Three serious criticisms have been made with regard to sub-head A of this Vote. The first criticism came from Deputy Lemass, who asked whether it is right that this sum of money should be paid—£48,000—to the Great Southern Railway under the 1924 Act, when, as he alleged, the Railway Company was not carrying out the obligation imposed on them under the Act of 1924. He founded his charges entirely on Section 55 of the Act. As far as I remember, the contention ran this way, that Section 55 establishes that rates of pay of railway employees shall be regulated in accordance with an agreement made or to be from time to time made between the trade unions representative of such employees of the one part and the railway companies.
Sub-section (2) of that section states: "The original or a counterpart or a copy certified in such manner as the Minister shall direct to be a true copy of every such agreement as is mentioned in the foregoing subsection shall be deposited with the Minister within one month after the passing of this Act." The Deputy's allegation is, first, if there is an agreement which is not registered under that Act, then there is a dereliction of duty. I am particular in not saying that it is registered. There is no positive obligation imposed on me under that section to see that any agreement is lodged with me. As a matter of fact, I went out of my way by writing both to the Union and to the Companies, and by writing on several occasions, to get all the agreements of which I had any notice, and to get them registered. If there was an agreement of which I had notice, I think it would be the commonsense view to take it that it was my duty to write and ask why this was not being registered. But when we come to the MacNeill award, I want to say I did not write and ask for that. If the MacNeill award had been sent in as an agreement to be registered under this section, I should have to refuse it, because by its very title it will be revealed to anybody who thinks that it is not an agreement. An award of an arbitrator can never be classed as an agreement. If after the arbitrator had made his award both parties had accepted it and it was in the hands of the courts and made a sort of rule of court, then it might have been registered. Further, I asked Deputy Lemass if he thought that this agreement which he felt I should have registered and which he apparently thought was an agreement of the type spoken of here applied to the people concerned. The Deputy was very careful. It is a good habit when you do not want to make a case against yourself not to read the section in full. The Deputy simply said that the wages, etc., of railway employees were offset against shopmen, and shopmen were railway employees. The third section says: "Railway employee means a person who is employed by a railway company in any of the grades specified in the Eighth Schedule to this Act." I wonder does the Deputy know what a shopman is?
Who briefed him in regard to the contention that he was arguing last night? Is there anybody who has any knowledge of railway affairs who would say—or will the Deputy again say after he has thought over this matter—that the people on whom notices were served and whose cases formed the grounds of his complaint last night, are in any of the grades mentioned in the Eighth Schedule? They do not form part of the grades mentioned in that Schedule and particularly the people about whom Deputy Lemass was speaking could not have their grievances registered except in so far as under the next section they might hereafter be brought within the scope of the agreement referred to in the section by reason of a further agreement between the parties. That has not been done. In so far as the Deputy founded his case for refusing to vote the money to the railway company because they are not carrying out their obligations, and founded that upon the recent notices served on the shopmen and his interpretation of Section 55, the case falls to the ground. Section 55 bears no relation whatever to the matter and no railwayman could possibly have advised the Deputy that Section 55 has any relation to shopmen. If it has, then the MacNeill award could not have been registered. In fact, no attempt was made to register it. If there had been I should have felt bound to refuse it. There was no attempt made to register it and it certainly is not my duty to see that any agreements are registered. Section 55 has no application to the people about whom the Deputy spoke and their cases need not be considered.
Deputy Cassidy raised a different point. He said that notice has been given that certain machinery is to be put an end to. That is a very serious notice to have issued. It is a thing to which attention must be given and there will be plenty of time to consider just what the situation is. The Deputy's plea was to look forward to the chaotic state in which the railways might be plunged if that negotiating machinery was not kept in being. I do not know what the Great Southern Railways Company's intentions in the matter are. I do not know if they are going to propose other machinery which might be better. One has to wait and see how it is going to work out. Deputy Davin's criticisms went on a different line. He did refer to the same point as Deputy Cassidy, and he took very good care not to refer to the point made by Deputy Lemass, which he realised, I think, as an absurd point. He did seem to be complaining that employees of the Railway Company who had certain compensation granted to them, or at least who had terms on which compensation would be given to them under legislation passed by the Oireachtas, who had terms on which compensation would be given to them under legislation passed by the Oireachtas, were not in fact receiving these terms. That is a serious allegation to make. The Deputy says that he knows of cases and could mention individuals who were obviously before his mind when it would be necessary to mention them. He said he could go into detail and could speak of men with thirty or forty years' service who were notified by 'phone that they could take holidays and at the end of holidays they would be dismissed and whatever would be given to them would be announced later.
