—— admirably expressed what would appear to be the opinion of, I think, a large section of this House of the measure as then introduced. This is what the present Minister for Finance said on that occasion:
"We think this Bill is not in accordance with our ideas of the management of public affairs. It does not give the amount of control to the people as represented in local councils that they ought to have. It is not in accordance with our ideas of the freedom of choice that ought to be given to the people who are running our municipal or local affairs. We think that the policy of distrust, evidence of which is in almost every section of the Bill, is not one that ought to commend itself to this House. We are for giving the fullest possible freedom to the people, thereby inculcating the teachings of citizenship to the people. We think anything that cribs or confines the authority of these local people unnecessarily will eventually do more harm than good."
I think that presentation of the position is one that we would certainly heartily subscribe to to-day and I think the Minister at the time was a prophet in his own way because it is true that the system of local government is doing more harm than good and is heading for a state of affairs that will not be in the best interests of the people as a whole.
The Taoiseach also, in reference to the Bill as it was introduced at the time, referred to what he described as "the grudging way it was proposed to give back to the people the right of governing themselves in local affairs."
That was the opinion, apparently, of the members of the present Government at that particular stage so far as the introduction of the Bill was concerned but, I am glad to say that, having delved into the reports, I did not find the present Minister for Local Government making any contribution in favour of the change in administration.
The Minister at the time—Deputy Mulcahy—gave as his reason for the change what he described as the "complexity of function". In other words, apparently, the problems that had arisen in this country were so intricate and insoluble as to demand a radical change—as he described it. But, obviously, local government presented no greater difficulties in this country in 1928 or 1930 than they did in, say, great corporations like the London County Council, the City Council of Glasgow or the very excellent City Council of Birmingham. Surely they had their own problems, and presumably they inquired into whatever defects there were over the years since their initiation, and possibly, very wisely, they adjusted themselves to the conditions as they found them. But here, the Minister decided that he should make a clean sweep and remove all powers vested in local authorities and transfer them to what are now known as city managers and county managers.
It may be presumed that, since the system has been in operation in Dublin since 1930 and is still continuing, that is a justification of the original introduction, but I want to disabuse the minds of the members of this House of the idea that what is taking place in Dublin is on all fours with what is, I understand, taking place through the provinces at the present time. The present Minister for Finance had personal experience of the first City Manager in Dublin. I think I can describe him as a personal friend of his. The corporation and the Government of the day were certainly very fortunate, to say the least, in having a man of the type of Gerald Sherlock to take over these peculiar duties in 1930. I understand he did not take them over with a very good grace. But Gerald Sherlock was a Dublin citizen who loved his Dublin and was determined, at all costs, even outside the very regulations that placed him in his position, the regulations of the Act of 1930, to concede, as far as lay within his power, at least a semblance of authority to the members of the corporation who came in to serve under him. I said on a former occasion that one of the first things he said to me, personally, was: "Unless I give the members something to do in this chamber they will not remain here, and that would be bad for this council and it would be bad for the city."
He set out, in quite unorthodox form, almost to circumvent, I think, the official regulations in ensuring the setting up of certain committees, such as the General Purposes Committee, the Housing Committee, and other such committees, with a view to attracting the members of the council and keeping them interested in their work, and I think it would be true to say— and I am sure that my colleagues in the corporation here will agree with me—that to a very great extent, in some matters at least, it would be very difficult perhaps to detect the very great divergence of operation as between the new and the old administration. That was certainly true in some particulars, but that was entirely due to the type of man who took over the manageship at that particular time. He had one outstanding characteristic—and it must be said to his credit—and that was that he was prepared at all stages to stand over the members of the Dublin City Council in their administration of the affairs of the city, and to stand over them, particularly, in connection with the people in the Custom House. He never allowed himself to be influenced merely by an ordinary document that came before him from the Custom House, and whether such a document came from the Minister or from any other official in the Custom House, he was at all stages prepared to join issue with the Minister or the Minister's officials on very many matters.
When he was appointed in 1930, one of his first acts on the city council was to present a report, amounting to five or six pages, of what he had been doing in the preceding month, and he prefaced his remarks by saying: "I feel it my duty to inform you of what I have been doing in the past month", and he proceeded to give the council an account of what had been in his mind, and gave them an opportunity of discussing it. Now, contrast that with what has been happening in recent times in regard to reports to the Dublin Corporation, when we find that reports of that nature have gradually been dwindling away, getting less and less every other month, even on highly important matters, to the extent, finally, that this matter of making a report to the council has disappeared entirely.
The result is that the Dublin Corporation now gets no report in any form as to the conduct of its proceedings in the previous 12 months; Mark you, the City Manager took that stand —and I must say, in fairness to him, that he took it because he felt that he had authority to do so under the Act of 1930, or at least he felt that the Act could be so interpreted—because he felt that he was entitled to do so; but now we have the anomaly that a subsidiary board of the Dublin Corporation, to wit, the Grangegorman Mental Hospital Committee, are entitled to have the Manager's report put before them. It is true that it required an agitation to bring that state of affairs about, but still we have the extraordinary anomaly that a subsidiary board of the Dublin Corporation must be supplied with a report, whereas, in the premier corporation, we have none. I mention that as a sample of how matters concerned with local administration are being conducted.
I have heard City Managers being described as dictators, and, perhaps, being removed from the sympathies of the ordinary members of the councils concerned, they may not be so closely in touch with the people. I am not suggesting anything of the kind. I admit that they have a very difficult task to perform, and that they find themselves in a very difficult position— almost an impossible position—because they find themselves, so to speak, between the hammer and the anvil. If they want to give the members of the council a little of the powers that they think the members of the council should have, they may possibly find themselves up against the officials of the Department. If, on the other hand, the City Manager stands up for the rules and regulations, he may find himself up against the law officers. Under the Acts of 1930 and 1940, if the City Manager decides to act in certain ways, he may find himself up against the law officers, and I suggest that the whole situation is impossible, as it stands at the moment. I am sorry to say that, as things are at the moment, the whole system of local administration is an absolute failure, and has gone completely adrift.
I do not think the Minister will deny that there has been a lot of dissatisfaction in connection with the administration of these Acts throughout the country. I do not think he will deny that these feelings of dissatisfaction culminated a few days ago at the meeting of the municipal councils, where certain sections of the 1930 Act were denounced. It can be said that you can proceed to get more powers than you have now. That is true. We could proceed under that Act to take over housing, and so on, but I would point out that the members of the municipal councils feel such a sense of utter hopelessness about the whole position that it would be absolutely useless to try to improve it at all, in present circumstances. The scheme was fundamentally unsound, and it was felt that merely to tinker with it would bring about no improvement. That system has been kept alive because of the things I have referred to. There is a semblance of fairness because we have put up with this system for 14 years, but may I say openly that we have only been able to do so because we have been able to circumvent certain regulations with regard to things which the Act of 1930 set out to prohibit. The conditions in the country now, however, are different, and we are carrying through a policy of which we have long since got tired.
Now, the Minister in this House, having regard to the excellent services which local government has rendered to this country, both under this Government and the previous Government, would deeply deplore, as I would, any lessening of the standard either of administration of local government or of representation, but, inevitably, that will take place. You are bound to have members in any local body who will feel that their only duty is to say "ditto" to whatever the manager has to say, but obviously their influence would be nil in a council where the members of the council would feel it to be an honour and a glory to be a member of that council. That cannot be so where the members of the council feel that they have no say in the administration of the council. Only recently, it may be remembered, the business of a very important committee was held up because there was not a quorum, and they had to wait until one member came along to form a quorum. Now, the committee concerned dealt with a very excellent institution so far as this City is concerned, and they did very important work, sympathetically and excellently, in the interests of the people concerned, and although it was a large board, nevertheless, in former days, there was always an excellent attendance at every meeting. Now, however, the people who are members of that board feel that they have no influence or nothing to say, with the result that attendances are lessening and lessening until, quite recently, the business fell through because of the lack of a quorum.
We have had an example here in Dublin of such a lack of interest. Take, for example, the occasion of the last local elections in 1942. I will concede to the Minister that we injected into that campaign for the local elections, features that might very well be associated with a general election. The local elections were held at a time when feeling was very high so far as emergency legislation, and so on, was concerned, and I am willing to admit that we were prepared to get the decision of the people on local matters as well as on other matters. Notwithstanding the enthusiasm that was worked up on that occassion, only 37 per cent. of the people went to the poll. I ask, if that was the response on an occasion when a maximum effort was made to bring the people to the polls, what will be the response on the next occasion when it will only be an ordinary humdrum affair?
I have referred to the fact that in some cases county managers find their position practically impossible. I understand that sometimes when managers throughout the country make certain representations to the Minister's Department, if their applications or recommendations are not exactly rejected, they are so scaled down as to suggest to the individual manager that he is no longer master in his own house. While that is so, while the position on the one hand is that you have these managers described as dictators—and even dictators can afford to be magnanimous on occasion—on the other hand these managers find themselves helpless in trying to respond to the reasonable demands of local people. Members of the Minister's Party in the corporation will bear me out in these statements. They have, themselves, on more than one occasion, openly declared that the principle of local government was seriously impaired by this Act. In fact, one prominent member of the Minister's Party said that the work of the Dublin Corporation, so far as the powers of members were concerned, could be discharged in two days—one, the day when the question of striking a rate had to be considered, and the other, a day perhaps of more interest to some members, when the election of Lord Mayor took place.
That was how he described the present system and he is quite prepared to substantiate his arguments along those lines. I think it deplorable that we should have our system of local government pared down in this particular way. I cannot trace that the present Minister in any way contributed to the introduction of this particular form of local government. I do not know that he was even in favour of it, but probably through a sense of loyalty he had to support it. I think it is indisputable that there is a general wave of disaffection so far as the present system is concerned, and that there is an urgent desire that the Minister should avail of the opportunity presented by this motion to recast the whole framework of the local government code.
