It is with considerable trepidation that I rise to speak on the Final Stage of this Bill because those who spoke on the Final Stages of Bills in recent times found themselves running into difficulties, particularly at an early stage. I do not like to find myself either having to have to resume my seat or being put out of the House. I hope that with a gentle hint or two from the Chair, I may be able to keep within the rules of order on the Final Stage. I shall be very brief. Brevity, I think, is the best way of keeping in order on the Final Stages of Bills.
This Bill is mainly a consolidation of the existing law. I think it is a happy thought for the Seanad to know that it leaves this House a little better than it was when it came into the House. For that, we must express our appreciation for what I might call the benevolent attitude which the Parliamentary Secretary adopted towards the amendments which were put down. As far as the amendments which were accepted are concerned, one would have hoped that the Parliamentary Secretary would have adopted a different attitude on some of them. At any rate, the Bill is, perhaps, not very greatly deficient because some of the amendments were not accepted.
I think that the administration of charities in this country will proceed in much the same way after the passing of this Bill as it has up to the present time. Indeed, in any such matter as the administration of charities, a great deal, in the last resort, depends upon the manner in which the principal executive officer and his staff carry out the duties imposed upon them by statute. A great deal depends upon these for the effective implementation of the legislation which is passed by Oireachtas Eireann.
For that reason, I am somewhat concerned about the provisions of Section 10 of the Bill. I do not readily understand why it becomes necessary in this Bill to have one Minister appoint staff and another Minister approve of the terms and conditions under which the staff shall be appointed and hold office and then have the staff operate and work subject to the control of a body which has no relationship with either the Minister appointing or approving of the terms and conditions of service. That seems to be an unnecessarily cumbersome method of doing things.
The particular matter which concerns me is the inadequacy of Section 10 in relation to the well-being of the staff of the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests. I had occasion to refer to this before. The Parliamentary Secretary seemed to be satisfied that the section was adequate to meet the needs of the staff of the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests. In that connection, I pointed out that the wording of this secion was similar to the wording of a number of Acts, including the Industrial Development Authority Act and the Adoption Act. I think the Parliamentary Secretary was misinformed as to the effect of the Industrial Development Authority Act because, as I indicated on Committee Stage, the Industrial Development Authority is an authority which, by subsection (2) of Section 2, shall be responsible to the Minister in the exercise of its powers and functions. Therefore, I think that the members of the Authority and their staff become State servants but the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests which are being established under this Bill are not in any sense comparable with the Development Authority and the officers of that body are not in any way comparable with the officers of the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests.
I think the section is somewhat in adequate in that we are not providing clearly—in fact, I do not think we are providing at all—that the Superannuation Acts will be applied to the staff of the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests. It is very significant at a time when the status of the staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas is under consideration to refer to that Act of 1959. It is perfectly clear that the staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas are State servants and not servants of the Government, as everybody will recognise, but servants of the Legislature. Nonetheless, in the 1959 Act by virtue of Section 27, it has been found necessary to provide that:
The provisions of the Superannuations Acts, 1834 to 1956, shall apply to or in respect of members of the staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas.
That is a specific enactment which we have not here and which gives the staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas beyond any shadow of doubt the benefit of the Superannuation Acts. The only point I want to make—I do not want to labour it—is that I do not believe that in this Bill we are providing that the staff of the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests can lawfully and validly be paid out of public funds for superannuation under the Superannuation Acts, 1834 to 1956. Up to the present time, money has been paid on the foot of an Estimate but I do not think there is statutory authority for doing that. It is a matter, indeed, which the Comptroller and Auditor General should seriously consider. I do not think, if we have any respect for law or any intention of regulating the disbursement of public money in accordance with law, we ought to leave matters in the haphazard way in which they have been left in this Bill in so far as it relates to the superannuation of the officers and servants of the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests.
I do not think any amount of talking at this stage can amend the Bill or persuade the Parliamentary Secretary and his advisers to amend it at a later stage. It has been quite evident that the Parliamentary Secretary has been eager to find a precedent which is equally wrong and the constant repetition in an Act of Parliament of something which is wrong in its application administratively over a period of years never makes it right. In this Bill, we are doing less than justice to the officers and servants of the Commissioners.
