The main objects of this Bill are to implement Section 11 of Article 12 of the Constitution, which provides that the President shall have an official residence in or near the City of Dublin; that he shall receive such emoluments or allowances as may be determined by law, and that the emoluments shall not be diminished during his term of office. The Bill is intended to make provision for the maintenance of the official residence, and for the expenses of the office of secretary to the President, certain other facilities and services, and, finally, to make provision for the granting of pensions to persons who have held the office of President. Section 1 (1) has been drafted to show separately the amount represented by the personal remuneration of the President which will be included in the total of the emoluments and allowances payable in pursuance of the Article in the Constitution to which I have referred. The balance of the amount to be provided under sub-section (1) of Section I will represent the allowance to the President in respect of the general expenses of his establishment, his household staff and the maintenance and running of a motor car or cars.
In determining the amount of the emoluments and allowances to be paid to the President, the Government have been guided by the recommendations of the majority of the Committee of Inquiry into Ministerial and Other Salaries and Allowances. The following are the relevant extracts from the report of that committee:
"We are aware," the report states, "that the holder of the office of the Presidency will be the first citizen of the land; that high and responsible functions are vested in him under the Constitution, and that he will be debarred from holding any other office of profit or emolument. Consequently the remuneration for the office should be such as to place him in a position of complete independence financially, and to enable him to maintain with dignity the high position of head of the State.
"Under the terms of the Constitution," the report goes on to say, "the Uachtaran will have an official residence in or near the City of Dublin. We have assumed that the expenditure involved in the provision of the residence, of furniture and equipment and of the maintenance and upkeep of the house and any grounds attached thereto, including wages of the labouring and gardening staff, will be defrayed directly by the State. Such arrangements, however, though to some extent they may be regarded as part of the emoluments or perquisites attaching to the office of Uachtaran and should therefore not be left out of consideration in assessing the total provision that might properly be made for that office, also impose upon the holder an obligation to maintain himself and his private establishment upon a commensurate scale. Due note must be taken of this factor in determining the personal salary of the Uachtaran."
"We have also assumed," the report states in paragraph 85, "that the Uachtaran will, from the remuneration or allowances provided for him, be obliged to defray the cost of the domestic staff necessary for his residence and of all other charges involved in the maintenance of his private establishment on a considerable scale."
"We are of opinion," the report states in another paragraph, "that the emoluments and allowances of the Uachtaran might properly be divided into three parts—personal remuneration, allowances towards entertainment and towards the cost of his official establishment, and the provision and maintenance of his official residence.
"Bearing in mind that the expenditure by the State on the office of the Uachtaran should neither be altogether disproportionate to the provision which we have recommended might suitably be made for ministerial salaries, nor be too great a burden on the public purse, we think that it would be proper for us to recommend that the total cost to the State of providing for the residence, establishment and expenses of the office of Uachtaran na h-Eireann should not exceed £15,000 a year approximately, of which £5,000 a year would be payable to the holder of the post as personal salary, fully subject to taxation. Some of our number, however, were inclined to the view that on the basis mentioned the limit of total annual cost might be £20,000 and the salary £7,500."
In relation to the particular question of the personal salary of the President I think the House will no doubt have in mind the fact that the salary of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has been fixed at £4,000 and no suggestion has been made at any time that that figure is excessive. It is felt that the personal salary of the President, as Head of the State, should be markedly greater than that of any officer of the State. The committee's recommendation that the salary should be £5,000 is a very reasonable one and that figure has, accordingly, been adopted and, as I have already pointed out, is stated in sub-section (1) of Section 1 of the Bill.
With regard to the amount to be allotted as allowance towards the expense of the maintenance of the Presidential household, it has been decided, in view of the constitutional bar against reduction during an individual term of office, that at the outset the amount should not be higher than the minimum which it is felt will permit the Presidential establishment to be maintained and all the functions, social and otherwise, of the Presidency to be fulfilled unostentatiously but, nevertheless, as befits that high office. After close examination, the conclusion has been arrived at that it would not be reasonable to allow less than £5,000 per annum for this purpose and that figure has, accordingly, been inserted in the Bill.
Section 2 of the Bill is intended to make provision for the expenses of the office of the Secretary to the President, including allowance to aide-de-camp, for the equipment and maintenance of the official residence and for such incidentals as official travelling, postage, telegrams, telephones and stationery. These expenses from their nature will fluctuate from time to time and, for this reason, apart from other considerations, their inclusion in the irreducible amount of emoluments and allowances would not be practicable. Section 2, therefore, is intended to allow expenses of this nature to be provided out of moneys voted annually by the Oireachtas and the necessary Vote in fact for that purpose has already been passed by the House.
In addition, expenditure will be incurred on the Votes for Public Works and Buildings, on stationery and printing, on the upkeep of the residence and gardens and on sundry supplies. As in the case of the expenses of the Secretariat, no firm estimate can be attempted at the moment as to the annual amount of this expenditure. I may mention, however, that the annual charge under the head of maintenance and upkeep of the Presidential residence and grounds, even when, as during more recent years, the residence itself has been unoccupied, has been of the order of £3,000. The additional expenditure necessitated by the occupation of the building will not, it is felt, be unreasonably in excess of this. As the House is no doubt aware, there are very fine gardens attached to the official residence, the fruit of long years of labour and a great deal of expenditure, and these gardens have to be maintained irrespective of whether the Presidential residence was occupied or not.
The pension provisions for the President are incorporated in Section 3 of the Bill, and in this connection it may be relevant to read the following extract from paragraph 88 of the report of the Committee of Inquiry to which I have already referred:—
"We feel," the report states, "however, that it is imperative on the State to provide against the contingency that a person on relinquishing office as Uachtaran might be obliged to live in circumstances which would be undesirable in the case of one who had previously occupied a position of such distinction in the community. In consideration of this matter we have assumed that a person who has held the office of Uachtaran will, in the normal course, be precluded from returning to business or professional pursuits and that it is most unlikely that he will take an active part in politics with consequent possibility of ministerial or other parliamentary office. It will probably be found that even in retirement a former Uachtaran would be obliged by circumstances over which he has no control to maintain his domestic establishment on a fairly considerable scale. If these assumptions are correct, it seems clear that there is an obligation on the State to provide a pension of reasonable amount."
As to what the amount of the pension should be, the majority of the committee agreed to recommend that after holding office for seven years the Uachtaran should be eligible to receive a pension of £1,200 a year.
The committee's recommendation as to the amount of the pension has been accepted, but it has been felt that it would be unwise and inequitable to restrict the grant of pension to persons who serve for seven years or over in the Presidential office. If this restriction were applied it would not be possible to grant a pension to a person who was obliged prematurely to relinquish the office of President on the grounds of permanent incapacity within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution. Neither could a pension be granted to a President who, having served for less than seven years, found himself obliged, say, on some ground of high principle to resign and who was not re-elected at the ensuing election. It appears most desirable that the provision to be made for the grant of pension in such a case should be such as would secure, as far as possible, the President's freedom from personal financial considerations in the exercise of his functions.
Conceding, then, that provision should be made for the granting of a pension without condition as to length of service in cases of the type stated, it was thought unnecessary to make any reference in the Bill to a service qualification. A President can cease to hold office only by completion of a seven-year period of office, by retirement on incapacity, by resignation, by death or by impeachment under Article 12 of the Constitution. The Bill provides for the grant of the specified pension to the President as of right, no matter what his length of service in each of the circumstances above mentioned, except where the cessation of his office is brought about by death or impeachment.
Sub-section (2) of Section 3 provides that a second term of the Presidential office will not enable the holder to qualify for a second Presidential pension. Where a President in receipt of a pension is re-elected President, the provision for abatement of pension on account of other remuneration out of public funds, set out in sub-section (3) of Section 5, will operate to prevent payment of the pension during his second term of office.
Section 5 of the Bill deals with the general provisions in respect of pensions granted under the Act. As to the first of these, it is considered that on the grounds of public policy it is undesirable that the President should look forward to taking up or renewing a political career on the termination of his office and, accordingly, notwith standing the provisions of the Payment of Members (Amendment) Act, of 1925, it is provided in sub-section (2) of Section 5 of the Bill that the pension should be abated in the case of an ex-President who becomes a member of the Dáil or Seanad and receives an allowance as such. Sub-sections (3) and (4) of that section provide for the suspension in whole or part of the pension in the event of an ex-President's re-employment, and remuneration out of public funds or the funds of local authorities, or from any other sources, such as, for instance, the Currency Commission, the Electricity Supply Board, the Turf Board, or University funds which the Government may deem to be a public fund for the purpose of this section.
The fundamental idea in granting a pension to an ex-President is to provide against the possibility of a person who has held the office of President being unable to maintain the dignity of the position through lack of means. But if an ex-President is able and willing to get another public appointment with remuneration equal to or exceeding the amount granted to him as a pension, then the need for the payment of the pension disappears, at least during the occupancy of that fresh appointment. In view of the adequacy of the amount of the pension which it is proposed to grant, the necessity for allowing the pensioner to supplement it to some extent by earning from public funds does not exist, and for this reason the net of suspension is being cast in a wide form and the maximum total receipts, which may include any pension, have been fixed at the amount of pension payable. If an ex-President earns £1,200 or upwards from public funds no pension will be payable.
Section 4 of the Bill provides for the grant of a pension of £500 to the widow of a President or an ex-President who is entitled to a pension. It is intended by the grant of a pension to an ex-President to ensure that he should be able to maintain the dignity attaching to him by virtue of his former office. It appears essential and desirable that the widow of an ex-President should be provided for proportionately. It will be observed, however, that the widow's right to the specified pension of £500 per annum is dependent upon her making a personal application for it, and her pension is subject to suspension and abatement in like manner and for the same reason as in the case of the President.
Section 6 of the Bill, which creates the post of Secretary to the President, provides, amongst other things, that the secretaryship will be a permanent post in the Civil Service of the State, and thus extends to the holder the benefits of the Civil Service Superannuation Acts. The provision in sub-section (4) of this section brings the post of secretary into line with all other Civil Service posts in regard to tenure and the determination of remuneration and terms and conditions of service.
Section 7 of the Bill makes the necessary provision for clerical assistance in the office of Secretary to the President, and power to make such appointments as may be required is conferred by that section. To make sure that no doubts will arise as to the method of making these appointments, it is proposed that they will be subject to the provisions of the Civil Service Regulation Act and every Act extending or amending those Acts.