is one Minister responsible for Local Government and Public Health and in that capacity he is responsible for all the health services in the country, and for the administration of home assistance, widows' and orphans' pensions and old age pensions. Not only is he administering what might be described as local government proper, but he is also responsible for functions which elsewhere are entrusted to a Minister of Health and some functions which elsewhere are entrusted to a Minister of Roads and Transport. I have also pointed out that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is responsible for the administration of unemployment assistance, unemployment insurance, and children's allowances and that the Minister for Finance is responsible to the Revenue Commissioners for the administration of old age pensions.
The position which has been created by the introduction of this Bill and its passage through Dáil Éireann is that there are, in relation to a number of public health measures, certain important decisions of principle to be taken which should only be taken by the Minister who will, ultimately, be responsible for presenting these measures to the Dáil. I pointed out that there are comprehensive schemes of hospitalisation, that there are a number of important projects for the building of new hospitals, awaiting sanction by a Minister. No Minister who feels that a colleague of his who may be appointed within two months from now, and who, if he, as the present Minister, takes certain decisions in relation to these proposals, will be in fact transferring responsibility to another colleague for the decisions which he himself takes, is going in these circumstances to prejudice the free exercise by his successor of his own judgment and discretion in relation to these matters. Therefore, I pointed out that, not only are important questions of policy being held up, but important administrative decisions affecting the construction of new hospitals and the implementation of new schemes of health reform are being held up.
On a point of order. May I ask why the Minister is permitted to pursue a line of argument which was denied to me when I was speaking?
Will the Minister tell us something about the merits of the Bill?
All this leads up to the merits of the Bill. The Bill is urgent and necessary so that these important decisions may be taken. I also pointed out that, if the Bill is not given to us to-night in all its stages, which I am asking for, a great deal of financial inconvenience will result. Senator Hayes knows as well as I do exactly what the position is. The introduction of Supplementary Estimates is at any time undesirable. It is often unavoidable, but it is almost generally in relation to matters of minor detail which have been overlooked when the original Estimate was being drafted. It is quite a different matter to have to bring in a Supplementary Estimate to establish new Departments of State, and it would be an absurdity for the Seanad deliberately to adopt a course which would involve the introduction of a Supplementary Estimate for these two new Departments almost simultaneously with the presentation to Dáil Éireann of the general volume of Estimates.
Will the Minister say something about the Bill?
The Senator did not say very much about the Bill. I am addressing myself to this point, at any rate, that, if the Seanad does not give all the stages of the Bill to-night, then so far as I am concerned, they might as well defer the Second Reading for another occasion, because it will make no difference to the passage of the Bill. The device of giving us the Second Reading and deferring all the other stages of the Bill until after Christmas is merely designed to deceive and mislead the public.
Nonsense.
This Bill was opposed by Senator Hayes' colleagues in Dáil Éireann. I have pointed out that when the Vote on the Final Stage of the Bill was taken, it was passed by a majority of three to one but the obstruction which characterised the passage of the Bill through Dáil Éireann has been continued here this evening.
No such thing.
It may be that some members of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges were unaware of the urgency for the Bill. In order that there should be no person under any misapprehension here to-night, I took pains to explain why it was necessary that this Bill should go through here to-night. Now the matter is in the hands of the Seanad. It is in the hands of the majority of the Seanad and I hope the majority of the Seanad will ensure that if the House is not going to give me all stages to-night that at least the House will be summoned—no matter what personal inconvenience it may involve for some of the Senators —to meet next week, to deal with this matter.
It is a pity that somebody would not tell us what the Bill is about.
When is it proposed to take the next stage?
Mr. Hawkins
Now.
I object to the next stage being taken now.
Mr. Hawkins
Would the Seanad kindly agree to meet next week, in deference to the appeal the Minister has made as to the importance of the Bill being passed before the Recess? Since my association with the House both sides of the House have been always very agreeable to meet with the wishes of the Ministers and I think it would be well to uphold that tradition.
Notwithstanding the misrepresentations to which I have been subjected in regard to this Bill, I repeat what I said at the beginning, that I am willing that the House should meet next week, on any day convenient—Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. If it is necessary to get the Bill through before the end of the year, I am agreeable that the House should meet to consider the Bill provided, however, that there is no proposal to vary the Orders already made in regard to other Bills.
Mr. Hawkins
There is no such proposal.
I am against giving the Minister all stages of this Bill to-night and I am against giving the Minister all stages of this Bill next week. If the Minister had had the good sense to stay out of the House and leave it to Senator Hawkins's technique, he might have got the Bill next week with everybody's consent but, first and foremost, the Minister has delivered himself of a highly disorderly speech in which he talked about the urgency of the Bill and, secondly, the Minister has a long record of absolute incompetency in his management of his own business in the other House, and that is the reason we are here, at this hour of the night, discussing when we are going to do this Bill. The Minister is incompetent in this House, because he does not tell his own supporters what he wants them to do. Surely he does not blame me when he did not tell Senator Hawkins or any other representative of his Party on the Committee on Procedure and Privileges what he wanted. I agree entirely with Senator Hawkins that we have had an excellent spirit here but we have been here to-night compelled to listen to a Minister, in the guise of concluding a Second Reading debate, pouring out futile, abusive misrepresentation of better men than himself, both here and elsewhere. That is what it amounts to. I take it I am entitled to speak after 12 o'clock on this particular business. We are discussing, are we not, when we are going to meet again?
In a certain sense, yes, Senator.
So I thought. If the Minister had adopted the reasonable attitude that other Ministers adopt he might have got his Bill, but when the Minister adopts what I can only call the language of the corner boy, he cannot expect anybody to facilitate him. He does not know the first thing about the procedure of the Dáil and knows very little, in spite of having been Minister for Finance, about Supplementary Estimates or what they mean in the Dáil. He was absolutely wrong in what he said, that Supplementary Estimates in the Dáil are only used about small things. Some of the most important debates in the Dáil have been on Supplementary Estimates, and if the Minister were not in his berserk rage about the position in the Dáil and Seanad, he would have remembered that. But the Minister's bad language gets in the Minister's own light—if I am not mixing my metaphors.
As far as I am concerned I think we should maintain our own original proposal from the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, which is, to meet on the 15th January. If we do not do that, I suggest we meet on the 8th January but I object to the House yielding to this kind of threat. When a Minister comes in at the last moment with a Bill which he knows is important and when he uses abusive and obstructive language which misrepresents the attitude of responsible members of this House and, indeed, of the other House, I think he should not be facilitated. His whole bogey-man performance about all the evils that are going to result from holding up this Bill for three weeks should deceive nobody, least of all, members of a House of Parliament. It is because I object to that kind of tactics and to that kind of unreasonableness that I do not want to meet next week.
I resent entirely the Minister's statement that there is anything about the personal inconvenience of members of the Opposition. That is utterly untrue, and the Minister knows it is untrue. There are people here, on both sides of the House, who have done as much work in their own way as the Minister, and the Minister knows that too. There is no consideration of personal inconvenience or personal convenience in this. It is simply that the Minister wants to degrade this House, just as he has done a great deal to degrade the other House, from being a Parliamentary Assembly to being simply a registering machine for what he wants. He threatens us to-night that, if we do not want to meet, the majority will meet. We know he controls the majority. We do not begrudge it to him. But no House of Parliament, as Senator Hawkins implied, can work satisfactorily on the basis that you have majority votes about the Order of Business. If that is going to be the procedure here, that you are going to decide the Order of Business and the dates of meetings always by a majority vote, you will be a long time here, Sir, and you will get very few things done.
It is a great pity that we could not have had some kind of calm discussion about this business and could not have adopted the suggestion that was made originally but, as far as I am concerned, I am against meeting next week. I am in favour of adjourning and then considering this matter after Christmas, in the proper way, as was decided.
Would Senator Hawkins name a day next week on which the House would meet?
Mr. Hawkins
Any day that is convenient to the members—Tuesday or Wednesday.
I want a definite date for the purpose of the question which I will put to the House.
Mr. Hawkins
Say December 17th.
That is Tuesday.
Mr. Hawkins
Wednesday, if you wish. It does not matter.
The question before the House is: That the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 1946, be taken on December 18th.
Despite the heated argument that has taken place, the Minister has put a case that he wants the Bill and I do not think Senators can put forward any reasonable case why we should not meet next week and give the Minister the Bill, because that gives a chance of putting down amendments. I would appeal to the members to agree to meet some day next week. I do not think it would be a great sacrifice.
I hold to the point of view expressed by Senator Hayes, for this reason, that the business of this House can only be done reasonably efficiently on the basis that all sides of the House understand each other and on the basis that if we come to an honourable agreement it will be kept, whatever the consequences may be. You can break an agreement once but, if you do, you will not find the other side as accommodating the next time. This House is concerned with something more than merely what one Minister puts before it. We have had three or four Bills from another Minister and the House knows the spirit and the atmosphere in which these matters were discussed. That Minister did say that he wanted all the stages of certain Bills but when it was pointed out to him that it was not reasonable to expect that, he was prepared to assent to their adjournment. There was no evidence whatever that this was going to be sprung on the House when the Committee on Procedure and Privileges met and unless all the members of that Committee are able to honour their bond, one to the other, the business of this House, whatever Minister is in charge, will not be done anything like as efficiently as it would be if a proper spirit prevailed. Who is responsible for that? The Minister has come in here to-night and he has created an atmosphere that has been foreign to this House for the last two days. He is raising neither the status of this House nor his own status in the estimation of the public.