With regard to the first point raised by Senator O'Quigley, I must say that I am not a lawyer and I shall have to consult the parliamentary draftsman. So far as I can see, it appears to be all right, but I shall make sure of that.
The second point he raised deals with the fact that the Ceann Comhairle has power to appoint a person to carry on in the control of the staff in his absence, and that the Cathaoirleach has not got the same power. That is true. The principle underlying the control of staff here is that the Ceann Comhairle has control of the staff, generally speaking. He is quite free to delegate some power, say, to the Clerk of the Seanad. There would be nothing wrong in that. As the Bill stands, I think it is all right in that regard.
We had to be very careful. That was one of the points that gave us a great deal of trouble in drafting this Bill. In the long run, you cannot have satisfaction, dealing with staff, unless one person is responsible. At the same time, we had to have regard to the fact that there are two Houses involved and that the Chairman of each House has his own responsibilities and that the Chairman of each House should have full responsibility, at any rate, so far as his staff is concerned in the sittings of that House. I think we have covered those points as well as we could in all the circumstances.
I do not think the point raised by Senator Ó Donnabháin should cause very much trouble. It is not very difficult to see what the definition means. These are six officers, and they are named. The Clerk and Clerk Assistant of the Dáil and the Seanad, the Superintendent and the Captain of the Guard are the officers. All the rest of the people employed here are the "joint staff". If you take the joint staff and the officers, these are called the "staff". It may be a little confusing but that is how the definition goes.
The point raised by Senator Miss Davidson gave rise to a great deal of discussion in the other House. I should perhaps say a few words about its history to show the Seanad how the present position evolved. There are two posts in Leinster House which have had to be filled from the beginning, the posts of Superintendent and Captain of the Guard. There is no doubt that a certain type of person is required to fill these posts. First of all, they must have some sense of discipline and must be able to command respect from the staff under them. They must be people of great discretion and tact. So far, we have been filling these posts with men from the Army or the Garda and in all cases I think they were men who took part in the fight for independence. I think Senators will agree that it is not likely that those who took part in the fight for independence will fill these posts again. Age will prevent them from doing so. It is most likely that in future we shall have, as they have in most other countries, men who have retired from the army or the police, who have all these other qualities I have mentioned.
In future, therefore, they will be provided for fairly well financially from the Forces in which they served and whatever is allowed to them in the posts here. In the past, the fact that these men could hold these positions only for a comparatively short period meant that they got small pensions. In bringing in this Bill, I felt the occupants of these posts should be dealt with specially by giving them about two-thirds of the full pension and that increased their terms of occupancy of these posts by about six years. That was not an extravagant proposal, but members of the other House felt that other people should be treated at least as well and made that case, but as I have pointed out on more than one occasion, I approached the matter in a different way.
I approached it by saying that we had men here who were in a different position from that of most people working in this establishment. They had been in the fight for independence and had lost a good many years and therefore, their pensions, on retiring, would be small. That was countered by saying that it could be argued that we should take in anybody who had military service in the war for independence. I think the answer to that is that these two posts are posts which will always be filled by men who have some sort of military or police training. There is no reason why a clerical officer or a reporter should have army or police training and, therefore, there is a difference in that respect.
When we came down and got closer to the position, I agreed and said: "All right; I agree to bring everybody up to 26 years' service, the same as those two men." It was argued against me that we should do more than that, and that was the position when this Bill went through the Dáil. We brought every member of the staff to the level of 26 years, whether he had that service or not—that is those serving at the moment. It will mean that nobody now serving will get a smaller pension than two-thirds of what he would have got if he served his full time.
I cannot possibly agree with Senator Miss Davidson that we should provide a full pension for everybody. After all, we are taking, as it were, these officers away from the Civil Service so far as they have been in practice, though maybe not actually members of the Civil Service and I do not think we should give them very big concessions which could not be claimed by the Civil Service generally. Anyway, I do not think it would be fair or reasonable to expect that people who have served only for a number of years should get the full pension as compared with those who served the full 40 years. I feel we have done as much as could reasonably be expected in giving the concession, which we introduced in the Dáil, bringing those who would have less than two-thirds of the pension up to that level.