I have every sympathy with the Minister's point of view on this. That he comprehends our point of view is illustrated by the fact that we are having a debate on this subsection which, and I am open to correction here, is a precedent. I do not know of any other example of a section in which there is provision for draft regulations. It is only right that the House should face up to the implications of the subsection. The Minister made one point and, having listened to him, I felt that I should have been more critical in regard to my own draft. I had not fully faced up to the implications of amendments in one House which are not to be reconciled with amendments of another House. None of us wants to propose amendments which would create a mess; certainly I do not. If the Minister wished to have a debate resulting in amended regulations which did not have an element of disorder in them, this could be done by providing the order in which these amendments would be taken, that the section or subsection in question could, in fact, provide that the regulations should first come before the Dáil and then be considered by this House when amended by the Dáil.
Perhaps, I am a novice in this and, perhaps, this would require an amendment of our Standing Orders, and, perhaps, an amendment of the Standing Orders of the Dáil, to deal with what would be a new kind of procedure. I have been looking through Standing Orders to see if there is anything in them to cover this kind of situation and there does not seem to be. However, there could be, and it might be the duty of this House to amend Standing Orders accordingly if this amendment were passed. I hope I do not sound too legalistic but we are dealing with the law and, therefore, I suppose one is allowed use this kind of language. I also feel, and every Member of the House will share this feeling with me, that this House should not simply be a target for abuse, for the suggestion that we are a useless body, for questions asking what is the purpose of this body and how much does it cost or what are its functions. We would all like to feel that we are doing a useful job for the country. We do not want to destroy the cool, quiet, friendly atmosphere which we have and which we all like.
The Minister is wrong if he thinks that the only kind of problem he will be faced with in relation to draft regulations will arise from a conflict as between one locality and another. I spoke on Second Stage of this Bill and the Minister knows my position. There is no question of it being in conflict with the opinion of my party and I did not make my speech without getting the guidance of my leader so that I might express my view. Regulations might come before the House which to a large degree would commend themselves to me but yet might contain elements to which I might object for as strong reasons as I support the Minister's policy in relation to health but which to the officials who advise him would not be understandable but might have some justification.
I do not know whether I made myself clear when trying to make the point that we have great respect for our civil servants, and long may we retain it, and that is not just said for the purpose of pleasing anybody who may read or hear what I say. It is true, but not all the wisdom in the world is mustered behind the Minister and it would be very unwise guidance if those who advise him thought that all the wisdom in the world is mustered behind them. The regulations we may be faced with may be as defective as the rules set forth in the Second Schedule are defective, so defective that unless I were to retire from what I am otherwise doing I could not set about drafting amendments.
There are all sorts of things which seem to me capable of giving rise to great trouble and I hope that, when we come to deal with the Second Schedule, there will be some clarification. I gave some examples. There is nothing to prevent the Minister appointing the entire Cabinet to membership of the health board. There is nothing to prevent him appointing a sufficient number of Senators and Deputies to the health board. There is nothing to prevent him maintaining on the health board or removing from the health board established criminals or lunatics.
These are the rules submitted to us after great care and consideration. We may be presented with regulations which will have similar defects. We may favour the general trend of the regulations, but with the kind of defects about which I spoke, and because they will have these defects, we will be forced to vote against the whole set of regulations despite the fact that we approve of the general trend. Why should that be so? If the Minister merely wants to have a situation in which the ordinary kind of debate will take place—the test being that in one case you need a motion to have a debate and, in the other, it must be passed by the House—this is too high a price. It will be safer, wiser and better if the Minister, in fact, amends this and puts it back into the ordinary form in which he would put regulations which are to be annulled. There are two points about this. As I understand the law with regard to the Executive, the Executive has only such power as we in the Legislature give it and the Minister has only such power as we in the Legislature give him. It may be that he will have power to re-submit draft regulations. I do not know. It is not expressed here. I should like the Minister to consider this matter between now and the Report Stage. I know that in the case of particular sections of the 1953 Health Act the Minister at the time was advised that he had no powers to revoke the orders he made and the Minister had to introduce a new Act for the purpose of getting such powers.
The word "draft" used in this legislation must have meant that it was to be given a particular interpretation and draft regulations must be different from other regulations. The word "draft" must be given a meaning. What if someone, having a grievance against a health board, proceeds to argue that the powers being exercised are defective because they are exercised pursuant to draft regulations which were not treated as draft regulations? The courts are not allowed to listen to or to read what we say, which is very bad for them, and, in endeavouring to construe legislation, the fact that we had a debate as to what draft regulations are would not be looked at by the judges. It would be better business not to depart from well-established precedent. Such departures very often have unforeseen consequences. If this amendment is not accepted then there should be some provision making it quite clear that our position is that we simply have the right to annul the regulations and nothing more.
