I beg to move:—
Go ndeontar Suim Bhreise ná raghaidh thar Sé Mhíle Dhá Chéad agus Cheithre Púint Sheascad chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh Márta, 1925, mar gheall ar Thuarastail agus Costaísí Oifig an Aire Airgid, maraon le hOifig an Phágh-Mháistir Ghenerálta. |
That a Supplementary Sum not ex ceeding Six Thousand Two Hundred and Sixty-four Pounds be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1925, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Finance, including the Paymaster-General's Office. |
As will be seen by the Estimate, this additional sum is all practically accounted for under sub-head A. This is a necessary estimate. We are making an appointment of a Parliamentary Secretary. I have indicated to the Dáil on many occasions that the Department of Finance is a Department in which a Parliamentary Secretary is urgently required. Many matters require what you might call Ministerial consideration, matters that cannot be determined or proceeded with by civil servants and matters which it is impossible for the Minister for Finance to find time to deal with, particularly in what may be called the outlying or sub-departments of the Ministry of Finance—the Board of Works and the Stationery Office, for instance. I myself, since I have been Minister for Finance, find it impossible to do more than really decide some urgent matters that would be put up to me from time to time, but I found it impossible to give the consideration that should be given by somebody other than an official—somebody who would have a public point of view, and bring to bear upon this matter the particular sort of knowledge and the particular sort of interest that a representative of the people and a member of the Dáil would give.
There has been an appointment of a Government stockbroker. That appointment was made because we failed to reach agreements with the Stock Exchange in regard to an arrangement for a reduced commission on Government transactions. Our idea had been that the Government stockbroker should do Government business at half the usual commission. That arrangement could only be come to if the Stock Exchange would make a rule allowing it to be done. They would not make such a rule but they allowed an arrangement whereby a salary might be paid to the individual in lieu of commission. By fixing a salary instead of paying commission on transactions we estimate that there will be a substantial saving. An Assistant Secretary was appointed to that Department, and this officer takes the place of the British civil servant who was on loan. This particular office was not provided for in the Estimate.
There was at that time, when the original Estimates were framed, three British civil servants on loan in the Department. They have gone, and their places have been taken by other officers of the Ministry of Finance or by officials brought in. There was an officer brought in to do one section of the work. The most substantial item of the sub-head is the Temporary Clerical Staff, that is, the Temporary Staff it was found necessary to employ in addition to what was provided for in the Estimates in order to deal with the work of Compensation. As Deputies are aware from the number of questions asked, we have an enormous amount of work in the Compensation Section, and it was found that we had not made sufficient provision in the Estimates to enable the work to be done as expeditiously as we would like. The allowances for temporary staff on loan from other Departments are partly due to that and to the fact that the British civil servants whom we had on loan were continued for a few months longer here than we had originally anticipated. I think the last of them left at the end of October. The other items on the Estimate are small. Item (d) is due to under-estimation. The sum set down was arrived at after consultation with the Post Office, but it proved to be insufficient. In sub-head (f) the amount required for telephones and telegrams is very small.