It is proposed to take Recommendations Nos. 1 and 2 together.
Courts (Supplemental Provisions) (Amendment) Bill, 1962—Committee Stage.
SECTION 1.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I move recommendation No. 1:
In lines 11 and 12, to delete "1st day of November, 1961" and substitute "1st day of August, 1962".
This recommendation is designed to express again the view I advanced on the Second Stage. It is an expression of disappointment with the Government's proposal to give salary increases of from 10½ to 17½ per cent. to the judges as from 1st November last and, out of the same pocket, to give an increase of 8?rd per cent. to old age pensioners as from 1st August next. The Minister, in replying to the debate on the Second Stage, argued it was traditional that the judges' salaries were adjusted by approximately the same percentage—I do not know if those were his exact words—and from the same date as the salaries of the higher paid officials of the Civil Service were adjusted. In other words, whenever there is a salary increase in the Civil Service and it finds its way, as it does normally, up to the higher paid officials, the judges can expect a similar increase from the same date. I do not know if that is quite correct. It did not seem to tally with what was said earlier in the debate in regard to the infrequency of the increases in salary of the judges.
I should like the Minister to clear my mind on this matter—whether it is, in fact, traditional that judges get the same percentage increase and from the same date as civil servants. If that is so, I certainly think it is a good argument but it will still leave the objection I have to the difference in approach to the judges and, I suppose, the civil servants, if they are to be regarded as part of it, and to the old age pensioners.
As I explained on the last occasion, if we in the Labour Party put down a recommendation proposing that the increase for the old age pensioners and the other social welfare classes should be improved; that it should be something different from what is proposed by the Government, such a recommendation would be out of order. Neither, obviously, can we vote against the increase proposed for the old age pensioners and the social welfare recipients. We cannot oppose it. There is only one way in which we can show the measure of our disgust at the way these classes are treated. We are not against adjustments in the salaries of Judges but we want to show our disgust at the different treatment meted out to one section of the community as against another.
I want to ask the Minister to confirm, as I understood him to say when replying on the Second Reading, that it was traditional that the Judges got the same percentage salary increases and from the same date as the civil servants. If that is so, I am still puzzled. I should imagine that, if there were any difference in the amount, the percentage increase for the civil servants would taper off as the salary itself increased. Here, on the other hand, I think the biggest increase is for the highest paid judge. I think that is correct. Without having the exact figure before me, I think the increase of 17½ per cent., covered by this Bill, is for the highest paid judge.
It is the other way about.
On the Second Reading, I asked the Minister why the payments under this Bill were to be back-dated. He gave me the answer that the back-dating was related to the date on which the higher civil servants were getting their increases. I accept what the Minister said, without question. Nevertheless, it does seem to me to be bad that we should make increased payments to one section of the community as of one date and to another section of the community as of another date. That is the only point in this whole Bill with which I am in disagreement but, because of that, I feel I must support this recommendation.
I should just like to support what my colleague, Senator Murphy, has said in this matter and to add that I really cannot understand why the payment to the judges should be retrospective. Surely there was no urgency in their case whereas, in the case of the old age pensioners, there is definite urgency? To ask these people to wait until August does impose grave hardship on them. After all, we realise that many of them are suffering from malnutrition. A large number of them have inadequate clothing and most of them live in very bad housing conditions. I should like the Minister to give further consideration to that aspect. It certainly is urgent to pay the old age pensioners but there is definitely no urgency about paying this increase to the judges.
Before putting down my recommendation, I must confess I found myself in considerable difficulty, not any difficulty in regard to principles but the difficulty of trying to work it out within the confines of my mind, without consulting anybody. Eventually, I reached a conclusion whereby I found myself forced to put down this recommendation. I must say there were times during these internal deliberations, if I might so describe them, when I was tempted to consult the people directly interested in the subject matter of this amendment, that is, existing judiciary and one person who as far as I know would be affected by it. I hope the arguments I propose to adduce in favour of the recommendation will come as a disappointment to people who might be expecting sharp political criticism from me, or criticism of any particular person or persons on political grounds.
That is furthermost from my mind. I find myself, in arguing for this recommendation, in a triple capacity and I do not know from which element of capacity derives my first and primary duty. I am speaking, first of all, as a citizen of the State; secondly, as a member of Seanad Éireann; and thirdly, as a practising lawyer in the courts presided over by the people to whom I shall be referring. I shall be referring also to a person who presided over the Supreme Court until last November, during all the years of my practice.
I found myself disturbed, as indeed were many other members of the legal profession as well as thinking people in the rest of the community who are not members of the legal profession, by the suggestion that this Bill should be back-dated to November 1st, in order to bring in the Chief Justice, Mr. Conor Maguire, who retired in December last year.
One meets with the distasteful suggestion from members of the public from time to time, and since this Bill was first introduced in Dáil Éireann, that a man after so long a period divorced from the ordinary life of the nation, first, in the High Court as President and later, as Chief Justice, should still be so close to the Executive that he would merit consideration in a Bill of this kind and that back-dating is specifically for him. Curiously enough, while the whole matter is open to suspicion, I personally do not fully accept that to be the case. That is one of the reasons I have put down my recommendation, in order to clarify the position.
I want to avail of this opportunity, as a person practising, shall we say, a certain brand of politics, to say that not alone have I never heard or seen, expressly or impliedly, any member of the judiciary, irrespective of the dispensation under which he was appointed, showing any political fangs, if I may so describe them, from the Bench from the very moment he sat. It must be said further that the ex-Chief Justice, Mr. Conor Maguire, was exemplary in that regard. Not alone that, but he had the human capacity of making the most timid and inexperienced junior counsel feel like a Costello, a Lavery, a MacBride, or a Murnaghan, in his presence for the first time. That was no mean achievement and it was certainly a quality that was respected and admired by the members of the Bar who practised before him.
That is one of the reasons why I think the date should be altered in this Bill from 1st November to 1st January, because it would be a pity that the name of a man honoured in practice and honoured in presiding over our principal court should be bandied about by members of the public at any level and that a reputation that stood untarnished last December should now be put into the "handful of silver" class. "Who steals my purse steals trash"—reputations are far more important. I am quite certain, while I have not consulted either, although gravely tempted to do so, that the existing judiciary and the retired Chief Justice would not have any great objection to having their names removed from gossip by my recommendation being allowed to go through. I would urge the Minister to do so in the interests of the independence of the judiciary.
I am not speaking of the present judiciary; I am speaking of a judiciary which is an establishment and which will be there long after we have all gone. I am speaking in favour of the independence which must be there, not as a matter of theory, or of some kind of veiled notion in the mind of the people. It must be established in the mind of the people that our judiciary are independent, that they are beyond all bribes, that their integrity is such that irrespective of the time of their appointment, or the source from which it came, they continue to administer the law fairly for all men and that the law is the same for all persons coming before them.
Our judiciary—as indeed the judiciary in any country must be—are a bulwark between the Executive and the Legislature that might bring in some legislation directed inadvertently towards an attack upon the liberty of the subject, not only in theory but established fully in the minds and hearts of our people. Our judiciary in so short a time in this infant State, having regard to the fact that it is a State born out of revolution and, shall I say, impeded in its infant toddlings by fraternal dispute—I shall not put it any more strongly—have reached the stage of independence, which indeed obtained from the beginning, that must be the admiration of the whole world. Two months' salary or two months' pension might be regarded as a small thing, but it is a big thing if it will establish or re-establish in the minds of our people the principle that our judiciary are entirely divorced from the political scene and do not come into consideration in that regard.
Apart from that, there is no case for linking them with the civil servants for the reason that the judges in their memorandum submitted to the Select Committee—and I am quoting from the quotation in the Seanad Debates of 11th July, 1962, at column 612— said:
We wish to make it plain that we do not claim any right to have our salaries increased from time to time on account of any temporary increase in the cost of living, whether reckoned by reference to the index figure or otherwise.
There I think the case for linking it with the civil servants falls down on the claim of the judges themselves. The Minister would do well to reconsider this matter and, if necessary, hold appropriate consultations with those directly concerned, and thereby ascertain whether or not in their view, in his view, and in the Government's view, a signal service would not be done to the independence—and to re-establishing the independence—of our judiciary by making this date 1st January, 1962.
The proposed increases provided for in this Bill are not, we have been told, increases to meet the cost of living, nor are they increases to provide the members of the judiciary with adequate salaries to enable them to live decently or to maintain a decent standard of living. In my opinion, only if these proposed increases were what I could call cost of living increases could retrospection be justified.
I do not think it is any real answer to say that the date provided in the Bill is identical with the date provided for the higher grades of civil servants. The judges are in a class of their own. The machinery provided for regulating the salaries of the judges is unique. It is laid down that their salaries can be regulated only by an Act passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas.
It is not unique. Deputies and Senators are in the same boat, not to speak of Ministers of State.
They are unique in this respect, or at least they are on their own in this respect, that the salaries of the judges cannot be reduced during their term of office. That is provided in the Constitution. Therefore, I think there is no analogy between the salaries of the judges and the salaries of civil servants or any other employees of the State.
We may be blamed for daring to mention the old age pensioners or the social welfare classes, but I think it is our bounden duty here to see to it that we do not do anything which will set up two classes in this country or anything that would suggest that there is one law for the rich and powerful, and another law for the poor and weak.
Solely on the question of retrospection, we are proposing here to give increases which are not necessitated by the cost of living, which are not necessary to provide a decent or adequate standard of living for the recipients, but are rather something in the nature of a bonus or a gratuity and yet with that type of an increase we are prepared to make it retrospective to 1st November. On the other hand, when we are dealing with the increase for the social welfare classes and the old age pensioners—which increase admittedly not enough to keep the bodies and souls of those people together and which the Minister who introduced it admits is insufficient, but tells us it is the best that could be done with the money available, the best that could be done at the moment —not only do we not make it retrospective, and not only do we not pay it from the time of the passing of the Bill under which it is made payable, but we deliberately delay it for a further six months to 1st August next.
I say that is not fair play. It is not the fair play of which the Minister has spoken. It is a dangerous attitude to adopt and it is calculated to breed discontent between various sections of the community. Again I think that if we cannot afford to give an increase which is absolutely necessary, if we cannot afford to give it retrospectively or pay it when the Bill was passed, we certainly should not make an increase, which is admittedly unnecessary, retrospective to 1st November.
There is also the point that in passing this Bill and making these increases retrospective, we are increasing by over £300 the pension of an individual, who has been for many years in receipt of a very substantial salary of from £4,000 to over £5,000. Whether or not that is intentional, it is remarkable that the retrospective date of the increase coincides approximately with the date of the resignation of that person. That is bad example, to say the least of it. It is wrong in principle. It is increasing these salaries and making them retrospective two short years after they had already been adjusted. It is the shortest span between one adjustment in judges' salaries and another since the foundation of the State. It is two-thirds shorter than any other span.
He could have worked it out for himself.
He has not the amount of spare time——
I have not the equivalent of the judges sitting very close behind me, so a little help is appreciated. It is two-thirds shorter than any other span between two adjustments. That may be misconstrued. I could understand its being misconstrued.
I oppose this provision to make the increase retrospective on the grounds that it is giving bad example, that it will breed discontent, that it will reduce the prestige of the judiciary in the eyes of the ordinary people. It will hold them up as a small but powerful group who can attain something that the masses of the people cannot attain.
I support the recommendation for the reasons that were given here when we were discussing the matter on Wednesday last. It was pointed out then that other sections of the community who are in receipt of State payments—we have to class them, of course, as social welfare beneficiaries and the unemployed —cannot receive any increase in benefits until 1st August. It was pointed out that one reason for that was that legislation was required. That does not help. If you plead that certain machinery must be employed in order to make the payments, you can easily arrange that those payments can be made from 1st November last.
The social welfare recipients—the old age pensioners, the unemployed or any other section—will not receive the payments until 1st August next while the judges will receive the payments from 1st November last. They will receive increases ranging from £665 to £325 annually. Those are the increases proposed in the figures we already have. They are substantial increases.
For the reasons already stated, we should be consistent. If we are paying out from State funds, at least we should be consistent and make the payments from the same date in all cases. If we are to pay the judges from 1st November last, there is no reason why the social welfare recipients should not receive their payments from 1st November last rather than 1st August next.
I am not concerned with motives that may be behind this idea of retrospection. It has been stated, both here and in the Dáil, that 1st November has a very significant ring. I must confess that the Minister made a very convincing case here, on Second Reading, on Wednesday night last, why we should make retrospective an increase of £13 a week on a salary of £102 a week. While the Minister may make a very convincing case in the Oireachtas, his supporters throughout the country cannot be very grateful to him. They will find it very difficult to make the same case at the chapel gate or in the market-square. They will find it difficult to explain how it is that a small country like this can, on the one hand, afford salaries of that kind and can increase them by £13 a week and make them retrospective for almost 12 months while, on the other hand, we have the position that the Agricultural Wages Board quite recently gave an increase for a very important section of the community of something like 10/- a week, which brings the wages of the agricultural labourer or of the Land Commission worker or of many other workers in State employment to exactly half of £13 per week.
I appeal to the Minister to accept this recommendation. If we must make the increases—if they are to be made— let us be logical, let us be reasonable, let us make them from 1st August next.
I wish to support the case made by Senator Lindsay. He has made a very strong, clear and cogent argument for the independence of the judiciary and for seeing that it is carefully guarded in all respects. We all agree in this and we all pay tribute to the independence of the judiciary. We know how much we owe to this institution. We know that they may be the means that may be necessary to restrain at times the autocratic actions whether of Ministers or others with powers vested in them. Consequently, we have to look on the judiciary and on the Garda Síochána as the main bulwarks of our liberties in this State. For that reason, I support very strongly the recommendation proposed by Senator Lindsay.
Added to that, there is the fact that this case for retrospection is totally unconvincing. As pointed out, it is the first time that the salaries in question have been linked together. I was struck last week by the Minister's concern for this linking and the other disregard of the Government for other sections whose salaries are linked with the Civil Service. If we take the universities, they too, require increases and yet we do not see any panic to introduce the Supplementary Estimate or to get them an increase on the grants made the previous year. It is, too, a bad precedent to go back into the previous financial year and add to State expenditure, whether by Supplementary Estimate or otherwise. I should prefer to see increases for higher civil servants and all others start from the beginning of the financial year. Added to this we have the fact that most people in the middle-income group appreciate some back payment of money. If such classes can appreciate a windfall, what about the most distressed class of all, the old age pensioners? The granting retrospectively of 2/6 a week, even for a limited period of six months, would bring far more joy to the old age pensioner than any retrospective payment would to anyone in the better-off classes.
It would be a great example of social justice and of the social conscience of the Government and of the House. Those in the lowest ranks should come first. There is therefore, a very strong case for treating all alike. Certainly if this provision for granting increases to the highest paid sections of the community from 1st November and for the lowest paid sections nine months afterwards, on 1st August, is social justice, I do not know where we are going.
I am afraid I cannot accept either of these recommendations. I have already appealed, and I felt sure my appeal in this House at least would have met with ready acceptance, for the comparing of like with like. It is possible to get into all sorts of interesting side issues as to the relative positions of old age pensioners and social welfare classes, and civil servants and members of the judiciary. However, I submit to a sensible, adult Upper Chamber such as we have here, it is a completely irrelevant and erroneous form of argument.
Let me take the argument that the social welfare classes procure their increase only as on and from 1st August, whereas we propose to make these judiciary salary increases retrospective to 1st November. There is no comparison between these two. As I have already outlined to the House, it has pretty well become traditional that with every Budget, the then Minister for Finance considers what element of the national resources he can make available to the social welfare classes and makes the necessary provision in his Budget accordingly. Increases such as that come into effect on the following August 1st. That is a well-settled pattern.
I might as well put forward this argument: the eighth round of salary and wage increases which took place in 1961 was a sharing by all classes in the increased national income which had taken place; I could say that that sharing in that increase in national income on the part of the social welfare classes took place in the Budget of 1961 and that they got whatever their proportion was of the increased national income as from August, 1961. I could argue that if I wanted to. As I say, this type of argument is not relevant because there is all the difference between this regular pattern which has now become practically an annual affair—the providing of increases of one sort or another to the social welfare classes in the budget — and the much longer term increases that take place in the salaries of the higher paid sections of the community.
Senator Miss Davidson asked me why one section of the community is treated in this way and another is not. As I say, the old age pensioners and the social welfare classes cannot be compared in any way with those we are dealing with here. Why does not Senator Miss Davidson or Senator Ross compare the retrospective salaries granted to civil servants with the increases for old age pensioners? Ninety per cent. of the judiciary have salaries which are less than those of the righer ranks of the Civil Service. Why did the Senators not advert to this on the Finance Bill and why did they not give expression to their outrage that higher paid civil servants were being granted retrospective increases back to November 1st last year, while old age pensioners are getting increases only from the 1st August? Why was that argument not made in this House?
After all, we choose our own arguments.
But it makes me suspicious of the bona fides of this particular argument. The amount of money involved in the increases to the higher ranks of the Civil Service was of such an order that if it had not been made retrospective, some part of it could have been allocated to increases in social welfare benefits, whereas this infinitesimal sum, comparatively speaking, could not make a thraneen of difference to the social welfare classes, if they were all granted——
A Senator
There was a conciliation award.
It was retrospective to 1st November.
Did the Civil Service not have to fight very hard to get their increase, while these are getting it by grace and favour?
My argument is that Senators profess to be concerned that a well-off section of the community such as the judiciary get their payment made retrospective to November, whereas old age pensioners have to wait until 1st August. I ask why was the same concern not expressed when another highly paid section of the community got their increases made retrospective to 1st November? I am merely posing the question. I know in my heart what the answer is.
The answer has been given, that one section worked and fought for it while the other gets it by grace and favour.
(Interruptions.)
I like the sound of "grace and favour"; it never happens over there.
The Minister did not interrupt other speakers and he should not be interrupted.
Purely for the benefit of some Senators who interrupted, I want to point out that the higher civil servants have not conciliation and arbitration machinery, so that argument does not stand up, either. I have already indicated to the House that the judiciary have been traditionally related in these matters to the higher ranks of the Civil Service. We all know that towards the end of last year, as I have said before, the eighth round of wage increases worked itself out more or less towards the middle of December, 1961, and the last of the many sections of the public service secured their increases. It was at that time that we came to examine the question of the salaries of the judiciary.
Would it not be manifestly unfair if, for instance, the higher ranks of the Civil Service, because their salary increases are granted simply by ministerial decision, got their increases from a certain date, but their counterparts in the judiciary, simply because their salaries can be amended only by an Act of Parliament, had to wait until the appropriate Bill could be put through both Houses? Would that not be unfair? I also want to point out that in every case where the salaries of the judiciary have been increased —in every case in the history of the State—there has been retrospection.
I do not want to interrupt the Minister but may I ask him a question? I understand that the only other group whose salaries must be fixed by Act of Parliament are the members of the Oireachtas. Was any increase given to members of the Oireachtas ever made retrospective?
I am dealing at the moment with the salaries of the judiciary and I said that in every case——
(Interruptions.)
Acting Chairman
The Minister should be allowed to make his speech without interruption.
I am not interrupting the Minister. I am only asking him a question because at an earlier stage the Minister interrupted me and said that members of the Oireachtas were the same as the judiciary in regard to salary increases.
On 19th July, 1947, the Courts of Justice Act became law and provided for an increase in the salaries of the judiciary. Those in-increases were made retrospective. Another increase was granted in judicial salaries in 1953. It became law on 8th December, 1953, and it was made retrospective. Another increase was granted in the Courts of Justice Act, 1959, which became law on 8th December, 1959, and that was made retrospective, as I pointed out to the House before, to 1st January, 1959.
I do not propose to follow Senator Lindsay along the lines he has opened up with regard to the retired Chief Justice. All I would say in that regard is — and I think every Senator will agree with me when I say it—that he is a man who filled that high office with distinction, honour and integrity for many years. He not only won the admiration and respect of the public and the members of both branches of the legal profession, but it is true to say that he was loved by them. I regret very much that his name has been introduced into the debate in this way.
I have already given the House an assurance that the date of 1st November, 1961, had no connection whatever with his retirement. It was fixed because that was the date fixed for the higher levels of the Civil Service. It is a completely unreal argument to try to suggest that because you more or less accidentally increase the pension of a man who has retired, you would in any way be interfering with the independence of the judiciary. I just cannot follow that line. Whatever about giving an increase to people in office, I completely fail to see how you could tamper in any way with the independence of the judiciary by increasing the pension of a person who has retired from office and no longer participates in these affairs. I have given the House an assurance, and I had hoped it would be accepted, that the only reason for fixing that date was the one I have given.
Senator Fitzpatrick made a point about the interval between the increases in the judicial salaries. Here again I think Senator Fitzpatrick is missing the point. It is not the length of time that is relevant in that regard. It is the degree of movement which has taken place in salaries generally. You could have, in one short year, for instance, such a movement in incomes generally that an increase in the salaries of the judiciary would be essenial if the judges were to get fair play, whereas you could have a comparatively stable period of ten years in which there would be no movement in incomes and no increase in the salaries of the judiciary would be necessary.
It is not the length of time that ensues between one rise and another; it is the degree of movement in incomes; and that is the reason why this proposal is brought forward. There was such a movement in incomes generally in the period between 1959 and 1961 and this proposal is merely to keep the judiciary in line with that section of the community with which they are traditionally compared. The date 1st November was settled upon on that basis and on no other basis.
If the Minister had not introduced a little note of hostility in his reply to the arguments which have been put forward in support of my recommendation, I would willingly and wholly accept his explanation about the 1st November. I do not think that I can accept it now; I do not think the House can accept it; and I do not think the country will accept it. He expressed his regret that anyone's name should be brought into a matter of this kind. Was anything I said about the previous holder of the office of Chief Justice in the course of my remarks in any way derogatory? It was all sincere praise—sincere.
The Minister seems to be travelling the line of country that if an argument does not coincide with his, it is unreal, that if ideas are not exactly on a par with his, they are nonsensical, foolish, not based on fact, or do not stand up. I want to say that in putting down this recommendation specifying 1st January, I did so after much heart-searching and I resent the implication in the Minister's hostile reply that I did so for any purpose other than the highest motive of preserving the independence of the judiciary. My argument was perfectly clear and perfectly reasonable to follow in that regard.
Acting Chairman
Is the Senator withdrawing the amendment?
No.
Question proposed: "That the figures and words proposed to be deleted stand part of the section."
The Committee divided: Tá, 30; Níl, 19.
Tá
- Ahern, Liam.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Brennan, John J.
- Browne, Seán.
- Cole, John C.
- Connolly O'Brien, Nora.
- Farrell, Joseph.
- Fitzsimons, Patrick.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Healy, Augustine A.
- Hogan, Daniel.
- Jessop, W.J.E.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Moloney, Daniel J.
- Mooney, Joseph M.
- Nolan, Thomas.
- O'Brien, George.
- Ó Ciosáin, Éamon.
- Ó Conalláin, Dónall.
- Ó Donnabháin, Seán.
- Ó Maoláin, Tomás.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- Ó Siochfhradha, Pádraig.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Ruane, Thomas.
- Ryan, Eoin.
- Ryan, Patrick W.
- Ryan, William.
- Sheldon, William A.W.
- Yeats, Michael.
Níl
- Butler, John.
- Carton, Victor.
- Crowley, Patrick.
- Davidson, Mary F.
- Desmond, Cornelius.
- Dooge, James C.I.
- Fitzgerald, John.
- Fitzpatrick, Thomas J.
- Hayes, Michael.
- L'Estrange, Gerald.
- Lindsay, Patrick J.
- McAuliffe, Timothy.
- McDonald, Charles.
- McGuire, Edward A.
- Mannion, John.
- Murphy, Dominick F.
- Quigley, Joseph.
- Quinlan, Patrick M.
- Ross, J.N.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Ó Donnabháin and Farrell; Níl, Senators Crowley and McAuliffe.
Question declared lost.
Recommendation No. 2 not moved.
I move recommendation No. 3:
To delete lines 35 to 41 inclusive. My purpose in putting down this recommendation is readily understandable. It is a question of trying to achieve parity between ordinary district justices in the Dublin metropolitan district and in Cork and those in rural Ireland. There does not appear to me to be any case for distinguishing between the ordinary district justice in Dublin or Cork and his brother operating in any part of rural Ireland. The differential appears to me to be unreal and it was for the purpose of having it further considered that I put down this recommendation to bring ordinary district justices in Dublin and Cork down to the level of district justices in rural Ireland in full knowledge that I could not put it the other way, in other words that I could not recommend bringing the rural justices up to the level of those in Dublin and Cork. It is the subject in reverse and one which I would not, of course, press. It is a paper conclusion as it were.
The situation as I see it is that the country district justice works just as hard as his brother in Dublin or Cork. Some people suggest that he makes a bit by way of travelling expenses and subsistence allowances. Maybe he might, but I do not think he would. Anybody conversant with travelling expenses and subsistence allowances knows that there is very little in it in the long run. If you want to make a comparison, you can compare the Dublin Deputy or Senator with the man from any part of the country. The basic allowance is the same for all and the fact that the man from the country gets subsistence and travel does not mean that the allowance of the man in Dublin is reduced.
The district justice gets travelling expenses only inside his district, not from Dublin or anywhere else.
I am not of course pressing that salaries be reduced in Dublin but the opposite would be a reasonable thing to do. There is only £150 each in it. As in the case of the previous recommendation which was defeated I am not concerned so much with money as with principle. I could not tot it up quickly but it would be something like 40 times £150. I do not think it would even be that much and it would not impose any great hardship on the Exchequer to do it. There is no logical basis for the retention of the differential in regard to these men.
The remarks I have to make on this recommendation could much more properly be made on the section and I do intend on the section making what I consider to be an unanswerable case for making the salaries payable to rural district justices the same as salaries payable to metropolitan district justices. I am convinced that the argument is unanswerable, but I will say no more now than that my arguments are based on a comparison of like with like.
It is difficult to get that principle accepted anyway.
As the Minister has so often asked us to accept it and as he has given us arguments ad infinitum about fair play I hope he will consider giving in on this recommendation.
Not on the recommendation.
Not on the recommendation, but I hope he will tell us that he is considering increasing the salaries of rural district justices. As the Bill stands the rural district justice who has charge of the county of Cavan, half Leitrim, half Monaghan and a portion of Meath will be paid £155 less than the county medical officer of health for Cavan, the county solicitor or the county engineer and I respectfully submit that that is inequitable, unfair and unjust.
Since this is not being pressed we can have the discussion on the section.
Yes, unless the Minister says now that he is accepting the proposal.
Recommendation, by leave, withdrawn.
Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7.15 p.m.