The set-up is the Department, an advisory council and then these boards. Is there anything comparable in any other area where there is, so to speak, a similar chain of command?
SECTION 14.
Question proposed: " That section 14 stand part of the Bill."
As I told the Committee the last day, the intention is to set up the advisory council with all convenient speed. I regard this section as an enabling section. In fact, that is what it is. I regard the Bill in general as a charter for wild life conservation for the foreseeable future and for many years to come. The last Act dealing with this matter came on the Statute Book in 1930. It is not proposed either in the immediate future or for the foreseeable future to bring into operation any of the boards provided for in this section, but it is thought desirable the machinery should be there to bring these boards into operation without having to introduce further legislation.
Deputy Tunney asked how I see those working, what function I see them performing. Section 13 sets up an advisory council to advise and suggest and section 14 provides for the establishment of boards. Those boards would have executive functions and management functions. They might very well perform such functions as the management of nature reserves, the control of hunting areas and functions of that sort.
My difficulty in visualising what the Minister intends here is made more difficult in so far as he will say that this is an enabling section and that he does not necessarily visualise the setting up of those boards immediately. In that regard one might ask if that is wise. Maybe the requirements of five or ten years' time in relation to wildlife will be such that it will be a different machine that will be necessary. We are really taking a shot in the dark here as to what might be appropriate in five, ten or 15 years' time. The Minister's imagination is as good as mine but I have slight doubts about the wisdom of doing something now and projecting its relevance 15 or 20 years hence.
I might put the Deputy's mind at ease by saying that we are doing nothing now beyond providing ourselves with certain machinery. It looks to us now as if the proper way to discharge certain functions in this Bill, even in five or ten years' time, might be through one of these boards, but to bring a board into existence the Minister would have to make an order. That order would have to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas and it could be debated and revoked. As Deputy Tunney says, conditions change, and this might not in ten years' time appear to be the right way of going about implementing certain sections of the Bill. There will be no obligation on the Minister or any other Minister to bring such a board into existence.
In that regard, and bearing in mind our wishes in relation to democracy, this laying of the order before the two Houses of the Oireachtas is no more than the Minister laying it. It is a matter then for the Opposition to be aware of the fact that it was laid there, to contest it and look for its annulment against the Minister and the Government who brought it in.
Exactly.
We know the fate of such an exercise.
The same fate would befall a Bill if it were brought in. The very same voting strength would be there to enact a Bill as to resist the revocation of an order.
I want to ask about the procedure here. The Minister has explained what he has in mind. He will have to admit that it is a bit odd that an advisory council is being established here by statute. The advisory council is fully catered for in section 13 whereas boards, which will actually administer services, pay out money, receive it and so on, will be done by regulation. Strictly speaking from the Parliamentary point of view it is an odd contrast. It is bestowing the full seal of statutory approval on an advisory council, whereas the Minister intends, to a greater or lesser extent, to bring full-scale boards into operation by Ministerial order.
I think the Deputy is not entirely correct there. The advisory board which is visualised under section 13 will be brought into existence in the same way, by Ministerial order.
The provisions governing the council are set out in section 13. The Minister has put into a Schedule a set of provisions governing the boards and he will bring them into operation by order. In fact, he will be creating boards by Ministerial order. I suppose it is all right, but it is an unusual way of establishing a statutory board that will receive, and dispense with, public funds.
I included it——
I recognise it is a handy mechanism.
——because I thought it only right and fair to the committee that I should give those guidelines, seeing that it is not intended to set up the boards immediately. The guidelines should be there for myself and my successors.
In the Second Schedule there is a rule of thumb constitution for future statutory boards and the Minister will just bring them into operation by Ministerial order. As Deputy Tunney pointed out, we have the right to look at a Ministerial order when it is brought before the House. One of the matters I wished to comment on was that in the Second Schedule and in the list of provisions that would be adopted for particular boards, we have the usual thing that Members of the Oireachtas are barred. I was going to protest about that because I think that Members of the Oireachtas could be useful in some of those boards. I realise if that were the case the Minister, in making a Ministerial order, could exclude the provision which debars Members of the Oireachtas from a particular board. He does not have to bring all the provisions of the Second Schedule into operation for any one board. Perhaps he will confirm that he would have the right, for instance, to omit the provision of paragraph 3 of the Second Schedule if he wished.
I am satisfied I can include some or all of the provisions of the Second Schedule in the constitution of the board.
I would like to point out the unusual procedure here. The Minister proposes to bring any one of these boards into operation by order, and the terms on which it will be set up will be, broadly speaking, the provisions of the Second Schedule. As against that, if he wants to put one of those boards out of business he has provided in the section and, therefore, by statute for the demise of one of those boards. In other words, he visualises a situation where he will bring it into being by Ministerial order but it will go out of business——
By order also.
Yes. What happens when it goes out of business is set out in the statute. It is an unusual way of dealing with the matter.
With respect, it is necessary that the section should contain provisions for winding up the board if it goes out of existence, and that is what subsection (5) does.
For the sake of consistency, one would have thought that as the provisions for bringing it into operation were in the Second Schedule, it should also contain provisions for what happens when it goes out of business.
The Second Schedule contains a number of provisions, all or some of which I may use in drawing up the constitution of the board. Section 14 (5) contains the actual provisions for winding up the board, and they are definite and precise. That is the difference between the two.
That strikes me as higgledy-piggledy, but I recognise that it is giving the Minister a considerable amount of flexibility in deciding to set up in the future one or more of those boards.
When discussing section 11 (4) and (5) there were references to inhibitions which the Minister was placing on himself. There is reference in the Bill to the fact that he must get the consent of the Minister for Finance and the Minister for the Public Service, and must consult with other Ministers where appropriate. Are we not inviting here the eternal unwelcome vigilance of other Departments in what we might hope to do for wildlife conservation?
We are going out of our way to get the goodwill of the general public for our activities, and in doing that we are seeking the assistance of the Ministers of the various Departments.
The Minister is making it a statutory requirement that he must consult with the Minister for Finance and the Minister for the Public Service.
If the Minister for Lands was going to set up a board to perform a service it would be a substantial service. That is obvious; otherwise it would not be sensible to set up a board to discharge its functions. Before setting up a board to discharge such substantial service, the Minister will have to get the consent of the Ministers for Finance and for the Public Service because the expenditure of money, and presumably the recruitment of staff, would be involved. It is also provided that the Minister will consult such other Ministers as he considers appropriate. I would ask the Deputy to accept that that is an innocuous obligation.
We all concede where expenditure of money is concerned that the consent of the Minister for Finance must be obtained. I can visualise a situation where services being provided would not necessarily require the expenditure of additional moneys, or in excess of what had been voted. I do not know whether, notwithstanding that position, the Minister would require himself to get the consent of the Minister for the Public Service and the Minister for Finance, when that will not be necessary.
It is obvious that if a board were to be set up with effective powers, the members must have their expenses paid and may have to be remunerated, and it is almost certain they would have to be provided with staff. All these things cost money, and therefore the consent of the Minister for Finance would be necessary. I have drawn attention to a section of the Forestry Act which has a similar consent provision.
Can the Minister justify the necessity for him to consult with other Ministers?
It is at the discretion of the Minister, as is clear from the section.
Subsection (4) states
(a) As regard each accounting year a board established by the Minister under this section shall within the specified period beginning immediately after the board's accounting year, make a report to the Minister of its activities during that year and the Minister shall cause copies of the report to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas.
(b) The Minister shall, as regards a board established by him under this section, specify a period for the purposes of paragraph (a) of this subsection and the period an specified is in that paragraph referred to as the specified period.
Naturally we would welcome that very much but regret that the same obligation is not provided for in respect of the general report, to which we referred in section 7.
The answer to that is that the board will not be accountable to Parliament whereas the Minister is. They will be accountable to the Minister who is accountable to the House.
Can the Minister say whether there is any limit to the number of boards he intends to set up under section 14?
As I said previously, it is not at the moment intended to set up any board under section 14. It is an enabling section to enable the Minister for Lands to set up such boards as are necessary; there is no limit to the number that may be set up under section 14. Practice and common sense will control the number.
What would be the relationship between the boards and the council?
I could not see any relationship at all.
The Minister spoke on another section about the prosecution of offences. Would a board have power to prosecute for breaches of the Act?
Prosecutions for offences would be excluded from the board.
Would the board not be in a better position than the Minister to decide whether a breach took place? I would expect that boards would be set up in different regions to deal with their respective regions and that they would have local knowledge.
We might have a look at that between now and Report Stage.
Should there not be a limit to the number of boards to be established under this section? Would it not be right that the Minister would have the power to say the number of boards to be established under the Act?
I went to some trouble to emphasise that this is an enabling section. At the moment I do not visualise any board being set up. The section provides that when a board is being established it must be done by order which must be laid before both Houses, who have power to annul. Deputy Tunney has argued that an annulment motion would be defeated by a Government majority. I can see that, but if a Bill is introduced it, also, would be carried by a Government majority. I suggest, therefore, that the provision for the laying of orders before both Houses is adequate protection against a Minister who would be foolish enough to establish unnecessary boards.
Under the Second Schedule, these boards may accept gifts of land, money or other property. Section 5 states that all moneys received by the Minister " shall be paid into or disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer in such manner as the Minister for Finance may direct ". Is there a difference?
I amended that section, if the Deputy recalls, by excluding from it " gifts ".
The Minister did not amend it. He just undertook to amend it.
The Deputy is right—I undertook to look into it.
Having got that misconception out of the way, my query can be dealt with. Section 5 envisages all moneys going into the Exchequer, and here boards which will be administering a service may get gifts of money or other property. Will the boards be entitled to hold on to such gifts?
They are subject to paragraph 25 of the First Schedule.
Is the Minister suggesting that, even though the board are merely administering a service for the Minister, in accepting a gift of money or other property they will not be subject to the general provisions of section 5?
The Deputy has drawn my attention to section 5 and I have undertaken to review it. I had thought I had amended it.
When the Minister is amending section 5 I hope he will keep his eye on this.
I am sorry I was late. Has the Minister given any undertaking as to the manner in which he will choose the members of the board? Will he have regard to existing boards already concerned with national game conservation councils and will he have adequate representation?
I would say that in setting up the board the Minister would have regard to the type of function the board will discharge. In fact, in section 13, which establishes the advisory council, the type of experience or knowledge we would be looking for is spelled out. I take it the Minister in establishing a board under section 14 would have regard to the type of job he wanted done.
The Minister will appreciate that there are a number of voluntary organisations which have been carrying out the responsibility without any proper legislation, and it is only naural to expect they would be represented on any board of administration.
I thoroughly agree and, when dealing with section 13 the last day, we paid tribute to the voluntary organisations and wrote them into the record and acknowledged that they have been co-operating in wildlife conservation in a voluntary capacity over the years without any statutory responsibility, and we expressed the hope that that type of co-operation would continue in the future on a more formal basis.
I appreciate the Minister's desire, but there is nothing in the Second Schedule which would make it obligatory on the Minister to have recourse to these boards.
As I said, this section is purely an enabling section.
I appreciate that.
I stated that the last Bill was introduced in 1930 and voluntary bodies have come and gone since then, and it is not unlikely that voluntary bodies will come and go between now and the establishment of boards under this section 14.
While I appreciate the Minister's desire, the fact remains these are the guidelines under which a board will be established, if and when any board is, and the Minister has, I think, written into the Bill—it is certainly in the Explanatory Memorandom—that, while it is not anticipated that such boards may be required for some time, the fact remains this is the blue print and these are the criteria that will be used whenever such boards are established.
If I may refer the Deputy to sub-section (2) which reads:
The Council may, either of its own volition or at the request of the Minister, make recommendations to the Minister as to the Minister's general policy (including administrative policy) in relation to the conservation of wildlife or as to objectives to be fixed or programmes to be implemented by the Minister in relation to such conservation, but nothing in this sub-section shall be construed as enabling the Council to make to the Minister any recommendation as regards a particular administrative matter.
The Minister will not be confined to the headings, or the advice, or the provisions set out in the Second Schedule. He can have regard to these and he can go outside them and he can rely on other advice.
I am not disputing that the Minister in his present frame of mind would not have a very serious look at selecting his entire board from these, perhaps, but, with the effluxion of time and, perhaps, a change of Minister, the Minister need not take any member of any of these boards. There is no obligation.
All I will say is that, if existing circumstances and conditions prevail at the time of the setting up of the boards visualised in section 14, the Minister would be very foolish not to take some members of the board from the voluntary organisations.
I agree. I do not know what provision is made for the setting up of such boards, but paragraph (15), if that is the correct way to refer to it, in the Second Schedule is quite unprecedented in that it gives the Minister the right to fix a quorum from one meeting to another and, while the chairman would be the Minister's representative, I take it he would be in a position at every board meeting to say what was or what was not a quorum. We have had the sad experience of a chairman operating in certain circumstances and we can see what might be the evolution.
Would the Deputy spell out for me where the Minister, as he says, has the right to fix a quorum?
Clause 15 of the Second Schedule provides:
The quorum for a meeting of the Board shall be such as may from time to time be fixed by the Minister.
But not from meeting to meeting.
The quorum shall be such as may from time to time be fixed by the Minister.
The Minister could change it.
The Deputy would not get away with that one. Even Deputy Haughey would not get away with that one.
Is this usual?
I think the Minister could go further.
I think that enables the Minister to fix the quorum at the end of each meeting.
No, that would be carrying it to absurdity. What " from time to time " means is the Minister may, for example fix the quorum at ten and maybe at an appropriate time he might change it to seven, or something like that, but that would visualise the Minister being present at every meeting and, seeing the number was not there, he would reduce the number. I could not see that happening.
It is not likely to happen and would not, I hope, happen, but it does make it possible for the Minister to say on the eve of a meeting that two shall constitute a quorum.
If the Deputy or my officials had time to research this they would find similar phraseology used in innumerable statutes.
I think the phraseology used in this respect in the past was something to the effect that, at the commencement of each period of office, the Minister shall fix what shall constitute a quorum for the duration of that period.
If it puts Deputy Brennan's mind at ease, I will have this looked at between now and the Report Stage, and if I find this is an innovation or that it departs in any way from established custom I will change it.
Very well.
Mr. Kitt
Would the Minister agree that it would be better to state that he will set up the boards? He says in section 13 he will establish a wildlife advisory council, but he is very vague about the setting up of the boards. He made the point the last day on section 13 that we wanted teeth and power in the council, and I believe the boards are essential if you are going to have a body dealing with conservation. Section 14, as it stands, is very vague. The Minister " may " set up these boards.
It would not be practicable to set up the boards now, and it is not intended to do so. If the boards are being set up some time in the future they will be set up for a specific purpose. I do not know at the moment what that purpose would be. As a matter of fact I cannot visualise it and, therefore, it would not be feasible or advisable to set them up in the Bill. If we were to set them up in the Bill we would have to provide boards for various things, provide them with staff and all the rest of it, and it would all be very unwieldly and very expensive. I would see the boards evolving or developing as we progress under the Bill when it becomes law.
If the Minister would say in respect of one area or one particular aspect of conservation that he might at a relatively early date consider it advisable to set up what might be a relatively small board to devote its entire attention to one, maybe, isolated aspect, is that possible?
I could not see a board being set up to perform an isolated or regional function which did not involve a great deal of work because such a function can be carried out by the wildlife section of my Department. I could see as consultation goes on between the council which it is proposed to establish under section 13, my department and myself, a case being made for the establishment of a board in years to come.
After listening to the Minister and trying to visualise the position of the board in the totality of this operation I do not see it being a part of it in the immediate 15 or 20 years in the national framework of conservation.
That could well be.
Does the Minister visualise, say, in committing the North Slob or some particular area that he is providing for, a situation where he might consider it advisable to provide a board for this specific or isolated area? If not, I revert back to where I started in my criticism of the total irrelevancy of the provisions of section 14. The year 2000 will not see it there.
I do not think it is irrelevant. It is now 46 years since we had a conservation measure of any description. It was then a conservation measure suitable to the times. Therefore, we had a liberalised Act for 45 years. I propose here a conservation measure with immediate provisions to serve the present time and with machinery to implement a conservation policy as far away as 20 or 30 years hence.
The Minister could set up a board to do nothing.
Circumstances change.
There does not seem to be anything wrong with the section with normal democratic process and with a responsible government in operation, but time and circumstances change. It could be a most unusual section. If some Government or Minister wanted to set up a few dozen boards for some of their friends, they would have full authority to do so.
No. This is subject to getting a majority in parliament to confirming what he is doing.
My view is the opposite to that of my colleague. I feel the Minister is setting his face against setting up boards.
I said a few moments ago that I could see a board being set up, perhaps in the not too distant future, as a result of advice received from the advisory council to be established under section 13.
There are certain areas where the Minister could be administering in his capacity as Minister for Conservation but he is not. They are not strictly appropriate to a Government Department of civil servants to administer. Most of us would not like to see the Minister setting his face completely against the establishment of boards.
Might I spell out my position clearly. I am being criticised for taking powers to set up a lot of boards and I am being criticised for saying I will not set up any boards. Section 14 gives me power to establish a board or boards to operate any of the provisions of this Bill. I do not see myself setting up any boards as of now, but that does not mean that I might not be advised in six or 12 months time that the best way of doing a certain thing is to establish a board. If I am so advised or if I am of the opinion that the best way of doing a certain thing is by establishing a board I will establish it, and if I am not I will not establish it.
If the Minister decides to establish a board next week does he specifically state how the board will be appointed, the number of members and if they will be elected?
I prescribe the number of members.
Question put and agreed to.