I move that the Bill do now pass.
LOCAL AUTHORITIES (OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES) BILL, 1926—FIFTH STAGE.
I think it is only right before this proposal of the Minister is accepted by the Dáil that the point of view of the Farmers' Party should be restated and our attitude towards this measure made perfectly clear. It is proposed by it to establish a new order in the administration of local affairs. It would be unwise that the Bill should pass through the Dáil without the Farmers' Party declaring again their disbelief in the effectiveness of the Bill for raising the standard of local administration to the height which we would like to see it reach. By passing this Bill the Minister in effect says to the local authorities:—"I have no faith in your ability, capacity or integrity to select the people who are to serve under you in the administration of local affairs. I feel that you have performed this work in the past in such an unworthy manner that the old order must change and I accordingly have determined that a body known as the Local Appointments Commissioners shall be set up who will select the individuals to be appointed to every position under local authorities." That is the declaration which the Minister is making by the passing of this measure. We cannot agree with that. Undoubtedly nobody can declare that everything has been as perfect as we would wish in connection with local administration. While we cannot say that, we can predict with certainty that everything is not going to be satisfactory under the new order. I am prepared to prophesy that the operations of this measure will not be more successful in the making of local appointments than has been the case up to the present. I will go further and say that before twelve months every local authority will have thrust on it some particular individual to fill a certain position and that the local authority will have no alternative but to accept that individual. In many cases it will be seen that the selected individual will not be the best and most suitable of the applicants and a clamour will arise from all the elected bodies for an alteration of the conditions that the Minister is enforcing and for an amendment of the Bill. Whatever party will come into power after the next election will be compelled by the pressure of public opinion to amend this Bill.
We all recognise that some change was necessary, and were prepared to concede that an examination test should be instituted. We believe further that the best of the candidates at the examination should be appointed to any vacant post. Examining the measure as it stands, I say that the Minister made very little concessions. We believe that he should have acceded to our request with reference to the number of successful candidates whose names should be submitted to the local authorities. We might as well, in fact, have left the appointments to the Minister himself and not have asked him to change the word "Minister" to "Local Authority," because the local authority will be but a registering body to do just as the selection board will demand that they shall do. The majority of the Dáil seem to think that is right. We are not satisfied that it is right, or that it will bring the results anticipated. The Bill will not put an end to canvassing. I repeat again what I said at an earlier stage that the canvassing will be changed from the members of local authorities to the members of the Dáil. Whatever the position may be, the impression will prevail, and you will have great difficulty in disabusing people's minds of it, that people will now have to try and get the local T.D. to do what the local council did before—to try and get the local T.D. to see what can be done by discovering who are the members of the selection board and if the Local Appointments Commissioners can be approached, so that the selection may be determined in a particular way. It is not satisfactory that such an impression should prevail.
Who is giving it?
The impression is there. You will have to take conditions as they are. I am not giving it—I am not saying that it is the position. I am dealing with what is accepted as being the position, and you have to take cognisance of it. There is no use in the Minister suggesting that what I am saying is not true—is not believed. It is and it will be. When you are proceeding along lines which mean that the appointments to every position under local or national authorities are to be determined by a body set up in the capital, what does it mean? It means that every wire-puller, every individual who wants to get a position, not through merit, but through his ability to pull the wires, will believe that nothing can be done unless he is first able to use such influence on members of the Dáil as will secure for him what he thinks is being taken from him under the new conditions. Ministers know quite well what the feelings of the people are with regard to the making of appointments. You are not going to change all that in a night or by an Act of Parliament. Undoubtedly whether it is satisfactory or not, the concensus of opinion down the country in the future will be that everything in the country must be managed from Dublin.
May I express my surprise at the attitude of the Labour Party towards this measure who have been declaring against this policy of centralisation. They feel that local authorities are so incapable and so unworthy of the trust reposed in them by the local people who elected them, the same people who elected us, that they are prepared to put men in on a local body who are not fair, who cannot be just, who have no capacity or ability to judge the merits of those who are to serve under them in local bodies. If the electors in the management of local affairs are so blind that they are not capable of passing judgment on the integrity of the men who are to represent them, what can be said about their ability to select men or to elect men to come to this House? If those men are to be trained to understand better their responsibility as citizens, how better can you make them understand that than to put them in a position of responsibility? Yet, day after day, you are removing responsibilities from them and declaring them incapable of discharging them. That policy is not going to give you the type of citizen you require for the administration of local affairs. If a man is not put in the position first of having to give earnest of his ability and his honesty you will not have a man going for the position worthy of the trust of the people. If the position is small, insignificant and mean you will just have the individual worthy of the post and of the work he has to discharge. You will have the people who are electing that representative treating the position in a similar manner. All along the line, as we are moving towards centralisation, day after day, we are inclined to the policy of distrusting the capacity of people to do anything right. We seem to indicate we have no faith that either now or in the future under new conditions there are any possibilities they are going to improve. We take away all the responsibility they have been exercising up to the present, and put the trust in other people, believing, as the Minister says, that the corruption, nepotism and all the rest, is going to pass, fade and be a thing only of memory, that everything in the management of our local affairs is to be clean in the future, that we are going to get by the new methods the best possible type of public servant, a far better type of public servant than the old system gave us, and, further, that the success of the measure is so assured already that the people will applaud it. The Minister's case is not sound. I believe, to go part of the way with the Minister, that he should have given the present administrators a chance and see what two or three years under present conditions would have meant and if, after experience under the new and changed conditions, the more serious responsibilities that have been brought to every citizen in the Free State for the last four or five years he saw that things were not better, then the Minister could come, or some other Minister, and make a change. If the case could be supported by facts, if by the experience of three or four years the new men were not going to be any improvement beyond what the old people were, the Minister would have a better case than he has, but in asking the House to pass the measure before us now, the Minister is asking us to declare what we here are not prepared to state, and that is that the people elected to the local authorities, have not the capacity, ability or honesty to select the best men for the posts that become vacant under them and because of that fact and because the Minister has no faith that there can be any change in the outlook of those people in the future, the Minister is taking away that authority from them and vesting it in other people. I reiterate that the Minister will not have the success in the venture which he anticipates.
Deputy Baxter was very unfair to the Labour Party in saying they offered no opposition to this measure. Deputy Morrissey at a recent meeting of the Dáil put forward the very same arguments Deputy Baxter has put forward now.
Not quite.
I cannot remember a single point on which they differed.
Like Deputy Baxter, the Deputy has not read the two Bills and compared them.
Deputy Morrissey, like Deputy Baxter, said that this measure took away from the electorate the power which they had and that it showed distrust and want of faith in them. The electorate can elect the county council, and the Dáil. They have the same power with regard to the county council that they have with regard to the Dáil. No power has been taken away from them. The county council can do the same work as they did hitherto. The Executive Council selects its officials through the means of a competitive examination. It is the highest body in the land and has the most power in the land. By this measure the county councils are placed on the same level exactly as the Executive Council. How that can be regarded as a degradation, a lowering of their status or power, I fail to see. Those were the two points raised by Deputy Baxter and, on reconsideration, I think he will see they are not very strong points.
Deputy Baxter, seconded by Deputy Sears, suggests to the House that the Labour Party, in supporting the new edition of this Bill, is inconsistent, having regard to its opposition to the first edition of the Bill. I am afraid Deputy Baxter, in the statement of his opposition to the first edition of the Bill, cannot have been entirely frank. I opposed and those sitting behind me, opposed the first Bill because it tended to centralise the power of appointment in the hands of the Minister and because it did nothing, in our opinion, towards the setting up of a Municipal Civil Service. But if any careful student would read the new Bill and compare it with the old Bill, he would see that the reverse is now the case—that the power of appointment does not rest with the Minister, that the Public Appointments Committee, which is set up under the Bill, is not now set up to advise the Minister but to respond to the call of the local authority, that there is an entirely different conception of the relations between the local authority and the Minister. Further, there is within the Bill, though it is not mandatory, power—I have faith enough to believe that it will be exercised at an early date—to begin the actual preparation of a scheme for the establishment of a civil service for local administration. When the civil service is established, the automatic workings of the system will ensure that the persons to be appointed by local authorities for such grades and positions as may be specified, will be appointed on merit and not by personal influence or canvassing of any kind. If the Deputy is not able to see the difference between the Bill as it is now and the Bill as it was introduced, I fear the meaning I attached to his opposition was not the real meaning.
I think the Deputy has, by his speech, done a good deal of damage to the public reputation of the Dáil. It is most unfortunate that from a Deputy there should go out even a suggestion that one of the functions of Deputies is to assist in influencing either Ministers or the Public Appointments Committee, or anything analogous to the Public Appointments Committee, in connection with the selection of persons for appointments. The very fact that it can be stated in the Dáil is a suggestion that it exists. Does it exist? If there is any evidence at all that it exists I would be the first to applaud any Deputy who would table the facts here and let us brand the canvasser with dereliction of duty and with faithlessness to his public trust.
If I may interrupt Deputy Johnson, I should like to say that I do not want to be misinterpreted nor do I want an impression to be conveyed which I did not intend to convey. What I want to make clear is that under the new order, with the setting up of a Commission and a Selection Board, one name will be sent down to the local authority after the decision of the Selection Board has been made. The impression amongst local people will be—it will be idle for them, I admit—that they must change the scene from the home district to the centre where your Commission or your Selection Board is to operate. The impression with them, unfortunately, will be that they must try to get after their local Deputy to see what he will do. The result will be that the local Deputy will be plagued and worried to death over this sort of thing. That is the position that he, unfortunately, will be placed in. That will be the impression they will have.
Does the Deputy think his statement tends to correct that false impression?
Let the matter be discussed at any rate.
The Deputy has done something to disavow the impression that I feared his first speech would create.
rose.
Does Deputy Baxter wish to make himself more clear?
I do not know what I can add further. Every Deputy and every Minister knows quite well what the position will be. The impression down the country will be that if an appointment is to be made, Deputy Baxter or Deputy Gorey, for instance, will have to be seen, in order to ascertain what he can do. No honest Deputy who desires to do the fair thing by his constituents wants to be put in the position that the impression that he could do anything to influence such a body as this would place him in. I feel that that could have been avoided by the method I suggested of sending down two or three names to the local authority instead of one. It would be then with the local authority to make the final selection.
And they could canvas both.
Why not apply that to positions in the Civil Service?
I have been assured by members of the Civil Service Commission, including the Chairman of the Commission, that they have never been subjected to canvassing by Deputies, that Deputies of all Parties have recognised that they are there to do their duty in an impartial and judicial manner, and that they have never approached them. So far as the Civil Service Commission is concerned, there has never been any appealing or any attempt at it. I see no reason to believe that the new body will be subject to conduct that the Civil Service Commission has never been subject to by Deputies of any Party.
I think Deputy Baxter's fear is that, notwithstanding the absence of foundation, this opinion may prevail in the country. If that impression does prevail, it can, within a very short time, be dispelled if every Deputy who is approached by a person holding that false view will immediately retort that that is not his business, that he has no influence and will not attempt to exercise influence of any kind in such a matter. I feel that in this, as in too many other instances, the public have sometimes regarded membership of the Dáil as an administrative office —as part of the administrative system. I am afraid it has not been sufficiently made clear that that is by no means the position of Deputies in this House.
Therefore the position that Deputy Baxter has now arrived at is that there is no foundation for the suggestion or for the opinion that might prevail in the country that Deputies can, by any means, influence the Civil Service Commission or its parallel, the Public Appointments Committee proposed under this Act. That being the case, and that erroneous opinion being easily dispelled, what is there left? This Public Appointments Committee, acting on behalf of the local authorities, will make selections of the fittest persons to fill the office, and will send to the local authorities who apply, the name of the fittest person. I think that is a desirable development. When it is extended to the wider administrative offices, fitness being the only test, surely that will be a development that most of us at any rate have been anticipating and hoping for.
I have no need to apologise for my opposition to the first draft of the Bill and for my support of the present Bill. The Deputy says there is no difference. Presumably he bases that remark on the fact that the Commission will only send down one name, and will do that at the instigation of the local authority rather than at the instigation of the Minister. If the Deputy thinks that that is not a change, and that the dropping of Section 10 and Section 12 and all the implications that these sections involved, has made no change in the Bill then I have nothing more to say. I think it has made a very great change in the Bill, at least so great a change as to warrant my clear approval of it as it now stands, notwithstanding my fierce opposition to the Bill as it was when first presented.
I only wish to say in connection with this Bill that I think the Minister had already sufficient power to deal with the causes that led him to introduce this Bill. It has been known that in counties of the Saorstát practices that were anything but creditable had been in operation for years. I think that will not be denied by anybody who has any local knowledge. The Minister has suspended several local authorities for incorrect procedure and for palpable faults. Has he not the same powers of treating local authorities for malpractices, contemplated by this Bill to-day, and if so, why cannot he exercise them? I say suspension is good enough for any local authority guilty of practices of this description. It deserves it. If anybody is guilty of such conduct the Department that the Minister rules over can come down upon them and so purify the administration while preserving the idea of local control.
What object have we now in calling this Department the Local Government Department, or calling the Minister Minister for Local Government? It is the Department of Central Government and he is Minister for Central Government. Local authority and local jurisdiction is gone. Under the Bill every vestige of what was local authority resides now with the Minister. Not a single appointment can be made, not even a roadmaker or a stonebreaker can be appointed by the local authorities. I am not one of those who would stand up for corruption of any sort in the local, private or the higher services in the country, and I say where it exists it should be stamped out, but this is not the way to do it. This is not the way to restore public morality, or public confidence to the nation. To remedy some of the evils that are now existing under local authorities powers must be transferred from those local authorities to a central Department. If that is the only means that can be found for curing these evils, it is pretty desperate and it is a great national confession of degradation. That is what I call it. The only function of the local authorities for the future will be to find the money.
Mr. HOGAN
And to do the work.
What work will they have to do? Under this Bill it would be all done up here or supervised from here.
Mr. HOGAN
Apparently the Deputy is under the impression that a local authority has nothing to do except to make appointments. His whole speech is based on that.
It is not based on that. The local authority had to find the money and they had the power of supervision. What power have they now? The local officers can say to them: "You are not my master. The officers of the Central Government in Dublin are my masters, I owe you no obedience."
Mr. HOGAN
Is that stated in the Bill?
This Bill is not going to make for good administration. Everything is to be done from Dublin and the power of supervision and authority in the local authorities is gone even over their own officers. And we are told this is good government. I say, in my humble opinion, it is not good government. I think in common decency, the first thing we ought to do in connection with this Bill is to remove the term "Local Government Department and Minister for Local Government" and not have this palpable fallacy. We are asked to believe that some Committee of Public Appointments are going to be super-human beings— people who must live shut up behind glass walls. They will be without family influence. Nothing can influence them. I can see the members of these local Appointments Committee invited to all the teas and luncheons in Dublin. Not a word will be said; not an attempt will be made to influence them. But they are human beings all the same and cannot divest themselves of their humanity.
I have no objection to raising the standard as high as you like to raise it. Raise it any way in order to secure efficiency, in order to ensure good local public service, in medicine and otherwise. But when you have reached that standard why not leave it to the local authority which pays the money, and which is supposed to control its servants, to appoint them? Where they have been guilty, and where they are likely to be guilty of malpractices, suspend them, and in that way encourage a healthy local administration. I want you to realise that the county councils are very little our inferiors; the members of them are just as good as many of us, and perhaps better than most of us, and I do not think it will make for the right atmosphere, and it certainly will not make for good local administration and good local control of officers, to pass this Bill.
I do not know whether the word "nonsense" is Parliamentary or not.
It is. The Minister has gone a long way further than that from time to time.
Mr. HOGAN
I have a ruling on the question now, and unless you, sir, rule against the higher authority, I will use the word. I really never heard such nonsense on any Bill as on this; it is painful to have to listen to it.
You look absolutely distressed.
Mr. HOGAN
"Distressed" is not the word, but "depressed."
You do not look it.
Mr. HOGAN
We are told that we should remember that members of county councils are as good as we are, in fact better. We are told that it is a slur on their character and on their honesty to limit in any way their right to make appointments. The whole point of this discussion is that the county council should be in a far different position from, a far superior position to, the Executive Council. Remember that the Farmers' Party opposed the previous Bill, and they opposed it because, as they pointed out, the local bodies should have some say, should come into the machinery at some place. Now there is to be a special selection board appointed by them. They have the actual appointment, in the same way as I have the appointment of anybody in the Department of Agriculture, no more and no less.
Does the Minister mean to convey that the local authority has power to appoint the selection board? They have not.
Mr. HOGAN
I did not say that. I say that they have just the same right of appointment as I have in my Department, or as the Minister for Finance has in his, and this is a slur on the local bodies. Deputy Baxter certainly gave me the impression—he tried to correct it afterwards—that he was suggesting that this selection board could be got at.
No.
Mr. HOGAN
Well, that is the impression he gave to everybody. He tried to correct it afterwards, but the correction was not very convincing. He put it in the third person: "What would the people in the country say? They would say that jobbery was being transferred from the country to Dublin, and that nothing that the Ministry or the Dáil could say would alter that." Deputy Johnson, of course, met the point, and there is no answer to what he said. That remains for Deputies themselves. Has the Deputy, or any Deputy, ever succeeded in influencing, say, the Civil Service Commission? I challenge any Deputy to get up and say that he has.
You would never get a reply to that, even if a man had succeeded in doing so.
Mr. HOGAN
There are people who believe that every man has his price. Deputy Gorey talked about tea-parties, that these people would be going round and would be subjected to influence. There are people who believe, and you cannot get it out of their heads, that every man has his price. That is what it all comes to, and it is an absolutely rotten point of view. There are people who have not their price, that is the long and short of it, and all Parties will have to learn that. There are people who are above that; there are people who would not do it for any consideration, and it is cheapening the Dáil and cheapening public life to make such statements. There are enough people around the country to make these unworthy statements. Leave it to them. But it is for us to protect the decencies of our institutions and to keep our standards high, and we should leave that sort of talk to somebody else. The talk about what powers are left to the county councils is also nonsense. Poor Law, roads, asylums, all the other powers they ever had are left to them. What powers are left to the Minister for Lands and Agriculture? I mention my own case because I know my Department better than the next man perhaps. Powers are left to the Minister for Lands and Agriculture, even though he makes no appointments. Has he no his hands sufficiently full with his own responsibilities, and can he not carry them out? No Minister would come here and say: "Such and such a thing happened; such and such a thing is wrong, but I have not the making of my own appointments and I accept no responsibility for it." If he did, what would Deputy Gorey or Deputy Baxter say? They would not listen to him for two minutes, and forsooth, the appointment of a rate collector by the Local Government Selection Board can be a slur because the power is taken away from the county council.
I would like to put a question to the Minister on this, because this is the very thing I envisage. Will either the Minister for Lands and Agriculture or the Minister for Local Government and Public Health tell us what the process would be for the selection of a rate collector, where the selection board is to be drawn from, and so on?
Mr. HOGAN
What is behind that question? You are to assume that the particular commission that would have the appointment of selection boards are honest and competent men.
Yes.
Mr. HOGAN
If you cannot get three or four honest and competent men, then the whole thing goes wrong. The painful assumption has to be made that you can get an efficient and honest commission.
Yes, I accept that.
Mr. HOGAN
Do you suggest, then, that it is beyond their powers to select a rate collector or a secretary of a county committee of agriculture? If Deputy Baxter and myself were on that commission could we nominate useful men to select a secretary of a county committee of agriculture? Would it be beyond our powers?
A rate collector. This is very important. It is the kernel of the whole matter. The Minister refused an amendment that would have left this appointment with the local authority. I want the Minister to put himself in the position of a member of the board to select a rate collector for the County Galway, and I want him to say how, under this measure, it is to be done. Are the selection board to be from the county concerned? If they are not, how are they to do the work?
Mr. HOGAN
Really the question is childish. Rate collecting is, of course, a tremendously difficult job. A rate collector must make extraordinarily abstruse calculations to fill his job.
And no county council has the ability to appoint him.
Mr. HOGAN
This is not a question of ability, as the Deputy knows well.
Of honesty.
Mr. HOGAN
I would perhaps be able to appoint a veterinary surgeon to my Department, but I do not quarrel because the Civil Service Commission appoint him. I would probably be able to appoint a portal inspector, or a messenger in the hall of the Department of Agriculture, but I do not think it is any slur on my honesty if the Civil Service Commission appoints them. I leave out honesty.
Ability.
Mr. HOGAN
Or ability either. It does not require a tremendous amount of ability to appoint a messenger in the hall of the Department. It does not require a tremendous amount of ability to appoint a creamery inspector or an inspector under the Eggs Act. I do not do it, and I do not want to do it, but I do not think it is any slur on me that I do not do it. I am quite content to put my initials opposite the first name on the list sent in by the Civil Service Commission. Let the county council do the same thing. I am asked to solve this insoluble problem of the rate collector. He must add, I think, subtract, multiply and divide. He must be up to a certain standard of education, extremely high, I know, much higher than that of the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, the Establishment Officer of the Department of Finance, or the Secretary of the Department of Industry and Commerce. But still, as I see it, his qualifications are to be a fairly good education. If he has previous experience of similar work it would count in his favour. I am giving what I, if I were on the selection board, would take into account. If he had a good education, and was able to do clerical work and calculations, it would also count in his favour. I would take into account his personality. I would ask him some questions to find out what sort of a man he was. If I found there was something wrong with him in his past in some similar job I would rule him out.
Would the selection board be composed of men drawn from the county or would they not?
There is only one Deputy who can answer that question adequately; the Minister for Agriculture cannot answer it.
Mr. HOGAN
All I want to say really is that it is not a job beyond the competence of three efficient commissioners to appoint a selection board which is capable of choosing a rate collector. If the Deputy thinks it is, then there is no argument.
What I want to clear up is that I cannot see how the Minister can do that without a local selection board.
Will the Minister for Local Government say whether, if he finds it impossible to appoint a rate collector by the manner and method of the Local Appointments Committee, rate collectors will be put amongst the list of offices and employments which will be designated as offices to which this Act applies?
Deputy Johnson has put his finger on a point which should be obvious to everyone, including Deputy Baxter. Certainly it would be a very extraordinary thing for me, or my Department, to include in the list of those who should be appointed by the Local Appointments Committee, people who, for one reason or another, could not possibly be appointed, or could only be appointed with great difficulty. There is a special difficulty with regard to rate collectors, and for that reason Deputy Baxter has picked out that class owing to the fact that collectors may require to be men of well-known integrity locally and, perhaps, men of considerable substance. That is not a matter with which we are concerned at the moment. It is for the local authority and the Commissioners to decide whether a particular selection board should have people with local knowledge on it or not. There is really nothing unanswerable in that question at all.
Mr. HOGAN
I do not think I have any more to say.
When Deputy Gorey suggested that members of the Civil Service Commission were only human and were liable to outside influences he gave the whole game away, and made a case for this Bill. I know a number of county councillors and members of other boards and they are all pleased that appointments to certain positions are going to be taken out of their hands.
Misrepresentation is rife in the Dáil. I do not think it worth while to correct the Deputy's impression.
I do not think Deputy Gorey mentioned the Civil Service Commission.
Members of the selection board. He said they were only human. I remember a case recently where a friend of mine, a member of a county council, was being canvassed, and he explained, rather humourously, circumstances that arose in connection with it. This man was a non-drinker, but at the time he was in a public-house with seven or eight friends, each of whom was being plied with drink, not by the candidate for the job, but by some friends of his. They were trying to impress on the friends of the candidate that they had this man's vote in their pockets, and he said he was the only one who did not know what he was going to do with his own vote. When this Bill was introduced there was one thing I regretted about it and that was that if it passed it might have the effect of abolishing what was in this country a thriving industry.
As I believe in the development of industry I was, at that time, rather inclined to oppose the Bill, but after serious consideration I came to the conclusion that this particular industry was confined to a comparatively small number of people; in other words, to a certain small section who had a monopoly of it. Not being in favour of monopolies I thought that we might let that industry go. I refer to the industry of the breeding of prize cats. I do not know if some Deputies ever heard of such an industry, but I believe it was a common thing for canvassers, on behalf of persons who wanted public appointments, to visit people who had the making of such appointments, and if there was a decent looking cat about the premises the visitor immediately claimed that it must be a prize one and very often offered £100 for it.
On a recent occasion five Deputies were travelling from Cork to Dublin, one of whom had been for over a quarter of a century a member of different public boards. In order to while away the time stories were told. One of the party told a very interesting story. There was a vacancy for a doctor, and as this man was a member of the rural district council and the board of guardians a friend of one of the candidates came to his house. This man, seeing a sideboard in one of the rooms, ran his fingers along it, and it dawned upon him suddenly that this was a piece of old Chippendale. That was another industry, perhaps a sideline of culture that will be abolished by the passing of this Bill—looking after ancient furniture. This was a surprising revelation to me. I never heard of any of these things before. This man actually offered £300 for the piece of old Chippendale, and what surprised me still more was that my friend refused the offer. We heard a number of yarns of this description, all of which went to prove that there was a good deal of bribery carried on in the past in connection with public appointments. On one occasion, three or four years ago, a friend asked me to use what little influence I had with members of a certain board of guardians in order to get him a job as a dispensary doctor. I approached one member that I knew very well and I asked him if he had not promised his vote to consider the question of voting for the individual who asked me to speak for him. This man bluntly answered "No. I am already bought. It is a matter of indifference to me who gets the job, but I promised the first man who made a decent offer."
Cork for your life!
This was not in Cork, but in a place near Deputy Gorey's constituency.
Then the story is a lie.
I think the Bill is all right and, as Deputy Johnson said gives an opportunity to the best qualified candidates to get the job. When they were striving to set up a native government the people of this country claimed that they would see there was cleanliness in public administration and give men of ability an opportunity to get positions. On that account I am going to support the Bill.
Deputy Nagle gave a very poor record of the integrity of local boards. I had not a particularly high opinion of the integrity of a great many of the local boards in the past, but I would point out that the Minister is establishing practically a new régime and is putting it up to local boards to show that they are of a different type to the boards that existed in the past. The first Bill which the Minister introduces, after having done that, is one that takes away from local boards the power of appointment which they had. I maintain that if you put responsibilities on these local boards you must, at the same time, show that you have confidence in them. The analogy that has been drawn between appointments made here by the Civil Service Commission and the appointments that will be made in future by the Local Authorities Commission is not a true one. It is my argument that the whole weakness of this Bill depends on the faultiness of that analogy. The appointments made by the Civil Service Commission cover, to a great extent, junior men, men who begin at the bottom of the ladder and who from the point of view of experience are much on the same level. These men get a reasonably fair chance of proving their merit by means of a Civil Service examination. With regard to the appointments that in future will be made locally——
I would just like to correct the Deputy. He is not giving a true picture of the case. While the Civil Service Commission, by means of competitive examinations, makes appointments, it also appoints people to very responsible positions where the system of examination does not apply: positions such as those of director of the broadcasting station, assistant State chemist and a great many other positions that are bigger than the great majority of the local positions to which this Bill would apply.
I am quite well aware that the Civil Service Commission appoints people to positions other than those of a junior character made as a result of a competitive examination. I maintain, however, that the number of appointments made in that way by the Civil Service Commission, whether by means of a selection board or otherwise, is very small compared with the total number of appointments made through means of an examination. The Minister by his statement shows the difficulties which the Civil Service Commission is up against in the case of selecting people who must have particular qualifications, qualifications which cannot be judged by an examination. The Minister mentioned the appointment to the broadcasting station. A difficulty arose in regard to that very appointment.
No. I spoke of the director of the broadcasting station.
Then we will take the other position.
That is a junior appointment.
It is not a very junior position, I think—that is the position in which the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was interested and on which there was a very ardent debate in the Dáil. It was argued at the time that it was very difficult to fill those appointments—the appointment of people having special abilities which could not be tested by an examination or even by a selection board.
I think no difficulty arose. The selection board had no difficulty in coming to a conclusion and the Civil Service Commission experienced no difficulty, but they did have a certain disagreement with the Minister. That is a different matter altogether.
When it comes to the question of the appointments that are to be made locally we are up against a different proposition altogether. It was put fairly and squarely to the Minister by Deputy Baxter when he asked him "How can the local selection committee select the best man to act as a rate collector?" I ask— How is the selection Committee going to select the best men to act in, say, the position of home help officer? I say that you must appoint men, senior in experience and in years, to fill a position of that kind. I say, too, that local knowledge of the candidates' abilities and qualifications is absolutely essential before such an appointment can be made. If the local authority, or even the General Council of County Councils, had the appointment of the selection boards, I would say that there would be some justification for this Bill, but that is not going to be the case. The appointment of a selection board will rest with the Executive Council.
I think that statement of the Deputy should be corrected. The statement is not quite right, and perhaps the Minister for Finance, who is conversant with the working of this, will correct it.
I think the Deputy must surely be aware that the selection board will be appointed by the Commission. The Executive Council will have nothing to do with that and will not know who the members of it are. I might say, in case the Deputy should wish to raise the point, in respect of the Civil Service Commission, that the Executive Council has never asked a question, or expressed a wish or attempted to communicate with the Civil Service Commission in any way in respect of the constitution of selection boards.
Then the Executive Council will not appoint the selection board, but it will appoint the Local Authorities Commission, and this latter will appoint the selection board. The feeling down through the country is, and I believe it is justified, that all these appointments will be coloured by the outlook of the City of Dublin, and that in future there will be no appointments for boys from the country or from the small towns. I believe that, to a certain extent, the feeling which exists down through the country is justified, not because the selection board will be corrupt, or even that they would be consciously unfair or that the local committee will be consciously unfair, but rather because their whole outlook will be coloured by the outlook of the young men educated in the cities. It is stated through the country that in future local appointments will, to a large extent, be the preserve of graduates of the University and that the programme of examination will be so drawn up that the subjects on it will only fit in with the qualifications of men trained in the Universities. While I have the greatest appreciation of the advantages of University training, I want to see the boys from the country getting the same chance as boys living here in the city who have the opportunity of attending the Universities. The country boy may not even have the opportunity of getting a secondary education because of the cost involved, a cost that does not arise in the case of the city boy who has the opportunity of attending secondary schools. Most of those positions under local boards could be filled by any young boy who has availed to the full of the course of training given in a good national school. Any boy who has taken a full course at a national school should be capable of filling a great many of these appointments under the local boards. That would apply to nearly all appointments except those requiring technical qualifications.
The feeling in the country is that the opportunity for a country boy to get one of these appointments will be wiped away, and that he will have no chance of getting them. The result will be that you will have officers coming down from Dublin to fill up those appointments under local bodies. That, I think, is almost certain to lead to friction and strife between the appointees and the local boards. Deputy Johnson has, as he says, justified himself for the action he has taken on this Bill as amended. I do not share his justification because, in my opinion, the changes made in the Bill as amended, in so far as they convey any authority or power to the local authorities, are purely nominal. As far as I can gather, the change made in the Bill merely means that a local authority has the power to ask the Local Appointments Committee to make the appointment. As the Bill stood originally the Minister had that power. As far as I can see, that is only a change in name and not in reality. I would be sympathetic towards the Bill if the Minister really had, as Deputy Johnson says he has, taken a step towards the foundation of a Local Authorities Civil Service. If such a foundation has been laid I say it is one of a very flimsy character. I would rather have seen the Minister wait and deal with this whole question of a local Civil Service by means of a comprehensive Bill. If the Minister did that, I do not say that his Bill would have my sympathy or support, but it might. He is certainly not doing that under this Bill. You cannot have a local Civil Service where the promotion is confined to a particular local council. The field of promotion is altogether inadequate and does not open up a vista with real prospects for men entering such a Civil Service.
Will the Deputy read Section 5, or at least refer to it?
I am giving my view of the Bill. It allows, I acknowledge, for appointments from existing officers, but it does not allow for any particular form of promotion within the existing class of officers. It does not allow for transfer between one local board and another. If a local civil service is to be created it must allow for something in the nature of transfer from one board to another, something comparable, perhaps, to the system prevailing in banks or the Civil Service. There is nothing in the Bill to show the Minister has that intention. Deputy Baxter said, and I agree with him, that the Minister should have given a chance to the new boards to prove themselves and to show their incorruptibility or corruptibility. A lot has been said about nepotism and corruption on the part of local boards, but nothing has been said about the possibilities of corruption in higher quarters. I do not say, and I have never said, it has existed. I make no charge.
You want to insinuate it.
I do not even insinuate it.
If you want something still more subtle than insinuation you are trying to get at it.
I do not want to make capital, but I say it has existed in other places, and the governments there have been more corrupt than even our worst local bodies here. That is a fact, and the Minister knows it is a fact.
It is the most irrelevant statement I can imagine.
It may be, but this throwing of mud on local authorities which existed in the past but do not exist now is no proof that mud may not at another stage be thrown even at the central Government of this country.
You can be sure it will.
The Deputy would like it to be, as far as I can judge.
No, the Minister must be fair. He is fond of reading into people's thoughts, but he often reads what is not there, and he judges other people's words by his own inner thoughts. I am not trying to show by implication or otherwise that there has been corruption, or anything approaching to it in the present Government, or with regard to appointments made under the authority of the present Government. If I wanted to say that I would say it openly, but I have not stated it yet, and when I do state it the Minister can then build a case on it.
It is fair I should say that it seems that is the whole purpose of the Deputy's speech, without saying anything that can be definitely put up as insinuating that things are wrong. I can see no other object for the latter part of his remarks.
I have no intention whatever, if words mean anything, of conveying what the Minister suggests or thinks. I say that in other countries central governments have become corrupt, and that there is no reason why we here should take it for granted that central governments and the powers under them are guarded against being corrupt, whereas we take it for granted that local boards down the country will immediately, become corrupt. That is the confidence we have in these local boards. I am convinced that the idea in the back of the head of the Minister for Local Government with regard to local authorities is that he has no confidence in them, and that he intends at the earliest possible date to centralise local government control in his Department, but we are living in a democratic State, and are supposed to place confidence in the electors and in the people appointed by them, whether in the Dáil or on the local boards. Instead we are taking every step we can to show that we have no confidence in the people selected by the electors, particularly in the people who have been selected down the country. I know of my own personal knowledge that the men selected for the county councils down the country on the last occasion started into their work determined to do it in a straight and upright way, and I think people in the Dáil instead of doubting their integrity and showing doubt on the first possible opportunity should give them a chance of proving themselves instead of passing this Bill, which I consider a vote of want of confidence in the local authorities.
This whole discussion has taken the drift that the House should have more trust in the local authorities. Some time ago when the Executive Council and the Government were impeached here, and direct charges of corruption made against them, they made all appointments on a civil service basis and established a Civil Service Commission. No man can say but that has worked well, and no man is now in a position to say, or suggest even, that the Government is corrupt. It will be the same when a Civil Service Commission is established for appointments to all local authorities. Frequently we are asked to get appointments here in the central Government for people we know throughout the country. My amiable and honey-tongued friend, Deputy Gorey, is after moaning or laughing. Of course I am rather unfortunate that I am not the pure-souled man that Deputy Gorey poses here to be.
If the Deputy wants to make any insinuation let him go down anywhere where I am known, and I challenge him to prove anything, even the justification of a suspicion.
I am not making any accusation. I only resent some of the honey-tongued references Deputy Gorey made to me when I got up to speak. Even if the House would wish me to state some of them, I would spare their blushes.
Let us hear Deputy Hennessy on the Bill, and not on Deputy Gorey.
He is giving us Galbally now.
Well, Galbally is as well known as where you come from. I do not know where you come from.
Deputy Hennessy must sit down. Deputy Gorey must not make the mistake of thinking that Deputy Hennessy has not the right to speak. He has, and he must be allowed to speak without interruption.
He always refers to me.
Not alone has Deputy Hennessy the right to speak, but he has a right to refer to Deputy Gorey. If Deputy Gorey was compelled to make all his speeches without reference to any individual he would be a very silent man in this House.
If I may be permitted to resume discussion, I would say that everything proposed in this Bill means clean administration under the local authorities. I never charged the local authorities with corruption, whether they were situated near the Shannon or far away from it. That is not the question. I believe that temptations to corruption should be removed. Deputy Heffernan mentioned that all these appointments which would be made after the establishment of the Civil Service Commission would be collared by the people of Dublin.
If Deputy Heffernan goes through the civil service departments here, and if he hunts up the personnel of those different departments, he will find that these men have been recruited from Kerry, Cork, and every other county, and the only qualification was their fitness as candidates to beat others. I think when he goes down to County Tipperary—and I have no doubt that Tipperarymen will hold their own in these appointments—he need have no doubt about Dublin manning the whole country. It has never done it. To talk of the commission making the test for these appointments on a university basis is very extravagant. What commission would insist on a knowledge of biology and physiology for a rate collector? Suitable rate collectors seem to be very difficult men to find.
It is hard to find the rates.
It is, and sometimes, when they find them, they do not find their way to the right place. I do not see why these rates could not be collected by post, and why any outstanding rates could not be collected by the Civic Guard. We have heard a great deal about economy, but I have never yet heard economists say that most of the local duties could be done by the Civic Guard. The work in connection with nine out of ten of these posts could, I believe, be discharged by Civic Guards, and it would be an immense saving to the ratepayers. Again, we must remember that the General Council of County Councils favours these appointments being made by examinations.
So do we.
This Bill provides examinations, but you want the local body to do the examining.
No.
Then what is the reason for all the local panels you are asking for?
Perhaps the Deputy would address me on the Bill.
If Deputy Baxter says that he wants these appointments made by examination, and that the men who get first place should get the appointments, what is the meaning of this panel of candidates? I doubt that he will find it easy to answer that. He wants a panel with the names of the candidates numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, in the order of merit, and, if that panel is to have any meaning, according to Deputy Baxter, it is that the man who gets the sixth place will be just as liable to be appointed as the man who gets the first place. If he says that the man who gets the first place must get the position. I would not differ from him. It has been suggested that this Bill is a scheme to do away with local authorities. We might remember that the great democracy of the United States of America transacts much of its local business by means of Commissions and does it well. I am not at all squeamish on this subject. It is not, at all, a reflection on the members of local authorities to say that they have neither the training nor the time for the work they are called upon to discharge. A good deal of the work of local authorities is done really by officials, and the officials' word is taken all through. I must congratulate the Minister and the Government on this Bill. It is popular in the country.
No.
It is popular with everybody, except certain members.
It is in order to have an interruption from outside the barrier?
It is not, and I thank the Deputy for establishing that point.
I said that the Bill is popular in the country. I repeat that. There are, of course, members of local authorities who have sons and daughters, nephews and cousins, who are ready to get appointments but they are disappointed, and many members of local authorities who went on these boards with the object of voting for their relatives are disappointed. I do not think that it will be denied that at the recent local elections men went for those offices with the sole object of being in a position to vote for their relatives.
It is denied absolutely.
I have reason for saying that.
Would the Deputy say where this took place? In what county or in what part of the country have men gone on local boards for the purpose of voting for their friends?
I feel that all this discussion about corruption on local boards has nothing whatever to do with this Bill.
It is a dirty bird that fouls its own nest.
I am not fouling any nest.
He got out of the nest.
No.
The Deputy need not address Deputy Gorey.
I am not fouling any nest. I ought to have the same liberty as men who make sweeping charges both on this and on the other side of the Shannon.
The Deputy must not confuse the liberty enjoyed by Deputies inside the House with the licence enjoyed outside. The House should not be used to deal with speeches made outside. We have quite enough to do to reply to speeches made inside.
I received the utmost courtesy from every Deputy except one, but I am not too worried over that.
It is mutual.
To return to our subject, I believe this Bill is popular throughout the country.
No.
You may have your opinion, but I say again the Bill is popular with those people who want appointments in Ireland to be made on merit alone. It would be foolish for me to think that any man on a public board, if his son or nephew is up for a position, is going to vote for any other candidate because he believes him better qualified. He will vote for his son, his cousin and his friend. Let us be honest with ourselves. If I were on a board I would do the same thing, and for that reason I am glad that the Minister has brought in this Bill. It will do away with nepotism, and though I have never dwelt upon the corrupt side of local authorities, if it existed, the Bill will also effectively do away with it.
I had no idea that Deputy Baxter was going to treat us at this stage to a funeral oration over the dead body of local jobbery. We had threshed out every phase of this Bill already on three stages, and I thought there was very little to be said. So far as Deputy Baxter has brought any new light to bear on the subject, I think Deputy Johnson has disposed of it. Deputy Baxter's case all through the debate on this Bill has been based on misrepresentation. He has never faced up to the issue squarely. This Bill is endeavouring to put into operation, with regard to local authorities, the principle that we had already adopted as regards the central Government— namely, the principle that efficient servants, whether for local services or for central services, can best be recruited through the medium of machinery which is independent of people who have to depend upon the popular franchise for election. It is not a question of a lack of confidence in local authorities. I have had considerable experience during the last few years of local authorities, and I would like to pay a tribute to the members of those bodies. I think in the very difficult circumstances of the last few years they have carried out their duties remarkably well. I consider they have acquitted themselves better perhaps than we had reason to expect in such difficult circumstances, but this is a question of the whole policy of having public representatives in a position where they can be canvassed—of that being an improper and wrong state of affairs.
I believe if you had councils of Archangels placed in the position of the present local authorities they could not be completely sure of themselves in the various circumstances that arise in connection with these appointments. We are all human, as Deputy Gorey and other Deputies have remarked, and we cannot divest ourselves of our human nature. If we are under obligations to people for services in the past or for possible services in the future, it is very difficult to bring an unbiassed judgment to bear on the merits of candidates who come up before us for selection. In the recent local elections I think most parties made it a plank in their platform that all appointments should be made through open competitive examination. All parties were agreed upon that, and I cannot understand now the attitude of certain Deputies in running away from it. When I was introducing this Bill I really expected that there would be very little opposition. Some Deputy—I think it was Deputy Heffernan—mentioned the fact that the only result of this Bill will be to restrict appointments to men who are born in the city of Dublin. Well, as Deputy Hennessy has pointed out, one need only run through the names in the present Civil Service to see immediately that that is a fallacy.
Or read "Dublin Opinion" occasionally.
We have often read in "Dublin Opinion"—but perhaps I better not refer to that.
Have all these appointments been made by the Civil Service Commission?
I should have included Cork in that statement.
Quite recently there was an appointment made to a post down the country, and some of the local people were very much astonished when a man who had got very high literary qualifications and passed exceptionally difficult examinations was passed over in favour of a man who had practically no literary qualifications but who had great practical experience. In the future as in the past any selection board set up by the Civil Service Commissioners or by these Local Appointments Commissioners may be relied upon to exercise sound common sense in selecting candidates, and there is no point in trying to find extraordinary cases to illustrate our points of view. In this and in every other matter there will be border-line cases and there will be times when it will be a difficult matter to decide whether a certain class of officer should be brought within the scope of the Bill or not. I think it was very unfair to this House and to Deputies themselves, to take up the attitude that because we are insisting on the same procedure for the appointment of officials for local authorities, as we had insisted upon with regard to our own officials, we are displaying a lack of confidence and a lack of trust in these bodies.
Would the Minister say if there is any intention to exclude from the operations of this measure certain appointments under local authorities—say appointments of rate collectors and the like? What is his intention in regard to them?
It is not a question of excluding. It is a question of including. There is no one included except officers with professional qualifications and Chief Executive Officers as the Bill stands.
That may be the intention, but you have power to deal with every appointment under a local authority.
Is it the intention to exercise it?
I could not answer as it deals with future officers.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 34; Níl, 8.
Tá
- Earnán Altún.
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Seán Buitléir.
- Séamus de Búrca.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean
- Uí Dhrisceóil.
- Osmond Grattan Esmonde.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- John Good.
- David Hall.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- John Hennigan.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha.
- Patrick McGilligan.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Tomás de Nógla.
- John T. Nolan.
- William Norton.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Mícheál O hAonghusa.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Risteárd O Conaill.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
- Séamus O Dóláin.
- Peadar O Dubhghaill.
- Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
- Eamon O Dúgáin.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Séamus O Murchadha.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (Gaillimh).
- Máirtín O Rodaigh.
- Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
- Liam Thrift.
Níl
- Pádraig Baxter.
- Séamus Mac Cosgair.
- Patrick McKenna.
- Patrick J. Mulvany.
- Mícheál O Dubhghaill.
- Donnchadh O Guaire.
- Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
- Nicholas Wall.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Dolan and Sears. Níl: Deputies Baxter and Heffernan.
Motion declared carried.
took the Chair.