I am moving to the amendment. Where possible, we must return power to the lesser organisations. As the State power grows, we must try to prune a certain amount from it. This section and especially subsection (1) is directly contrary to that spirit. The only reason the Minister advanced the last day for seeking this power was that previous presidents admittedly did not toe the line. So, a Minister of State is henceforth to be the sole arbiter on whether an outside body is performing its function or not. The measure of the efficiency of the holder of the office is to be judged apparently by the readiness with which he complies with the dictates of the State.
The Minister tried to soften this for us by stating he himself had no intention in regard to this post. I readily grant that to him. He said that, as proof of that, it was proposed that the present holder should continue for his full term of office and go on for whatever three or four years he has left. That makes it all the worse. We are here to legislate not for today but for the future, not for the next three or four years. We are here to pass legislation that will be as valid in the future as it is today. Consequently, the Minister's assurance about the present occupant of the post is not satisfactory.
Apparently the last day, the Minister took grave exception to what I said, especially when I quoted the principle of subsidiary function which is the principle on which I based my opposition to this section. This is the keystone principle of all Catholic social teaching as contained in Quadragesimo Anno. It is a principle of universal validity. The principle from Quadragesimo Anno states:
It is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order for a larger and higher association to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lesser societies.
That is a general principle. It is sufficiently elastic perhaps to be interpreted in the framework of the country concerned.
Essentially, it says that the State should not do what other bodies can do efficiently. That is the position here. This other body, An Bord Altranais, has been appointing its president for the past ten years. It has been doing so efficiently by all the standards we can observe. Consequently, it is a move in the wrong direction for the Minister to arrogate that power to himself. He does not dispose of this principle merely by the reductio ad absurdum he suggested the last day that when you carry that on to its extreme limit, you have to go down and down and that the upper bodies can do almost nothing.
Nobody who knows anything of Christian social teaching would endeavour to decry a principle in that fashion. In giving those principles, we have to be careful, on the one hand, to be scrupulous of their terms, showing the wide latitude involved, and so on. They are principles based on the natural order which is the result of a very long and protracted study by very keen minds over many years.
As principles and as expressions of social teaching, they deserve to be considered carefully and their contexts examined in connection with our situation. On the other hand, in exposing those, we must treat with the contempt it deserves any defiance that simply seeks to make a mockery of the principle. Consequently, it is with a full consciousness of the position that I move this amendment. I move it solely so that the Seanad may be aware of the tendency towards which we are heading and that the Seanad may examine each piece of legislation to ensure we are building up a healthy society for the future and not merely one that will be utterly and completely paralysed by the colossus of State control.
As far as principles are concerned and as far as the details of Bills are concerned, I do not see why each Senator should not regard himself as having a duty to examine each matter, completely independent of Party principles or Party politics. If we can import Party politics into mere subsections of Bills, then, I think we are going very far. I know nobody wishes to do that. Consequently, I appeal to the House to consider this, to study the principle and to see that each group in our society is allowed to function in the way it should function in a proper democracy.
