The House is asked to vote a sum of £12,000 for a definite purpose. Included in the list of items dealing with this we find "salaries, wages and expenses of staff, office accommodation, stationery and printing, advertising, postage, etc." How much is there to be for each, and how many are going to be employed? Surely there must have been some tot made in the Department of Finance or was the method adopted in connection with this simply to take a series of figures from £1 to £50,000 and, like some people who pick out winners, take a pin and stick it in one of the numbers and say "That is the sum I want." However much the Minister may claim that as his method, I certainly think that class of computation is not adopted in any Department of State. The Department of Finance put up some figures in respect of certain officials to be employed. Possibly they put up persons' names and the sums they were to be paid, and gave the personnel of the whole establishment. Why is that kept from the House? What is the meaning of it? This is not the money of the Ministry. It is not the money of their supporters. It is the money of the people of this State, all the people. Each and everyone, according to whatever the taxation of the country is, will pay a quota. Let us have less talk about dictators from incompetents. What is the meaning of bringing an estimate before the Dáil at all? What purpose does it serve? Surely the Ministry knows someone who will get some of the £12,000. If the gentleman whose name was mentioned is not to be employed in that capacity, as a representative of the State in this matter, who is to be employed? Are Messrs. Corboy to be employed? Why is the Ministry keeping it secret? Are they ashamed of it? Why should they discredit any American firm that is going to be employed, by withholding the name from this House, leaving it to come out subsequently in the United States, that they were so employed? That is not the way to treat the citizens of another country, or the people in whom you have sufficient confidence to employ in order to do work of that sort. In the course of his speech the Minister for Industry and Commerce asked, a short time ago, if we were against the repayment of this money. It was not to-day or yesterday we stated our position with regard to that. As far back as 1922 what was the attitude of himself and others in connection with it, when they put this country to an expenditure of over £100,000 in order that they would get possession of the whole of it, and, having failed to get possession of the whole of it, they then started to get possession of a moiety of it?
