This Bill provides for increases in the remuneration of Ministers, Deputies and Senators. In view of the increasing cost it seems to me we might consider at this stage a number of general questions. We might ask ourselves whether our parliamentary machinery and our Civil Service machinery are the best, the most economical, or the most efficient. We are overhauling industry and endeavouring to modernise our agriculture, but the parliamentary machinery we are using today to do modern tasks is both old-fashioned and out of date. It is doing a job—it is called upon to do a variety of jobs—never thought of when the parliamentary rules were made and the machinery developed.
The procedure of the Oireachtas and the functions of Deputies and Senators need to be examined if the Oireachtas is to face the tasks which are now imposed upon it. We would need to do some hard thinking also— I realise this is a little irrelevant but it does concern Ministers and Deputies —about our Civil Service, about its higher grades, the method of recruitment and the qualifications. We have a good Parliament and a good Civil Service. We have every reason to be proud of the way in which this Parliament has developed when we contrast it with other Parliaments. It is interesting to note that it works in a democratic manner and that it has survived. It is, I think, the only one of the new Parliaments formed after the Great War of 1914-18 which has so survived. Ministers' salaries are not too high. I agree entirely with the Minister for Finance when he says there has been no extravagance with regard to Ministers' salaries. Ministers should certainly get an increase although I think there is a case for investigating whether the overall cost of Ministers is not too great.
With regard to Deputies, the theory used to be that they were paid a tax free allowance to enable them to do part-time work in the Dáil. Now they are getting a salary subject to tax. There is no doubt that the work is becoming more and more arduous. The Minister has described it as part-time, but we have to make up our minds whether the job of being a Deputy in Dáil Éireann is a full or a part-time job. We also have to make up our minds as to whether the kind of work they do is parliamentary work and as to whether a good deal of it is worth doing at all.
Deputies, and to some extent Senators, are messengers and correspondents for their constituents. We should ask ourselves whether that is the right kind of work for them to be doing. The Minister said in the Dáil —he repeated here to-day—that the primary duty of a Deputy is legislation. I think a great number of Deputies do not try to do that at all, and neither do Senators, but I shall come to that in a moment.
I do not know whether the kind of work being done now by Deputies for constituents could not be abolished— at any rate in a great part—and whether we could not devise another scheme for enabling people to get their rights from Government Departments and from State bodies. The question at issue, when a Deputy or a Senator corresponds with a Department, is very often whether the person concerned is entitled to something. It is a very wearing and difficult occupation because everybody who puts up a case to a Deputy puts up the case from his own point of view. It is not so much that he tells lies as that he puts his own case, and the parts of the facts that concern his own case and omits the other part and the result is considerable work. I think we should get a scheme which would leave Deputies and Senators free to do the work which is properly theirs.
As far as the Seanad is concerned, it seems to me that so long as Seanad Éireann remains as it is at present, can get no more work to do than it is doing at present, there is no justification whatever for increasing the allowance. The truth is that Senators do not earn the money they get. The fault is not theirs. We have often asked here, I have often asked here myself, and I have been supported from the other side of the House, that the Seanad should be given more work to do. I am quite confident that it would be possible to arrange for that. I am confident, with regard to the Dáil programme, that with the co-operation of the present Opposition in the Dáil, or, indeed, of any Opposition, agreement could be got for a plan to give more work to the Seanad. If it could be given more work to do, the whole programme of the Oireachtas could be carried through with less pressure and with a great deal more efficiency.
I do not agree, whatever about the Dáil, that Senators should be full-time politicians. I do not think that constant work for a political Party from year's end to year's end should be done for the reward of a Seanad salary. Perhaps, I should put it the other way around and say that I do not agree that the Seanad salary should be used to hire a full-time organiser for a political Party.
If we consider the details of this matter, the theory as contrasted with the practice, the theory of parliament is that Parliament controls the Executive. Anybody who has been some time in the Oireachtas knows that that is not so. The functions of the State have immensely increased and the powers of Ministers and civil servants have immensely increased. The functions which Ministers, civil servants, Deputies and Senators have to carry out have increased in number and variety. The theory is that the Minister is a layman who gets expert advice, comes to certain conclusions and brings these conclusions to Parliament which discusses them. Another word for democratic parliament and Government is government by discussion.
For myself, I must say that I doubt whether there are Deputies or Senators or, if I might be allowed to say so, civil servants or Ministers who have any special skill to decide the kind of thing we have been asked to decide. Should we spend a considerable amount of money on making nitrogenous fertilisers? I can pronounce the word but I do not know anything about it beyond being able to pronounce it. If we are to spend the money, where should we site the factory? That is very difficult to decide. The same thing applies to copper mines, ship-building and to a great variety of examples which Senators can recall for themselves.
We should consider whether the Civil Service, in its method of recruitment and promotion, and so on, is capable of doing the difficult and complex duties that now devolve upon it. The Minister for Finance himself and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, for example, and, above all, the Taoiseach in any particular Government, have multifarious and extremely pressing duties.
It is not always adverted to when people are talking about Ministers' salaries that they have to include administration in their office, legislation in the Oireachtas, and politics. There is no use saying that Ministers ought not to be in politics. A Minister would not be a Minister at all if he could not get into the Dáil and he must, therefore, give a certain amount of his time to politics.
No Government is good all over. I suppose no team of any kind is good all over, but the active Minister most certainly earns his salary and, I think, deserves more.
With regard to Deputies, the original payments were called allowances. I wonder if this Bill is completely Constitutional. I am not worrying much about the point but it is interesting that the word used in the Constitution of 1922 was "allowances" for Deputies and Senators. That word was carried on into the present Constitution. The word used about Ministers in Article 28 of the present Constitution is "remuneration". In Article 35 of the present Constitution there is talk of the remuneration of judges and the emoluments of judges. In the case of the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil and the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad and their two deputies, the word used is "remuneration". I am not making a legal point. I am not qualified to do so. However, I wonder if there is a special meaning in the word "allowance". Is it possible to take income tax from allowances paid to Deputies and Senators?
The Minister talked about whether the Dáil was a part-time or a whole-time job. I agree entirely with him that it is difficult for a great many people to do any other kind of work except Dáil work. It is becoming more and more difficult. One should ask oneself what kind of a candidate is a good candidate.
Well-meaning people have often said to me that my own Party and other Parties should get better candidates. I always reply by saying: "Would you like to be a candidate?" The answer is always "No, I would hardly like to be a candidate." When a person gets into the Dáil what steps should he take to stay in it? I suppose we all know. Should he read the various Bills given to him in green paper, open the envelope every morning, listen to the discussion on the Bills, listen to debates, put down amendments and make speeches? He must do something more than that. He must meet his constituents and do what a great deal of Deputies are now doing in the Library, namely, write reams of letters, not always in accordance with his conscience. He must do whatever his constituents expect him to do. He must be a go-between, a messenger, whatever you like, between his constituents and the various Departments.
In strict theory, the best member of the Dáil and of the Seanad would be a person who has made a success of his profession. If one is to manage the nation's affairs, presumably he should have given proof that he can manage his own. The truth is that such a person has less chance of getting into the Dáil and still less chance of staying in it. We are entering now into the era of the professional politician—the person who takes up politics as a career, which neither the Minister nor myself did in our time. The Minister suggests a Deputy's pay should be higher and if it were higher still, it would attract a better type. I do not think that is so. I think we should reconsider that, and that the Minister and the Government should reconsider it. I do not think higher pay will attract a better type of Deputy, or give sounder legislation and better Government. Perhaps it should, but I doubt that it will.
I am perfectly certain that the Seanad should not consist of full-time politicians. I have no sympathy whatever, of course, with people who think the Seanad should consist entirely of people who protest they are not politicians. The Seanad does political work, and its members must have political views. In this House it is true that we have a fair number of members who are active political organisers and nothing else. Some years ago a committee dealt with the Seanad, and Senator Ó Maoláin and I were members of that committee. It contained a number of people with political experience, including Senator Ó Maoláin, myself and members of the Dáil.
That committee made a report, and nothing was ever heard of it. It was the report of a very big majority, I think, and it was signed by a great many people, including myself. It stated that the Seanad needed some improvement, and that any experiment that had any prospect of improving the Seanad should be put into operation. It recommended that in the case of the 43 members of the Seanad who are nominated by nominating bodies and elected by a purely political electorate—members of the Dáil, Seanad and local bodies—the system should be changed, that instead of having the whole 43 elected on a political basis, some of them—I think the number was 20; it may have been 21—should be appointed directly to the Seanad by the nominating bodies.
Objection was made that it would bring politics into the nominating bodies, but none of us is sufficiently innocent to believe there is not any politics in the nominating bodies now. I think there is. We in Fine Gael think that recommendation should be adopted. It could improve the position of the Seanad and, if it were adopted, it would, at any rate, bring a number of people into political life and show them what politics is like. It would do away once and for all with the theory that what we need now are experts and not politicians.
I do not want to appear too pessimistic. I think the progress made in the past 40 years from the point of view of parliamentary government here is something on which we may congratulate ourselves. I do not think that congratulation can all be put in the one place. The time has now arrived when we should consider our parliamentary machine. We will be having a Transport Bill before us next week, for example, and we have all heard arguments as to why members of the Dáil and Seanad cannot get information about a State body like CIE. That is one of the unsolved problems of modern Parliaments. I remember when the Electricity Supply Board was appointed a great many years ago. I asked how the Dáil would control it, and I said from the Chair in the Dáil that I did not know, but I did not think it could be adequately done. That has proved to be true.
We should reconsider our parliamentary machinery with a view to seeing where we can improve it to face new problems, new circumstances, and what someone here called new thinking. I also think the Government should take the Seanad more seriously and give the Seanad more work to do, otherwise I think the Seanad if it gets no more to do than it does now should be ashamed to take an increase in pay.