Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 28 Apr 1937

Vol. 66 No. 13

Private Deputies' Business. - Arbitration in the Civil Service—Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That, in view of the promise made by the President to establish an arbitration board to deal with the grievances of the Civil Service, the Dáil is of opinion that the Executive Council should forthwith enter into a conference with the Civil Service organisations to devise a scheme of arbitration acceptable to both sides.—(William Norton.)

Mr. Costello

Before moving the adjournment of the debate on this motion, on the occasion when it was last before the House, I waited for some little time to see if the Minister would deal with the points that had been put forward by Deputy Norton in his very detailed speech. It is a matter of considerable regret that the Minister did not see his way to intervene after Deputy Norton had made his case. Deputy Norton made a case complete in all its details, logical in its arguments and inevitable in its conclusions. It remains for me now —having regard to the attitude taken up by the Minister not to intervene— to follow in support of the motion moved by Deputy Norton and to try, so far as I can in advance, to anticipate the arguments which it is conceived will be adduced by the Minister when he does deign to address the House on the subject of this motion. I do not intend to go into this case in great detail or, I hope, at the same length as Deputy Norton necessarily did. I intend to confine my observations to one or two salient points on the matter. I was anxious to approach the consideration of this motion entirely in a non-Party spirit, with a view to seeing if the arguments both for and against the motion could be properly weighed and considered. The Minister smiles. I presume he thinks that a discussion in this House of any motion on a non-Party basis is beyond the realms of probability. But if anything could be discussed on a non-Party basis it is a topic dealing with our Civil Service. I do hope that, as a result of this motion, the Civil Service and all matters appertaining to the conditions and the grievances of civil servants will be removed for all time from the realms of Party politics.

We support this motion, Sir, as a Party. The Labour Party are, of course, supporting it also. I know that no protests are likely to come from the Independent Benches. The Government sought for and obtained, as Deputy Norton has pointed out, at two successive elections, in 1932 and 1933, a mandate to set up effective arbitration machinery for the Civil Service. There is real unanimity amongst all Parties in the House on one particular topic of importance to the State. It is difficult to understand why, in the circumstances, the Minister still persists in the attitude he has adopted towards the Civil Service on this issue. It has been for a considerable time now abundantly clear that the Government proposals in reference to arbitration machinery for the Civil Service are entirely unacceptable to every branch of the service. For the Government, in that state of affairs, to persist in the setting-up of the machinery that they indicated in the correspondence they have had with the staff of the organisation, would be merely futile. Deputy Norton asks in this motion that the Government should meet representatives of the Civil Service with a view to seeing if the gap between themselves and the Civil Service organisations can be bridged by devising a scheme of arbitration acceptable to both sides. That is a very modest proposal to put before the House. We must only assume that the Government is going to reject even that very modest proposal.

When I saw this motion on the Order Paper for the first time, my immediate reaction to it was that I would put down an amendment calling on the Government to fulfil their promises and set up arbitration machinery. But I felt that it was in the better interests of the service and the people generally that this matter should be discussed in the form of the motion handed in by Deputy Norton. I have always held the view that in the interests of this State it is absolutely essential that we have at the service of any Government that is in office for the time being a thoroughly efficient, adequately paid and contented Civil Service. We are only a young State facing very difficult problems. We have had in the last 15 years to face difficult problems indeed, political, economical and financial. I think that both the personnel of the last Government and the personnel of this Government would be in complete agreement in paying tribute to the assistance rendered to them in the difficult problems that had to be faced and solved in that period by the Civil Service of every section, every branch and every grade.

We have had to educate our people politically. They have had to pay, sometimes, a high price for that education. We have not in this country a governing class of the type that they have in England, comprising people who set out at a very early stage of their adolescence to fit themselves for Parliamentary careers and for the work of government. There is a very limited class indeed, certainly at the present time, from which the future Ministers of the State can be drawn. There is a reluctance in people with the necessary experience and the necessary ability to make the sacrifice that is involved in a political career in the circumstances that exist in this country. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that we should have a Civil Service entirely removed from the arena of Party politics, thoroughly efficient, as I have said, adequately paid, and with a secure sense that their livelihood is not going to be attacked at the whim of any Minister who comes along and that the conditions of their employment are such as to secure to them stability in their work and independence in the exercise of their functions.

I have a feeling that at the back of the reluctance of the Government to accede to the demand—as I consider it, the reasonable demand—of the Civil Service organisations for effective arbitration machinery, is the inherent departmental desire to retain full control over every civil servant, over his salary, over his work, when he is to be dismissed, when he is to be de-graded, and, generally, to have the fullest control over his activities. I do not want to go into past matters, or to deal with the situation that was created by the recent dismissal of a very prominent civil servant. That caused a very great disturbance in the country. Had an effective system of arbitration machinery been in operation, the disturbance that existed in consequence of that action of the Government would never have taken place.

It is essential that the Civil Service officials should feel that they are permanent in their positions, that they are not holding their jobs at the whim of every politician who happens for the moment to occupy a Ministerial post, and, in giving judgment on any particular point that comes in the course of his duty from time to time, the civil servant is entitled and expected in the public interest to exercise his function independent of the political proclivities or the political desires of the particular Minister he is serving at the moment.

We require, therefore, a thoroughly independent and, I need not elaborate it, efficient Civil Service, and while I desire that with every instinct that I posses with a view to the interests of the country, I find myself equally strongly against anything in the nature of bureaucracy in the Civil Service. A mean has to be found between an independent Civil Service and a bureaucratic Civil Service. That can best, in my view, be found through the machinery of effective arbitration and not the farce and the phantasy that is offered by the present Government to the Civil Service organisations.

We built up a Civil Service when the State was founded based on the model of the British Civil Service. We based, in our Constitution, the framework of our financial system on the law and custom obtaining in Great Britain. That system has been maintained to the present moment by the present Government, and very properly so. To justify their refusal to give effect to their promises made at election time, the Government have sought refuge in mouthings about the unconstitutionality of the Civil Service organisations' proposals. It is to that particular aspect of this problem that I propose to address most of my remarks to-night. If I may put the point of view that I advocate in reference to this arbitration issue in as short and comprehensive a phrase as possible, I would say that we are in favour of a system of conciliation and arbitration for our Civil Service based on, or analogous to, the system of conciliation and arbitration existing at present, and in operation for some years past, in the British Civil Service. That system that has been in operation in the British Civil Service was obtained by an agitation of civil servants in Great Britain and accepted by the Treasury and by Parliament some years ago, and it has worked, as I understand, to the complete satisfaction of both the civil servants and the Treasury, without in any way interfering with the fundamental principle of the British Constitution of the power of Parliament over the purse.

Now, it has been made abundantly clear in all the correspondence that has taken place between the service organisations here and the Government that the proposals for effective conciliation and arbitration that would satisfy the service demands are based upon the system that is in operation in England and that has met with such great success. They have made it abundantly clear also that their proposals, and the machinery that they would agree to have set up for arbitration, are subject to the overriding authority of Parliament. They have never claimed, and they have made it clear that they do not claim, that the awards of any arbitration board that may be set up could or would in any way override the jurisdiction of Parliament or the principle embodied in our Constitution, that the citizens' money cannot be voted away or spent without the authority of the Dáil.

But apparently the acceptance of that principle is not sufficient for the Government, and was not sufficient to satisfy the commission, the Brennan Commission as it is called, that was set up by the Government to consider this question of arbitration. When I was endeavouring to forecast or anticipate what the arguments would be that the Minister would advance against Deputy Norton's motion, I conceived that in the forefront of his argument would be, in the first place, the statement that the proposals which the Minister was prepared to offer to the Civil Service followed generally the lines laid down, advocated or adumbrated, by the Brennan Commission in their report; that he would then come on to deliver further mouthings about the unconstitutionality of the proposal of the Civil Service organisations; that he would then, in the rhetorical phrases of which he is a past master, dilate upon his duty as the guardian of the taxpayers' money, and that he would finally wind up with a few raps at the Cumann na nGaedheal Government for not having set up arbitration.

Mr. Norton

The Deputy will spoil the effect of the Minister's speech.

Mr. Costello

I would like to deal with these points very shortly. The Minister may have a few more arguments, but I cannot think of any other ones that even he would have the audacity to put forward. He will take his stand, as I have anticipated, on the report of the Brennan Commission. That report is a very remarkable document, remarkable in the astuteness with which he evades the issue as to whether the proposal of the Civil Service organisations for arbitration machinery is or is not constitutional. Nowhere in that report of the Brenman Commission will be found, so far as I can understand it, a definite statement that they are of opinion that the proposals for effective arbitration machinery are contrary to the fundamental principle of our Constitution, that the Dáil is the guardian of the people's money and that no money can be paid away without the vote or the authority of Parliament. In no part of that commission report is it stated that the proposals contravene that fundamental principle.

They do endeavour to insinuate, without directly saying so, that the proposals are unconstitutional in a variety of ways, but curiously enough the one point on which they seize and upon which they elaborate to demonstrate the unconstitutionality of the proposals for effective arbitration, is the provision in our Constitution that no proposals for the expenditure of money can be brought forward except at the instance of a Minister. Those paragraphs dealing with that, to my mind, are a remarkable piece of special pleading, and they bear on their face all the indications of officialdom and departmentalism.

The paragraphs of this Brennan Report dealing with the question of arbitration start ineffectively at paragraph 25, and they there and then proceed to make a distinction between what the Minister proposed by way of arbitration and what would be acceptable to the Civil Service organisations. Paragraph 25 says:

"The intimation conveyed to us that the principle of arbitration was already accepted by the Government obviously constitutes an advance towards the staff viewpoint on the shortcomings of the existing system."

The next sentence quite clearly demonstrates that the Brennan Commission or, I should say, more correctly, the acceptors of the Majority Report of the Brennan Commission, were rather alarmed at the fact that the Government had accepted the principle of arbitration and that it might appear at first sight that, because the Government had accepted the principle of arbitration, the commission was precluded by its terms of reference from getting behind that acceptance of the principle and from torpedoing the whole scheme, if they possibly could; but they were undeterred by the fact that the Government had accepted the principle of arbitration and gladly came to the conclusion that they were not precluded by their terms of reference from torpedoing the whole of the proposals for arbitration; and they proceed as best they can, and with as plausible an argumentation as they can conceive, to demolish all proposals tending towards an effective system of arbitration for the Civil Service. Paragraph 25 goes on to say, in a somewhat joyous fashion:

"We find ourselves, however, in the position of having little or no assistance from the evidence in defining any agreed extent to which it can be said that the policy of arbitration for the Civil Service has been advanced by this intimation."

In other words, although the Government intimated to the commission that they had agreed to the principle of arbitration, the majority of the members of the commission, who signed the majority report, joyously state that the principle of arbitration is not in any way furthered or advanced by that acceptance of the principle by the Minister, and that they are at liberty to knock it down. Then they go on to point out that the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Finance had stated in evidence "that the intimation was given without prior investigation in that Department of the practical possibility of devising a scheme of arbitration that would be suitable in the case of the Civil Service." In other words, the Minister had gone out on the hustings in 1932 and 1933 and made rather a fool of himself, and, consequently, it was the business of the commission to extract the Minister from the difficulty, and they proceed as far as they can to do so.

There is not any argument that I can find in the subsequent paragraphs showing how the proposals of the Civil Service for an effective system of arbitration in any way contravene the principle of the authority of the Dáil over the expenditure of public money. I challenge the Minister to show me, in any paragraph of this report, any arguments that were advanced in the majority report of the members, who signed the majority report, to show that these proposals in any way affected or prejudiced that principle of the authority of Parliament over the expenditure of public money. Of course, the reason why no arguments are to be found in that report is because there are none to support any such contention. As I stated at the outset of my observations, our financial structure, and the framework of our financial system, is based on the British system, and we have only five Articles in our Constitution dealing with finance. I have always held the view that the parts of our Constitution that deal with our financial system are entirely inadequate and a really ineffective piece of machinery. We rely upon Article 61, primarily. It states the fundamental principle that no money shall be appropriated without the consent of the Dáil.

Mr. MacEntee

That is not Article 61. It is Article 37.

Mr. Costello

Well, just a moment, until I look it up. I am speaking from recollection. No, I was quite right. It is Article 61. Just to set the Minister's mind at rest, I shall read Article 61, which is as follows:—

"All revenues of the Irish Free State from whatever source arising, shall, subject to such exception as may be provided by law, form one fund, and shall be appropriated for the purposes of the Irish Free State in the manner and subject to the charges and liabilities imposed by law."

Mr. MacEntee

I understood the Deputy to say that moneys shall not be appropriated. There is another Article to that effect.

Mr. Costello

Well, the Article to which I was referring, and to which, I think, I was referring correctly, is Article 61. Article 37, to which the Minister thought I should have referred, is one to which I propose to refer in a few moments and on which the whole argument of the Brennan Commission is based. However, in Article 61, as I submit, we find what is really fundamental to finance in our Constitution.

Mr. MacEntee

I think that the two stand at least on equal planes.

Mr. Costello

Now, I would have been glad to sit down and listen to the Minister for any length of time that he desired. I wanted him to do so first in order that I might be able to answer him. He has not given me the opportunity of doing that, however, so perhaps he will try to restrain himself from interrupting. There is nothing in the Brennan Commission to show, nor is there any attempt there to show, that any of the proposals put forward for a scheme of arbitration by the Civil Service contravenes Article 61. That Article embodies the British principle. Our practice—the practice carried on by the Department of Finance since the establishment of the State—is founded on the law and custom of the British Constitution. I think I have stated before in this House, on some other occasion, that, in my view, I held— and not to-day or yesterday—that many of those Acts of the British Parliament, dealing with finance, were entirely inappropriate to our conditions here. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that they were inoperative. However, the position at the moment is that our financial practice and procedure is founded on the principles of the financial system in existence in Great Britain. Our Civil Service is based on the British model, and we find in England that there has been in existence for many years now—I think for about 12 years—a system of conciliation and compulsory arbitration, which has received the authority of the British Parliament and has been accepted by the Treasury and by the Civil Service, and has prevented any, or any very great, disturbance in the Civil Service in England.

If that system, which we felt should be adopted here, is not contrary to the fundamental principles of the British Constitution, how, if it is set up here, could a similar system be in any way a contravention of any of the principles embodied in our Constitution or in the customary law that we have adopted from the British Constitution? I should like to hear the Minister for Finance advancing to me any argument to show that we would in any way contravene the Constitution if a similar system of arbitration and conciliation were set up here to that which has obtained for 12 years in Britain. I do not advocate a slavish imitation of the British system. I do not say that we should adopt that system in every respect. That system is based on the system of industrial courts in England. We have not got that system of industrial courts over here. We would be quite satisfied with any system that accepts, and puts into practice, the principle underlying the system of arbitration and conciliation for the Civil Service in England. That system, as I understand it, very shortly is that conciliation machinery is provided, by which discussions on matters affecting the service can be carried on between the representatives of the Treasury and representatives of the Civil Service staffs; that if agreement is reached, effect can be given to that agreement, and if no agreement can be reached after discussion and the usual methods of conciliation, then provision is made for compulsory arbitration. The result of that compulsory arbitration. It has been agreed, will be accepted by the Treasury in England with the authority of Parliament.

The Treasury in England is the guardian of the taxpayers' money in England. The Minister for Finance is the guardian of the taxpayers' money in Ireland. The machinery which exists in England has in no way contravened the Constitution there, nor has anybody suggested in the last 12 years that it has in any way prejudiced the interest of the British taxpayer. How can a similar system, if operated over here, be said to operate prejudicially to the interests of the Irish taxpayer? What fundamental difference is there between honouring the award of an arbitration board or a tribunal of that kind, and honouring the judgment of the courts, or an award of Judge Davitt's tribunal under the Civil Service Compensation Acts, 1929? Does the Minister contravene the provisions of the written Constitution or the spirit of the Constitution when he pays on a judgment of the courts? The law allows the Minister to be sued under the Road Traffic Act for the negligence of a driver of a Post Office van. When a judgment of the court is given, does that judgment of the court override the authority of the Dáil? It certainly does not. It has been decided in our courts, by the Supreme Court, that even the judgment of one of our superior courts cannot and does not override the authority of the Dáil over Finance. When a judgment is given, the Minister can repudiate it if he likes, subject to his answering to the Dáil.

The Dáil can refuse to vote moneys to honour a judgment of the courts, and our courts have no authority to enforce their judgments against moneys appropriated by a Vote of the Dáil for a specific purpose. If the Minister wishes the authority for that, he will find the authority in the case of Leen versus the State. The Minister is sceptical; I shall give him the words of Mr. Justice Murnaghan. The Minister will find the report, if he wishes me to adopt the system that we adopt in the courts, of giving the reference, in the "Law Times" report for 1928, at page 441. This is what the judge says:

"In my opinion, the correct view of the Appropriation Act is that it conferred no legal right on the plaintiff to demand payment in a manner which can be enforced by the court, and that the money was held by the Minister for Finance as agent for the Free State."

If a judgment of our Superior Courts given against a Minister of State is not an overriding of the financial authority of the Dáil, how can it be said that a judgment or an award of an arbitration board can have any greater effect than a judgment of our Superior Courts? I challenged the Minister, I think, before, and I challenge him here again, to produce to me any legal opinion or authority to show that the proposals of the civil servants in any way override the financial authority of the Dáil. I might add, by way of parenthesis, that if he does produce an opinion of that kind, he should produce an opinion backed by reason or the opinion, not the sort of opinion that was produced on another issue on another occasion.

I should like the Minister to deal with these arguments. In 1929 I had the privilege of assisting at the setting up of what is now known as the Davitt Tribunal, a tribunal that was set up to assess compensation to civil servants under Article 10 of the Treaty. I think I am correct in saying that for the last seven or eight years during which the tribunal has been in operation, it has given complete satisfaction, and the fact that it was there, and that the Act setting it up contained the provisions that it did contain, has been responsible for saving a large amount of money to the State and for preserving for the service of the State large numbers of experienced civil servants. Judge Davitt's tribunal has made many awards during that period. It awarded many lump sums and annual payments. These awards have been honoured by the Dáil and the Minister. Has it ever been suggested that an award of Judge Davitt's tribunal giving compensation to a civil servant who retires under Article 10, is not binding on the Government or the Minister, and if binding upon him, is overriding the authority of the Dáil? A smile from the Minister indicates that he appreciates the force of the argument and is unable to reply. I shall be interested to see how the Minister will endeavour to reply to these arguments, feeling, as I suggest, the force of the arguments that I have put forward.

We find not one single word in the Brennan Commission report suggesting that the proposals in any way contravene any article of the Constitution except Article 37, and that, to my mind, demonstrates the weakness of the case put forward by the Brennan report. They refer to the provisions of the Constitution, "confining to responsible Ministers the effective rights to propose expenditure of taxation, and thereby holding the Cabinet primarily responsible for the conduct of the financial policy of the State." One would imagine from the terms of that report that the Minister for Finance and his colleagues in the Cabinet were something apart from the Dáil, that they were an institution entirely distinct from the Dáil in financial matters, instead of being, as they are under the Constitution, the servants of the Dáil, responsible to the Dáil. The Minister for Finance has no more powers in financial matters than the Dáil gives him from time to time, or allows him to exercise. To suggest, as this report of the Brennan Commission attempts to suggest, that because of the provisions of Article 37 of the Constitution, providing that no member of the Dáil can put forward proposals for the expenditure of public money, the proposals for arbitration are rendered unconstitutional, demonstrates the paucity of the arguments that the majority of the Brennan Commission were able to gather together in support of their endeavour to torpedo the entire proposals for arbitration. That is the only fundamental ground on which they attacked this principle of arbitration—that the Minister for Finance or one of his colleagues is the only person who can put forward proposals in the Dáil for the expenditure of public money; that he is the guardian of the taxpayers' money, and therefore that an award of an arbitration board against the Minister is unconstitutional.

I wonder did the members of the Brennan Commission advert to the fact that a similar provision exists in the Standing Orders of the British House of Commons? That provision in Article 37 of our Constitution is directly taken from and framed upon a Standing Order on the same subject-matter and to the same purport and effect in the Standing Orders of the British House of Commons, precluding anybody but a Minister of State from initiating proposals for the expenditure of public money. Of course, the reason for such a proposal is perfectly obvious. If it were not for such a provision in the Constitution, my friend Deputy Corry whom I have seen coming into the House, would have proposals down every day for the expenditure of public money to remedy a number of grievances to which he has been giving vent in the last few weeks here in the House. By reason of Article 37, the Minister has control, and Deputy Corry cannot put down proposals for the expenditure of large sums of State money to remedy the grievances to which he has given such eloquent expression during the last few weeks. That is the real reason for Article 37—to prevent Deputy Corry, or people representative of Deputy Corry's mentality, from initiating those proposals.

Mr. Corry

What is the Article?

Mr. Costello

Article 37. Perhaps the Deputy would move to have the Article amended in order to enable him to initiate his proposals?

Mr. Corry

If I did, I would know what lawyer to get.

Mr. Costello

The real reason for Article 37 is for the purpose of preventing irresponsible Deputies from bringing forward irresponsible proposals. I am not to be taken as suggesting that Deputy Corry is an irresponsible Deputy, although in the context that inference might be drawn.

Mr. Corry

I thought you were alleging that you yourself were one. It looks like it now.

Mr. Costello

The Brennan Commission based their entire report on Article 37. As I say, if Article 37 so operates here in this country as to make an award of an arbitration board to the civil servants unconstitutional, then the Standing Order in the British House of Commons to the same purport and effect renders the award of the British arbitration board also unconstitutional; it is contrary to the fundamental principles of the British Constitution.

Mr. MacEntee

Where is that written?

Mr. Costello

I was expecting the Minister to say that. I was waiting for him to walk into that trap, and he walked into it. I knew the Minister would assert that to say that a thing in Great Britain is unconstitutional is to say something which is not written or does not exist. I am sure if I had let the Minister go further he would have quoted De Tocqueville's remark that the British Constitution n'existe point. I am sure he would not have been able to resist the temptation to quote that French tag that the British Constitution does not exist. Everybody knows that the British Constitution does not exist, but equally everybody knows that in Parliamentary procedure and practice in Great Britain there is such a thing—and such a real thing—as unconstitutional action, perhaps a more real thing than exists in this country, perhaps a more live thing to the Ministers of State and every member of the British House of Commons than exists in the minds of Deputies here in this House when they speak of being constitutional or unconstitutional. Whether a thing is constitutional or unconstitutional depends to a very little extent on whether the Constitution is a written document or a non-written customary code of practice; it is the spirit of the thing that counts. The spirit of the British Constitution and the adherence of British Ministers and British Members of Parliament to their constitutional principles is something that is bred in their bone through centuries of hard-fought victories over autocracy and bureaucracy. I say that if the proposals in reference to the honouring of awards to the British civil servants are unconstitutional, the Minister knows full well that it has not the same meaning as it would have here in reference to a written Constitution.

Mr. MacEntee

Certainly it has. That is the point I was making.

Mr. Costello

And a very bad point it was. I would say that it is only a headline to the depths of badness to which we will witness the Minister descending when he comes to reply to this motion, if he ever does. Assuming it to be unconstitutional in the sense that the Minister is suggesting, in five minutes in this House we could pass an Act of Parliament taking Article 37 out of the Constitution altogether. We could amend Article 37 to provide for the setting up of an arbitration tribunal and providing that the awards could be honoured. We would then be constitutional—perfectly constitutional. There would be no great difficulty in doing that. It has been done before by the Minister and his colleagues, and done in a very short space of time indeed, in this House. Perhaps when we see this famous new Constitution that we have not heard so much about recently, a little provision might be put into that extraordinary instrument providing for the difficulty which the Minister feels in reference to the searing of his constitutional soul by the proposal of the civil servants to set up an unconstitutional arbitration board. The matter could be easily dealt with by an ordinary Act of Parliament, or even in the new Constitution. I think I have indicated sufficiently clearly that this talk about unconstitutionality has no substance. The excuse for not honouring the promise that was made by the Government to the Civil Service to set up an effective arbitration board—that to do so would be unconstitutional—is resorted to merely, as I indicated already, in an endeavour by the Minister to further reinforce political bureaucracy by the present Government over the Civil Service.

Now, we will be told that the Minister must honour the majority report of the ladies and gentlemen who gave their voluntary services in connection with the investigations carried out by this Brennan Commission; that it was a commission that sat for a considerable time; that it took evidence and gave the matter very careful consideration, and that, of course, the Government must honour its report. I have heard that remark in this House before. The experience that I have got in connection with the legislative or administrative proposals, following the reports of commissions, is this: that when it suited Governments to follow the recommendations of a commission which they had set up, they were loud in their praise of the commission and its work, but when they did not like a commission's recommendations they said they did not like them, and left it at that. It was only when it suited a Government to honour the report of a majority on a commission that they followed it. When it did not suit them they did not agree with it. They were loud in their praise of the commission so long as the particular recommendation that they wanted to be adopted was adopted.

That is what is going to happen here. The Minister will say, "We must honour this report; if they said that it would be unconstitutional to set up this arbitration board, then we must follow this experienced committee, the majority of whom made a recommendation on the lines set out in their report." But where it did not suit the Government, they did not follow the recommendations of the Brennan Commission in several instances of which the Minister is well aware in reference to those classes of civil servants whom the Minister and his Party, before the elections of 1932 and 1933, professed to have their interests so much at heart. The Minister has details of proposals in the Brennan Report in reference to increasing the salaries of certain classes of civil servants. The Minister has not accepted those proposals, and having said that I need say no more as to that argument which I anticipate will be raised.

Now, I want to deal with the last point that will probably be made by the Minister, namely, that the last Government did not do it. The Minister will have a few raps at them for that. He is welcome to them. It is no concern of mine here to-night to deal with the action of the last Government in reference to the Civil Service, but I think it is only right to make one comment upon that. The last Government had the duty of building the structure of this State from the foundations upwards at a time when the country was only emerging from a revolutionary period and at a time when it was dealing with the civil war it had to provide the machinery of a Civil Service and had to meet, over a period of ten years, baseless slanders in reference to jobs and jobbery in the Civil Service from members of the present Government and their Party. Throughout the length and breadth of this country there were disseminated slanders of the vilest character in reference to jobbery, or alleged jobbery, in the Civil Service on the part of the last Government. Had the last Government set up an arbitration board, such as this, everybody throughout the length and breadth of the country would have been told of the further demonstration, or manifestation rather, of extravagance that that was on the part of the then Government.

The last Government had to set up a Civil Service in those conditions. They had, in the teeth of the opposition that there then was to the institutions of the State, to set up all the institutions of the State, and to establish a Civil Service as best they could. I think that the Minister, if he were honest, would pay tribute to the work of the last Government in connection with the Civil Service. The last Government could not do everything. There were grievances in the Civil Service, and whether the last Government were at fault or whether they were not at fault, we have now reached the position that I adverted to at the beginning of my observations; that we have a Government with a mandate from the people given at two successive elections. They were very fond at one time of speaking of the mandates they had then from the people. We have a Labour Party supporting them, we have no opposition from the Independent Benches, and we have the chief Opposition Party in this House calling upon them to set up this Civil Service arbitration machinery. In that state of facts, what excuse is there for the Government to delay further or postpone something which is inevitable in the course of a few years, irrespective of what the present Government does or does not do in the matter?

Mr. Corry

I have only a few remarks to make on this motion. I am rather surprised that a responsible Deputy like my friend over there could come forward with such irresponsible proposals.

Mr. Costello

I did not think that anything would surprise the Deputy.

Mr. Corry

I may say that I get surprises sometimes. For instance, the Deputies at the opposite side have been talking for the past three or four years about the condition of the farming community; how badly off they are, and saying that it is impossible for them to carry on, and pointing out that while in that position the farming community were bearing 75 per cent. of the burdens of the State. From the Book of Estimates relating to the public services we find that the Civil Service in this country is costing close on £13,000,000 a year.

Mr. Norton

How many?

Mr. Corry

The Deputy ought to be able to count just as well as I am.

Mr. Norton

I can give the Deputy the right figures.

Mr. MacEntee

They are large enough, anyhow.

Mr. Costello

Did Deputy Corry count the cost of the warble fly inspectors in his figure?

Mr. Corry

No, but I counted up all the State solicitors who are getting salaries of from £1,200 to £1,500 a year. They are a pretty good burden on the back of the farming community that, according to the Deputies opposite, has been beggared and cannot pay its way. Take any of the Estimates and you will find five or six officials at the top, in receipt of salaries from £1,200 to £1,500 a year. If a proposal was brought in by the Opposition, or by anybody else, for a scaling down of salaries at the top and a scaling up of the lower ones, I would support it heartily. I honestly consider that we have too many executive officials at salaries of from £1,200 to £1,500 a year each. The Opposition have spent the last four years telling us in this House about the poverty of the farming community, and now they come along to support a proposal that will mean increasing the burden on the farming community. To my mind, action such as that is absolutely irresponsible.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is nothing in this motion moved by Deputy Norton about increasing or decreasing the remuneration of civil servants. Therefore, the Deputy ought to confine himself to the terms of the motion.

Mr. Corry

I take it that an arbitration board to deal with grievances will mean extra expenditure.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If the Deputy is going to argue that point he had better confine himself to that, and not endeavour to deal with what he calls the excessive salaries in the Civil Service. The cost of an arbitration board might be a relevant argument.

Mr. Corry

There is no Deputy who has not been made aware by one means or another of the demands for increased salaries by civil servants.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We must not prejudice any position that may be created by the setting up of an arbitration board of this kind, and the adequacy or inadequacy of the salaries of civil servants does not arise on this motion. The Deputy may argue that the setting up of an arbitration board will involve expenditure which would not be justified, but he must not discuss civil servants' salaries on this motion.

Mr. MacEntee

Might I point out that the discussion has not been confined to that narrow interpretation of the motion, that it merely called upon the Executive Council to enter into a conference with Civil Service organisations. We have had schemes bandied back and forward. We have had a very learned constitutional argument from the former Attorney-General about the constitutionality or otherwise of a certain scheme. The debate so far has not confined itself to the demand for a conference.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair has confined the debate to what the Chair thought was relevant and the matter dealt with by Deputy Costello did seem to be quite relevant— whether the decisions of an arbitration board of this kind might override the Constitution. The salaries of civil servants have not been discussed and cannot possibly arise on this motion.

Mr. Corry

I should like to point out that it is far more relevant to this motion——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am the judge of that. The Deputy must understand that definitely.

Mr. Corry

I should like to make the point that it is far more relevant to this motion to discuss the salaries of civil servants than to discuss what are supposed to be Articles in the Constitution that do not exist.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is my duty to decide that, and I am not going to listen to the Deputy on it.

Mr. Corry

All I wish to say on the matter, then, is that, in my opinion, the burden on the people of this State at present, so far as civil servants and other public servants are concerned, is already too high——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The expenditure on the Civil Service does not arise on this motion, and I shall not listen to the Deputy any further on that line of argument. If he wants to continue that line of argument, he will not do it on this motion.

Mr. Corry

I was going to finish by saying that it is already too heavy.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am not listening to the Deputy on that line of argument. The Deputy must sit down. I call Deputy Norton to conclude the debate.

Mr. Norton

Surely we are going to hear something from the Minister for Finance, who was so eloquent in promising arbitration in 1932.

Mr. MacEntee

When a case has been made for this motion it would be fitting that I should speak, but so far I have not heard a case for it.

Mr. Norton

The Minister must be suffering from some physical defect— political deafness.

Mr. Corry

I think you must call for a division. There seems to be nobody to talk when you will not let me talk. You had better put the motion.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Motion in the name of Deputy Norton——

Mr. MacEntee

Before you put it, possibly I might be permitted——

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present. House counted—

An Ceann Comhairle

Attention having been called ten minutes ago to the fact that there was no quorum, and a quorum not yet being present, I declare the debate adjourned until Friday next, and the House adjourned until 3 p.m. to-morrow.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.15 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, April 29th.