At present the law governing the payment of allowances and grants for travelling facilities to members of the Oireachtas is contained in four statutes, namely, the Oireachtas (Payment of Members) Act, 1923; the Oireachtas (Payment of Members) (Amendment) Act, 1925; the Oireachtas (Payment of Members) Act, 1928, and the Oireachtas (Payment of Members) Act, 1933. The purpose of the present Bill is to consolidate in one statute and to carry out amendments which the Government have decided are desirable after consideration of the supplementary report presented by the Shanley Committee of Inquiry. Under this Bill it is proposed that, on and after the date of enactment, allowances to a member of Dáil Eireann should be at the rate of £40 a month instead of £30 a month, as heretofore. It is also proposed that the allowances to members of Seanad Eireann shall continue, as at present, to be paid at the rate of £30 a month.
These proposals, though they depart from the majority recommendations of the supplementary report of the Shanley Committee, are not out of harmony with the views expressed by some members of that committee. They are the result of deep and close consideration of this problem by the Government. I say that in some respects the proceedings of the subcommittee of the Shanley Committee which considered this particular matter were disappointing. They were not disappointing in respect of the zeal and care with which the subcommittee investigated this matter. But they were disappointing from the point of view that members of the Oireachtas who had previous experience of these matters and who were most closely affected were reluctant to go there and make a full disclosure of their affairs to that committee. The result was that that committee on several points of view did not receive from the members of this House the guidance and information which they require. I say that because I know the circumstances under which that committee was approached. Naturally there was a great reluctance on the part of the Deputies to go and make, as some of them said, a poor mouth before the committee.
But the Government have had the knowledge that for a number of years past, a number of Deputies, not all of them, not every Deputy in the House, but a great many Deputies have felt that their allowance was not sufficient to cover all the expenses involved in the exercise of their responsibilities. Amongst other items to which special reference has from time to time been made, are the business losses and the additional business expenses consequent upon attendance here at meetings of the Dáil. Then there is the growth in the postal charges, the increase in which is occasioned by the increased burden of correspondence which Deputies have to bear; and there are the increased travelling expenses within their constituencies which Deputies have had to face. The Shanley Committee did not feel justified in taking any one of these items into consideration.
It is obvious that if Parliamentary allowance towards expenses is given at all it is given not to deal with the case of the man who is best off, not to deal, perhaps, with the case of the middle man, but with the case of the man who because his constituency is extensive or remote, or because he is most assiduous in attending to his duties, has to bear the greatest expense and is entailed in the greatest loss. The allowance is a comprehensive one to enable the Deputy with a business, the man with a profession, the man with a farm, and the man without one, but who in one way or another would be involved in heavy consequential losses by reason of the fact that he has to devote a considerable amount of his time to public affairs and to neglect his own private interests, to give of his best to the public service. This Bill is intended to permit these men to become effective members of the Oireachtas and to discharge their work as public representatives to the best of their abilities. It is the case of Deputies who do their work, who do attend to the nation's business that have to be considered—the case of men who have to do their work under the most adverse circumstances, are the men who have to be considered. It is not to meet the case of a man who because of the fact that his constituency is small or his seat secure or because he lives in the vicinity of Dublin is involved in less expenses. It is not merely to meet such cases. This allowance has got to cover every possible case. It may happen that because of personal circumstances the representative of a constituency at one time is better situated to discharge the duties of a Deputy for that constituency than perhaps his successor may be. What would apply to the present representative, in so far as he would find the allowance sufficient, might not apply to his successor. Therefore in fixing the allowances to deal with the worst cases from the point of view of expense, even in those cases a margin should be left to cover unforeseen contingencies or to cover the expansion of duties which a further and more intense organisation of public life will undoubtedly throw upon Deputies.
We cannot be bringing in Bills of this sort every year, every two years or every five years. The present allowance was fixed at an experimental figure in 1922-23, when, after the first year or two, it might be said the work of the Oireachtas was, perhaps, lighter than it is now. Everybody who is aware of the tendency which has manifested itself in regard to public business and administration, is aware of the fact that the demands made upon Deputies are multiplying from day to day. If it could be shown that the figure which it is proposed to fix to-day more than covers the expenses which the most active Deputies may be called upon to face, nevertheless that would not be any sound reason for trying to whittle that figure down. We must leave a margin for future contingencies and allow those who may be called upon to serve the community later to serve it without having to make too many sacrifices.
I know this is the sort of thing that a great deal of nonsense can be talked about. I ask Deputies who have been here for the last 16 years, for the last 12 years, or the last ten years, to point to a single Deputy who has done his duty to his constituency and who has gone out of this House, retired from politics, better off than when he came in by reason of the fact that he drew his allowance as a Deputy over the past ten, 12 or 15 years. Undoubtedly, it is for a great many people rather invidious to have to discuss these matters, but this is a problem which has to be faced. We want to attract into the public life of this country, into the Dáil, representatives of all sections of the community. We do not want to have here merely those who, because they are well off, can afford to attend to public affairs; we want to have here men who have to carry on their day-to-day business and we have got to put them in such a position that they will be able to do that without having completely and wholly to neglect their own business, so that in time they might become entirely dependent upon a Deputy's allowance.
A man cannot afford to go away one, two, three or four days, as was often the case during the last four or five years; he cannot afford to leave his business or his farm in order to attend meetings of the Dáil unless he is able to leave some person behind who is as capable and fitted to look after that business as he himself is. It may be that there are business men who, before they came into politics, amassed money or built up a business which more or less runs itself; but we do not want the Dáil to be composed entirely of those who have been able to devote the whole of their lives to looking after their own affairs, and only come in here to look after the affairs of the nation when they feel they can afford to relinquish their interest in their own private concerns. We want the Dáil to be representative of all sections of the community. We want the young businessman, the farmer and the young worker to be here, as well as the man of mature mind, the older types of men. We want these young men to bring the point of view of youth to bear upon the concerns of the nation. We want these young men to come here and receive that training which will fit them in the future to be the rulers and administrators of their country. We cannot get them to come in here if they feel that by coming in the sacrifices which are going to be imposed upon them are such that they will be failures in their own chosen avocations, the professions and businesses with which they, in the main, have to maintain themselves.
One thing which the Shanley Committee did find was this, that, while it may be said the allowance of £30 a month covered what might be described as the clerical work and the mechanical end, so to speak, of public representation, it really did not, in the words of the Shanley Committee, cover everything. They said: "We wish to make it quite clear that in our view no element of salary is included in the present allowance, and that there is no provision for what is termed consequential loss. Indeed, we are convinced that individual Deputies may be making a considerable financial sacrifice by accepting the duties and responsibilities of public representatives." Of course, every person who does come here as a Deputy has to make a sacrifice of one kind or another. Our care, and the care of the legislature of this country, will have to be that that sacrifice will not be of such moment as to deter from entering public life men who have the capacity and the talent and the character which would fit them for that life, and which would enable them well to discharge their duties to the nation. After a consideration of all these facts, the Government have come to the conclusion that to meet those elements of expense which the present allowance professedly does not cover, and to create a sufficient margin for future contingencies, the allowance of Deputies should be increased from £30 to £40 per month.
It is also proposed, in Section 3 (4) and sub-section (6) of the same section to continue the provisions of the existing law under which the allowance payable to a member of the Oireachtas is exempt from income-tax, and any provision in another statute for the abatement or suspension of a pension. Under sub-section (3) of Section 3, the provision is continued by which the salary of an appointed office held by a member of the Oireachtas is deemed to include the allowance which otherwise would be payable under this Bill.
On a number of occasions, when the Vote for the Oireachtas was under consideration in the House, my attention and the attention of the Government was drawn to the hardship which the present system involved members in immediately after their election. It has been pointed out from time to time that it is immediately after the declaration of the poll that a member's expenses are, perhaps, heaviest, and accordingly we have decided to amend the statutory provision relating to the commencement of the allowance and travelling facilities in the case of any member of the Oireachtas who is elected or nominated after the passing of this Bill. We propose to provide that this allowance and the travelling facilities shall commence as and from the date of election or nomination, subject to the condition that within 30 days from that date the member will, by compliance with the Standing Orders, have become entitled to sit in the House to which he is elected or nominated. The provision is proposed as a safeguard against the payment of arrears of allowance in the case of a member who, for insufficient reason, does not, over a prolonged period, comply with the Standing Orders entitling him to take his seat.
The supplementary report of the Shanley Committee suggested that the Minister for Finance might take any necessary powers to enable him to deal specially with cases in which the public interest would be served by enabling Deputies to inspect public works or to attend functions to which they might be invited as public representatives. Arising out of consideration of this suggestion, the Bill provides, in Section 4, for the payment of travelling expenses to Deputies or Senators who attend State functions on the invitation of a member of the Government, or who, on the invitation of such a member, inspect important public works or visit institutions or places or districts.
As I have already indicated, there was raised from time to time with the Government, and before the Shanley Commission, this question as to whether some provision should be made to cover the cost of journeys made by Deputies within their constituencies in connection with their work as public representatives. One of the factors which has motivated us in proposing this increase in Deputies' allowances is, as I have already said, to make provision for journeys of that sort.
In order to meet a point that has been raised in a few cases, provision is made, in Section 4 of the Bill, for the payment to a Deputy who does not reside in his constituency of travelling expenses between Dublin and his normal place of residence for the time being and between such normal place of residence and any place in his constituency. The existing legislation only permits payment of travelling expenses to a Deputy between Dublin and any place in his constituency. The result is, of course, that Deputies residing elsewhere than in Dublin, outside their constituencies, are at a disadvantage as compared with Deputies who reside within their constituencies. This position is anomalous, and, in my view, it is questionable whether the maintenance of the existing statutory provision would accord with the spirit and intention of the Constitution.
Under Section 10 of the Constitution (Consequential Provisions) Act, of last year, the revival of the Oireachtas (Payment of Members) Act, 1923, so far as Senators are concerned, operates only with effect on and from the date of the first Assembly of Seanad Eireann. This gave rise to the difficulty that Senators who were obliged to travel on the day prior to the first meeting of the new Seanad to attend that meeting cannot be granted travelling expenses incurred in coming to Dublin. To meet this difficulty, provision is made in Section 8 of the new Bill for the payment of travelling expenses to Senators who found it necessary to travel on the day prior to the first meeting of the new Seanad. In the Payment of Members Act of 1923, Section 3, sub-section (1), (b) provided for the payment of travelling expenses in special circumstances to a member of the Seanad who may be deterred from residing within the area of the State. This provision is omitted from the new Bill.
Sub-section (5) of Section 5 is new. Under the Oireachtas (Payment of Members) Acts there is no statutory authority for the grant of travelling facilities to members of the Dáil who were in Dublin on the day of a dissolution. In practice, travelling vouchers in the hands of members at the time of the dissolution were honoured if presented at the railway booking-office within a period of three days from the date of issue of the voucher. This practice was always open to challenge by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. It seems reasonable, however, that where former Deputies found themselves in Dublin on the date of the dissolution they should be provided with travelling facilities to enable them to return to their homes or to their constituencies within a reasonable time. Three days is provided for this purpose in the Bill.
These, in brief, are the proposals which are enshrined in the Bill. I think that they are such as will make for the better government of this country. Their additional cost will not be great—not more than £14,500—and I think that, in the interests of the State and the nation, they ought to be approved of by the House.