Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 9 Jul 1931

Vol. 39 No. 14

Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill, 1931—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. de Valera

Before the debate is resumed, there is a point of order upon which I want to get information. We endeavoured, as you know, to get the consent of the Chair to the introduction of a reasoned amendment to the motion for Second Reading. As that has been ruled out, I would like to move, under Standing Order No. 127, for the suspension of Standing Orders relative to notice in regard to this particular matter. Standing Order No. 127 states:—

"Any Standing Order or Orders of the Dáil may be suspended for the day's sitting, and for a particular purpose upon motion made after notice: Provided that in cases of urgent necessity, of which the Ceann Comhairle shall be the judge, any such Order or Orders may with the unanimous consent of the Dáil, be suspended upon motion made without notice."

I am asking here that they be suspended without notice for this reason, that it was only after we heard the Minister's statement last night we were in a position to bring in a reasoned amendment to this Bill. In speaking upon it we made certain suggestions but they can only be given effect to by bringing a motion before the Dáil. I do not propose, unless the Ceann Comhairle permits me, to read the proposed amendment.

An Ceann Comhairle

The amendment of which the Deputy speaks is an amendment of which no notice was given until shortly before 3 o'clock today. Therefore, it obviously fails. This particular Standing Order, No. 127, provides that "any Standing Order or Orders of the Dáil may be suspended for the day's sitting and for a particular purpose upon motion made after notice." That is not the present case. The proviso in the Standing Order is: "Provided that in cases of urgent necessity, of which the Ceann Comhairle shall be judge, any such Order or Orders may, with the unanimous consent of the Dáil, be suspended upon motion made without notice." Two things are required, both the unanimous consent of the Dáil and a decision from the Ceann Comhairle that the matter is one of urgent necessity. The Deputy desires to move the suspension of Standing Orders for the purpose of moving without notice a reasoned amendment to the motion for the Second Reading of the Bill, the discussion upon which was entered yesterday.

General Mulcahy

In regard to the first point, there would not be unanimous consent.

An Ceann Comhairle

That disposes of the matter.

Mr. MacEntee

Last night I pointed out that the question at issue between the Minister and the Electricity Supply Board narrowed itself down to the manner in which provision was to be made to discharge the liabilities of those municipal undertakings which had been taken over by the Board. Apparently the attitude which the Board at the outset took up, which it in fact took up immediately after its constitution, if the Minister has been correctly reported, was that it was entitled under the Electricity Supply Act to make provision to meet those liabilities from year to year as they fell due, and to meet them out of revenue. The position, on the other hand, which the Minister appears to have adopted was that these liabilities of the transferred undertakings were to be provided for, immediately provided for, out of hand and provided for out of capital. I think I am correctly stating the issue which was raised by the Minister with the Electricity Supply Board.

Mr. McGilligan

I have denied that twice already, but for the third time I might as well deny it.

Mr. MacEntee

For the third time the Minister has denied that his words bear the plain interpretation which anybody must put upon them. Let me remind the House of what the Minister did say on the Second Reading of the Bill, so late as yesterday. He said this:

The fact emerged that the Board did not consider that the sum of 2½ millions which they got from the Ministry of Finance included any undischarged liabilities which they took over from the municipal undertakings.

The Minister was stating the position which the Board had taken up in this matter. Then he went on to say:

He asked (that is, the Minister asked) that the undischarged liabilities, whatever they might be at the date of vesting of municipal undertakings, should be subtracted from the 2½ millions and that the residue should be what the Board might demand.

What is the plain and simple effect of that? Was it either that the Board, having authority from this House to demand, without reason stated, from the Minister for Finance the sum of £2,500,000, having made that demand, once it was honoured had to hand back £800,000 to the Minister for Finance in order, presumably, that he might discharge the liabilities of the undertakings transferred from local authorities? Is there any other interpretation to be placed on the statement of the Minister than that? He goes further and states that the only sum which the Board might demand for expenditure upon new capital works was the residue, the difference between the estimated total of the liabilities of the transferred undertakings and the £2,500,000 which the House had placed at the disposal of the Electricity Supply Board, had put at its disposal upon demand. That meant, if there is anything in the attitude which the Minister took up, in effect that the net sum which this House placed at the disposal of the Board was not 2½ millions but was £1,700,000.

Let me emphasise again that there is no difference between the Minister and the Board as to the obligation of the Board to discharge the liabilities of the transferred undertakings. The Board, so far as we can gather from the Minister's statement, are prepared to discharge them. They are prepared to discharge them in the way which is provided for in the Act itself. That is the difference between the Minister and the Board. The Minister, in the course of his statement, appeared to rely upon two sections of the Act. Section 12 provides that, subject to certain limitations, the Minister for Finance shall advance to the Board on demand certain sums.

The wording of the Act is mandatory upon the Minister. He has no power to inquire as to the purpose for which these moneys are being required. As a matter of fact I think that at the very inception of the Board when it had been constituted, when it was looking for a place to meet, when it decided that, in order to carry out the multifarious duties cast upon it by this Act, it would be necessary for it to have an office, tables and chairs, the Board presented a demand to the Minister for Finance for a sum of £1,000. That demand was returned to the Board by the Ministry of Finance, with a request that the Board should furnish a detailed statement to the Minister as to how this £1,000 of the Board's money, provided for the use of the Board by the Oireachtas, was to be spent. And this was the Board that was to be independent of all ministerial control! It was to be the Board that was to handle 2½ million pounds, and was to be independent not only of ministerial control, but independent even of the control of the Comptroller and Auditor-General. And when they asked for £1,000, the first thing that the Ministry of Finance required of them was a detailed statement as to how they proposed to spend that money. In point of fact, the attitude that the Ministry of Finance took up in regard to this matter at that time showed that, notwith- standing the promises given by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, there was a certain element in the Executive Council which was determined to bring this Board under Governmental control and influence so far as they could do it.

It was because the Board realised what was at stake, and it was because the Board realised that if they were to carry out the duties which were cast upon them by the Act, they must preserve their condition of independence, in order that they could secure the confidence and support of every section of this community, that they refused to furnish that detailed statement as to how they proposed to spend that £1,000 which the Ministry of Finance demanded of them. It is because of that, that the Board, from the very beginning, has kept itself strictly within the terms of the Act and has kept the Minister strictly within the terms of the Act. It was because of that, and not really because of the manner in which the Board should meet its liabilities with regard to the transferred undertakings, that the difference and dispute have arisen between the Minister or the Executive Council and the Board.

I was referring to Section 12, sub-section (3), the section which deals with the advances of £2,500,000. The words of that section are plain and clear and simple. They are as follows:

The total amount of the sums advanced to the Board under this section for any purpose other than to meet the liability and expenses mentioned in the foregoing sub-section shall not exceed the sum of two millions five hundred thousand pounds, and the total amount of the sums so advanced in any one half-year except in the half-year ending on the appointed day for any purpose other than as aforesaid shall not exceed the sum of four hundred thousand pounds.

Mark, the only provision in that sub-section is as to the amount of money that shall be advanced to the Board for any purpose other than to meet the liability and expenses mentioned in the foregoing sub-section. The contention of the Minister is that that section is to be read as if it were that the total amount of the sum advanced to the Board under this section for the purpose of meeting new capital expenditure and providing for the liability of the transferred undertaking shall not exceed two and a half millions. But there is no such condition imposed by that section. There is nothing in that section to make it conditional upon the Board to discharge the liabilities of the transferred undertakings out of the two and a half millions which were to be provided under this sub-section which I have quoted.

The Minister not only relied, fallaciously relied, as I think, upon this section, but he relied also upon Section 39. Section 39, from the point of resolving this difference which has arisen between the Minister and the Board, is a very important section, because it deals with the liabilities not only of those undertakings which have been transferred from the local authorities, but also from those undertakings which have been transferred from private ownership, and it deals with them in two different ways. The difference in relation to this dispute is a very significant one. Let us see, first of all, how this section dealt with the liabilities of these undertakings which were transferred from private ownership to the Board. That is dealt with in sub-section (8) of Section 39, which is as follows:—

Whenever the former undertaker is not a local authority the new undertaker shall within three months after the date of the vesting order pay to the Board or, if the Board is itself the new undertaker, shall put to a separate account a sum equal to the fair value on the date of the vesting order of the undertaking (with all the property, assets, and liabilities thereof transferred to or imposed on the new undertaker by the vesting order) as a going concern and interest on such fair value from the date of the vesting order at the rate of five per cent. per annum ...

Mark what was to be done where the Board took over an electricity supply undertaking from a private owner. Under the sub-section which I have read the Board is bound to put to a separate account a sum equal to the fair value, including all its property, assets and liabilities, of the undertaking as transferred to the Board at the date of the vesting order, and, in addition, to put aside a sum to meet interest at five per cent. upon that capital value. That is how those undertakings transferred from private ownership were to be dealt with, and that is the obligation which was imposed upon the Board by this section.

Sub-section (6) of this section, on the other hand, deals with the undertakings which were transferred from local authorities, undertakings like the Dublin Corporation or the undertakings of the Rathmines or Pembroke Urban Councils. It deals with them, and they are dealt with in quite a different way. Sub-section (6) of Section 39 of the Electricity (Supply) Act of 1927 reads as follows:—

Whenever the former undertaker is a local authority the new undertaker shall, as on and from the date of the vesting order, become and be by virtue of this sub-section liable for and bound to indemnify and keep indemnified the former undertaker against all capital loans (including current bank overdraft) outstanding at the date of the vesting order...

In this case, the "new undertaker" is the Board, and the "former undertaker" is the local authority. Mark the difference between these two subsections. Sub-section (8) deals with the undertakings transferred from private owners, and there the obligation is imposed upon the Board to put certain sums to separate account in order to meet the liabilities of these transferred undertakings and to provide for the purchase of the properties and assets of these undertakings. But in the case of undertakings transferred from the public owners there is no obligation imposed on the Board to put any sums to a separate account. There is no obligation to earmark any portion of that two and a half million pounds to meet the liabilities of these transferred undertakings. Yet what is the issue raised by the Minister? It is this: that the public undertakings, the undertakings transferred from the public ownership, instead of being dealt with by the Board as the Board is permitted to deal with them in sub-section (6) of Section 39, should be dealt with by the Board as if they were undertakings transferred from private ownership, and accordingly dealt with as provided by sub-section (8). Is not that the difference?

The Minister said that the undischarged liabilities, whatever they might be at the date of the vesting of the municipal undertakings, should be subtracted from the £2,500,000, and that the residue should be what the Board might demand. What is that, in effect, except to say that the £800,000 should be put to separate account, and that the Board, presumably, if it were to act strictly in accordance with Section 39 (8), should pay additional interest at the rate of five per cent. upon that £800,000? There is nothing in the Act which compels the Board to do that. The fact that sub-section (6) has been included in Section 39, and enables the Board to deal with these municipal undertakings in a different way to those which were transferred from private ownership, would seem to indicate that the Minister and the Oireachtas, when this Act was going through, contemplated that the Board, in relation to the undertakings transferred from municipal ownership, would act exactly as the Board has acted, despite the Minister.

If, however, notwithstanding the opinions of the former Chairman and late Managing Director of the Board and their colleagues who have been on the Board from the start, notwithstanding the advice which the legal advisers to the Board have given as to the proper interpretation of these sections, the House still decides to support the attitude which the Minister has taken up, in what position will these undertakings which have been transferred to the Electricity Supply Board be in, in so far as their undischarged liabilities are concerned? According to the statement which the Minister made yesterday, he does not propose to discharge these liabilities out of hand. According to his statement, in so far as we on this side of the House could understand it, he proposes to do what the Board has hitherto done; that is, to provide for the sinking fund and interest, to provide for the capital charges on these transferred liabilities as they fall due from year to year. Presumably, he proposes to do as the Board had intended to do and was actually doing. He proposes to provide for these charges out of the revenue accruing to the Board, as a result of its operations from year to year. That is what the Board, has been doing and that is what the Minister proposes to do. If the Board has been doing that, and the Minister still proposes to do it, what real substance is there in the dispute which the Minister alleges has arisen between him and the Board in regard to an important question of principle?

If the Minister proposes to do exactly as the Board has been doing— to provide for these liabilities out of revenue—what justification is there for him to come to this House and ask it to grant to him—no longer to grant to the Board—and to place at his disposal the sum of £800,000 in order to provide for these undischarged liabilities? It may be said that one of the obligations imposed upon the Board by sub-section (6) is the obligation of keeping the former undertakers indemnified. Who are to be the judges of the validity of the indemnity which the Board offers? Who, but the former undertakers themselves? So far as I know, none of the former undertakers, the municipal authorities, the former owners of the undertakings which were taken over by the Board, has objected to the policy which the Board has pursued. If they have objected, the Minister has not disclosed the fact to the House. They have been, so far as I know, content, knowing the progress which the Board was making, knowing, according to the Minister, that the development of the national electricity supply undertaking had been so phenomenal that in less than two years they succeeded in doing what the experts originally estimated could scarcely be done in four years.

So far as I am aware, and so far as the House has been informed by the Minister, no municipal authority in this country has objected to the manner in which the Electricity Supply Board was providing for capital charges and interest on loans and mortgages connected with the transferred undertakings. If I am incorrect in that statement, it is because the Minister, in his opening address, concealed the fact from the House. Possibly it is not the only fact which he has concealed in relation to the undertaking. The point, however, which I am leading up to is that if the Minister is going to do exactly as the Electricity Supply Board was doing in regard to these transferred liabilities; if he is going to provide for them out of the yearly revenue of the Board, then what is the reason, what is the purpose, and what is the need for the House to vote £800,000 to provide for the liabilities of those transferred undertakings?

I do not know whether at this point I should remind the House of what I said last night. I said that if there was any question as to the powers of or the rights of the Board as laid down in Section 39 (6) to provide for these liabilities in a particular way, or if there was doubt that the Board had not been directly empowered by the Electricity Supply Act to do what it has done, and if the Minister had been empowered to intervene in the matter and to say that these liabilities should be provided for in the specific way in which he wants it to be done; and if, as against that, the Board had the right to provide for them in the way they have done without being specifically empowered to do that by the Act, as between the two methods of discharging the liabilities, what choice would any business man make?

Here was £800,000—not all of it, but certainly a considerable portion of it, advanced to public authorities at a very reasonable rate of interest, advanced possibly at a lower rate of interest and upon easier terms of repayment than either the Board itself, which, as the Minister said, had no borrowing power, or the Minister for Finance, who might act as the Board's agent, could borrow. £800,000 was there in the Board's hands invested in generating plant and equipment, invested in earning assets, and the Board had that £800,000 at a lower rate of interest and upon more favourable terms as regards repayment than it could raise a similar amount in present-day circumstances.

The Minister says the right thing for the Board to do, the business-like thing for the Board to do, was to take the £800,000 which it would borrow upon very onerous terms, and redeem the £800,000 of capital fruitfully invested, which had been borrowed upon more favourable terms. He says that because the Board did not do that, did not do what no business man in his senses would have done, the Board, is to be criticised, but the chairman of the Board, a public financier of wide experience, and the managing director of the Board, to whom all credit has been given by the Minister, and everyone in this House for the inception of the Shannon scheme, for the enthusiasm which drove it through, are to be virtually dismissed from their offices because, having the interests of the undertaking at heart, being just as anxious to see that undertaking succeed as the Minister, they had the temerity to differ from him as to the way in which this £800,000 was to be used, and differ from him in exactly the way in which an acute, keen, conscientous, earnest, business man would differ from him if he had to choose between the two propositions, the proposition put up by the Board, and the proposition put up by the Minister. Merely upon business grounds alone, if upon no other, I think the Board is justified in the action which it took so far as this £800,000 of transferred liabilities was concerned.

There is just one other point before we leave this. If the Board's contention is correct that it was empowered under the Act to provide for the liabilities of the transferred undertakings out of capital, then the Board has not overspent one penny piece. The Board has entered into capital commitments to the very limit of its £2,500,000, exclusive of working capital. It has entered into commitments for new plant and equipment up to the extent of £2,500,000. That is what we actually provided. Not being at all biased in favour of the Board, or against the Minister, having read the Minister's statement and the Act, and listened to the speeches made in this House, I have come to the conclusion that in providing for that expenditure of £2,500,000 the Board was acting within its rights in the matter, and that so acting within its rights in the matter it has not overspent one penny piece. If it has not overspent one penny piece, what is the reason why the Minister virtually demanded the resignation of the former managing director and the former chairman of the Board? Surely there must be something else behind it.

I should like the House to bear in mind that the Minister has not challenged the action of the Board in regard to its relations with labour, in regard to the manner in which it has conducted a considerable number of ordinary trading activities outside of and apart from the generation and transmission and local distribution of electricity. He has not questioned its conduct under any one of these heads, so far as we know. He dare not question its conduct, because whatever the Board did, either in relation to labour or in its relations with ordinary private traders in this country, the Minister upheld and sustained it on every occasion. Deputy Briscoe, acting, as he was entitled to act and was bound to act, on behalf of a number of his constituents, on many occasions put questions in this House to the Minister as to the manner in which the Board was conducting its business. I do not think that on a single occasion he got a civil reply from the Minister. Whenever the various collateral and amending Bills to the main Electricity Supply Act were before the House, whenever a member of the House, whether a member of this party, or of the Labour Party, or an Independent member, endeavoured to get any information from the Minister as to the conduct and affairs of the Board, invariably he was treated by the Minister with the utmost discourtesy, until it became painful to sit in the House when any business in relation to the Shannon electricity undertaking was under discussion. Is not that a fact? If, as a result of all this, the Minister has now come to the conclusion that the Electricity Supply Board cannot make a success of the Shannon undertaking, if he has come to the conclusion that things have not been done properly inside the organisation of the Electricity Supply Board, surely he ought to come to the House and put his cards on the table and give to the House at long last the information which he has denied it during the past three years. Even if the Minister's contention in regard to the £800,000 of transferred liabilities was the correct one, surely the Minister cannot wash his hands of all responsibility for the position in which the Electricity Supply Board and this House now find themselves. He has stated that this question became an issue between him and the Board in 1928. He stated that early in December it became clear that the liabilities of the Board had already exceeded the £2,500,000 granted by this House. In June he had not any doubt about it.

Mr. Good

And the Board admitted it.

Mr. MacEntee

And the Board, according to the Minister, admitted it.

Mr. Flinn

And in July we had an Act.

Mr. MacEntee

In June, 1930, according to the Minister, he again approached the Board, and the Board stated that it could not keep within the limit unless they closed down certain schemes abruptly, and that a sudden stoppage would cause wastage. They said that therefore they should be released from that agreement. That was in June, 1930.

Mr. McGilligan

After the Bill.

Mr. MacEntee

The Bill is dated 3rd July.

Mr. McGilligan

That letter arrived the day after Deputy Fahy's amendment was discussed. I think it had some relation to the amendment.

Mr. MacEntee

The Bill was still before the Seanad, and it was still possible for the Minister to stop the Board in its mad career.

Mr. McGilligan

By doing what— voting another £500,000?

Mr. MacEntee

By at least making a disclosure in the Seanad of the real position. He had already misled the Dáil in June, 1930, as to the real position of the Board. When questions were raised by members of this Party and other Parties in this House they were told by the Minister that they were attacking young Irish engineers. That was the attitude the Minister took up in June, 1930.

Mr. McGilligan

That is misleading. I think you are misquoting. The point about the engineers arose in connection with the 1929 Act.

Mr. MacEntee

On June 12th, 1930, when he was speaking on Deputy Fahy's amendment, the Minister used these words: "The amendment would mean that the sum of two and a half millions originally voted for the Board would be increased by £500,000. There is no necessity for that. The Board is not straitened owing to the outgoings to date. The purchase of the Cork Station was always before those who drew up the 1929 Act, and the purchase price was also considered to be included in the £2,500,000."

Mr. McGilligan

That is not a complete quotation; there is something in between which you have omitted.

Mr. Flinn

We will quote the whole thing fully.

Mr. McGilligan

I have it here, and I will give it myself. There is an item in between that if the Board wanted extra money they should make a case for it.

Mr. MacEntee

I am not misquoting the Minister and I submit the important passages in this quotation are these: "The amendment would mean that the sum of two and a half millions originally voted for the Board would be increased by £500,000. There is no necessity for that. The Board is not straitened owing to the outgoings to date. I have no reason for believing that the two and a half million pounds will not be sufficient for all purposes." The Minister made that statement to the Dáil.

Mr. McGilligan

And something else.

Mr. MacEntee

And something else. He made that statement. He led the Dáil to believe that two and a half million pounds would, according to his information, be ample and sufficient to meet the liabilities of the Board. He made that statement in the Dáil, but he not only made it then to the Dáil but he also, though speaking here, made it to members of the Seanad, many of whom take a very close and very deep interest in the operations of the Electricity Supply Board. When the Minister made that statement in the Dáil he unwittingly misled the Dáil, and he also equally unwittingly misled the Seanad. But after he had misled the Seanad, and after having received the other statement from the Board, according to the Minister, I think the day after he made that statement, or very soon after making that statement and before the Bill went to the Seanad, I say it was incumbent on the Minister, having received the later information, to put before the Seanad the true position and to disclose to them and to this House the full facts.

I have shown that the Minister, before the Electricity Supply Act, 1930, became law, had a definite admission from the Board that their liabilities, including the liabilities of the transferred undertakings, would exceed two and a half million pounds. The Minister himself, even before he had extracted that admission from the Board, had reason to believe that the Board had already, in fact, exceeded its financial resources, in so far as he envisaged these resources, because they had already in respect of new capital equipment and in respect of the liabilities of the transferred undertakings, commitments amounting to £2,700,000. He knew already how much the Board received from the Minister for Finance —I think £1,900,000—and he knew also what the liabilities of the transferred undertakings were, because he says, and he said yesterday, that in the early part of 1930 he issued a letter stating that, in his opinion, the Board had definitely gone beyond the sum which they agreed was at their disposal.

In the early part of 1930 the Minister wrote to the Board, stating they had definitely gone beyond the sum which they agreed was at their disposal. That was what the Minister did in the early part of 1930. But what did he tell the Dáil in June, 1930? "I have no reason to believe," he said, "that the two and a half millions will not be sufficient for all purposes." The Minister, who has told the Board that in his opinion the liabilities had definitely exceeded the two and a half millions, comes to the Dáil and says, dealing with the amendment put down by Deputy Fahy: "I have no reason to believe that the two and half million will not be sufficient for all purposes." I do not think it is necessary to comment on that any further. There are two statements—the statement the Minister made yesterday and the statement the Minister made to the House in June, 1930. And if the Board has not been candid with the Minister and has not been informative, surely there is no person more blameworthy than the Minister, who at the time misled the House and the country as to what the real position between him and the Board was.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

Now in addition to providing this £800,000, which I again repeat if the Board's contention is correct is not required, the Minister is asking this House to place at his disposal an additional sum of £1,150,000. For what purpose? The Minister has refused to disclose the purpose in any settled scheme or programme to this House. The sum of £1,150,000 is to be placed at his disposal to be expended by the Board in any way the Minister sees fit to approve of. There is nothing more concrete than that. Everything else is vague and shadowy. The Minister, who relied for the last four years on the Electricity Supply Board, is going to place equal confidence, or at least is asking the House to place the same confidence in him and the new Board as he now tells us was misplaced with him and the old Board. Before this difference of opinion became public we knew the attitude of the Government to the Electricity Supply Board. The Board could do no wrong. The Minister and the Government felt they were responsible for it. So they were. They selected the members of the Board, they put them in office, and they boosted them.

They did everything they possibly could to create public confidence in them, and they placed at their untrammelled disposal the sum of 2½ million pounds. If there is any substance at all in the indictment which the Minister made against that Board it is that of that 2½ million pounds the sum of £800,000 has been extravagantly spent by the Board, and the Minister who constituted the old Board, who had confidence in the old Board, who compelled the Dáil, under the lash of his incivility, to be silent in regard to the old Board, now asks the House to give him £2,000,000 in order that he and the new Board, about which the Dáil knows nothing, may spend it upon proposals which the Minister has not even outlined in his own mind.

Of this £1,150,000 some portion must be spent on certain constructional works. What are these constructional works? Is there going to be further extension of the Shannon generating plant? Is there going to be enlargement of the water storage and the building and equipment of new distribution networks? Are these things to be done out of that £1,150,000? Surely, if they are, then in view of what has transpired in this House yesterday and of the statement made by the Minister that he does not know —I do not know whether I can credit that statement—how many units of electricity were sold by the Shannon scheme, that he does not know how much was received in return for these units, that he does not know what the cost of generation and distribution were, this House can have no justification for placing £1,150,000 into the hands of the Minister to play with. If there is going to be any further capital expenditure on the Shannon, surely that expenditure should only be undertaken after full and searching investigation into the present position of the undertaking and an examination of its future prospects. That is what we want. Surely there should be some such investigation as would satisfy this House and the public generally that the expenditure of that £1,150,000 will be an economic proposition and will yield a profitable return.

The gravamen of the charge against the Electricity Supply Board by the Minister was that they spent money regardless as to whether it would provide an economic return. We say that the Minister has made that charge against the Board, and I do not know whether the charge is well founded or not. I say the Minister has not advanced to this House in relation to that charge one iota of evidence. He has raised what I believe to be a fictitious issue in regard to the transferred undertakings. I hold that clear proof of the success of this undertaking is the only justification for providing the undertaking, through the Minister, with a further £1,500,000 for capital purposes. The Minister has not said a word to justify the Bill upon these grounds, and I ask the House to vote against it.

Mr. T.J. O'Connell

I waited long last night, and did not intervene in this debate in the hope that some other member of the Government would intervene and throw some more light on this very important question than we had from the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I am in the unfortunate, or perhaps I should say the fortunate, position of not knowing anything whatever about all these matters that have been discussed here except what I have heard in the House, and with the exception of some statements that appeared in the newspapers. Nobody has approached me to give me any information as to the happenings we heard so much about yesterday and to-day. This question is eminently one that must be approached by this House in a different spirit from questions which ordinarily come before us, because I think we all recognise that it is not the credit of a particular Government or of a particular Party, or even of a particular Minister that is at stake, but the credit of the whole country. This is a national scheme, and it is really in the interests of the whole country that everything should be done to make it a success and to remove anything that tends to prevent its success.

I should like to say, too, that of all the speeches that I listened to during this debate, the one that appealed to me most was that delivered by Deputy de Valera yesterday. I think he approached it in the proper spirit, a spirit in which we should all approach it. He made it quite clear—I am glad to hear him say it—that what he was interested in, as we are all interested, was the ultimate success of the scheme. I have a considerable amount of sympathy with the Minister. His name has been very closely associated with this Shannon scheme, and when many of the things for which we criticise or praise him here will be forgotten his name will be linked with the Shannon scheme, and the greater the success of that scheme the greater will be the credit that will come to him. As I say, I had very great sympathy indeed with him when he had to come to this House yesterday to make the statement which he had to make. But I agree with some of the speakers on the other side who said, that in making that statement he was not only not fair to the House, but not fair to himself, because it was obvious to anybody listening to him that there were many things which he did not tell us. I can understand and sympathise with his reticence, but I have a feeling that in a matter of this kind reticence begets suspicion, and when partial disclosures of the nature made yesterday are made—they were obviously partial disclosures—they lead to all kinds of rumours, and suspicion of one kind or another. It is not helpful that that should be the case. It would be much better when it has come to this stage if everything in connection with the whole business was disclosed, especially to members of the House. What has transpired will undoubtedly create uneasiness in the minds of the public. They will be wondering whether after all the money that has been spent, and all the great talk we have heard, not only in this country but all over the world, about the Shannon scheme, it is going to be the success we all hoped it would be. That will be the first question that will arise in the minds of a great many people.

It would appear as if the debate tended to develop into a question of the Minister versus the Board in regard to this particular matter and arising out of this particular Bill, and it is rather a pity that that should happen. If I had any prejudice in the matter my prejudice would be with the Minister rather than with the Board, because he is the representative of the Oireachtas, and we are the representatives of the people and this scheme belongs to the people, not to the Board and not to the Government, and he comes into it as the representative of the people. As I say, if I had any prejudice at all in the matter it would be with him rather than with the Board. But I have listened carefully to his statements and to other statements, and I cannot conscientiously say who is right and who is wrong in this particular dispute that has arisen. That is my position, and I believe it is the position of a great many Deputies in this House.

The question of the independence of the Board has been raised in that connection. I should like to refer very briefly to the attitude we took up when this Electricity Supply Bill was going through the House in 1927. At that time the then Leader of the Labour Party, now Senator Johnson, was absent from the House, and it devolved on me to state our position. Much had been made about the necessity of having this Board independent, and various Deputies had adverted to the necessity of making it absolutely independent. Dealing with that point, I said:

I thought the Minister was overanxious to declare that this Board would be almost absolutely independent. A certain amount of independence as to the way in which it should carry out its work is advisable, and may be necessary; but I do not think the Board should be given the idea that it is entirely independent of criticism by this House. I think there are opportunities of discussing the general policy of the Board; it has, for instance, to furnish a report, which will be laid on the Table. I think the Board should not, as might be implied or inferred from the Minister's statement yesterday, be given the impression that it will be absolutely free from criticism or interference. I think it is right that the members of the Oireachtas, which represents the nation, should have the opportunity offered them, if and when necessary, of criticising the general policy of the Board—not, of course, mere details of administration or matters of minor importance, but the general policy in so far as their operations affect the welfare of the community. (Cols. 1978-9, Vol. 18, Official Debates.)

Later on, when the Minister was replying, he specially stressed the fact that the Board would be independent, and, as I say, we rather thought that he was over-stressing it. While we were prepared to give it a very large measure of independence, we felt that there was necessity for some control, but the Minister had a different view. He stated:

"I did point out, and I would like to point out again, that if this Bill passes as it is at the moment, there will be no discussion on Estimates; there will be no matter of Parliamentary Questions in the House, not even that type of permitted Parliamentary Question which is sometimes indulged in regard to the railways. Even that will be done away with."

Then Deputy Davin asked:

"And there will be no interference with the Board by the Minister or from his Department?"

Mr. McGilligan replied:

"None whatever."

That was the attitude very definitely of the Minister, and, as I say, we felt that it was going a little too far in the matter of the independence which was being given to them. We had this assurance from the Minister, as he mentioned himself yesterday, that we should have an annual statement of accounts from the Board; that we should have an annual report, with accounts, that would be laid on the Table of the House and that any Deputy or Party who wished it could have an opportunity of discussing it in the House, as well as the general policy of the Board. Nobody, of course, would want to discuss small details of administration, but they would desire to discuss general policy. I do not think the House has been treated fairly in this matter. We have had no such opportunity afforded to us in the past three years. We have had no discussion with regard to the general policy of the Board. It is obvious, from what the Minister himself has stated, that very shortly after the Board was set up there was a question of dispute. There was a question as to his right to interfere very early after the Board was set up. Clearly there were differences of opinion within the first year of the Board's working between the Minister and the Board. That is obvious.

Mr. McGilligan

Obvious from what?

Mr. O'Connell

Obvious from the Minister's own statement.

Mr. McGilligan

If I left the House under that impression I misled it.

Mr. O'Connell

I certainly assumed from the statement the Minister made yesterday that his view and the Board's view on certain matters were out of accord as early as 1928.

Mr. McGilligan

I wanted to get certain information about the accounts and I could not get it. It was not that there was any dispute as to my right to ask for the information, but simply that it could not be provided.

Mr. O'Connell

That they would not provide it?

Mr. McGilligan

Not so much that, but the information they could give was so vague and unreliable as to be useless. Their accounts were in such a state that they could not give any information.

Mr. O'Connell

In any case in 1929 there were obvious disputes between the Minister and the Board as to how certain money would be used.

Mr. McGilligan

No, as to the total sum voted by the Oireachtas. That is what it came to.

Mr. O'Connell

As to how a certain amount of that money should be expended. I take it that what the main dispute arose about was whether that sum contained the money that should go to discharge the obligations of the undertakings taken over, and it seems to me that that question arose very early. It does not matter whether it arose in 1928 or 1929. The point I wish to make is this: That I feel that when the Minister saw that position developing he should at that time have come to the House and put the whole position before it. He should have pointed out to the House what the Board's view was, what his view was and what he understood the view of the Oireachtas was when it passed that legislation. He did not do that, and that is the first criticism that I want to offer of the Minister. After all, this House was the ultimate court of appeal so far as the Minister was concerned, and I think that in 1929 we should have been made fully aware of the state of affairs that existed.

There are many things in connection with this whole business that the ordinary Deputy finds it hard to understand. There is the question of the Chairman's position. The Minister stated yesterday that if the Chairman had not tendered his resignation he might have found it necessary to come to this House and ask for his dismissal. Now, obviously there were very great differences on vital issues between the Minister and the Chairman. They were evidently taking totally different points of view so far as policy was concerned, so far as the powers of the Board were concerned, and so far as the general conduct of this undertaking was concerned. Yet we find that, although the Chairman resigned from his position as Chairman, he continued as a member of the Board. It seems to me, without knowing any of the details of how they carry on their business, that his influence as a member of the Board would not be very much less than it was when he occupied the position of Chairman. That is one point in connection with this whole business that seems a mystery to me. If there was such a gulf between the Minister and the Chairman that if the Chairman had not resigned the Minister was prepared to ask the House to agree to his dismissal, it seems peculiar that when he did resign the Minister put him back as a member of the Board.

There are many matters that were not touched on at all and that we would have been anxious to discuss if we had the accounts presented to us in the ordinary regular way. There were matters affecting the working of the Board: its attitude to the workers, for instance; its general attitude to labour and the allegations of all kinds that have been made in that connection. One of the unions catering for electricians here found the position such that none of their men would work for the Board. Allegations have been made that houses have been wired and electrical work of various kinds done by men who were not fully qualified to do it—work that was done by amateurs and local handymen. Allegations of that kind have undoubtedly been made. I merely mention them and do not want to go into details now. They are matters that we certainly would like to have had an opportunity of discussing and inquiring into. Allegations have also been made of wasteful expenditure, of the opening of shops, stores, offices, in places that ordinary business people would not select, and other matters of that kind. I do not want to go into them now, but I want to make it clear that I do not regard for a moment the Board as being free from all fault and deserving of no censure or blame from anybody. It is a pity that immediately the Board was set up and before it began its operations there was not some attempt made—I do not believe there was from anything the Minister has said—to have right from the beginning a complete understanding as to the powers and limitations of the Board, and also in regard to general policy. If that had been done at the beginning all this trouble, I believe, would have been avoided. I quite see and am prepared to admit that it is very easy to be wise after the event, but, as I have said, it is a pity that was not done in the beginning.

There does not seem to be much use in trying to discover here where the fault lies. I do not think that we can do it. The question then for us to consider is what is to be done in view of what we are faced with at the present time? The Minister asks us to pass this Bill to give him power which he does not hold under the present Act, and to place at his disposal two millions of money. I feel that we have not sufficient knowledge or evidence before us to justify us on the mere statement of the Minister in doing that without further enquiry. I could understand his position if he came before the House and said "Things have not gone as they should have gone, or as this House intended they should go; they have got into— I do not like using the word—a mess, but now it has been cleared up. Those who were responsible have disappeared. A new Board has been formed with new Terms of Reference; so much money is required to pay off commitments, and to meet the kind of work I want to get done." If the Minister came here with a proposition of that kind, the House would understand it, and would know what it was expected to do. But the Minister has come along and said: "I can get no information. I do not know whether one million, two millions, or three millions is wanted, but £850,000 is required immediately. Beyond that I have no information, and I can not get any." The strange thing about it is that practically the same Board with one or two exceptions is there still.

Mr. Flinn

Five out of seven.

Mr. O'Connell

Five out of seven of those who are responsible and who have failed to produce any accounts to the Minister in a satisfactory way are there still. The Minister has not stated that he is going to dismiss or to remove them. He asks the House to give him this amount of money, and says: "I will not pay this money unless I am satisfied as to the manner in which it is to be used." He hopes to use that, I suppose, as a lever to coerce the Board into certain action. But has he any assurance that he can do so? That is where I find the problem really difficult, that there is no certainty if things were wrong up to this that they are now going to go right. I have no assurance that they are going to go right, and the Minister has not given us any grounds for believing—assuming that he gets this Bill through—that things will, there and then, be put right.

Deputy Good told the House what would be done by an ordinary business man or by a board of directors if matters like this turned up. I believe that Deputy Good made a practical suggestion. As representatives of the people who find the money to finance this great undertaking, and as one of those in whose guardianship the undertaking has been placed by the people, I certainly think that we are entitled to know very much more about this business than we know at present, and I suggest that before we proceed to give the Minister what in effect would be a blank cheque, we ought to have very much fuller knowledge of the whole affair, and not only that, but practical suggestions as to how the state of affairs that has transpired will be cleared up, and what are to be the plans and policies for the future. Within this House I believe we could find a committee of members, men of calm and judicial temperament, devoid of any desire to make party capital out of this matter, with power to send for persons and papers, who would go into the whole matter fully, hearing not alone the Minister's side of the case, but the Board's side; who would report to the House and give full information as to the real position, as well as suggesting what should be the future course having regard to what has happened. I suggest very strongly to the Minister that, even if he succeeds in getting his Bill through by a majority, it will not be satisfactory from the national point of view to leave things as they are now without a full inquiry of the kind suggested.

I believe it is possible to have such an inquiry by members of the House. If the Minister agrees to do that I would be quite prepared to give him whatever sum is immediately required, because I recognise that the undertaking must be carried on, commitments entered into much be honoured, work must proceed, and we cannot afford to leave this great undertaking in the position described by Deputy Flinn, viz., that there is a doubt whether they are able to pay their way or not. I recognise that something like that must be done, and I am prepared to give the Minister whatever sum he says—£850,000, or even to the extent of one million—is immediately required to carry on and keep the undertaking going until the inquiry would be concluded.

It is the future policy of this Board and of the undertaking I am concerned about. If the inquiry is set up I believe it will do a national service, because it will remove the suspicions that are growing up and that always tend to grow up around an undertaking of this kind. I believe, above all, that it will help to dispel any fears that people may have of going further in the way of experimenting in this direction, as the experiment was one that all of us are anxious to see successful. If the Minister cannot see his way to do that I fear there will be nothing left for me but to refuse to give him the blank cheque he has asked for, in the circumstances. Candidly, I would be very sorry if I was forced into that position, but, on the evidence the Minister has put before the House, I cannot definitely say that he has been right from the beginning and that the Board has been wrong. No one in the House, I think, is in a position to say that. Having regard to what I said, if I have any prejudice at all in this matter, it is with the Minister and not with the Board.

Professor Thrift

I agree with much of what Deputy O'Connell has said but I disagree entirely with his conclusion. I think Deputy O'Connell struck the nail on the head when he said that what we are here to do to-day is to decide on the best method of setting this Electricity Supply Board on its feet. To my mind, it has been a pleasing feature of almost every speech which has been made that that has been the primary idea in the speaker's mind. I think that it was regrettable that many of the speakers got led away from that in thinking that it was necessary, at this stage, to try to apportion the blame for the position which has arisen. I have no intention whatever of going along that line. As has been said, we have not got the data. Like Deputy O'Connell, my sympathies in the matter are very much with the Minister. The Dáil very deliberately took a line of action which was mainly calculated to keep this Electricity Supply Board an independent body— independent of Ministerial control. The attacks which have been made on the Minister have been from two entirely different angles—one that he did not interfere and the other that he interfered too much. But what the Dáil wanted was an independent body, as Deputy O'Connell pointed out—a body which could not be challenged here either by motion or question on matters of administration. The question is not really who is to blame. The point is, what is the exact position and what are the best measures to take to meet that position? One of the most important things to remember is that we should not be led into magnifying the position. What we are determined to do and what we have been determined to do all along is to make a success of the Shannon scheme, not alone in its production of electrical energy—I think it is an admitted fact that that has been a tremendous success—but in the business details which are necessary in order that that electrical energy may be properly distributed and made properly available to potential consumers. Those are business details, very important business details, I grant, but surely it is not beyond us to devise some scheme which will secure that those business details are carried out efficiently.

I want to emphasise the point that, so far as I understand the position, the worst that can be said about it is that what has happened has merely led to some delay in the final success of the scheme which we are all pledged to do our best to secure and which we are all anxious to secure. If the scheme fails, undoubtedly it will be a damaging blow to the credit of the country. The Dáil, in dealing with this matter, was in a dilemma. It did not want to take any step towards Government interference with what was really a public enterprise. Neither did it want to surrender completely its control of this undertaking, which was given the use of public money for a public purpose—for the benefit of the people, as Deputy O'Connell has said. If fault does lie—and this is the only point on which I am going to touch upon the question of blame—it lies in the Act which the Dáil passed, which was deliberately designed to make the control of the Minister as slight as possible. I think that we placed the Minister in a most impractical position, because we made it impossible for him to exercise any kind of control unless he was prepared to dismiss the Board. Dismissing the Board in the middle of its work would have been to leave the helm without a steersman, and it might have been, and probably would have been, a disastrous step to take. In saying that, I do not wish to be taken as attaching the blame to the Board. I attach this amount of blame to the Board—if I may use that form of words—that we did not get the audited accounts of the undertaking and its proceedings in anything like a reasonable time after the close of the year. We should have had the accounts of the undertaking for the year 1929-30 given to us shortly after March, 1930. I understood the Minister to say yesterday that he has been exerting every pressure to get those accounts and that he has not yet succeeded in getting them. Those are the accounts for the year 1929-30. If it is true that the Minister has used every effort to get those accounts— and I believe he has done so, as he told us himself—it shows that there is something wrong. But the fact that they were not produced cannot be attributed to the Minister. Beyond that, I do not wish to go into the question of blame.

Mr. Briscoe

Might I interrupt the Deputy to get the position clear? Deputy Thrift has stated that in his opinion the accounts were due for presentation to this House in March. The Minister has stated on many occasions in this House that he would introduce the accounts when it pleases himself and when he thinks proper. I always argued that the accounts should be introduced once a year and within twelve months of each other.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is making another speech. He is not at liberty to do so.

Mr. McGilligan

I never made any such statement.

Professor Thrift

I was just going to say that I never heard the Minister say anything of the sort.

Mr. Briscoe

I will produce the statement for the Minister.

Mr. McGilligan

We always get promises of that sort, but we never get production.

Professor Thrift

As I understand, the accounts of the Electricity Supply Board should have been submitted by the Board within a reasonable time after the close of the financial year in March, 1930—that is, the accounts for the year 1929-30. I hope the Minister will correct me if I say anything which is incorrect, but I believe that he said definitely yesterday that he had been trying his utmost to get the accounts and had not yet got them.

Mr. McGilligan

I have not got them yet.

Professor Thrift

And that he had been trying for twelve months to get them?

Mr. Briscoe

He has not got them except in provisional form.

Mr. McGilligan

Except in provisional form.

Mr. Briscoe

Why not say so?

Professor Thrift

What the Deputy wanted was the audited accounts.

Mr. McGilligan

They have not been presented for audit yet.

Mr. Briscoe

Did not the Minister refuse to have discussion in the House on this question?

Mr. McGilligan

No.

Mr. Briscoe

Does the Minister deny that he wrote me a letter saying that he would oppose any such motion as I proposed to introduce? I will produce the Minister's letter.

Mr. McGilligan

What is the date of it?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Briscoe must allow Deputy Thrift to make his speech. Deputy Briscoe was allowed to make his speech yesterday.

Professor Thrift

If Deputy Briscoe gives me a chance, I will bring out what I consider are very good points which he made in the course of his remarks. I am not speaking against Deputy Briscoe. I am stating what I conceive to be the present position. I am not speaking against anybody. I want to get at what is best to be done to get the Electricity Supply Board going and to make the undertaking the ultimate success we want it to be. Deputy O'Connell stressed that aspect emphatically, and that is the right thing for us to do. I think that it is unfortunate that this sum of £850,000, about which there was a dispute as to whether it was included or not in the two and a half million pounds given by the Dáil to the Board for the purpose of the undertaking, should have been introduced into this discussion at all. To my mind, it does not affect the matter one iota. If it is decided that that £850,000 is not included in the two and a half million pounds, it simply means that you are making the Board a present of the £850,000 more than the Dáil thought it was giving. The Dáil will have to vote that £850,000 in order to meet these undischarged liabilities, so that you are really dealing with the matter in a different way.

It does not affect one iota the question that is before us—the total amount the Electricity Supply Board is to have for the purpose of bringing into being the lines that are required for the transmission and distribution of the Shannon current. I think it is a pity that it was even mentioned in the discussion more than to say, as the Minister said yesterday, that he believed and understood that there was enough remaining of that sum to meet the hitherto undischarged liabilities of these undertakings. I think I understood the Minister to say that yesterday. It simply means that the Dáil on that view voted £1,650,000 for other purposes. The difference is that the Board took the view that they had already two and a half millions for these other purposes. It is all a question of how much more is to be given. If you say that they have already two and a half million for these other purposes, you would not require the same sum for these other purposes. The amount you would require would be £850,000 less and you would have to vote £850,000 to meet the undischarged liabilities of these other undertakings.

Putting that aside, I come to my understanding of the position as it is. Here I get very near indeed to Deputy Briscoe's concluding remarks. There are debts, if you like to call them so, which must be met immediately in order to keep the Electricity Supply Board on its feet. The Minister gave a figure yesterday, I think, of £700,000 as the sum of those debts. If you do not vote that now what will you do? Bring the Electricity Supply Board to an end? Wreck the whole scheme? Lose the credit of the whole country? If you do not enable them to meet their liabilities and make payments, the credit of the country must go. I do not see how anyone can get behind that. It has been stated that firms are waiting to bring the Electricity Supply Board into court. They cannot get their accounts paid. We cannot stand for that. I think every Deputy will admit that we must provide the money which is required to enable the Board to pay its debts.

Mr. Lemass

There is half a million there already.

Mr. MacEntee

The Minister is holding the money.

Professor Thrift

For what purpose?

Mr. MacEntee

For nothing.

Professor Thrift

You are trying to confuse us by bringing in the sum required to meet the undischarged liabilities.

Mr. MacEntee

The Minister brought it in to confuse the issue.

Professor Thrift

The whole issue it seems to me is that a sum must be provided. The debts must be paid. Furthermore, commitments have been undertaken for extensions whatever they may be. Sums are required for these extensions to enable the Board to keep its promises. These the Minister told us amounted to a quarter of a million or £300,000. You cannot expect the Board to carry on even for a limited period without some available cash in hands. It seems to me to be a reasonable thing to state that you must provide the money that the Board requires to meet its undischarged liabilities. We must provide about a million and a quarter to re-establish the credit of the Board, to put it on its feet, and enable it to carry on successfully. So far, I cannot conceive how anybody could vote against the Second Reading of the Bill. We must give the money.

When we come to the Committee Stage, the amount of the money, how it is to be allotted, what is to be done with it, what are the purposes for which it is—there is plenty of scope there for modification. My view at present is that we should alter the Bill in Committee in such a way as to make perfectly certain that we shall have an opportunity at an early date of rediscussing the matter in this House. Deputy Briscoe—I do not want to bring a personal matter into the discussion—did me the honour to quote various remarks which I made on the Committee Stage of the principal Bill. I have not had time to read them all. I looked up some of them and I do not wish to draw back one word of what I said on the Committee Stage.

I am just as keen now as I was then on the complete and absolute necessity for full publication year by year of the working accounts of the Board so that we may be in a position, so far as we have any expert knowledge, to judge for ourselves as to whether the scheme is working economically and whether it is likely to prove the ultimate success which we all hope it will, and more important still, so that those who have that expert knowledge may be in a position to form an opinion.

I think it is essential that we should get regular publication of these accounts. But what ought we to do in the actual securing of it? We left the Minister in the position that if he simply does not get that information he has got to dismiss the Board. There is no other action open to him. That has to be amended. I think the Minister indicated himself that it was necessary to amend the Bill, because as he said he retained the services of certain members of the Board in order that he might discuss with them a scheme in which the business interests might be retained on the Board in a successful and satisfactory way. I doubt, however, from a very cursory examination of the Bill, whether it would be possible for him to make that modification without coming back to the House for power to do so. In any case I think there should be an opportunity in the House for discussing the scheme before the House decides on giving him this power. I think that is a very important point in connection with the scheme. The conclusion of the matter to my mind is that we must provide the money and provide it at once because we do not want to pull up the work of the Board.

Mr. Lemass

Where is it being done?

Professor Thrift

It is not for me to answer that question, but what I would have done if I were in the Minister's position, and had asked for the accounts which should have been given and which I could not get, would be this: I would apply all the pressure in my power to apply.

Mr. Lemass

Had he any legal authority to hold the money?

Mr. McGilligan

Why did not the Board apply under the terms of the Act for it?

Mr. Lemass

The Minister informed the House last week that they applied and that he refused them.

Mr. McGilligan

They did not apply under the terms of the Act. They applied subject to the agreement.

Mr. Lemass

That agreement is not in the Act.

Mr. McGilligan

No, but they knew it was in their contractual relations with me.

Professor Thrift

In any case Deputy Lemass's point does not meet mine. I tried to show one and a quarter millions as necessary. He does not contend that they have got that money. The money must be provided to some amount, and the actual amount can only be got at approximately at present. I said that I disagreed with Deputy O'Connell's conclusion as I disagreed, though I approve very much of Deputy de Valera's remarks in many ways, with his conclusion that a committee of the House should be appointed to inquire into this.

Mr. de Valera

I want to make clear that I did not suggest that a committee of the House should be set up. I would oppose vigorously the setting up of a committee.

Professor Thrift

I beg the Deputy's pardon. I thought that was his suggestion.

Mr. de Valera

No.

Professor Thrift

Deputy O'Connell obviously did. It seems to me that would not be the right way to meet the difficulty. You want experts. You want, as Deputy Good said yesterday, some firm which is accustomed to dealing with accounts of this magnitude. You want to put the matter in the hands of auditors who are capable of dealing with a scheme of this magnitude. It is only by having men who are experts in dealing with large amounts that you can arrive at a proper estimate of the position. As has been said, the position is clearly serious. I believe, however, it is not at all so serious as there is a tendency to believe. I see nothing in the position which is likely to do more than delay the success of the scheme, to which success we are all looking forward. I think that the majority of us are anxious to get the complete publication of the accounts which has been insisted upon. We should take steps to ensure that the matter will come before us again as soon as the Minister is in a position to give us these accounts. We should then have an opportunity of discussing them and, incidentally, of discussing the general question of policy. If the Board is going to be changed we should have an opportunity of discussing the new scheme that the Minister proposes for the new Board. I cannot see how we could refuse to grant money. We must do it in order to save the Board and in order to save our own credit. The question of the amount and how it is to be allotted is one for the Committee Stage.

Mr. Fahy

I have no intention of reiterating what has been said in this matter. I do not presume to be an expert on finance or an expert in electrical economics. As a matter of fact, I am somewhat confused by the millions that have been flung at our heads during this debate. I am certain that there are other Deputies on both sides of the House who are in the same predicament, if only they would admit it. I have attempted to follow the discussion, and there are certain points on which I seek enlightenment. Deputy Thrift referred to the question of apportioning blame. We are not in a position to apportion blame without the facts.

Professor Thrift

But we have the facts.

Mr. Fahy

The Minister has referred to the Managing Director and the Chairman of the Board who were compulsorily, or otherwise, retired from that Board. As regards that matter, there were three directors, Mr. Foley, Mr. Egan and Dr. Kennedy, who were reappointed for six months. They served with the two men who were retired. I have no brief for the two men who were retired. They are very estimable gentlemen, I believe, and quite able gentlemen, but I have never met either of them. The point that strikes me is: were not all the members of that Board, severally and collectively, responsible for the financial policy of the Board? If they were, in what respect were those who were dismissed or resigned more incompetent or negligent than those who were reappointed to the Board? Was any special duty delegated to the Chairman or the Managing Director? If so, I hope the Minister will tell us what that duty was. The essential factor is this: to whom was the accountant of the Board responsible? Hardly to the Managing Director, whom he might be holding up. Does the Minister know what he was doing? If he does not, I maintain that he should. He was certainly responsible to someone and we have not been told to whom.

[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]

I think it would be in order to advert to other problems arising in connection with the Shannon scheme but, lest I might confuse the issue, I shall refrain from so doing. We have to clear up the difficulty, call it a mess or call it what you like. It seems to me that the Minister, in asking for two millions, has not fixed upon that sum without having a definite plan in mind. He certainly has formed some estimate, however rough. It is not characteristic of the Minister to ask arbitrarily for two millions or four millions without knowing upon what he is going to spend the money. I suggest he should be more frank with the House. He should tell us what he intends to do with this money. Deputy Thrift states that one and a quarter millions are immediately required. I suggest that that is, more or less, an attack on the finances of the scheme. The Minister has made no case for the one and a quarter millions.

Professor Thrift

I took the Minister's own figures.

Mr. Fahy

If the Minister gave us some information as to why he now demands two millions, we might be in a better position to judge the whole case. Reference was made to an amendment I moved last year for an extra half a million. At that time I heard what was common knowledge in business circles in this city—that there were differences between the Board and the Minister regarding responsibility for the liabilities of the concerns transferred to the Board.

The Minister stated definitely that he has no intention of amortising that now, even if he gets the money. Those were going concerns, and there were profits. I presume the profits are there still. What is the urgency now?

Under the Act, the Board was entitled to £2,500,000. The Minister has advanced £1,900,000. Why not advance the difference if they are in such difficulties? I think he is bound to do so under the Act, and no agreement the Minister has made with the Board can overrule an Act of the Oireachtas or prevent them getting the money. If these undertakings are in debt, why not give them money to meet the debt? That is provided for under Section 12 of the Act. Does the sum of £3,335,000, which the Minister mentioned in connection with liabilities of the Board, include working capital, and if so, to what extent? If it does not include working capital, how was working capital provided? By the Minister and his Department, this sum of £2,500,000 seems to be regarded merely as expenditure. It is, in fact, the capital invested in the business, and it would be so regarded by any business man. We would like some information on that point.

The actual amount is really irrelevant. The question is whether a return is being made. Does the Minister suggest that any of that money has been wrongfully or improperly invested by the Board? Would any sum less than that which they have so invested have been sufficient to have ensured the development which the Minister contends has taken place in the Shannon scheme? It is possible the Minister under-estimated the scheme at the outset, and it has turned out to be a greater scheme than he anticipated. The energy put into its development is greater than he hoped for. If that is the case, and it seems to me it is the case, then the Minister should come to this House and frankly state the fact that that was so; that the scheme had developed beyond his expectations, that the rapidity of the development prevented the Board possibly from keeping the accounts up-to-date, and that more money was required to be invested in this undertaking. Had the Minister done that I feel sure that he would have had not only the sympathy, but the cordial co-operation of this House in providing the further investment required for funds for even the greater success of this scheme. We have no desire to imperil this scheme. We do not think that two million pounds is necessary, or that even one million pounds is necessary. The Minister should tell us what exactly is necessary to meet the present debts—to meet the liabilities, and to carry on for the next three months. The Minister should present us when we meet again in October, with the detailed statement of the accounts before any further monies are granted. In addition to that, there should be an inquiry as to whether the old Board was a failure, and I am not suggesting it was. I cannot apportion the blame and I cannot fix the responsibility. Meantime I suggest that the Board should get the amount of the money required to carry on. I suggest that this money is much less than one million. That inquiry would give us a full account here in this House before any more money would be asked for.

Professor Thrift

And they must get that at once.

Mr. Fahy

They must get the money required and nobody in this House will deny them that money. They can also get the money which the Minister is holding, and if that is not sufficient they should get more.

Mr. Geoghegan

It is difficult to discern what the case that has been made here by the Minister for the million and a quarter pounds referred to. Even as regards the rest of the money sought here I would have liked further evidence. I share the feeling expressed by the Leader of the Labour Party that there is a lack of evidence. The Minister, in his speech, seemed to me himself not very clearly to advert to the evidence upon which he proposes to act. The Minister, on a matter so important as the granting of two million pounds, referred to various documents and letters which apparently he considered material. Apparently he referred to them from memory. That is hardly satisfactory. Not merely that, but I think it is not too great a claim to make upon the Minister, in a matter of this sort, that if the Minister refers to correspondence passing between him and this Board, refers to memoranda relating to interviews and references to alleged agreements, that these agreements and letters should be here in the House, that they ought to be cited and quoted from by the Minister, and that the House ought not to be asked to accept any paraphrase of the Minister's, or any summary of the Minister's, as to what they contain. The documents ought to be here, and the documents ought to be made available to the Deputies, so that they may draw their own conclusion from them, and so that they may, if they wish, follow up any line of inquiry that anything in these letters or memoranda may suggest to them.

I feel also that the Minister has not given the House the assistance to which it is fairly entitled in regard to seeing precisely what are those major matters of policy that have led to what some people seem to regard as a national humiliation. What are they? Apparently under Section 12 of the Statute of 1927 the Minister for Finance is bound to pay over to the Board sums of money amounting to £2,500,000 on request. I do not express any view as to the construction of the section. I simply take it that that is conceded by the Minister. If that is so why should the Minister withhold any part of that money in a left-handed attempt to enforce the production of accounts to which he is entitled under Section 7? Surely that is not the way to do it?

Surely if the Board have been given by this House a statutory right to that money they ought to get it. The Board, presumably, had made their plans on the basis of receiving that money. They have taken steps to make these Shannon generating works remunerative by linking them up with the consumer. They have budgeted on that statutory obligation of the Minister's being carried out. Why should he refuse to pay? If the Minister is entitled to those accounts he is, of course, entitled to them.

It is hardly necessary to suggest that there exists machinery for the compelling of the furnishing of these accounts. Why has he not resorted to that machinery? This Board is an independent Board. The Minister need make no apology for any action he might take duly to compel the Board to carry out their obligations under Section 7 of this Act in regard to the keeping and furnishing of accounts. The way to do that is not to withhold the money to which the statute gives the Board the right, and which seems to be absolutely necessary for the carrying on of the business of the Board.

I do not pretend to be a business man. The phrase has been used here pretty freely. I make no pretence to that, but, so far as I can see, the whole basis of these discussions is that the Board really want money and that really they are short of money. I gather from the Minister that the Minister had not any confirmed view that on this statute he had any right whatever to withhold any part of these two and a half million pounds, but that, by virtue of some arrangement come to between him and the Chairman of the Board (I cannot recall his exact words), he retains this money. The question has been asked by Deputy Fahy what right has the Minister to enter into any agreement with this Board? What right has the Board to enter into an agreement with him? The Board was set up by the House to act under the statute. If under the statute the Board are entitled to get this money for their working expenses, what right have they to waive that money? I fail to see any. Apparently owing to a similar difference of opinion arising on Section 39 this trouble that has now arisen may be to a large extent attributed. It has been suggested here that this £600,000, or whatever the figure is, representing the outstanding capital indebtedness of municipal undertakings taken over by the Electricity Supply Board, ought to be disregarded for the purpose of a discussion on this Bill. That is not relevant at all. I cannot see that. As has been pointed out here, that seems to be the very kernel of the dispute between the Board and the Minister. The Minister speaks of making a present of £600,000 to the Board if he yielded to the Board's interpretation of Section 39 (6) of the Electricity Supply Act, 1927, and some other Deputy here endorsed that view with great enthusiasm. He repeated the phrase, "making a present to the Board." What does that mean? Is not the money going to the Board for the purpose of being expended on the completion of this scheme? Is it not conceded now by the Minister that a very large sum is required over and above even the two and a half million pounds to do that? Where does the "present" to the Board come in?

The Board, under Section 39 (6), is in this position. The sub-section says:

Whenever the former undertaker is a local authority the new undertaker shall as on and from the date of the vesting order become and be by virtue of this sub-section liable for and bound to indemnify and keep indemnified the former undertaker against all capital loans (including current bank overdraft) outstanding at the date of the vesting order and borrowed by the former undertaker for the purpose of the undertaking and all mortgages and charges on the undertaking or the assets thereof outstanding on the date of the vesting order ...

What force is the House to attribute to the words "and keep indemnified"? It is not that he is to indemnify, but to keep indemnified. Surely that contemplated that loans which were being served by means of a sinking fund would continue to be served by means of that sinking fund out of the revenue produced by the undertaker. Otherwise what is meant by that phrasing, that in respect of the local authority the Board is to be bound to indemnify and keep indemnified against these outstanding capital loans and mortgages? Why not have used plain English and say that the Board is to pay off all capital loans out of the moneys it is to get, if the House meant that? We have been treated here by certain Deputies to statements about what the intention of the House was. What I entirely fail to understand is where this intention is to be got. Is it from certain discussions which seem to be lodged in the bosom of the Minister for Industry as to what the intention was in regard to a certain statute or agreement. Where is it to be found? The only safe course to take is to administer the statute precisely and exactly as you find it, to play the game according to all the rigour of the rules. If this House feels now that the better course would be to pay off these capital loans, pay off any stock outstanding, pay off any mortgage made to raise money, let them say so.

But let that not be made an excuse for giving the Minister under this new Bill the power of interfering with and controlling the actions of the Electricity Supply Board by doling out money at his sweet will, a power that he was denied by the Act of 1927. I am not suggesting that the Minister, if the power is conferred upon him, will exercise it unwisely, incompetently, or anything like that. I merely say that the Legislature, in its wisdom, in 1927 embarked upon a wholly different plan and set up an independent Board. There is nothing inherently bad in that scheme. On the contrary, various speakers in the course of the debate seem still to be gratified that such an expedient was adopted. Why should the House now go back on that? The only reason that seems to be advanced is that there have been these disputes between the Minister and the Board as to the effect that should be given to the statute and that both as regards the municipal undertakings and the two and a half million pounds the Board, so far as one can see, took their stand on the letter of the statute as they ought to have done. They occupy a fiduciary position to this House and the people of this State. What right have they to depart from the statute? If there is any real doubt about the interpretation of the Act, it is hardly necessary to say that there is a cheap and quick method of having the words (if there is any obscurity about them) authoritatively interpreted.

Mr. McGilligan

Will the Deputy say what is the cheap method of deciding?

Mr. Geoghegan

The cheap method is this: There is no disputed question of fact; therefore the matter can be summarily decided by a judge. It is not necessary to have a trial; it can be summarily decided on a case stated as a pure question of law without delay, and cheaply decided. Cheaply decided even if it bore relation to a much smaller sum than £2,000,000. But, apparently, as has been indicated already by Deputy O'Connell in another connection, the Minister prefers to have these things done in a different way. It has been said in this House, from apparently reliable hearsay, that work in connection with this scheme in other directions, as regards fitting and so on, has been entrusted to handymen. Apparently when you have to interpret the statute also you are to go to handymen. That is, apparently, the idea of the Minister. I repeat that if there is any real dispute or difference as regards the interpretation of either Section 12 (3) or Section 39 (6) that could have been very quickly and cheaply set at rest with full authority, and the House would know where it is. Instead of that we must take everything on trust. As I said before, documents and letters are referred to from hearsay. They are not even on the Minister's table. There is no indication that the House will have access to them. Apparently things are to be done in accordance with what somebody conceived to be the intention, rather than in accordance with the law and the Act. Apparently all sorts of short cuts are to be taken and we are to risk the consequences.

The leader of the Opposition has suggested, and the suggestion has met with a certain measure of approval, that this whole matter should be referred to a tribunal of experts. That is the way to deal with it. The suggestion I think, came from Deputy Thrift that really what was needed is that this matter should be put into the hands of auditors who are familiar with this question. I do not know what is meant by that. Section 7 (2) provides that the accounts are to be audited by duly qualified auditors appointed annually for the purpose by the Minister. I have enough confidence in the Minister to believe that the Minister selected duly qualified auditors who were capable of dealing with it as far as auditing was concerned. As somebody else has pointed out, what is really necessary is not an auditor, but an electrical economist, somebody who has special knowledge in a big way in regard to electrical undertakings of the magnitude of this scheme.

I ask the House to refuse to grant this £2,000,000 asked for by the Minister. Wholly different considerations arise if the Minister confines himself to asking for three-quarters of a million, but I ask the House to refuse to give the Minister what has been called a blank cheque. A Deputy has used the phrase that if you do not give this you will wreck the whole scheme and destroy the credit of the country. Surely such phrases are scarcely worthy of a discussion of this kind and hardly helpful to the House in discussing a matter of this sort. The House should not hesitate, even if it indicated humiliation to the Minister in this matter, to refuse it. But it does not. No one is apportioning blame in this, at least no responsible person would dream of apportioning blame in this in the complete absence of data. Therefore, the only course the House can take in order to prevent any recurrence of what we all regret is to refuse this request of the Minister. I do not see how that can be done, according to the rules of this House, except by voting against the Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Anthony

I want to ask the Minister one or two questions before I give my vote on this matter. Not being satisfied that I had correctly followed the Minister, although I took fairly copious notes of his speech, I read the admirable summary of his speech in the Press to-day to assure myself. I find that the figure of £850,000 has been mentioned so frequently in the Minister's statement, and in the speech as made, that I would like to be quite clear as to how this figure was arrived at. I understand that in the course of the activities of the Electricity Supply Board a number of municipal undertakings were appropriated and taken over by the Board, such as publicly and municipally-owned undertakings. I know there is an outstanding exception in the case of Cork, where the undertaking was privately-owned, but Dublin, Rathmines, Pembroke, Dun Laoghaire, Clonmel, Enniscorthy, and a number of other undertakings had to be acquired and paid for, and I want to be satisfied upon this. Is this £850,000 that the Minister referred to the approximate sum of the liabilities of acquired undertakings at the date of their acquisition? These loans, I understand, were made repayable out of the revenue of the E.S.B., and I think it is unfair to debit the whole of the £850,000 to the E.S.B. when they were paying for these owned undertakings out of revenue. I want to know how much of that £850,000 was paid by the E.S.B. by way of compensation for the acquisition of plant, installations, etc., in these municipal undertakings to which I have referred. Did the Minister arrive at this figure in the way that it presents itself to me? I do not want to misinterpret or misquote the Minister, but I think he suggested that the Electricity Supply Board was by statute entitled to receive £1,650,000, and that it spent £2,500,000. Taking the £1,650,000 from £2,500,000, I get the sum of £850,000, and that is what I want to be assured of by the Minister. Am I correct in that calculation, or is that the way the Minister arrived at the figure of £850,000?

Like Deputies in other parts of the House I feel that this question is one which must be approached in an altogether different way from many questions which come before this House from time to time. No Deputy so far has found fault with the Minister as a Minister. I must say there is a good deal of logic and reason on the side of those who suggested that things were allowed to develop in a way that they should not be allowed to develop. The Minister, while exercising control by statute, found at the end of a period, according to his own statement, that he never got any correct returns or statistics or information that he considered necessary. He never got these returns. What I am surprised at is that the Minister has not long before now come to the Dáil and asked for any powers he considered necessary. I feel no Deputy would object to giving him these powers, in view of the fact that this is not a mere local institution, but a great national undertaking.

I am sure we are all glad that tribute has been paid to the young and gifted man who conceived the scheme and carried it out, and who, I feel, in all the circumstances has been badly treated. I may be wrong, but that is my deduction from some of the speeches I have listened to and even from some portion of the Minister's own statement. I hope his treatment will not be taken as an indication of the Government policy in the future, because if it is we are not going to attract to the State and to the national service young men of brains and ability if they are to be scrapped at the end of a particular period because somebody has bungled. I also feel it is a reflection on the businessmen who were connected with the Board, men who have made a success of other business enterprises. I consider it is a reflection upon their ability and, to an extent, on their probity, that they should be, even by inference, held up to be incompetent, as the captions in the daily Press would lead one to expect. Those business men have undoubtedly co-operated very largely in making the scheme a success from one point of view, at any rate. Perhaps it may be found if, and when, this examination takes place that they may have from time to time resented interference from outside, and when I say from outside I mean from the Civil Service Department. Nobody has greater appreciation of the value of civil servants to the State in their own sphere than I have. But I do know that civil servants, particularly in the higher division, have a tendency to develop what is known as the official mind. They cannot get away from it. It is part of their training; it is a corollary to the system which builds up and maintains Civil Service. I may be anticipating what may be adduced or evolved from an inquiry, if and when it takes place. That, of course, depends on whether the Government or the Cumann na nGaedheal Party will vote for this motion. It will largely, if not altogether, depend on their votes.

But I do feel that it may evolve from an inquiry, if and when held, that businessmen doing their business in their own way did not want to be subjected to undue interference by highly placed officials in the Civil Service. I may be wrong. I am not even suggesting that I am right, but knowing what I do about the capacity of the businessmen on the Board, they were not all supermen but at least they were men who appreciated their position and their responsibilities and you have to-day, one of the greatest undertakings in the world, a monument to the genius of the young man, Dr. MacLaughlin, whose name is mentioned in this Bill and also to the Minister. I do not want to take any credit whatever from the Minister, because we all know that at its early stages the Minister was the godfather to that undertaking. Some other Deputy—I do not know how it was—suggested that in anything that might occur here, either now or at any future time, to prevent in any way the further development of that great national scheme the Minister would share the discredit that may be brought about, but the Minister would also deserve, equally with Dr. MacLaughlin, any encomiums that could be given if it were a still greater success.

I feel that the Minister must appreciate the fact that all the Deputies who have spoken so far—at least those whom I have heard—have paid tribute to those who were associated with that scheme in its earlier stages and they have all been most moderate in their criticisms, possibly with one or two exceptions. It is a healthy sign, and I do hope that the Minister will at least satisfy some of the Deputies who have criticised, not for the sake of criticising or for being carping in any way, but who have done so inspired by the very highest and best motives. I at least want to be satisfied with regard to this sum of £850,000. How much of it was expended by way of return of loans or paying off liabilities incurred by the Electricity Supply Board in taking over the municipal undertakings to which I have referred.

Mr. Moore

We are all asking for more information, and there is just a little that I want for myself. I think that the Minister should tell us what reason the present Chairman of the Board has given for withholding the information he has been asked for. The present Chairman of the Board is a civil servant: he has had a Civil Service training. We cannot believe that he has simply said: "I am not in a position to furnish you with the accounts or with the statistical information you require." We are sure that he has not made such a reply as that. It is useless, then, for the Minister to reply, as he did yesterday: "I cannot get it from him." If the Minister says that, I think, in justice to the House, he should go a step further and say what reasons Mr. Browne has put up for not giving this information. It is presumed that when the present Chairman was appointed last October he was told of the fault there was to be found with his predecessor in that respect. It is presumed that he was told that one of the very important things amongst his duties would be to furnish punctually and correctly all statistical information required, and particularly to concentrate on the annual accounts. If he has not acted upon that instruction there must be some very good reason for it, and I think we should be told it. There is no good blinking the fact that in the Dublin streets at present it is being stated that no Chairman could give actual accounts with regard to the Electricity Supply Board, that accurate records are not in existence. If that is the state of things that has to be faced then we might as well have it here. It will do no good to let these statements pass, to let them gain more and more unsupported currency. It would be better either to admit them or to deny them.

Further, there is a question that Deputy O'Connell put that I hope the Minister will answer—why it is that when the late Chairman was practically dismissed from his position as Chairman he was reinstated as a member of the Board. Apparently he had given no satisfaction whatever as Chairman. Was it to avoid a possible lawsuit that he was reinstated as an ordinary member of the Board and given a higher remuneration, I understand, than was given to the two other members of the same class on the Board? Was it merely to prevent an outcry on the part of the public, or what exactly was the reason for it? It is a thing the public are asking, why it is that a man who had so quickly fallen out of grace with the Minister was worth continuing on the Board and probably exerting a very big influence there.

With regard to the Board generally, taking into account the numerous protests on the part of the Minister when the 1927 Act was going through, that the Board was to be independent, that he was not going to interfere with it in any way, side by side with his statement yesterday, that at a very early stage he discovered that it would be necessary for him to get reports from the Board and to be in frequent consultation with it, it is impossible to resist the inference that the Minister had really no confidence in the Board at the time it was established, that the Board had probably been forced upon him by influences apart from the technical merits of the particular individuals that he had appointed on the Board. Certainly I think that an impartial outsider reading the debate will come to that conclusion.

There is just one further question. At present it appears there are at least two civil servants on the Board, and it is not clear as to what their position is. Are they acting under the Minister's instructions on the Board, or are they independent of him? It is altogether a mysterious position, I think, for these civil servants. It is mysterious as far as this House is concerned. We do not know what the relationship of the Minister is to the other members of the Board. It is certainly remarkable that since they were appointed last October they have not been able to improve things sufficiently to enable the Minister to make a more hopeful statement than the one he made yesterday. If in his reply he is able to give us more information and more satisfactory information than in his opening speech, I think we will all be glad. Certainly I think this Bill should not go through in its present form for the reasons that have been stated by several speakers.

Mr. S.T. O'Kelly

There does not seem to be any very ardent desire on the part of the general members of the Party opposite to take part in this discussion, and I am not particularly keen on taking part in it myself. I am not anxious for one reason, and that is that so many of our members here have spoken that the impression may be gained that we desire to make this a Party matter. That is far from our intention and certainly far from my intention. We are, as Deputy O'Connell, Deputy Thrift, and perhaps one or two other Deputies said, interested in this matter purely on national grounds. We are interested in it, of course, on other grounds as well, but our fundamental interest is because this electricity undertaking is a big national institution, and it has at least twelve million pounds of our money sunk in it. That is an additional reason. We are anxious to see that scheme made the success that it will be made some day or another. I believe so far it has been from the technical side a success as far as the production of electricity is concerned. It has not been a success, evidently, from some aspects of the business side. That, of course, will in time be remedied, too, but I believe that it will not be remedied by the want of frankness that the Minister exhibited here in this House. He has not told "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." He has suppressed facts. I will give him one instance, one that I nailed him on myself when he told us that he did not call for the resignation of the ex-Chairman. He had to admit a very few minutes afterwards that not alone did he call for it, but that if the ex-Chairman had not resigned he would have come to the House and asked for his dismissal. There have been more things that the Minister should have told to the House frankly and given the House a fair opportunity of judging the facts. We have not got the facts. We have not got the full figures; we have not got all the particulars to enable us to judge. The Minister puts himself, to my mind, personally very much in the wrong in coming before the House and suppressing important facts in connection with this matter. He prejudiced his case in my mind at any rate, and I do not want to be prejudiced in a matter of this kind. When we are weighing up the pros and cons of such an important national concern as the Electricity Supply Board, and considering the present mess that it is in from certain points of view, and the possibilities of getting it out of that mess and putting it on the high road to success, we are not helped by the Minister's want of frankness.

I am told that auditors have been in there examining the accounts for, roughly, six months, and that a preliminary report of the auditors is now in the hands of the Minister. He did not tell us anything about that. I can give him the name of the firm of auditors. He ought to have told us that, and if it is correct that there is in his hands a preliminary report he ought to have mentioned that fact; and if the report was of such a preliminary nature that he could not face any facts or figures upon it, he might have told us that he had such a report and that he had auditors in. I do not know who appointed them.

The Board, Deputy Flinn said, had appointed auditors while other people say that a firm of auditors has been working for months investigating the accounts, and if my information is correct, a preliminary report has already been furnished to the Minister's Department. Let me say, in answer to Deputy Thrift, that we want to be reasonable and helpful in this matter. We dislike voting against any reasonable proposal made here to give the Electricity Supply Board the money it requires immediately. We, with every other Party in the House, are prepared to do that, but we are left no option by the Minister. That is our position. We want to be reasonable. We do not want unnecessarily to vote against the Second Reading of this Bill, but the Minister, is leaving us no option. He will not meet us. We would like to give the money immediately needed, and to reserve giving whatever further moneys are required until the enquiry mentioned by Deputy de Valera and several other Deputies has been held. Deputy de Valera indicated that an enquiry was necessary as to what the further necessities of the Board were. We think that enquiry should be held. Deputy de Valera was anxious to move an amendment to-day if the Standing Orders would have allowed it, without notice. His amendment was to this effect: that while prepared to provide at once in addition to the two and a half millions already voted a further sum of £500,000 to meet the liabilities and immediate needs of the Electricity Supply Board, the Dáil refuses to give a Second Reading to the Bill, providing two millions to be expended at the discretion of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, until it is satisfied as a result of inquiry by electrical economists and experts as to the necessity for this sum and the specific use to which it is to be applied. If the Standing Orders allowed, it was the intention of Deputy de Valera and of our Party to have such an amendment moved. The amendment was not accepted by the Chair.

The ruling given from the Chair was that it could not be accepted under Standing Orders without notice except by the unanimous agreement of the House. The amendment embodys what we think ought to be done. We think that the money immediately necessary ought to be voted. We think that if the sum of £500,000 were voted now, and if that were added to the sum of more than £500,000 belonging to the Board which the Minister has in hands and which has already been voted by the House for the purposes of the Board, these two sums representing more than £1,000,000 would be sufficient to meet the immediate necessities of the Board to enable it to carry on until such time as the committee of experts referred to in the amendment would have been able to examine the situation and report to the House. When that committee of experts had reported the House could be called together to take what further steps were necessary to vote the moneys that might be needed. We would like if that position could be met by the Minister.

The Minister is asking for a blank cheque for two million pounds. We do not think that sum is required. The Minister speaking last night said: "The moment he heard the point that the undischarged liabilities were supposed not to be in the £2,500,000 he asked the Board to show how the capital sum and the surplus was likely to be remunerative. He got no satisfaction." We might now ask the Minister if he can tell us whether the two million pounds, or at least the portion of it that would be left over after paying the immediate debts, will be remunerative or not. He cannot tell us. Why should we do what the Minister will not do. The Minister would not give that money to the Board because they could not assure him that it would be remunerative. Why should we give one million and a quarter to the Minister if he is not in a position to tell us whether it will be remunerative or not. That is our position. We believe that not more than £500,000, in addition to the sums already voted by the House, is immediately required for the present purposes of the Board, and that sum we are prepared to vote. If the Minister can show that some sum in addition to that, even another quarter or half a million, is immediately required for the purpose of carrying on the Board then we are prepared to meet him, but we are not prepared to hand over to him two million pounds to be used by him just as he pleases. We are not prepared to do that judging by the mess that has been made of this, whether by the Minister himself or by the Board we are not going to say, but between them in the last year or two.

It is interesting to note that the trouble between the Electricity Supply Board and the Minister has been going on for more than a year, perhaps for two years. There has been reference to it in the newspapers frequently. There have been big splash headings in the newspapers giving a sensational story, first, as to the resignation of the Chairman, and, later on, of the Managing Director. Other rumours have been mentioned in the Press from time to time. Speaking for myself, I have heard rumours of all kinds, sometimes rumours relating to the Shannon scheme in its workings. These rumours have adversely affected the Shannon Board, but nothing has so adversely affected it as the Minister's statement yesterday. First of all, I would like to know why it was that the Minister did not come to the House more than a year ago when this trouble first arose with the Board. I am reliably informed that the trouble between the Board and the Minister arose in practically the first month after the Electricity Supply Board had started to work.

I am told, on the very best of authority, that the first application made by the Board to the Department of Finance for money was refused by that Department because the Electricity Supply Board would not state the purpose for which the money was to be used. The Board referred to the section of the Act, which states that the Minister for Finance shall supply money on the demand of the Board. The Department of Finance had to yield eventually. If that be true, as I believe it is, it shows there was trouble from the very beginning between the Department of Finance and the Electricity Supply Board. The Minister was aware of that. He has been aware of it since it started and he allowed it to go on. What I would charge him with is that he allowed that trouble to develop until it got to such a stage that the Chairman of the Board had to go first, and the Managing Director later. All that arose out of the trouble. The whole concern was materially damaged in its credit as a result of the Minister not acting, as I think he ought to have acted, by coming early to the House. Whether he wished to dismiss the Board or not, he could have come to the House.

Deputy Geoghegan suggested that an easier way, and a cheaper way, would be to take the question between the Board and the Minister and as to the reading of that section of the Act to the court, and to have it decided there. I do not know whether it would be very cheap. It might not be so very cheap but probably it would be done very quickly.

Mr. Flinn

It would be cheaper than this.

Mr. O'Kelly

It would certainly have cost less to the nation and to the Shannon scheme than the procedure adopted by the Minister, because nothing that has been said by the opponents of the scheme, since it originated, and there were critics of it—I was one for a time, admittedly, but I had fairly good reasons for criticising from certain aspects some years ago— but nothing that has been said by anyone criticising it has done one-tenth of the damage that the Minister has done by the procedure he adopted. If this were a limited liability company what value would there be in the shares to-day after the statements made by the Minister yesterday? They would be worth very little, and the shareholders would have very little to thank the Minister for. We are all shareholders in this and some of us more deeply interested than if money out of our own pockets had gone into it, because the credit of the nation is at stake, the credit of every citizen is at stake and, in particular, the credit of every member of the Dáil is wrapped up in it. The Minister has done his damnedest to ruin it by the action he has taken. There were ways in which the difficulties could be got over without damaging the scheme, I will not say irreparably, but damaging it in a way that it was not in the power of anyone else to damage it. He has done his worst. I have often heard Ministers talk of how high our credit stood and about the cheap loans we could get. Well, if we have many more actions like the action of the Minister on this occasion the credit will not last very long. The credit of the Shannon scheme has not stood very long, and I am told by a colleague of mine that in Pembroke quite recently an order was given by a certain section of the Board, valued for £10, but the trader refused to supply the Board unless cash was sent. That is the result of the unwise action taken by the Minister, destroying the credit of the Shannon Board, and incidentally very materially damaging, financially and economically, the credit of the country and the political reputation of members of the House as a whole.

One or two matters occurred to me when I heard the Minister speaking yesterday on which I would like to get information. The Minister suggested, but did not go so far as to say, that the Shannon scheme had not proved a success. I took it from the Minister's statement yesterday that economically it had not proved a success. I am not speaking of the technical side of the scheme. I would like the Minister to be more precise in that respect, and when replying, to go into greater detail as to what his views are on the prospects of the Shannon scheme, properly managed. If the prospects are or are not rosy the money will have to be provided, but it would be a reassurance if he could tell us that he believed the prospects are brighter than they have been since the dispute between himself and the Board commenced. I think the Minister also dealt with the cost of the current. Are we to take it from him that the cost of the current has not been fixed at a price that will be remunerative? Is it a fact that the current is being sold at too low a price? If that is the case, whatever his views are, we would be glad to hear them. I do not think he was very definite in that matter, but in his speech he suggested something of the kind.

There are one or two other points I would like to refer to with regard to the responsibility of the Board as a whole, or of individual members of it, as well as the working of the several departments. The Minister told us that one of his chief complaints against the Board was that they had failed to produce accounts. The first Chairman of the Board was selected if not by the Minister, by the President, or by the two of them probably, as the selection would not be made by the President without the Minister's sanction, and from what I know of the President's opinion of Mr. Murphy, I am sure the initiative came from him. For many years the President was very closely associated with the late Chairman of the Shannon Board. I heard him, and other members in this House heard him, saying that Mr. Murphy was as great an expert on finance as was to be found in Ireland. These are not the President's actual words, but he used words about Mr. Murphy of that character. I know that he thought him to be as capable, as energetic, as honest and as experienced an official as was to be found in the country. I think there was nothing that could be said in praise of a man, certainly of a public servant, that was not said at some time or other by the President, in favour of Mr. Murphy. When he came to find a Chairman for the Shannon Board he looked around, but he did not look very long because, having a very high opinion of Mr. Murphy, he picked him out and offered him the job.

I am told that Mr. Murphy did not want to take the position as he was Town Clerk, occupying a very responsible, a very honourable and well-paid position. He did not wish to take the position, but he was forced out of the position of Town Clerk by the President, and perhaps by the Minister, and put into the position of Chairman of the Shannon Board. What happened in a short one and a-half years whereby a man who was a genius at finance, if we are to believe the President, who was probably the most capable public official in Ireland, could turn into being the most incompetent Chairman of the Shannon Board, to be kicked out at short notice? What happened? From my own long experience of the ex-Chairman of the Shannon Board when he was Assistant City Treasurer, City Treasurer and Town Clerk, I have a prejudice in favour of believing that he was not found incompetent. It is suggested by the Minister that he was. If he was not incompetent, for what other reason was he fired out? Another reason has been suggested to me, and probably there is something in it. It is because he refused to deviate from the path of independence. He read the Act, studied his position under it, studied the Minister's speeches, and believed the Minister when he said that he wished the Shannon Board to be an absolutely independent body, and he acted upon that. Having acted on that, he displeased the Minister, and the Minister fired him out. I believe that the latter is probably the explanation.

The Minister told the House, he told the Shannon Board and the Chairman of it when he gave him the Act passed in this House, that it was to be the constitution of the Board, that it was to be an independent body, but from the first day that it started out to be independent, acting under the statute founding if, the Minister and the Finance Department did their best to impede them in every way, and when the crash came, of course, the Minister was supreme and the ex-Chairman of the Board had to go, not, I believe, because he was incompetent or because he could not provide accounts, but because he would not do exactly what the Minister and his colleagues wanted him to do. I know that in some cases —this is only a small point, but it is indicative of the attitude taken up— he refused to appoint officials that these gentlemen wanted him to appoint. That was a grievance. He refused to appoint certain officials that the President and others wanted him to appoint. That was one of the reasons he was fired out. So far as I know the man, there could not have been any political difference between the ex-Chairman and the Minister. So far as I know, he was at all times as loyal and solid a backer of the Free State as there was to be found inside or outside this House.

It was not for political reasons that he would not appoint those he was asked to appoint, but because he thought the people suggested to him by the President or by the Minister were not competent for their jobs. Possibly that is another reason why he was not allowed to retain his position. Beyond the statement of the Minister yesterday, I do not know why Dr. MacLaughlin was forced to resign. The Minister's chief grievance against the Board seemed to be that they failed to provide accounts and that they failed to keep an agreement which, he says, was made between the Board and himself. I do not know whether there was any division of labour amongst the members of the Board, or whether Dr. MacLaughlin, as Managing Director, was responsible for all departments. It may be that he was responsible, and that he would be the person to provide the accounts. But I would like if the Minister would tell us whether Dr. MacLaughlin was responsible, first of all, for breaking through the agreement which the Minister claims was broken, and, secondly, whether he was the person responsible for providing the Minister with accounts. I imagine that the Board as a whole should share the responsibility in these matters— that the Chairman, the Managing Director, and all the members of the Board should fully share responsibility for the breaking of an agreement, if such an agreement was entered into, and for the failure to provide accounts. Why was the ex-Chairman, first of all, and later Dr. MacLaughlin, selected and not the others? I was putting that question to some of my colleagues in the House within the last day or so, and the suggestion was made to me—I do not know whether there is anything in it or not—that it is because one member of the Board is a brother-in-law of a very high official in the Finance Department, and another is a brother-in-law of the Minister for Agriculture, they are kept on. Whether there is anything in that or not I do not know, but it was, perhaps jocosely, mentioned to me by one of my colleagues yesterday when I asked the question.

Mr. McGilligan

Which of them? Better keep it dark.

Mr. O'Kelly

There is a lot of the family-party business about the whole Free State Government.

Mr. McGilligan

You are not putting that opinion on any member of your Party; you are sharing it?

Mr. O'Kelly

If you want me, I will share this much—that there is a lot of the family-party business about the Free State Government.

Mr. McGilligan

Do not shelter behind anybody else.

Mr. O'Kelly

I certainly will not. I will stand by it. Will you deny the fact that there is such relationship?

Mr. McGilligan

Make your case.

Mr. O'Kelly

Will you deny it?

McGilligan

I do not deny what has been said of the two people mentioned, of course.

Mr. O'Kelly

You cannot deny it.

McGilligan

I do not intend to deny it.

A Deputy

There is a good deal more than that in the dark.

Mr. O'Kelly

I do not say the Minister kept that in the dark, but there is no harm in having it out. There is too much of that family-party business. As we are discussing this question, let us take the case of one of these men who has got on the Board. I wonder why he was ever put there on his qualifications. What qualifications has he for being a member of such a Board? If the gentleman referred to were a highly-qualified, first-class electrical engineer, or even a second-class one, I could understand his appointment. On his qualifications as shown to me, I fail to see why he was ever put on the Board. I am not adopting the statement that he was put on merely because he was related——

Mr. McGilligan

You are going away from it again.

Mr. O'Kelly

I am not adopting the suggestion that he was put on the Board merely for that, but I would like to know why he was put on it.

Mr. McGilligan

You suggest the other thing.

Mr. O'Kelly

I would like if you would tell us why he was put on.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must come back to the Bill.

Mr. O'Kelly

Having got rid of the most highly efficient public servant in the Free State, as some of us were often told by the President that Mr. Murphy was, and having got rid of Dr. MacLaughlin—I do not know very much about his qualifications, but we all know his record as founder of the Shannon scheme—having got rid of these, who are the people left to run the Board? We have one a civil servant on loan from the Department of Revenue, and another a civil servant on loan from another Department.

Mr. McGilligan

Not a civil servant.

Mr. O'Kelly

He was a civil servant.

Mr. McGilligan

He never was.

Mr. O'Kelly

Then I am wrong.

Mr. McGilligan

Quite wrong.

Mr. O'Kelly

The second, an engineer, was never a civil servant?

Mr. McGilligan

Never.

Mr. O'Kelly

I am glad to be set right on that. I was told he was.

Mr. McGilligan

Is that your colleague again?

Mr. O'Kelly

Then the Chairman is, at all events, on the Board with a string on him. He can be pulled back any time he dissatisfies the Minister. He is only allowed there, with high promotion, as long as the Minister is satisfied that he will do his work. That is the position of the Board to-day. I do not want to say one word against the Chairman; I do not know him, but I am sure he is very efficient, a first-class civil servant. I am sure he is an honest and honourable official, but what experience can he have had to fit him to run a Board of that kind as Chairman? None in the world. What arrangements have been made to take the place of the technical officer, the Managing Director? There is nobody there. There has been nobody there, that I am aware of, since Dr. MacLaughlin was in it. The Minister may perhaps tell us, in winding up, what arrangements he has made for a fully qualified technical officer to take the place of the one who has resigned as principal officer.

I would certainly like to know why the Minister did not ask for the resignation of the Board as a whole instead of selecting these two important officers. The Chairman is an important officer, and the Managing Director also, but they ought to share equal responsibility. I take it that these two men were not a majority on the Board. They had others with them. Probably some of the business men who still remain on the Board shared in the responsibility for passing any resolution or coming to any decision come to, and still they are allowed to remain on. In the case of the ex-Chairman, Murphy, when he was forced to resign by the Minister, he was put back on the Board and given a bigger salary than the other members of the Board who were put on as business representatives by the Minister. That is the queer part of it. He was kicked out of the chairmanship. I do not know what salary he had, but he was put back by the Minister and given an increased salary although he was supposed to be incompetent.

The very man who the Minister had insisted must go out as Chairman he puts back on the Board and gives him a greater remuneration than was given to Messrs. Foley or Egan or to the third gentleman, who represented the business element. That is something that needs explanation. I believe that whatever else he may have failed in, from the point of view of a public servant with a knowledge of public accounts, furnishing them up to time, Murphy did not fail in these matters. There was something else between himself and the Minister that obliged the Minister to get rid of him as being unworthy to be Chairman of the Board.

I think there are a number of points here upon which we would be glad to have the Minister's answer. If he can do anything in winding up this debate to undo the damage he has done already to the Electricity Supply Board and the Shannon scheme, to the credit attaching to it, to the credit of this Assembly as a business assembly, and the financial credit of the State as a whole—if he can help to undo that damage in winding up— the sooner he does it the better.

Mr. McGilligan

I said when I was opening the debate that this was a Bill which I introduced with less pleasure and less satisfaction than any other I have had to bring before the House. I cannot say that I have listened to the whole of the debate with a great deal of pleasure, but I have got a considerable amount of satisfaction from the debate because I find on the whole that the attitude which the Dáil takes up, in so far as my relationship with the Board is concerned, is to do exactly what I wanted to do to the Board, to refuse facilities, not to vote money until information is granted, to get inquiries going and so forth. That is the general tenor of the speeches that have been made, at least of all the serious speeches that have been made. Most of the speeches have been serious. I am omitting the little bit of slime in which I am going to let Deputy O'Kelly and his unnamed colleague paddle about to their hearts' content. Leaving that aside most of the speeches have been serious, some less serious than others. I want first to deal with the minor points, and I only wish before I start on these that Deputy Briscoe would have found out where I had made the statement he twice referred to in regard to the accounts, and produce to me the letter in which he alleged I said to him that I was going to oppose discussion of them.

Mr. Briscoe

I have sent home for the letter and it will be here before 7 o'clock.

Mr. McGilligan

Has the Deputy any idea of the date of it?

Mr. Briscoe

I cannot say, but I have sent for the letter.

Mr. McGilligan

Could he give the date even within a month?

Mr. Briscoe

It is two or three months ago.

Mr. McGilligan

In this year?

Mr. Briscoe

Yes.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy was writing to me then about accounts produced in 1930 for the year ended 31st March, 1929? He wrote to me asking for a debate this year on these accounts of 1929.

Mr. Briscoe

I wrote to the Minister asking him to give facilities for a debate in the House on these accounts, as they had not been debated before. The Minister wrote back that he would oppose any request for such facilities.

Mr. McGilligan

I want to quote the letter which I did write to the Deputy. He states he wrote to me in 1930 asking for a debate.

Mr. Briscoe

Whatever the date was, I wrote, anyway.

Mr. McGilligan

Surely the Deputy must know the difference between two months ago and a year ago.

Mr. Briscoe

Read the letter and your answer.

Mr. McGilligan

The letter was as follows:—

"With regard to the published accounts and reports of the operations of the Electricity Supply Board recently presented to the Oireachtas I will be obliged if you will be good enough to intimate to me whether it is your intention to have time set aside in the House for a debate on the reports and balance sheets, or whether you will permit discussion on this item on the Vote for your Department."

Is that the letter? The reply I sent was that I would "vigorously oppose the request?"

Mr. Briscoe

I did not say "vigorously."

Mr. McGilligan

That is the Deputy's recollection?

Mr. Briscoe

I said the Minister intimated that he would oppose a discussion.

Mr. McGilligan

Here is what I did say—or at least what my secretary said for me:

"I am desired by the Minister for Industry and Commerce to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 7th instant, and in reply to inform you that a decision on the question as to whether discussion on the operations of the Electricity Supply Board and the Board's accounts and reports will be permitted when the main Vote for this Department comes before the Dáil rests with the Ceann Comhairle. The Minister, however, will make it a point of order to the Chair that the Electricity Supply Board should not be discussed on this Department's Vote."

Is that what the Deputy is referring to?

Mr. Briscoe

Yes.

Mr. McGilligan

I went on to say:

"It is not the Minister's present intention to have time set aside in the House for a debate on the reports and accounts of the Board. If, however, there is a desire to have the reports and accounts discussed and that an application for such discussion would seem to be approved by a fair number of Deputies from a particular Party or from several Parties, it seems to the Minister that the proper course to follow would be to seek an arrangement with the Government Whip as to the setting aside of time for the purpose."

Mr. Briscoe

That was not in my letter. That last paragraph does not appear in my letter. I will produce the letter this evening.

Mr. McGilligan

And we will see.

Mr. Briscoe

I will show you where the "codology" is.

Mr. McGilligan

I refused to have the accounts discussed?

Mr. Briscoe

Yes.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy's new contention is that that letter is really a fake letter.

Mr. Briscoe

I say the letter I got is in accordance with what has been quoted, with the exception of that last paragraph.

Mr. McGilligan

That is to say that that letter is faked.

Mr. Briscoe

The last paragraph is not in the letter I have and which I will produce.

Mr. McGilligan

We will see whether my secretary signed a carbon copy containing a paragraph which the Deputy says was not in his letter. At all events I refused a discussion! Take even the first paragraph of that letter. What does it say? That I would ask the Ceann Comhairle to say that a discussion on the accounts of the Electricity Supply Board was not permissible on my Department's Vote. I still stick to that.

Mr. Briscoe

As the Minister's reply to my letter will go on the records of the House, I ask that the letter I actually received from the Minister should also go on the records.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If the Deputy would refrain from interrupting I would give him that facility.

Mr. McGilligan

I want to test the Deputy's credit by this. He referred to a letter of a couple of months ago. It was written in May, 1930.

Mr. Briscoe

Long enough ago.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy is not a reliable witness on the point of time.

Mr. Briscoe

Did not the Minister deny that he ever wrote me, and did he not put me to the trouble of sending out to County Dublin for the letter?

Mr. McGilligan

And there is the answer. I shall now proceed.

Mr. Briscoe

Tell us more about the Shannon Board.

Mr. McGilligan

Deputy O'Kelly has asserted and somebody else has asserted that they are reliably informed that trouble arose as between either myself or the Department of Finance and the Board in the first month that the Board was set up. The Board was set up in August 1927. Deputy O'Kelly was more detailed than the first speaker on this point. He said it was the Department of Finance that was involved—that the Department had first refused the money until they got a statement, according to the Deputy's allegation, of what the money was required for and that eventually it had to yield. That is the sort of thing that I want to have stated in a precise way, because when it is so stated we can get the facts precisely. An application was made early in September 1927, for the sum of £1,000 and the Department of Finance wrote back, as they were not merely entitled to do but were required to do, to enquire under what section or sub-section of the Act this money was required. I should not say they wrote back. It was a verbal intimation that was given, and it was pointed out that separate accounts had to be kept for moneys advanced under the two sub-sections of Section 12, and a form was suggested in which application should be made. That form was sent in within a week, and the money was paid by the day on which it was said to be required, 26th September. That is my statement on that matter.

There never was a request made by the Electricity Supply Board for money refused by the Department from that day until October last. I take responsibility for the second refusal. As it was then clear that the moneys that had been advanced outran the moneys the Board were entitled to have advanced to them under the agreement, we decided to hold up advances. As far as the Department of Finance was concerned they had always up to October last paid all money that was demanded. The case the Department of Finance put up in the first instance was that the Board did not state under what sub-section of Section 12 of the Act they were asking for the money. The very moment the Board put that point right they got the money. The Deputy says he knows the auditors have been in for some time. I intend to speak at length on this matter of the auditors. He says he knows that I have got a preliminary report from those auditors. I have not. Some months ago—in May, I think—I had a form of accounts sent to me with a warning statement in a covering letter that the accounts had to be regarded as clearly provisional. A couple of days afterwards I got a second warning of the provisional nature of these accounts. Whether a further letter intervened I do not know, but some days ago another letter did come in which the auditors described the accounts as in more final form and a very definite intimation was given at the same time that the material had now been brought into shape for audit and would be put forward to the auditors and that I might expect it in five or six weeks' time. Deputy O'Kelly has reliable information that I have the accounts, and that I have a preliminary report in regard to them.

Mr. O'Kelly

Have you not said now that you have them?

Mr. McGilligan

I got no report from the auditors.

Mr. O'Kelly

But you said just now that you got the accounts.

Mr. McGilligan

I said in reply to a Parliamentary Question here in May that I had got the accounts.

Mr. O'Kelly

From the auditors?

Mr. McGilligan

That is the difficulty. The Deputy, with all his experience, does not know the difference between accounts prepared by a Board and accounts submitted to audit and presented after audit by the auditors —presented to the people who have to receive them. The accounts have not been before the auditor, though I know of business for which members of the audit staff had been brought in. I was told I had a preliminary report from the auditors.

Mr. Briscoe

The question the Minister refers to is the question I addressed to him, and the answer I got was that the accounts of the Board for the year ending 31st March, 1930, were furnished to him in a provisional form in the second week in May and that he was awaiting their completion. Does not that appear to be what Deputy O'Kelly has said?

Mr. McDonogh

Does this honest man own the Shannon scheme?

Mr. McGilligan

We are all apparently proving one another right, which is very satisfactory, except that the accounts have not been audited and that I never said they have been.

Deputy O'Kelly has referred to the resignation of the ex-Chairman, and he said that I made inaccurate statements about that and he nailed me in regard to it. If the ex-Chairman of the Electricity Supply Board wants to have it that he was dismissed I will agree that he was. If he wants to have it, as he did at one time want to have it, that he resigned, he can have it in that way. If the Deputy wants to know the circumstances of that change I will tell him. I met Mr. Murphy at a particular time in 1930 and in some detail I explained the situation to him, and indicated to him at the first meeting that I thought he had not shown the financial grip in relation to the affairs of the Board that we thought he would have shown. I saw him a second time, and I told him that I thought it was incumbent on me to have somebody associated with that Board who would exercise proper financial control. I indicated to him that that person would have to have as much authority as I could give him, irrespective of the title that he was to have. I saw Mr. Murphy on the third occasion, and I did not get many words with him when he lifted his blotting-paper and produced me his letter of resignation and asked me was that what I wanted. I hope I showed as much tact as was necessary at that point, but I was glad to have that resignation.

Mr. Lemass

And then you reappointed him a member of the Board?

Mr. McGilligan

Yes.

Mr. Lemass

At an increased salary?

Mr. McGilligan

Yes. The reason was because in my eyes he had been an accessory before the fact of a certain mix-up in the Board, and I was anxious to retain him as a paid servant until such time as that mess was cleared up. He made a certain appeal to me about his position and the emoluments he had lost, and explained the arrangements he had with the Dublin Commissioners, and I agreed to make certain payments to him.

Deputy O'Kelly is afraid of the credit of the Shannon scheme suffering by reason of the statements made here. I spoke in a very restrained way yesterday. I had to walk a very delicate line in the endeavour to indicate to the House that a serious situation had developed and at the same time avoid causing any great public uneasiness and disquiet. I think the debate has gone to the point when I am precluded from keeping silent on some matters any longer, and I think public credit will not suffer much by the revelation of things going wrong if the people see that the going wrong has been stopped and the damage checked; but it might suffer considerably if one cloaked matters and allowed the damage to go on until it reached a point when it could not be recovered.

Mr. Lemass

Exactly.

Mr. McGilligan

Deputy O'Kelly has asked me two questions as to current being sold too cheaply. I do not know what the answer to that is. For three years I have been trying to get a statement from the E.S.B. as to whether, in their opinion, current was being sold to different types of users at such a rate as would remunerate all the money expended on the business. I could get no proper answer from them. I got estimates of expenditure and revenue by the dozen. The disquieting feature of these estimates was that on each occasion on which an examination of the financial position was attempted by me, and the expenses side shown to be higher than the figure represented to me, immediately the revenue return that was made to me jumped almost precisely to the exact amount necessary to meet the increased expenditure. I could have no confidence in the revenue estimate produced under these conditions. As to whether the Shannon prospects are bright, I can answer the limited question that the Deputy put to me. He asked whether the prospects of the Shannon scheme, if properly managed, were brighter than a year ago. I will answer considerably.

Mr. Sheehy (West Cork):

Bravo!

Mr. McGilligan

I am not sure if I have got Deputy Anthony's point correctly. I think his question was, has any portion of the money proposed to be set aside for undischarged liabilities been paid out as the purchase price for any of the municipal undertakings? As purchase price, nothing has been paid to municipalities. Municipal undertakings were taken over on the basis of the Board shouldering the liabilities properly incurred in connection with all these things. A certain amount of the liabilities so incurred has since been paid out of revenue.

Mr. Flinn

Would the Minister say how much?

Mr. McGilligan

Not less than a couple of hundred thousand pounds. Deputy Moore is concerned about the accounts.

Mr. Anthony

Does that figure reduce the figure of £780,000 to £580,000?

Mr. McGilligan

Obviously if people have used money to pay undischarged liabilities and have consequently piled up further debts against themselves, they are not in a much better position. They might as well pay off their debt to the municipal authorities as pay off the traders. It is really only a matter of transfer from one shoulder to the other.

Mr. Flinn

To what extent have they not fulfilled their obligations of in-demnifying——

Mr. McGilligan

Nobody has made any point in that connection. The Deputy has been wrestling with himself on that particular point for a long period. Deputy Moore, as I have said, is rather concerned about the accounts. I am going to deal with them in some detail, and I will refer later to the point. The Deputy asked me just the same question as Deputy O'Kelly asked me about the reappointment of the first Chairman of the Electricity Supply Board, and I have answered on that. The Deputy finds it very hard to resist the inference that I had no confidence whatsoever in the Board, and that the Board had been forced upon me by influence. I do not know what is contained in the suggestion, or what hidden hand is being hinted at here.

Mr. Moore

I mentioned influences, apart from the merits of the particular individuals.

Mr. McGilligan

I wonder is the Deputy the unnamed colleague of Deputy O'Kelly? Is that what we are now having revealed?

Mr. Moore

I do not understand the Minister.

Mr. McGilligan

If it is that point, I will refer to it. Is the Deputy making the point about family influence?

Mr. Moore

Nonsense.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy has not mentioned that.

Mr. Moore

Not at all.

Mr. McGilligan

Then Deputy Moore leaves Deputy O'Kelly in the lurch in regard to that. What influence, apart from the actual merits, could there be introduced into appointments to positions which, from the very beginning, I regarded as very onerous and about which, at the beginning, I actually despaired of getting people properly to fill them? If there was ever a case in which people were chosen completely and entirely on their merits, it was in this case. I chose them after consideration and comparison of different people who came before me and whose names were suggested by me to the Executive Council. In the end we came to the conclusion that the Board which was finally decided upon represented a good working team; that it represented most of the interests that we thought should be represented there; that it represented most of the points of view that we thought should be represented, and that it represented most of the particular types of judgment that we wanted to have brought to bear on the work of the Board, and that we felt should be properly associated with the Board. The Deputy wanted to know whether "these civil servants" are under the influence of the Minister. There is one civil servant on the Board—

Mr. Moore

Acting under the instructions of the Minister?

Mr. McGilligan

There is one civil servant on the Board, and that civil servant, in the matter of the Board's affairs, is as free as any other member of the Board. I wanted to have the whole Board free, all the time remembering the power to dismiss and what that implied. As far as that civil servant is concerned, he is as free and independent in all his activities as any other member of the Board.

Mr. Briscoe

Is it the Chairman the Minister is referring to?

Mr. McGilligan

Yes.

Mr. Briscoe

Is there not a Mr. Leydon there?

Mr. McGilligan

There was a Mr. Leydon for four or five months.

Mr. Briscoe

And a Mr. Fay?

Mr. McGilligan

Not a civil servant.

Mr. Briscoe

The Minister took responsibility for Mr. Fay as his own expert.

Mr. McGilligan

I do still as an expert, but not as a civil servant. The Deputy is confusing experts and civil servants.

Mr. Briscoe

It is quite legitimate to confuse them. The Minister has told us that the Chairman is a civil servant. Is Mr. Leydon no longer on the Board?

Mr. McGilligan

No.

Mr. Briscoe

When did he cease to be a member?

Mr. McGilligan

In February, 1930.

Mr. Briscoe

Mr. Fay is still there?

Mr. McGilligan

But not as a civil servant; he never was one.

Mr. Briscoe

In what capacity is he there?

Mr. McGilligan

As an expert. Deputy MacEntee vigorously wrestled with two problems. I was never more reminded of the old comic turns of the artist on the music hall stage wrestling with himself as when Deputy MacEntee was speaking. He certainly knocked himself flat on the two points he was attempting to make. If anybody asked the Board to pay off immediately the undischarged liabilities of the transferred undertakings, it certainly was not myself. There was no question of paying off those undischarged liabilities at once. The Deputy talked as if I had refused the Board money which it demanded as of right. I did not. The real position in regard to that is that the Board agreed it would not need the money. The Board agreed further that it would make no demand for money beyond a certain amount until it could show to the Executive Council that that money was properly required.

The Deputy might refute the Scriptures and add cubits to his financial stature by taking thought if he had only listened to what I said at the opening. I made it precise and clear that we did not ask them to pay off undischarged liabilities. We could not have asked them to do it. The Act definitely states that the people who have to pay off liabilities in every case are the original borrowers. We made that point quite clear to them, and Deputy Geoghegan need not have gone to so much trouble in the rather henpecking sort of statement he made to me in order to satisfy me on two points with regard to the Act, about which I was quite clear. The Deputy did say that he assumed—why, I do not know, but possibly it was one of these rushes that the Deputy sometimes gets to his head—that the Board had budgeted on a two and a half million item. I may say that he was absurdly wrong in this case. In August, 1929, the Board said to me that they had decided that, until it was otherwise agreed by the Executive Council, their programme of operations was to be based on the assumption that the sum available under Section 12 (3) would be £2,500,000, less the amount of all outstanding liabilities on undertakings acquired or to be acquired by the Board. If they budgeted on two and a half millions free from the undischarged liabilities after writing that letter to me, they were then either trying to deceive me and through me, the House, or else they were acting in a wholly irresponsible manner.

Mr. Lemass

In fact they did so budget, whatever the explanation may be.

Mr. McGilligan

They did not, because, in fact, there was never anything approaching budgetary calculations by the Board.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister has stated that the Board approached him in June suggesting that they could not keep within the limit unless they closed down certain schemes abruptly, and they pointed out that a sudden stoppage might cause wastage.

Mr. McGilligan

If one is budgeting it means that one has a certain amount of money and one decides expenditure on a particular basis.

Mr. Lemass

Did they not decide expenditure on the basis that they would have two and a half millions?

Mr. McGilligan

They decided in this way: they spent whenever they thought fit to spend and they had absolutely no idea from time to time of what their capital commitments were. The idea of saying that there was anything corresponding to budgetary arrangements in connection with the Board's finances is really ridiculous to those who know the circumstances.

Mr. Lemass

When did the Minister discover the faulty nature of the Board's financial arrangements?

Mr. McGilligan

Through a letter which the Chairman wrote to me on the 6th of March this year. I will give the gist of that letter.

Mr. MacEntee

Give the whole of that letter.

Mr. Geoghegan

And all the letters.

The President

Come over and make the Minister's speech for him.

Mr. MacEntee

We are entitled to have the letters.

Mr. McGilligan

Deputy Geoghegan thought he had a cheap method of deciding this matter of the two and a half millions and he talked about going to a judge. His mind turned suddenly to law when he thought of cheap things. I may mention to the Deputy that there is a less expensive way and that is by coming to the House with a Bill. That was what I proposed to do in 1929. Deputy de Valera mentioned that I put some compulsion upon the members of the Board to make a certain agreement. The compulsion I used was this: I proposed to come to the Dáil in the full glare of publicity and I proposed to say here what I believed were the original intentions, and these were that the two and a half millions included the undischarged liabilities. I will add that the Board implored me not to come here, and they made the agreement so that I should not come here.

Mr. MacEntee

You threw the cloak of secrecy over the supposed irregularities of the Board.

Mr. McGilligan

What were the supposed irregularities of the Board?

Mr. MacEntee

Those which you have alleged against them.

Mr. McGilligan

Such as?

Mr. MacEntee

Incurring expenditure in excess of £1,700,000.

Mr. McGilligan

I did not know at that time.

Mr. Geoghegan

What did they implore you about?

Mr. McGilligan

I am at a loss to understand that. Were they afraid of that Bill? What did it mean? It meant that I came in here and stated to the House that interpreting my own view, and as I thought interpreting the view of the House the two and a half million pounds was to be made include a particular sum. I would have asked the House to decide that.

Mr. MacEntee

Why did you not?

Mr. Geoghegan

You must have smelt a rat.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputies should allow the Minister to make his speech.

Mr. McGilligan

It is the thing I regret most in my whole association with the Board. Looking at it now, I think it should have been done. Of course, all the wiseheads, if I may include Deputy Geoghegan in that term, think that they would then have thought that —that that Bill should have been brought before the House. But I had the idea that the Board once it made a promise would keep it, that it would at any rate make some arrangements to see that it was more or less kept. When they stated to me: "There is no necessity to come to the Dáil, we will accept that," I accepted that as good enough.

Mr. MacEntee

In 1929?

Mr. McGilligan

In 1929.

Mr. MacEntee

What about the 1930 Bill? The Minister had still time.

Mr. McGilligan

I cannot talk about the two Acts together. Let us get on. Deputy Geoghegan has talked of a cheap method of deciding. There was the other method I thought of, which got rid of counsel. We do not have to fee anybody.

Mr. Flinn

It is your interpretation of the letter.

Mr. McGilligan

If I asked the House to interpret the section, I think that the House would have said what its intentions were with regard to it.

Mr. Briscoe

You did not do that.

Mr. McGilligan

No, that was my mistake. I relied on the promise of the Board that they would, until it was otherwise agreed upon by the Executive Council, base their programme of operations on the assumption that the sum available under Section 12 (3) was two and a half million pounds, less the amount of outstanding liabilities of undertakings acquired or to be acquired by them.

Mr. Geoghegan

Does the Minister say "obligations," or what is the word?

Mr. McGilligan

I say "outstanding liabilities of undertakings acquired or to be acquired by them."

Mr. Geoghegan

I thought the word used was "obligations."

Mr. McGilligan

May I be very precise in the presence of the learned counsel—outstanding liabilities of undertakings acquired or to be acquired.

Mr. Clery

Has the Minister an inferiority complex?

Mr. McGilligan

In front of Deputy Geoghegan? I have humility, but not so much as that. Deputy Fahy started off by saying we are not in a position to apportion blame, that we have not the facts. I would like to associate myself with Deputy Thrift in that matter. Nobody has been asked to apportion blame. What is the blame? What is the situation as we have it at present? There is, to my mind, a certain amount of chaos in the accounts of the Board. There is a certain doubt with regard to some of the finances of the Board. Certain people have resigned from the Board, and these resignations have been accepted, and I am asking the House, on what I confess to be very insufficient and inadequate information, to grant a sum of money—we will leave the question of the amount over for the present. I do not see any question of apportioning blame. Apportioning blame about what? Certain people have resigned.

Mr. Fahy

Compulsorily resigned.

Mr. McGilligan

If people tell me they were compulsorily resigned I will deal with that, but the position, as I see it, is that two people resigned. If anyone tells me that he has been told——

Mr. Fahy

I know nothing about it.

Mr. McGilligan

If anyone tells me that there is any other suggestion made I will deal with it. The situation at present is that two people sent in their resignations.

Mr. Briscoe

Something similar to the first Chairman.

Mr. McGilligan

If the Deputy thinks that let him see these people and find out what they think. Deputy Fahy wanted to know was any special duty allocated to the Chairman and the Managing Director. That I do not know. As far as I am concerned, the Board as an entity is primarily responsible for anything that goes wrong until I have reason given to me to show that the responsibility should be shifted to individuals. Two people proffered their resignations and I accepted them, and I think I was very wise to accept them. Certain other people did not put in their resignations and I did not call for them, and I was very wise not to call for them.

Mr. Lemass

Even if they were responsible for the financial chaos?

Mr. McGilligan

I said yesterday that if all the resignations came in I would have accepted them. To make the situation clear, I should have gone on to state that I would have reappointed to the Board the part-timers. I should most certainly have asked the people who had gone on at a late date and who were not involved in this mix up, to allow me to reappoint them.

Mr. Lemass

Even though jointly responsible for that financial chaos?

Mr. McGilligan

As from the time in which they had the handling of it, and for the situation which developed from the period of their appointment.

Mr. Lemass

They were as much responsible as the men who resigned.

Mr. McGilligan

Considering these circumstances, with the limitations I have spoken of, the part-timers fall for consideration. If the part-timers knew everything that was going on, if they were fully aware of the details of the organisation, and if they passed certain things with full knowledge of the circumstances, then they would definitely have to be regarded as being as much to blame for what has happened, if blame is going to be assigned, as the Managing Director or the Chairman. But with three members serving part-time on a Board like that, with the enormous amount of details that has to be attended to, attending at meetings once a fortnight or once a month, I cannot conceive that anybody, having in mind the consideration that their reputation is at stake, would say, without clear proof, that they are to be regarded as being as completely responsible as the other people for anything which has happened. They did not, at any rate, deem it their business to pass that judgment on themselves. They did not send in their resignations. I would not call for their resignations. If they had been received, I might have accepted them in order to get the situation cleared up, but I certainly would have asked them to accept an offer of reappointment.

Mr. Lemass

Surely they cannot shirk responsibility on the two main issues that the Minister has raised, namely, the expenditure of the two and a half million pounds without regard to the undischarged liabilities, and the failure to send accounts for audit. Surely all the members of the Board were aware of the circumstances on these two issues.

Mr. McGilligan

All the members of the Board were aware of the promise made. How many members of the Board were aware of or were responsible for the circumstances that caused the agreement to be broken? That is the point.

Mr. Lemass

We must take it for granted that they all were.

Mr. McGilligan

I started off by stating that I made a division between the full-timers and the part-timers for the reason stated, but I do not believe it is possible for the part-timers to have anything like the grip of the details or the big problems as to have absolutely equal responsibility with the full-time people.

Mr. MacEntee

May I ask a question?

An Ceann Comhairle

I think the Minister ought to be allowed to make his speech, not only from the point of view of the Minister's right to address the House, but from the point of view of the right of the House to hear the Minister who is responsible to it.

Mr. McGilligan

As to the two million pounds, Deputy Fahy asked if this was to be dealt with in detail. I propose to deal with it later on the Committee Stage. I am asking for two million pounds. This can be regarded as a figure to be discussed in Committee. It may be cut down or it may be enlarged, according as Deputies desire, and my responsibility with regard to the money may be removed entirely, and I would prefer it so. If Deputies so desire, we can discuss all this in Committee. Deputy Fahy also took the point that Deputy MacEntee was on, that the Board are entitled to two and a half million pounds under the Act and that they should get something more. The Board had to face up to the Act and their undertaking. The Board knew what the undertaking was, and the Board, in fact, made no attempt to assert what people on the other side would describe as their legal rights. They were bound by their own undertaking.

Mr. Geoghegan

How?

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy probably does not understand the binding force of an undertaking given by four or five honourable men to the people who appointed them.

Mr. Geoghegan

Not in face of an Act of Parliament.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy would make a promise like that not to assert his rights under an Act of Parliament and then proceed to assert them on the basis of the Act. That is the Deputy's idea of proper conduct.

Mr. Geoghegan

That is your idea of what I said.

Mr. McGilligan

I shall yield to the Deputy if he wishes to explain. Deputy Fahy made a point about money being insufficient, and brought this out in connection with what was more or less a surmise that development had proceeded at such a rate. I do not know what his conclusion was. It was partly tied on to a statement that the money was insufficient. It was also tied on to a statement with regard to the accounts. Does the Deputy seriously suggest that in any development the rate of development can ever be so great that people cannot keep accounts about it or should not be able to keep accounts about it?

Mr. Fahy

They should.

Mr. McGilligan

They should. That is the point I have always held. I do not think people should be so definitely engaged on spending that they cannot keep accounts of what they have spent. That is apparently what happened. Deputy O'Connell spoke of friction occurring early. No friction occurred early between myself and the Board. I asked for information and, on that, I said I got little satisfaction. I got no satisfaction on the particular questions I was asking. The questions I was asking were of this type: That I would be glad to learn the Board's opinion upon a particular matter—on this, whether the Board is of opinion, or is optimistic that distribution will be achieved within the limits of the money advanced for that purpose, and I asked to be supplied with the figures upon which that optimism was based. In answer to that very natural and proper query, when I say I got no satisfaction I mean simply this that I was told that they were not able to make a statement, and they asked me to postpone the matter for some time, and they told me, further, that any information that they could give me at the particular time would be so unreliable as to be of no practical use to me. We did get down to a very definite statement, but that was much later. What the Deputy describes as friction amounted only to this, that in the early stages I thought fit to address that type of question, and that only, to the Board, and could get from them only that sort of reply, "The information we have is of no great value to you; we cannot give you any information at present," and so on and so forth. The dissatisfaction was the absence of information, but not friction on any point.

I have referred to the question of the Chairman resigning. The Deputy has asked me that and I think I answered him in anticipation. He questioned also the differences prior to 1929 and queried why did I not come to the Dáil. I proposed to come to the Dáil with regard to these things but unfortunately allowed myself to be stayed in my progress because the Board gave me assurance that I thought was necessary in the interests of the scheme.

Apart from these smaller matters there are two or three big things that have come out of this debate. It is quite clear I think to everybody even without my saying a word that there must be something wrong when the accounts of that particular undertaking for the year ending 31st March, 1930, are not yet in our hands. There must be something wrong—let us put it no higher than that.

Mr. Lemass

And they are still wrong.

Mr. McGilligan

And they are still wrong. It is dissatisfying not to have not merely the accounts, because I think they are a small part of the whole business, but the sort of financial statement which we are entitled to have and which I tried to get under the section of the Act which gives me power to demand it. I say that I have not got a satisfactory statement of that and cannot produce it consequently to the House. Again I say that merely to state that is to argue that there is something wrong. I stated last night that in groping around, in certain ways, in putting all these financial enquiries to the Board I discovered, in fact I had it from themselves, that their policy was to look for revenue as quickly as possible. Deputy de Valera apparently took that as a sound point of view last night, when he asked was it my desire or not that the maximum number of consumers should be attached to the Shannon wires. It is not my desire. If that is the desire we can achieve it at once. Let us give current away and we can get the whole State connected up. It is my desire to get profitable consumers in the greatest possible number attached to the Shannon current as speedily as possible, but certainly not the greatest number irrespective of what they are going to pay. The people who had the policy of simply going ahead to get in revenue irrespective of what the revenue had to cover were making a complete mistake and to my mind were guilty, if that were their policy, of complete financial recklessness.

Mr. Lemass

They could not get revenue from consumers who did not pay.

Mr. McGilligan

Their attitude was we will get revenue any way we can. Having that attitude I do not know how they fixed their scales of charges. Deputy de Valera conceives a managing director of a scheme like this who need have no touch with accounts—who is not responsible for accounts.

Mr. de Valera

I should like to say that I did not have any such conception, but I can imagine in a case like the Board one expert from the engineering side being asked by the Board to pay particular attention to that, and another member who is a financial expert being asked to look after the finance. But as members of the Board as a whole they should be acquainted certainly.

Mr. McGilligan

If the accounts had gone wrong the Managing Director, as he was singled out by the Deputy, has some responsibility for that.

Mr. de Valera

Certainly, as a member of the Board.

Mr. McGilligan

There are at any rate three things that emerge. Deputy de Valera lifted them to the rank of the three important points to be discussed here: the question of the agreement which, according to the Deputy, the Minister said was made and which the Minister said was broken; the question of the accounts and the whole question of financial policy. I will give the gist of the agreement. I got a letter, as I said, from the Board in March this year, and it contained certain statements. It contained an expression of regret from the Board for breaking the agreement with the Executive Council. It went on to state the reasons for that. It indicated that information was not available owing to imperfections in the Board's organisation to enable the Board to ascertain with even approximate accuracy what the real position was. The recording system had fallen into arrears to such a degree that figures could not be produced. That is March, 1931.

Mr. Lemass

That letter was received from the Board in March, 1931.

Mr. McGilligan

A letter stating that, more or less. It went on to indicate this, that from information now available it is clear that the agreement of August, 1929, was broken in December of that year, but up to June, 1930, the Board was not in a position to know what capital expenditure it had incurred. The records were in arrears and the figures were incomplete and unreliable. It is clear that they believed there was an agreement. It is also clear they believed they had broken their agreement. Further, it is clear that the records and their whole organisation of accountancy were completely broken up.

Mr. MacEntee

Was the agreement reduced to writing?

Mr. McGilligan

Yes. No one ever questioned anything about the agreement until it was questioned in this House. There has been no attempt to quibble regarding the law versus the agreement. The Board did not attempt to do it.

Mr. Lemass

But it is the concern of this House.

Mr. McGilligan

Are we to get back to the absurd point that Deputy Geoghegan made, that the Board, because they are entitled to ask for a certain amount of money, are bound to ask for it, and I suppose bound to spend it whether it is required or not?

Mr. Geoghegan

I did not say that.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy can look up the records.

Mr. Geoghegan

What I did say was that if they felt the necessities of the undertaking required it they were bound to ask for it.

Mr. McGilligan

The explanation of the Deputy scarcely clears up what he did not very clearly say. His statement was that if they were entitled to the money they were bound to ask for it. They were not bound, and they did not ask as being entitled. The Board themselves knew their position. In two or three letters they admitted that they broke the agreement, but said it was not deliberately done. They went out of their way to make that point. They did not take up the attitude of Deputy Geoghegan, that they broke the agreement elevating the statute to a superior position over the agreement.

Mr. Geoghegan

May I be allowed to say this. I stated that an agreement entered into under a misapprehension, and afterwards found to be in conflict with the statute, could not be relied on, and that it was the duty of everyone concerned to repudiate it, if it was in conflict with the statute.

Mr. McGilligan

I must say that after hearing that from the Deputy I would not like to appoint him to a responsible position in which he would have the duty of representing, if that is going to be his line of conduct, that he could make an agreement and then afterwards elevate the statute against it, and, saying that the agreement was inconsistent with it, break his agreement.

Mr. Geoghegan

I do not adopt the Minister's standard.

Mr. McGilligan

I do not think the Deputy by his interruption has improved his position.

Mr. Geoghegan

I have kept my temper, which is more than the Minister can say.

Mr. McGilligan

I must say that I feel with regard to the Deputy as if I had got a telling-off from a badly aggravated nanny, simulating real but genteel annoyance.

Mr. Briscoe

The Deputy is much too polite to the Minister.

Mr. McGilligan

It is an overdose of mild bitters that the Deputy has served out.

I had certain correspondence with the Board on this question. Right through I aimed really at one point. I was trying to get from them an assurance that the voted moneys would be sufficient for the purposes of distribution, and that they would be enabled by whatever distribution networks they set up to get such sales at the experts' rates as would secure revenue to make the partial development financially successful. I stuck to that question—I may have varied the terminology of it —from October, 1928 until early in this year. That was the one assurance that I wanted and on that was the special bit of interference that I had with the Board. I was not at first disposed to look critically into various things that they put up. I wanted to have it on record that they had faced up to a particular question, and that they had backed their reputation on the answer. The answer was to be such as to assure me that they would be able to carry out their duties under the Act within the moneys voted, subject to the agreement afterwards, and that they would be enabled to get such sales as would remunerate the capital expenditure on the whole concern. That was the whole object of my endeavours over two and a half years, to get an assurance with regard to these points.

I asked about these matters and about the accounts. I got a letter in December which they said was sent to satisfy me that the Electricity Supply Act moneys would be sufficient for the purposes of the Board under the Act, but they warned me that the capital requirements which they put into the letter were an indication of the limits of the Board's possible capital requirements under any conditions. Of course when I related that letter to the circumstances of to-day I see that it was not a satisfactory statement or estimate of their capital requirements under present conditions. They said that to me in December, 1928, and at that point they revealed this item with regard to the undischarged liabilities. I took that up resolutely with them because I had the feeling that the Oireachtas definitely meant that the two and a half million pounds was to be the limit of the Board's capital liabilities, however accruing to them. I said to the Board at one time—I wrote them a letter on the point—"If it is not clear that the moneys in Section 12 include the undischarged liabilities, I intend to use the amending Act to make it clear." I am asked by Deputy de Valera who was to arbitrate on this difference between the Board and myself, and he wants to know what compulsion I used to secure the agreement. The arbitration that Deputy de Valera asked about, and the compulsion that I put upon the Board, was the arbitration and the compulsion of this House. I said to them: "I intend to make this clear and I will go to the House and make my position clear on that. If the House votes that money to me with this limitation, then you are so bound." Their answer to me was not that they could not carry on under the straitened circumstances, or that they had budgeted in 1928, or early in 1929, for a programme many years ahead to such a point that the money was clearly insufficient, but they said: "No, we will base our expenditure on the assumption that the two and a half million pounds are to include the outstanding liabilities." That was the definite promise made.

After that I queried how the arrangement was being carried out. Early in April I got a statement from them to show that the Board had kept the agreement. I then queried a very definite point. I said that they had put up to me a particular programme in 1928, and that I had pointed out certain things in regard to it. I had said to them: "If you carry out that programme and add on the undischarged liabilities you would clearly be going outside the money voted." I asked them in April what modification of the earlier programme had they made, arising out of the agreement. Late in April, 1930, they sent me a letter to show how the programme had been modified by a sum of £363,000, and so to prove that they had kept the agreement. There was never a word about the agreement being obnoxious to them, or that they were trying to elevate the statute above the agreement. Their whole point was that they had kept the agreement. I got letters from them somewhat later in which they said they could not complete what they called a reasonable programme within the limitations imposed upon them.

That brings me to the 1930 Act. Deputy Lemass made quotations from that debate and, after he had done so, handed over his quotations to Deputy MacEntee. I asked Deputy MacEntee was there not something in between what he read, whether it was in his favour or not, but I did not get it. The paper I presume was not an exact copy.

Mr. MacEntee

It was merely an extract given, as the Minister has given extracts, by paraphrasing letters he has received from the Electricity Supply Board.

Mr. McGilligan

That is what the Deputy was doing.

Mr. MacEntee

No. It was an extract from the Minister's speech.

Mr. McGilligan

Deputy Fahy had moved an amendment to add £500,000 to the two and a half millions.

An Ceann Comhairle

That amendment had been ruled out of order, and the matter was discussed on the section.

Mr. McGilligan

I started by saying "that I would speak on the section in the light of the amendment that had been ruled out of order." I went on: "The amendment would mean that the sum of two and a half million pounds originally voted for the Board would be increased by half a million pounds. There is no necessity for that. The Board is not straitened owing to the outgoings to date." Then comes the point that the Deputy left out.

Mr. Lemass

What the Minister has left out is just as important.

Mr. McGilligan

I went on to say: "The Board certainly ought to show that the money that is handed over to it is going to be remunerative, and it has to make a case why it should get more money. To introduce this casually, simply because the Cork station has been bought out is not justified. The purchase of the Cork station was always before those who drew up the 1927 Act, and the purchase price was always considered to be included in the two and a half million pounds. The whole thing was looked to. I do not say that the exact price was definitely arrived at, but a sum for the purchase of the Cork and other undertakings, and for the purchase by agreement of certain small undertakings, was always in our minds when we were arranging for this two and a half million pounds, and there is no reason to believe that that two and a half million pounds will not be sufficient."

Mr. Lemass

That is the point.

Mr. McGilligan

At that point I was interrupted by Deputy Fahy, who said: "I take it that the Minister assures us that the Electricity Supply Board will not be in any way hampered in having to meet the charge." I replied: "I would not like to say that, because I do not know enough about it, but they always had before them the fact that they had to buy the Cork undertaking, and they know that the two and a half million pounds granted to them contained a sum which we thought was sufficient for that and for the purchase of the other undertakings."

Mr. Lemass

Would the Minister inform the House if he had no reason to believe that the two and a half million pounds would be insufficient why he had written to the Board twelve months before to the contrary?

Mr. McGilligan

Yes, I wrote about a suggested programme and I got an assurance that they would modify their programme.

Mr. Lemass

I am talking about long after the agreement was made. The Minister said yesterday that in the early part of 1930 he issued a letter stating that, in his opinion, the Board had definitely gone beyond the sum which they agreed was at their disposal, and six months later he informed the Dáil to the contrary.

Mr. McGilligan

I got a reply on the 7th April in which it was stated: "This is to show that the Electricity Supply Board has kept the agreement." There was a further letter on the 25th April to show that they had modified their programme by £363,000.

Mr. Lemass

And in June they asked to be released from the agreement.

Mr. McGilligan

The day after that debate they asked to be released from the agreement. I believe that appeal was founded on the amendment that was discussed here. They saw that people here were ready to give them money without any case being made for it, and they asked for release. A request had been made on their behalf for a sum of £500,000. On the 13th June the Board said that they could not complete a reasonable programme without breaking the agreement. They asked that they should be released from it and said that wastage might occur through a breach or stoppage at this stage. I asked what they called a reasonable development. To my mind the test of that was, was it going to remunerate the money spent at some time? I did not care particularly when. I have been waiting to get their statement of what reasonable development they had before them at that time, and I am waiting for it still. Under those conditions it is alleged that I misled the Seanad. I did not. Remember again the terms of the agreement: "Unless it is otherwise agreed by the Executive Council." I might easily have asked the Executive Council to agree. If I had done that I would have come to the House and said: "I believe that the Oireachtas intended that sum of money to cover a variety of things. It seems now as if a good programme is ahead which will entail bigger expenditure." I would have asked the House to vote the money. I have waited, and have not yet got a full statement, or adequate evidence upon which I could come to the House and ask for any money. That is the position I am in at the moment.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister is here now asking for the money.

Mr. McGilligan

On the terms that I stated, a completely unsatisfactory situation. That is the position with regard to the Act.

Mr. Lemass

Might I ask why the Minister did not make it clear in the Seanad when the Bill had gone there, in view of the new information which had come to his knowledge in the meantime?

Mr. McGilligan

Make what clear?

Mr. Lemass

That the Minister had good reason to believe that the money available for the Board would not be sufficient for its purposes.

Mr. McGilligan

I had not good reason to believe that. I had the Board's statement that what they considered a reasonable programme could not be completed without breaking the agreement. The position that I was in then is the position that I am in now. It meant, as far as I was concerned, that new money had to be voted. I held the view that the two and a half millions included the undischarged liabilities. If I had to come to the House to ask for money for a reasonable programme then I should have evidence to demonstrate the reasonableness of it. I got no indication from them as to what their reasonable programme was, or what programme there was that could not be carried out inside the sum of money which they had agreed in 1929 to base their requirements upon. I might have said in the Seanad that the Board, arising out of an amendment moved in the Dáil, had asked for more money. I would have said that they had reason to think that they were going to get that money from the Dáil, arising out of the casual amendment which Deputy Fahy had put down to give them £500,000, nobody else having asked for it. That certainly indicated a big laxity in regard to financial procedure.

Mr. Lemass

Intelligent anticipation.

Mr. McGilligan

It might be intelligent anticipation of demands but not of reasonable needs.

Mr. MacEntee

The purpose of the amendment was to compel the Minister to make the disclosure almost twelve months ago that he has made now.

Mr. McGilligan

Does the Deputy mean that Deputy Fahy knew that the Board wanted the money? Hardly, because I think the Board should have informed me as to the moneys they required before they informed Deputy Fahy.

Mr. MacEntee

Deputy Fahy has nothing to do with the Board.

Mr. McGilligan

The purpose of the amendment. The Deputy might have said that an accidental result, if the amendment had been discussed, would be a disclosure of certain things by the Minister. The Deputy is full of parts of speech as well as full of English and should know the meaning of the word "purpose." There was no purpose in Deputy Fahy's amendment except casually and lightly to grant £500,000 to the Board, which the Board had not asked for at that time.

The accounts is the last matter. After that agreement I associated with the Board in a part-time capacity two people. These two people retired from the Board when their period came to an end in February, 1930. At that time I reorganised the Board with a view to getting some better arrangement of the whole scheme. The finances of the Board had at that time become disquieting. I will go no further than to say that. Accordingly Mr. Brown and Mr. Fay were appointed. Deputy de Valera and other Deputies have made a great point that we do not appear to be in a much better position since these two were appointed. But it is to be remembered that it is easy enough to cause a bit of a mess but it is a desperately difficult thing to clear it up. I indicated to these two people when going on the Board, that there was a very definite possibility that they would find things, as far as accounts and records were concerned, in a state, more or less, of chaos. I indicated that if that was so that they were undertaking a very difficult and very responsible task, because people would not stop, unless things were pointed out very accurately to them, to consider the point at which they went in, and the state of things they discovered when they got in. I pointed out to them there was a likelihood that they would be tarred with any pitch that was going, if an unsatisfactory situation was discovered there. These two went on the Board in February of that year on my assurance that I would later on make their position clear.

In July of that year I received an intimation from the Chairman that a particular action had been taken. He gave it to me as a matter of information and I felt relieved when I heard what he had done. He wrote to me afterwards putting the same thing before me in writing. He told me that in June, 1930, he had suggested, and the Board had approved of the suggestion, that the auditors—the auditors in question are the auditors whom I had appointed to investigate the first accounts—should supply staff to help in bringing the records up-to-date and the auditors' staff was got in. I can give no better description of the present situation than to say that since July, 1930, five representatives of that outside auditors' firm, and since September, seven have been continuously engaged in making up all the records that were in arrear and that should have been kept in order by the Board. Those auditors are still engaged in doing what the Board should have been doing—keeping their ordinary business records and if anybody can tell me that I am to criticise in any way the two new members for not being able to do what an outside firm of experienced auditors with five of a staff from July and seven of a staff from September have not yet been able to do, I think they are asking me to judge them very harshly. That is the situation with regard to the accounts. Bear in mind these accounts run from the 1st April, 1929, to the 31st March, 1930, and that outside firm of accountants with five of a staff from July and seven from September to date are, you may say, continuously engaged in trying to remake the records which should have been there from the beginning and were not.

What is the point of view with regard to these accounts? The accounts are not to be had. The accounts will be had some time. I am asking the House at this point for money to carry on the activities of a particular organisation, and I am going to pass on to all the members of the Board, and would probably pass it to two people who are not now on it if they were there, all that has been said in this debate, because no better criticism could be spoken of their activities than all the phrases that have been used in the course of this debate. I am being criticised because I have not certain information. The House adopts towards me the very line that I adopted towards the Board, and a proper line of conduct. They are criticising me for what I criticised the Board.

Mr. Lemass

Has the Minister adopted to the House the same attitude that the Board adopted to him?

Mr. McGilligan

No. I am making explanations; the Board made none. I have not the material to make a proper statement: the Board should have had the material for me. We will get that when this outside firm have completed their task. I do not care what allegations with regard to destroying credit may be made against me afterwards. It is better to have it known, now that the situation is in hand, that the accounts of the whole recording organisation from different departments were, according to the letters that were sent to me by the Chairman of the Board, in a complete state of disorganisation, and that people have been got in from outside to try and remake them.

In that, I want to be clear that I am not passing one word of criticism, as Deputy Flinn seemed to imply last night, on the staff. I know nothing much about the activities of the staff. I know of certain people being in certain positions, but as far as the situation that has developed is concerned, the people who were responsible for it were people at the top and mainly the full-time members of that time. From what I know of the staff they are very good, energetic and capable people, but there was no direction at the top, and the situation has been allowed to develop to this point.

Deputy Murphy asked last night what were we to think of a business concern which could not produce at this point the accounts of sixteen months ago. He said that no business concern could succeed on those lines. Yet for what am I being criticised? For refusing to increase the overdraft that a business concern had with me, when it is in the position that Deputy Murphy described of not being able to produce the accounts of sixteen months ago. Deputy de Valera alleges that I am destroying the credit of the Board. If a trader who has an overdraft with a bank finds himself in difficulties and applies to the manager of the bank for an increase in his overdraft, and if the bank manager says: "Give me your accounts; let me look at them and I will consider the question of the overdraft," and if the trader will not or cannot produce the accounts, and the bank manager refuses an extension of his overdraft, who is responsible for the destruction of his credit? Is it the bank?

Mr. Lemass

If the bank refuses to honour a cheque while he has cash to his credit!

Mr. McGilligan

Honouring is a good word. Remember that the money to which the Board was entitled depended on an agreement. That agreement was honourably undertaken by these people and it should have been kept.

Mr. Lemass

We never heard of it until yesterday.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy heard of it before he made that statement.

Mr. de Valera

We want all the documents relating to that.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy will probably get them later. As far as I am concerned all the Deputies ought to get them later.

Mr. MacEntee

Before this Bill goes through.

Mr. McGilligan

Three positions have been taken up on this measure. Deputy de Valera will vote the money once he knows what it is for. He demands a statement of the sub-heads under which the allocation of this money will be made. Deputy Good goes a bit further and says: "Let us get in an outside firm of auditors." They have already been called in and have been working for over a year. He does not ask the same thing as Deputy de Valera. He does not say "Let us find out what this money is required for." He says: "Ask that expert firm to make out a statement as to the Board's commitments, to give us some idea of the revenue and expenditure position." I think that should be got, but if you are going to wait until that is got, remember that the 1929-30 accounts are about ready for audit now, and will not be available for six or seven weeks. They will not come into this House until October. These are the accounts for the year ending 31st March, 1930. The auditors are working to try to re-make all the records that the Board should have kept. What are we going to ask these auditors to do? They have got to get the 1930-31 accounts, to get a general picture of the whole position of the Board, its commitments, its estimated revenue, and its expenditure. We will wait a long time before we get it, but we must get it sooner or later.

Deputy O'Connell thinks that we should know more than even this. I think he agreed with Deputy Good with regard to the outside firm of auditors, but added that we should get the firm to make suggestions as to how anything that is wrong could be rectified. I do not know that auditors are the proper people to do that. The auditors can get the accounts, they can get a statement of the commitments, of the various types of revenue and of the expenditure position, and they may give certain suggestions of a limited type but there may be other suggestions that would have to be made in relation to the sum of money that is now being asked for. The House may say that they will vote a sum of money simply to meet the ascertained liabilities of the Board, that they will vote a certain limited sum that will keep the Board going for a couple of months. They can vote a sum which the Board says is required for immediate extensions. They can say that they will confine the money to paying for work done but they have to make up their minds on this: Are they going to wait for that statement, for a report such as Deputy Good wants and the much more detailed report that Deputy O'Connell suggests? The House can vote whatever money it believes is required, and I honestly hope when the House is voting the money that it will take me clean out of the new Bill, that it will have its mind clear when it is voting that money to a particular organisation, that it is going to keep the Board independent of the Minister.

These are things the House will have to approach on Committee Stage. At the moment the main thing the House has before it is that certain moneys should be granted for the purposes of the Electricity Supply Board——

Mr. Flinn

At the behest of the Minister?

Mr. McGilligan

That is a Committee point.

Mr. Flinn

It is not, it is the principle.

Mr. McGilligan

I did not bring myself into that Bill with any satisfaction. If the Deputy likes I will agree to put down an amendment to take myself out of the Bill. But the House should know what it is doing. It is going to give money to a Board for certain purposes. Is it going to have no check or control upon it? It is inevitable that it is going to have very little statement of a detailed type as to what that money is required for— nothing is now possible in the nature of the investigation in regard to the money previously voted. Nobody can certify that the money is properly due. I could not certify it. If I am to do anything hereafter, I am to certify that the money is properly and reasonably required before it is authorised. I could not take that burden on myself at the moment. I could not recommend that £2,000,000. I do not believe that I could recommend £1,500,000 was properly due to them at the moment, but there are certain sums of money that one can say they are likely to need, and that there is a great likelihood that they will need within a certain limited period, but the House will have to take either of two points of view. It can say that it will take full responsibility for so much money; that the Board can make its demand and the Minister for Finance must pay on demand. Or the House can say "No, we want some check in between, and we will have the check in the persons of the Ministers, whom we will hold responsible when the moneys are disbursed."

Deputy de Valera last night referred to the Shannon scheme. He used it twice for his own purposes. First, he said that a certain sum of money was voted, and that that sum was from time to time increased. That is quite wrong. It was once increased. The way it progressed, he believed, was on certain rough calculations that were made. A little later he asked, why do not we act in this case as we acted previously when large sums of money were involved and get the assistance of outside experts? But apparently the experts never produced anything except rough calculations. I do not know what we want experts for if that is the case. We want something more than rough calculations if money is to be voted free of any ministerial check.

I said before that this was an unsatisfactory situation. It is not a situation that I would like to have seen happen or develop. It is one I did my best to prevent. I have never put more effort into anything than in trying to get the whole Shannon business, in so far as it had any relation to me, on an even keel. If I have to confess there is a certain failure at this moment I do so in this atmosphere—that I am trying my best to renew the conditions under which success will be achieved.

Mr. de Valera

Following on a remark made by the Minister, I should like to make our attitude clear. We were prepared, and are prepared, to vote the sum of money which is immediately necessary to cover the liabilities and the immediate needs, and to keep the enterprise going. We are prepared to do that and as the Minister has indicated that he is willing, on Committee Stage, to have that point of view examined in detail, we are not going to do what we purposed doing— to vote against this Bill.

Mr. Lemass

On a point of privilege, the Minister has quoted from various documents and communications which passed between him and the Shannon Board. Is it not the practice, when a Minister quoted from such documents, that copies of them are placed on the Table for the information of members? Can we be informed whether the documents in question now will be tabled for the information of members before the next Stage of this Bill is taken?

An Ceann Comhairle

Has the Minister quoted from documents?

Mr. McGilligan

I have specially refrained from quoting.

Mr. MacEntee

The Minister has referred to a considerable number of letters and has paraphrased them. He has also referred to an agreement. I submit that that agreement, and the correspondence which took place between the Minister and the Board in relation to this matter, the correspondence which took place particularly between the period September, 1929, and the present day, should be tabled.

Mr. Flinn

The Minister quoted textually from certain letters and he gave certain textual portions of the agreement.

Mr. McGilligan

I refrained purposely from textual quotation.

Mr. MacEntee

That is because he was afraid to submit the documents.

Mr. Lemass

Is there any good reason for refusing to table these documents in view of the fact that their purport has been given to the House?

Mr. McGilligan

There is good reason. The House will get these eventually.

Mr. Lemass

The time we want them is now.

Mr. MacEntee

In view of the use the Minister has made of this agreement, surely the House is entitled to see the text of the agreement and of the correspondence which led up to it? This agreement, which obviously the Executive Council forced on the Electricity Supply Board——

Mr. McGilligan

They did not.

Mr. Lemass

It is an agreement of which the House should be informed.

Mr. McGilligan

They have been informed.

Mr. Lemass

Why not publish the text?

Mr. McGilligan

Simply because it is not in the public interest.

Mr. MacEntee

The Minister says it is in writing. It is not in the public interest that it should be withheld.

Mr. McGilligan

I think it is.

Mr. MacEntee

In relation to a grant of money by this Oireachtas, a secret agreement has been entered into between the Minister and the body authorised to spend that money.

An Ceann Comhairle

The position as regards documents is that if documents are quoted by a Minister, the Minister may be asked to lay the documents before the House and make them available to members. If the Minister says that it is contrary to the public interest in his judgment to do that, it simply is not done at that particular point. There is no way of getting over that at the moment.

Question—"That the Bill be read a Second Time"—put and agreed to.

Committee Stage fixed for Wednesday, 15th July.