I move:
Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £36,156 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1930, chun pé cuid de Thuarastail agus de Chostaisí Chúirt Uachtarach agus ArdChúirt an Bhreithiúnais nách muirear ar an Prímh-Chiste (Uimh. 27 de 1926).
That a sum not exceeding £36,156 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1930, for such of the Salaries and Expenses of the Supreme Court and High Court of Justice as are not charged on the Central Fund (No. 27 of 1926).
This Estimate shows a net sum of £54,256 as the total sum required for payment of the salaries, including the cost of living bonus, of all the officers of the Courts at present functioning at the Castle and in the District Probate Registries, a sum of about £6,000 being appropriate to the officers attached to the Chief Justice (Lunacy, Minor and other matters), a sum of slightly less than £2,000 being appropriate to the officers of the Supreme Court, and the balance—the great bulk of the Estimate—being appropriate to the officers of the High Court, who are divided in this Estimate into groups corresponding to the several offices set up by the Court Officers Act, 1926.
It will immediately occur to anyone who looks through the Estimate that the salaries actually to be voted for many officers are in excess of the salary appropriate to the office. For example, in paragraph (11) on page 124, under the heading of the Office of Registrar of the Supreme Court, the salary of the post is shown in brackets as £600 rising by annual increments of £25 to a maximum of £800, but the salary actually to be voted is shown as £1,000, that is, the officer is being paid £200 more than the maximum salary of the office. The explanation of the apparent discrepancy referred to is that the officer in question is an officer of the old Supreme Court of Judicature whose former salary was £1,000 and who is still paid that salary although it is in excess of the salary of his new office. It was provided by the Court Officers Act, 1926, Section 63, sub-section (4), that subject to certain qualifications such as age or health, every officer of the Supreme Court should be offered employment in the new Court without diminution of salary. Practically the entire staff of the new Court were officers of the former Court and so long as these officers remain in the service the cost of the staff will be higher than it would be if we had recruited the Court staff by new appointments.
Although, as has been explained above, the amount of this Estimate is larger than it would normally be, it nevertheless represents a remark able decrease as compared with the cost of the Supreme Court staff under the old régime. We are asking for about £58,000; the cost in 1921 was over £140,000. Of this relatively enormous decrease a very large amount is due to the fall in the cost of living bonus, but even taking basic salaries, that is, ignoring the bonus altogether, the cost in 1921 was £76,000, and the cost now is less than £40,000, and this latter cost includes £3,000 or £4,000—the cost of the Lunacy Office—which did not appear at all in the 1921 Estimate and which now appears as part of the cost of the Office of the Registrar to the Chief Justice. It is, of course, true that the 1921 Estimate was an Estimate for all Ireland, but the setting up of a separate High Court in Belfast did not in point of fact reduce the cost of the Dublin courts to anything like the extent which one might imagine. I mean that it is a fallacy to say if the former court cost £76,000 the present court, considering the reduced territory served, should cost one-third less, or about £50,000, and that, therefore, the reduction to something under £40,000 is not so very striking. That is a fallacy because it is much cheaper to run one High Court for an entire country than to run two High Courts, one for each of the divided parts.
Nothing like a proportionate part of the reduction in this case has flowed directly from the fact that the six counties have been taken out of this jurisdiction; the reduction has been effected by a continuous campaign of economy none the less effective because it was not advertised in the newspapers or on the hoardings. Officers who were past their work were invited to retire, officers of ability who could be spared were transferred to other Departments where, I may say, their services have been highly appreciated. The expensive and unsatisfactory system of copying by hand was discarded in favour of typewriting. A similar care was exercised as regards the appointment of new officers; the former practice of importing patronage nominees into high positions has absolutely ceased; appointments have been made only when absolutely necessary, and then by promotion, and on every such promotion the scale of salary formerly paid for the higher post has been revised. For example, when the post of Accountant became vacant it was filled by promotion, but the salary was reduced from £1,000 a year to a scale of £700 to £800. This process will continue as the existing officers die or retire, and when this process has been completed the number of salaries of £1,000 or over in the Courts, which numbered fifteen so recently as 1925 and which now number nine, will be reduced to less than half a dozen. Except for this gradual reduction, I think there is very little, if any, further economy to be looked for in this staff.
