My nomination as President of the Executive Council has been approved by the Governor-General, and I now nominate the other six Members constituting the Executive Council. I nominate for the approval of the Dáil Deputy Kevin O'Higgins as Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs; General Mulcahy, as Minister for Defence; Deputy Eoin MacNeill, as Minister for Education; Deputy Earnan de Blaghd, as Minister for Local Government; Deputy Joseph McGrath, as Minister for Industry and Commerce; and Deputy Desmond Fitzgerald, as Minister for External Affairs. While moving those, I would like to say that recently, in reviewing the business of the various Departments of the Government, we set up a Committee called the Government Contracts Committee, which is placed under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and there is general approval, so far as the Ministry is concerned, that this particular new service would require the association of another person, either as Assistant Minister or as Minister to be responsible for that particular service. I think it would be better that the appointment should be at first that of Assistant Minister, as the Ministry in question has perhaps the best possible means of ascertaining what the duties of this particular Ministry should be. It would be possible to discover during the next six or eight months whether a particular and separate Ministry ought to be set up for that service, or whether an Assistant Minister should be appointed acting under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and so enable us after the Elections had taken place to be in a better position to recommend to the Dáil what in our opinion is the best means for dealing with that particular matter. I would suggest to the Dáil the appointment of an Assistant Minister in order to give us an opportunity of seeing what the result would be.
There was one other matter that I thought, after consultation with my colleagues, would be, in my opinion, necessary. We have now got, or we will have after next Monday or Tuesday, a Second House. That House will be dealing with business which has been sent from here. It may initiate legislation and it will generally have pretty much the same amount of business to transact as we have here in this House, and we have come to the conclusion, after considering the matter at very considerable length, that some liaison between the two Houses would be necessary. I would ask the Dáil, as far as that is concerned, to approve of the appointment of a Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry. I think it would be better if he were appointed a Minister. He would be in a position to attend either House and to summon whatever Ministers would be necessary to deal with any matter arising in the conduct of the business, either from the point of view of the Executive Council or of this Dáil. At any rate those two appointments are, in my own opinion, necessary, if not vital, to our business. After six or seven or eight months, when the Elections will have been held, we will certainly be in a better position to see what the necessities of the case are, but I think the Members will generally agree, having regard to our experience here, and the pressure of business in taking over various departments, in dealing with the administration, in bringing in legislation, and so on, that the Ministry will certainly have for six or eight months, and possibly for a much longer period, a great many more duties to perform than will be the case, say, in one, two or three years' time. I think the Dáil, after considering the matter, will come to the conclusion that I put before them now that those two offices ought to be granted—in the first case an Assistant to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and in the second case the Cabinet should have the advantage of this Parliamentary Secretary. The Minister for Finance should be in that Cabinet and I am nominating myself for that office.