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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 14 Feb 1946

Vol. 99 No. 8

In Committee on Finance. - Local Government Bill, 1945—Committee Stage (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following amendment:—
31a. To delete sub-section (1) and substitute the following subsections:—
(1) If, at any time after the rate in the £ of the rate for a local financial year has been determined by a rating authority, it appears to the Minister that such rate at such rate in the £ is likely to be insufficient to meet the part defrayable out of rates of the expenses to be incurred by the rating authority in that financial year in—
(a) maintaining at a reasonable standard the public services for the maintenance of which the rating authority is responsible, and
(b) paying to any other body any sums which the rating authority are bound to supply to that body,
the Minister, after holding a local inquiry into the sufficiency of such rate, may require the rating authority either to revoke such determination and determine a new rate in the £ for such rate or (if by reason of any steps already taken for the making, levying or collecting of such rate, such a course is more convenient) determine a rate in the £ of a supplementary rate for that local financial year.
(2) Within 14 days after the date of the receipt by the secretary or clerk of a rating authority of notification that a requirement has been made under sub-section (1) of this section, the rating authority shall comply with such requirement.
(3) Where a rating authority determine pursuant to a requirement under sub-section (1) of this section a rate in the £ of a supplementary rate, it shall be the duty of the rating authority to make, levy, collect and recover such supplementary rate.
(4) Where a rating authority in relation to whom a requirement is made under sub-section (1) of this section determine and make pursuant to the direction either—
(a) a new rate in the £ of a rate, or
(b) a rate in the £ of a supplementary rate,
which in the opinion of the Minister is insufficient, the Minister may by Order remove from office the members of the rating authority.
(5) For the purposes of Part IV of the Act of 1941, an Order under sub-section (4) of this section shall be deemed to be an Order under Section 44 of that Act and the removal from office of the members of the rating authority concerned shall be deemed to be a removal from office under that section.
(6) Where a person or persons has or have been appointed under Part IV of the Act of 1941 to be a commissioner or commissioners for a rating authority whose members have been removed from office, such person or persons may revoke any determination by the rating authority of a rate in the £ of a rate for the current or the next local financial year as had been made before his or their appointment (whether it is the first determination of a rate in the £, the determination of the rate in the £ of a new rate or the determination of the rate in the £ of a supplementary rate) and may determine the rate in the £ of such rate as if no earlier determination had been made or may determine a rate in the £ of a supplementary rate for such local financial year and make, levy, collect and recover such supplementary rate.—(Aire Rialtais Aitiúil agus Sláinte Poiblí.)

My opposition to this amendment comes entirely from the point of view that it reinforces what I regard as the rather dictatorial attitude and atmosphere of the County Management Act. The Department of Local Government is intimately associated with the lives of the people. It is concerned with their security and welfare, if you like, more intimately than any other Department and in these circumstances I think it ought to be altogether removed from anything in the nature of political atmosphere. Matters ought to be dealt with entirely on their merits. It is from that point of view that I approach this subject. I regard local government and public health as commencing in the Custom House and reacting right down through the State, and local authorities, their officials and the Department ought to act in the closest possible co-operation and ought to deal with every question sympathetically and on its merits. Due regard must be paid to the attitude of the people and their capacity to pay.

Bringing into that anything in the nature of a dictatorial attitude, as was referred to last night by other Deputies —an attitude typifying Hitlerism, a name I do not like mentioning—is, in my opinion, entirely out of place. The Minister last night allowed his imagination free rein on the terrible things that would happen the local authorities and the people depending on them, the afflicted and the destitute, if local authorities did not do their duty. I have had many years' association with local authorities and I have never known any of them to deal with public affairs in any but a sympathetic and generous way. The biggest item in connection with local government is road maintenance. Here, I think, there is plenty of room for difference of opinion, and plenty of room for misunderstanding. I suppose I would not be strictly in order——

The Deputy should not give notice in advance.

I think I am reinforced in my attitude in view of the Minister's statement last night, which was not entirely confined to the merits of the amendment but rather covered all the activities of local authorities. There is one bone of contention which gives plenty of room for the opposition of local authorities and plenty of room for compromise and co-operation. I regard road maintenance as one of the most difficult things to handle, from the point of view of both the Department and the local authorities. If you cast your minds back you will see how well sustained was the opposition of many local authorities to the huge expenditure involved. You can visualise the position in this country before the advent of mechanical transport.

That is going too far back. The Deputy must not discuss road maintenance and the upkeep of the roads.

If you allow me to develop it a little, I will get away from it immediately. These roads were built by local authorities entirely for local use. They have gradually developed into national highways for mechanical transport, and, by reason of that mechanical transport, these roads have been entirely destroyed. An enormous revenue, however, has been derived from this mechanical transport and one would think that these roads would be entitled to these revenues, or at least to a substantial portion of them.

The Deputy is on a very broad road now when he is proposing to deal with trunk roads.

The licence which the Minister took——

I imagine that the Minister did not deal with the financing of the upkeep of these roads.

He dealt with activities in relation to the roads and I am dealing with the reasons for my opposition to this amendment. I am trying to deal with this matter not on the basis of making any reflection on the Ministry, or of gaining any political kudos, but from the point of view of getting straight at what the difficulty is and of ascertaining if ways and means can be found to get over it. I am pointing out that the great difficulty we have at present is the financing of these roads and suggesting that there ought to be a compromise by the State. In our opinion, if the State had subscribed its just and equitable amount towards these roads, the conflict of opinion between the Ministry and the local authorities would never have arisen. The difficulty has not arisen in relation to the orthodox duty of local authorities to look after the afflicted and destitute. It has arisen, and the necessity for all these dictatorial powers has arisen, in relation to the financing of these services.

The Deputy is straying too far in trying to introduce a debate on whether they should be financed from the Central Fund or not. That is outside this amendment.

It could be interpreted in that way, but that is not the intention of the Deputy. The intention of the Deputy is to see that if this cause of irritation can be allayed or modified, it will be allayed or modified. I am pointing out what the opinion of local authorities is. If, however, you, Sir, debar me from dealing with the financial aspect, let me deal with the administrative aspect. By this amendment, the Minister is taking power to compel local authorities to face any expenditure, not on what they think, but on what he thinks. The council of which I have the honour to be a member received a letter on 15th December last from the Minister's Department practically demanding, although not in so many words, that it should raise a sum of £308,000 for bitumen and tar. Add that amount to an estimate well over £1,000,000 for county administration and you can clearly visualise that there is plenty of room for compromise between the Ministry and the local authority. On the finance side, the Minister has revenue of well over £1,000,000 and possibly five times that amount in motor taxation. I know that the Minister's answer to the statement by us that he has taken practically £1,000,000 out of the Road Fund in the last nine years, leaving it altogether to the local authorities to finance it, will be that he gives it back in other ways. Again, I come in conflict with the Minister.

I am afraid that I am in conflict with the Deputy. If the Deputy is permitted to deal with these matters, 50 Deputies may follow him on the administration and financing of road maintenance and the debate would go very far beyond the measure and particularly beyond what is before us, amendment 31a, which contains nothing about roads.

The point is that if a local authority sees its way to reduce the amount of money which it is required to provide, the Minister takes power under this amendment to suppress that body if it does not mend its hand, completely ignoring public representatives and the opinions they were elected to express on behalf of the people. Quite recently the Minister, in his advocacy of the Managerial Act, stated that control of finance was entirely reserved to the local authority, but now we find that if, in the opinion of the county surveyor, sufficient money is not provided, his only duty is to inform the county manager that it is insufficient. The local authority's action thereupon becomes non-effective and it then becomes a matter entirely between the county surveyor and the Minister to fix whatever they think ought to be the expenditure on roads, irrespective of the opinion of those most in touch with the matter of the capacity of the people to bear it.

I am not allowed to develop my argument on the lines on which I should like to develop it, but I put it to the Minister whether, if we refuse to act on his letter of 15th December in which he requires us to raise £308,000 for one commodity alone, added to our ordinary expenditure of well over £1,000,000, if we compromise on it and try to provide the money in other ways, the Minister can invoke this amendment and say to the council: "You do as I tell you, or I will dissolve you". Surely we should not have to submit to powers of that kind and surely we are entitled to oppose this amendment which accentuates the power which the Minister already has.

I have been for a long number of years connected with local authorities and I do not deny that I have taken a very deep interest in their financing. I am pretty conversant with everything done in the last 20 years. Up to the passing of the Managerial Act, attention was always paid to local opinion and local opinion was effective in matters of local government. I must say that, in my long association with public bodies, I never got anything but sympathetic and reasonable treatment, the merits of every question being reasonably dealt with, but under the Managerial Act, reinforced by this amendment, the power is entirely taken out of their hands and it now becomes a mechanical device. Local authorities are to be told: "Our technical experts say that so and so is necessary and I make this Order. If you do not comply with it, there is nothing for me to do but to dissolve you and to compel the county surveyor and manager to carry out my will." That is a very drastic power to have.

I opposed the Managerial Act on the ground that, as time went on, it would dissociate public opinion from its own interests, and we are gradually reaching a position in which we will have government from the Custom House and government from this House, with no public representatives in between.

Every action of the Minister and every amendment of this kind is, in my opinion, calculated to lead to the suppression of the local body's opinion. I would remind the Minister that one of the most valuable things in this country is the interest which the local people take in their own affairs. That ought to be encouraged, because without it local administration cannot be carried out efficiently. I submit that the less the Minister interferes apart, of course, from seeing that things are properly done, the better it will be for all concerned. I started my speech by urging that there should be the closest co-operation between the Department of Local Government and local authorities. There should be between them a pooling of their very best efforts in the interests of the people they serve. The Department, on its part, should make every endeavour to lessen the liabilities of local authorities by demanding from the Minister for Finance, or the Government, as much of the moneys derived from road taxation as justice would demand. That would be one way of helping our local authorities. At the moment, I am not at liberty, under the ruling given by the Chair, to develop that point further, but I do submit that there is that obligation on the Department of Local Government: to see that the sums which are justly due to local authorities, and which are derived from the revenues that I have referred to, are paid over to them. In that way, the Minister would be doing his part in trying to lessen the liabilities that fall on local authorities, and ultimately on the ratepayers.

The Minister may think it wise to link up the various public services under the arbitrary powers that he is proposing to take in this amendment, to bring them to the highest point of perfection, while ignoring altogether the opinions of the local authorities. I would remind him that there is a limit to human endurance, and to the people's capacity to pay. It may be that, under what one may describe as this method of mechanical dictation, we will arrive at the time when we will have the most perfect services and the most perfect roads, but will we have the people there to enjoy them? You can squeeze the public, and, under duress, the rates may reach such a point that it will be impossible for the people to pay them. The Minister should take care that, under the Managerial Act, as amended by this amendment, the people who will have to pay the money necessary for the carrying on of those services are not forgotten. There may be in the Department a disposition to bring those services up to the very highest point. That may also be the disposition of the officials—county surveyors and managers—but it must never be forgotten that it is the people who will have to pay. Their primary interest is to get an opportunity to live and to earn the moneys that are necessary for the financing of all those services. There is the old saying that it is the last straw that breaks the camel's back. I would advise the Minister to consider this matter seriously before he invokes the powers that he is taking in this amendment.

As I have already said, I have been in public life for a long time. During all the period that I have been a member of public boards, I have never allowed anything to influence my decision on matters that came before me except the merits of the question at issue. I have always regarded a close association between the Department of Local Government and the local representatives of the people as an essential to the efficient working of our local government administration. At the same time, I want to say that I shall always oppose any arbitrary or dictatorial proposal which would take power out of the people's hands and place it in that of an individual. I believe that in all public matters public opinion is entitled to be consulted. Therefore, I am very strongly opposed to the efforts of the Minister to try centralise power in himself, irrespective of the wishes of the people and their representatives.

I suppose I feel myself rather at a disadvantage in venturing to follow, in this debate, a Deputy of the experience of Deputy Broderick. It would be a good thing indeed for this House if all Deputies, and particularly those on the Opposition Benches, would follow the example set by Deputy Broderick—the calm and dignified manner in which, from his point of view, he has put his case. I want to say that, having listened to the debate here last evening, I was rather disappointed this morning that we had not flash headlines in the daily papers, proclaiming a split, from top to bottom, in the Fianna Fáil Party. Various speakers on the Opposition Benches commented on the fact that members of the Fianna Fáil Party had the courage of their convictions by standing up in this House to express views different from those held by the Minister. I would remind the Deputies of all Parties, my own included, that that is the kernel of democracy.

Mr. Walsh

It would be a good thing for the Deputies on the Opposition Benches if they had had as much democracy in their organisation, from its inception, as we have in ours. We have the right to have our opinions. We make decisions in our organisation, and these decisions being made, majority rule counts and all abide by them. I want to assure the members of the Opposition Party that last evening they discovered a mare's nest. Fianna Fáil is the premier Party in this country to-day, and will be for many years to come, judging from the form which Deputies on the Opposition have shown in this debate, in particular.

I want to say that, so far as amendment No. 31a and its subsidiary sections are concerned, I have no fears at all about them, and will have no qualms of conscience in supporting them when it comes to the time for giving support. I am old enough to remember, having taken part in the establishment of Fianna Fáil, that away back in 1932— this, a Chinn Comhairle has a direct bearing upon my reference—if we had this piece of legislation in operation in 1932 many of the delays which took place and prevented the people of this country from enjoying the benefits that the then new Government provided for them, would not, in fact, have occurred.

Mr. Walsh

Deputy Mulcahy ought to know that. He had responsibility for many years, and we know what we got from him. If it pleases Deputy Mulcahy, I can take these out of their chronological order. I will take as No. 1, the housing of the people. I ask the leader of the Opposition to contrast his services to the people of this country, in the matter of housing them, with the housing achievements of Fianna Fáil from 1932 to 1938.

That is a bit out of order, too.

Mr. Walsh

I am basing my reasons for supporting this amendment on these grounds and I have no other good grounds than these and I think it is very relevant.

It is very revealing.

Mr. Walsh

Very revealing for the Deputy and rather disappointing for him, I am quite sure. We had water schemes, sewerage schemes, road schemes, improved hospitalisation, free meals schemes and free milk.

Free beef.

Mr. Walsh

Free beef, when necessary. It did not go to loss.

Calf skins.

Mr. Walsh

In addition to that, we had tuberculosis services. Later, we had turf schemes.

Three days a week on rotational employment schemes.

Mr. Walsh

Yesterday Deputy Morrissey drew the attention of this House to the fact that there was an increase of 45 per cent. in rateable taxation on the local authorities since Fianna Fáil came into office. I suggest that Deputy Morrissey, when he goes down to Tipperary for the week-end, should tell the people of Tipperary that he was opposed and is still opposed to the provision of all these social services for the people of this country. That is what Deputy Morrissey's objection and protest here yesterday amounted to. He was protesting against the increased social services which were provided for the plain people of this country from 1932 to date.

Has the Deputy finished the list of services?

Mr. Walsh

No. That will be my business. When I have finished I will pass on.

There is one important thing the Deputy is omitting. Fianna Fáil gave the people more room because they got 38,000 men who were working on the land off the land.

Mr. Walsh

And the 136,000 that you paid to leave this country, who did not leave voluntarily. The Fianna Fáil Government never paid gratuities, as you did, for your henchmen, to get them out of this country.

The Deputy will address the Chair.

Mr. Walsh

I would be glad if Opposition Deputies would address the Chair. Then I would conform to it.

The Deputy's conforming to the Rules of Order is not conditional.

Mr. Walsh

To return to 1932 again. I am quite satisfied the Opposition do not want to hear anything of these things.

Wait and see.

Mr. Walsh

They used three pieces of machinery in this country in order to block the progress of Fianna Fáil's democratic government. To begin with, the law courts, to bring our Government into contempt.

The Deputy is very wide of this amendment.

And it was brought into contempt there.

The only thing that was brought into contempt was the draftsmanship of the Deputy's Attorney-General.

Mr. Walsh

I have no hesitation whatever in supporting the amendment. My only regret is that the Minister for Local Government did not have this power many years ago. During the emergency there was an Emergency Powers Order issued empowering local authorities to strike an additional rate if they found it necessary. We heard no protest against that. There came a circular letter intimating to us that we had to provide for A.R.P. services and such other national emergency services and that if we found it necessary we had only to make provision for an additional rate which could have been collected. I want to know what is the great objection to giving the Minister this power now, seeing that he already has power to suspend local public bodies if he so wishes. That is, of course, another stick in the hands of the Opposition, as they think, wherewith to wallop Fianna Fáil, but the more of that we get the more these people expose themselves and, so far as I am concerned, the more welcome it will be.

I hope that when Deputy Morrissey returns to Tipperary he will tell the people there that he is not now in favour of the provision of those social services or other schemes such as I hope the Government will attempt in the near future, the provision of roads, housing accommodation for the people, and other such schemes. I, for one, will have no hesitation in supporting this amendment when it comes to a division.

Deputy Walsh gave a good deal of advice to Deputy Morrissey as to what he was to do and say when he got back to Tipperary in the week-end. I wonder will the people of Drogheda realise that when Deputy Walsh spoke to an important amendment he hardly said a word concerning the amendment. There was a great deal about what was done in 1932 and before that. I should like to say, not necessarily to the Deputy who last spoke, but to many other Deputies who keep harping back to what was done and what was not done in the past, that there is a generation in Ireland more interested in 1946 and onwards than they are in what was not done 15, 16 or 12 or 13 years ago. What we are concerned with, strange as it may appear, is amendment No. 31 (a). I want to say a few words about that. These particular points may have been mentioned by other Deputies but it seems to me that the kernel of the amendment is that if it appears to the Minister that a rate is likely to be insufficient to maintain the public services at a reasonable standard, after the Minister has held a local inquiry into the sufficiency of such a rate, various things may happen which I do not think any democratic people can view with any great pleasure as happening to them or to their lawfully elected representatives, that is, the local authority are to be dissolved if they refuse to carry out the behests of the Minister as made manifest by the local inquiry.

The Minister made a speech last night. Judged from a debating point of view, it was an excellent speech. He made an excellent case for himself, but he did not make an excellent case for amendment No. 31 (a). The gist of his remarks was that a local authority was to be given power to mend its hand if it had taken an ill-judged or misguided action. This amendment does not say that power is to be given to the local authority to mend its hand. This amendment proposes that power is to be given to the Minister to force the authority to carry out something which they, in possession of local knowledge, do not wish to carry out. That is the kernel of the amendment. The Minister tries to say that the local body will be given that power, but the amendment says that the Minister is to be given that power. Then the Minister says: "Oh, I have always had that power. There is nothing new in this." If he has always had that power, what on earth has he put in this amendment for? He cannot have it both ways. If he has the power why is he putting in amendment No. 31 (a)? The Minister has already very great powers for dealing with local bodies. He can dissolve them and hold local inquiries of various sorts. I do not wish to go into the ramifications of some of the local inquiries held recently, but the Minister, at least, will admit that they have caused a good deal of trouble, even if he is not prepared to admit the justice of the claims made by the people concerned. We are now asked to pass an amendment which gives the Minister power to hold a local inquiry after it appears to him that a rate is likely to be "insufficient". To understand fully the meaning of that sub-section one would want to be a mind reader. Even the Minister cannot tell a year hence what is likely to be insufficient to meet the situation, and then a local inquiry is to be held on the narrow issue of the sufficiency of the rate. There is not a word about the advisability of such a charge. Certain local authorities have recently had a good deal of bother with the Custom House authorities on the question of hospital charges.

I wonder if this amendment is being put in at this stage to deal with something that might be likely to arise in future in connection with hospitalisation. The phrase "any other body" is a very wide one and might mean many things. I do not think it is defined in the definition section.

Go to the dictionary.

Deputies would want to go to them occasionally.

There are many bodies and numbers of them are outside the jurisdiction of what I might call the county area. Under that a local authority might be asked to provide for any body outside their area. I do not wish to labour that point too much. This amendment has been very widely discussed, but I do not think it possible to discuss it too often, because an enormous number of points arise out of it. Before closing I should like to mention that the amendment has been brought in on the Committee Stage of the Bill. I am not attempting to criticise the wisdom of that. That is a matter for other people, but it is certainly a rather extraordinary amendment to bring in at this stage. I wonder it was not there when the Bill was on the stocks, because it is very far-reaching and claims considerably more than is contained in present local government practice. I wonder why such a brilliant idea did not occur until now, and for that reason I think the Minister ought to give us an explanation of the grounds for it. In conjunction with other members of my Party, and with a considerable number of the Fianna Fáil Party, I view this amendment with the very greatest alarm. I trust the Minister will withdraw it.

I join with other Deputies who are opposed to this amendment in appealing to the Minister to withdraw it. I was surprised at Deputy Walsh advocating the necessity of having it in a Local Government Bill, considering that the Government Party has at present control of all local bodies in Éire. Am I to take it that since the last election those who have been elected think it necessary to have this new section in the Bill put into operation to compel them to carry out the Minister's orders? When Deputies ask why this amendment is brought in, I am rather suspicious that a county not very far away is responsible. Even Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches will agree that if other counties were in a similar position they would act in the same way. County Wicklow is a tourist county with a very energetic county engineer. The majority of the county council are Labour men. The raising of a rate of £93,000 was suggested for main roads on a three years' plan. The council adjourned the matter in order to inquire from the Government what their intentions were, and what grants they were going to give for post-war schemes. The raising of that amount of money required in County Wicklow would mean an extra rate of 5/- in the £, apart from increased demands for the maintenance of the mental hospital, the board of public assistance, vocational education, as well as other expenditure. Notwithstanding the fact that for the last six years they have been allocating practically the same amount of money for the roads, expenditure in County Wicklow last year was reduced by 3d. in the £. It was suggested later that £10,000 should be provided for the purchase of tar and the money was raised. I want to know from the Minister what his Department proposes to do in that connection.

The County Council of Wicklow started to build a coast road to the Silver Strand and, with the approval of the Government, spent money out of the rates on that project, but they found afterwards that a public body cannot incur expenditure of that kind unless there is a grant from the Government. For the past few years the Government left that road to be dealt with as a post-war measure. I should like to know when the council will be allowed to complete the reconstruction of the road. It was for that reason that the county council deferred consideration of the engineer's estimate. Am I to take it that the Minister wants power in this Bill to deal with a county council who, by a majority, refused to strike a rate which they thought would be an exorbitant demand in view of the increased cost of social services? If, instead of having a three-year plan, it was recommended that it should be a six-year plan and that the rate in the £ should be reduced correspondingly, would the Minister then send down an inspector of his Department who would be one of the Department's engineers? The Department's engineers have very powerful influence. This inspector and engineer would be in favour of having the roads perfect and he would maintain that we had not struck a rate sufficient to keep the roads in a reasonable state of repair. There would be no appeal from that. The engineer would support his county colleague in the view that the council has failed in its duty in striking an inadequate rate. That is why I say that public bodies are not getting a chance. They can appeal to nobody but the inspector holding the inquiry. Where a county council recognises that the estimated rate would be exorbitant, surely that council, representing all parties, and elected by the people, should be allowed to enjoy the power they possess on one day in the 52 weeks of the year. The county manager submits his estimates, and if the council give him the rate he seeks, they have no more power over officials or anybody else.

I have never been in favour of the Managerial Act. If this amendment be persisted in and if an engineer be sent down to hold an inquiry, it will not be possible to get in the rates. While the people are prepared to increase the rate for home assistance, mental hospitals and social services, they are not prepared to strike an exorbitant rate for the maintenance of roads until the Government reveals their plan for dealing with this question. The Government are not in a position on account of the condition of the Road Fund to notify the county councils of the amounts they are likely to receive in connection with road improvements. Our council asked the Minister to let them know what wages they were to pay road workers. They were prepared to increase the road estimate. There is a majority of Labour men on that county council. We object to the treatment of the road workers and we cannot understand why the county manager has recommended an increase of 11/- a week to men in receipt of £500 a year while the road workers' claims cannot be conceded. Notwithstanding the arguments of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary, a public body must consider the welfare of the ratepayers. Councils are asked to strike a rate to meet increased bonus for officials, while the road workers cannot be given an increase of a few shillings a week. If Deputy Walsh was in a similar position, I do not think he would agree. I think that he would take up the same position that I am taking up. The case I have mentioned may be far-fetched, but the implications are there.

Without this amendment the Minister had power to hold an inquiry and remove a council which failed to provide funds for the county manager to enable him to carry on the social services. But a council may decide that the rate recommended by the county manager is exorbitant and that it would be better to spread the expenditure over a number of years. The council are best fitted to decide such a question. In our rate, £93,000 was provided for trunk roads and £31,000 for improvements. That was a huge bill for trunk roads and the council adjourned it and will continue to adjourn it until they get satisfaction. We recognise that the roads must be maintained in proper repair but we pointed out that our county was a tourist county and should get different treatment from that accorded other counties because buses are used on our roads and tourists from Dublin and elsewhere are travelling over them without leaving a lot of money in that area. In view of the increase in the yield of taxation by reason of the increase in the number of motorists, the Government should be able to strengthen the Road Fund and give money to public bodies to enable them to carry on road work. I do not sympathise with a public body which holds up social services. But before sanctioning an increased rate, a public body must satisfy itself that it will receive service for its money and must consider the ability of the people to meet the increase. In the case I brought up, has not the Minister power to abolish the council? I am sure that every public representative would support the views I put forward. If it is not the intention of the Minister to interfere with a public body, why is it necessary to bring in this amendment? The Minister has already the necessary powers. To make the Bill a workable Bill, the public representatives should be given responsibility. There should be some body to which they could appeal, which would decide, in such a case as I mentioned, what would be a reasonable rate. For the reasons I have mentioned, I oppose the amendment.

I do not think that Deputy Walsh was quite fair to himself. I am satisfied that the Deputy has a far greater knowledge of local government administration and local government law than one would gather from the speech he delivered here to-day. My colleague, Deputy Dockrell, pointed out that Deputy Walsh had not said anything about the amendment.

Quite sufficient had been said about it.

Mr. Morrissey

I do not think that Deputy Walsh believes in this amendment. We had a similar type of speech last night from Deputy M. O'Reilly. I am satisfied that Deputy Walsh and Deputy O'Reilly can see as far into this amendment as any other members of the House and I must come to the conclusion that, like the Minister, they are endeavouring to deceive not only themselves but the House. Does Deputy Walsh subscribe to the kernel of this amendment? What is the kernel of the amendment? If this amendment passes, the making of the rate will lie not with the local authority but with the Minister.

Mr. Walsh

Only as a last resort.

Mr. Morrissey

Deputy Walsh mentioned, as if it had a bearing on the subject, that, during the emergency, local authorities were given the right to impose additional rates. He added: "Why object to this amendment when you agreed to that?" Of course, the essential difference is that it was the local authority which had the right to impose the additional rate and not the Minister. Deputy Walsh spoke of many things that had nothing whatever to do with this amendment. He challenged me to go back to Tipperary and talk about social services. I do not want to issue a challenge, but I should like to see Deputy Walsh, ex-Mayor of Drogheda, going back to his colleagues in the Drogheda Corporation and attempting to justify his viewpoint that the Drogheda Corporation should not have the right to fix their own rate without the Minister's interference

Mr. Walsh

They have.

Mr. Morrissey

They have not. It is bad enough when the Deputy tries to "cod" himself, but let him not try to "cod" the House as well. The fact is that, if this amendment becomes law, the local authority can only strike a rate if it satisfies the Minister, not if it satisfies the local authority.

Is that not the position already?

Mr. Morrissey

No.

Mr. Morrissey

If it is, why is it necessary to pass this amendment? Let me put this question to Deputy Walsh: if that is the present position why do we want this amendment?

Mr. Walsh

To compel people to do their duty. They had to be compelled already, for instance, in the case of County Dublin and County Cork.

Mr. Morrissey

Would the Deputy make up his mind one way or another? The Deputy said that the Minister had power already to do anything that he may do under this amendment; now he says the Minister requires power to compel them to do it.

Mr. Walsh

On a point of personal explanation, Deputy Walsh did not say anything of the kind. Deputy Walsh referred to the powers which the Minister had already.

Mr. Morrissey

I am sure the Deputy has now made himself perfectly clear to everybody in the House. I can understand the Deputy's difficulty. It is very hard to speak against one's own knowledge or one's own conviction and I fully appreciate the delicate position in which the Deputy finds himself. The Deputy is acting against his knowledge of local affairs and of the conduct of local affairs. The Deputy spoke about people losing their sense of dignity but if any Government, other than the present one, dared to introduce an amendment such as this and Deputy Walsh was in opposition to that Government, mind you I have a fairly powerful voice, but it would not hold a candle to the resounding tones which the Deputy would roll off in condemning that amendment and he can be fairly effective when he likes in that way.

I want to put this view to members of this House, even to Deputy Everett, Deputy Broderick and some other members on this side. This amendment has nothing to do with the position of local authorities up to the present. It is not intended to meet anything that is there at the moment. It is to meet a situation which the Minister has in mind for the future. The only reason I mentioned 46 per cent. of an increase was to show, as I said, that local authorities were satisfied to strike a rate, even a rate which showed 46 per cent. of an increase, to meet their normal obligations but the Minister intends to impose obligations on local authorities that were never imposed on them before, to give them fresh duties and to put other expenses upon them. The local authorities are going to be compelled to pay for, and to raise rates to meet, services which they have no say themselves in establishing, which will be established, not by the local authority, but by the Minister. The Minister will not only establish services or institutions; he will assign, when he knows how much these services will cost, what is to be paid by the local authority. It is not the local authority that will decide that. One of the remarkable things about the Public Health Bill at present before the House is that we have got no indication from the Minister or anybody else as to what it is going to cost.

Would the Deputy wait until we come to that Bill?

Mr. Morrissey

I beg your pardon, Sir. I am keeping far closer to the amendment than any Deputy who has spoken so far.

The Deputy addressed himself to the Public Health Bill just now.

Mr. Morrissey

Only in a passing reference.

The Deputy is a long time passing.

Mr. Morrissey

I did not get as far away as the Minister——

The Deputy should not waste any time.

Mr. Morrissey

I agree that I should not waste any time in replying to the Minister but I did not get as far away as the Minister in his flights of fancy. He accused us last night of advocating that local authorities should refuse to obey the law, of trying to bring about chaos, and he said that nobody could do it better. Talk about being fantastic ! Deputy MacEntee holds——

Mr. Morrissey

——the record in that respect in his description of the opposition to his amendment. "Members on the opposite benches are going to bring us to the verge of civil war." If there was anything more fantastic ever said by any member on my side of the House, I should like to hear it. Of course it only goes to show, when the Minister talks in that way, that like Deputy Walsh, he can say nothing in support of the amendment. Does any member of the House who has been a member of a local authority conscientiously trying to do his best in all the circumstances to provide for services, to cut out waste and extravagance— does any member of this House who has any knowledge of local government, as Deputy Corish said last night, want to see the last remaining bit of power left in the hands of local authorities removed? Remember when you pass this you cannot say that you have a right to strike a rate. You have a right to strike only a rate that will satisfy the Minister.

Let me put this point to Deputies, particularly those who are members of local councils. If and when this Bill becomes law county managers, in order to safeguard themselves against the Department and the Minister, will of necessity bring in inflated estimates so that there will not be the remotest possibility of a shortage in the amount provided for public services, not even the remotest possibility of resorting to anything in the nature of a supplementary estimate or a loan to cover up a gap. If the manager brings in an inflated estimate which, in the light of their experience, appears to the local authority—and mind you there can be complete unanimity on a local authority—as an unduly inflated estimate, the members of the local authority have no power to reduce it. If they do the Minister will hold an inquiry and immediately direct them to increase the figure to at least the amount asked for by the county manager.

The Minister has said that he can only act after a local inquiry. I want to say quite frankly that the local inquiry is all "bosh". What is the machine that operates? The inspector at the local inquiry has the thought in his mind that naturally the Minister has reason to believe that the estimate struck is not sufficient. The Minister directs the local inquiry to be held. The Minister himself selects the inspector to hold that inquiry. The inspector knows that he is going down to that particular county or town because the Minister is not satisfied that a sufficient rate has been struck. The inquiry is held and the inspector, on the evidence tendered, drafts his report, but there is this difference between the procedure and what happens in any ordinary tribunal or court. Nobody but the Minister himself can see the recommendation made by the inspector or will be allowed to see it. On the undisclosed report of the inspector the Minister can there and then remove the local authority from office. If there is anybody who has knowledge at all of local administration and who wants to defend this amendment, I should like him to try to meet some of those points. I am totally opposed to this amendment for many reasons, not the least of which is that I cannot see anybody, who is genuinely interested in local government, allowing his name to go forward for election to a local body if and when this becomes law. I cannot conceive of anybody with a sense of his responsibility and his duty to the people going forward for election, knowing that he has no power, and knowing that once you strike a rate you are finished. Whatever happens after that is in the hands of the county manager.

The Minister, on numerous occasions in the past, gave as a justification for the County Management Act the reason that, in the ultimate, the local authority had the power to strike the rate, and that nobody else had that power; but that power is now being destroyed by this amendment. Let me say this to Deputy Walsh, in connection with his remarks about social services: I do not know of any public authority in this country that has refused to make adequate provision for whatever social services were passed by this House—I do not know of even one. I do, however, know this: that local authorities in this country were prepared to increase the rate—not to reduce it, but to increase it—in order to do some slight measure of justice to their employees, by increasing the wages of road workers and similar employees by, say, 5/- a week, but the Minister put his foot down and would not allow that. That does not show that there is a desire on the part of the local authorities to increase the rates except for the purpose of doing justice.

Let me say, in conclusion, that this amendment is brought in, not because the Minister thinks that the local authorities will refuse to strike a rate in order to face their ordinary obligations or any obligations that may be placed on them up to the moment, but because, as is well known, the Minister's Department, as well as other Departments, have in mind schemes for the development of which the Minister proposes to make local authorities pay a substantial part of the cost. Let me mention one other matter. The Minister has prepared a very ambitious road scheme for this country. I shall not go into the merits or otherwise of that scheme, but it is a very ambitious scheme. We understand that some of these roads will be almost as wide as the Phoenix Park; that there will be roads running this way and that, one portion of them for cyclists, the other for motorists, and so on. Indeed, the scheme is so ambitious that it might appear that half the arable land of the country will be taken over for that purpose. However, I should like to know what proportion of the costs of these roads will be placed on the local authorities. Let me remind Deputies, in that connection, that for a number of years the Government raided the Road Fund; even in prewar years something like £100,000 was "lifted" by the Government out of that fund every year.

Now, we are not opposing this amendment merely for the sake of opposing it. We are opposing it because it is introducing a tremendously dangerous principle, and I am perfectly satisfied that if the members of this House cannot induce the Minister to change his mind on this matter, they will regret it, and regret it very bitterly. Once this is passed, the position will be that it is the Minister who strikes the rate, and not the local authority, unless the local authority strikes a rate which the Minister wants, and then the county manager operates it. If that is what Deputies want, then I think it is only fair for them to say that this whole thing should be administered from the Custom House through the county managers, and not have this camouflage—because that is all it is— of bringing men a distance of ten, 20 and even 40 miles to attend meetings of county councils, and a somewhat shorter distance for urban councils, merely to have typewritten documents put before them by the county manager, not one word of which they have power to alter. I think that any right-thinking, honest man would object to such a sham, and that is the reason that I say we should not pass this amendment, and I hope that the Minister will be persuaded to change his mind.

As a member of the Wexford County Council, I should like to join with other Deputies who have spoken on this matter. I have been in public life in that county since 1934. We had elections in 1942, and a county manager was put in, costing the ratepayers for salary and expenses a large amount of money per year. At our meeting last Monday, Deputy Allen, who is chairman of the Wexford County Council, reduced the estimate for the county manager, and, as far as I can see, under this section, the Minister can come along and dissolve the Wexford County Council. Deputy Allen, as well as other members of the Fianna Fáil Party, spoke here against this amendment, and if we go to a division I hope they will be in the House to vote against it, because they know that it is wrong. Under the county managerial system, the rates were passed in County Wexford without any talk about how the manager was going to spend the money. He spent £500 over a number of years sowing apple trees on the public roads instead of putting out materials on those roads, and we could say nothing. On several occasions, members of that county council—a big majority of them—agreed to increase the road workers' wages from 39/-, and one member of that county council—a Fianna Fáil member—proposed that they be given an extra 1/-, to bring the wage up to the agricultural wages standard. That proposal was sent up to the Department—at least we were told so—but the Minister refused to sanction those 12 extra coppers. We had elections last June, costing the county council £2,000, and costing the urban council £100. The people there elected 21 people. When we go down to Wexford and ask that certain things should be done we are told that this is an executive function, that we have no say in the matter, and that it is a matter for the county manager. They spent the whole day last Monday, from 1 o'clock until 4——

I think the Deputy is discussing the County Management Act, generally, instead of the specific matters contained in this amendment.

Under the section, Sir, the Minister can abolish the Wexford County Council.

We did not come to the discussion of the section yet. This is an amendment to the section.

Well, I submit that that is what the amendment does. It gives power to the Minister to abolish the county council.

I submit that if the county council made an estimate, and even cut it down, still, under this section, the Minister can abolish the council. I hold that if the Minister wants any more power, then the best thing for him to do is to scrap every county council in the whole country— probably, by doing so, he would be saving the rates in the matter of travelling expenses and so on—as this is only a sham. That is all the Wexford County Council or any council is. The Minister wants more powers. He has too much power already; he has all the powers. The local representatives have no powers under this system. I do not know why the Minister comes to the House now asking for more power. What he should do, as I say, is dissolve the council and leave the management of local affairs to the county manager and the Custom House officials, as they think they know more about local affairs than the public representatives elected by the people. Deputies on the other side talk about the roads and say that they must be maintained. The Party on the other side of the House did more destruction to roads and bridges in this country than all the traffic that will pass over them between this and the end of the world will do. We all know that they blew up bridges and tore up roads.

That is ancient history. The Deputy should come back to the amendment.

They talk about expenditure on the roads.

The amendment deals with the power that the Minister is seeking.

The roads and the bridges were blown up by the very people who are now talking about them.

There is not a word in this amendment about roads.

The county manager in my county and some of the Fianna Fáil members on the council a month ago passed a sum of £4,800 to buy new machinery, while diesel engines, steam engines, and all the necessary equipment have been lying in the county council yard at Enniscorthy for the past five years. Now they are going to buy a whole lot of more machinery that is not needed. I certainly will oppose this amendment, and I believe that I will be doing my duty to the people by opposing it. I am a member of all the committees under the county council in Wexford and, so far as the power we have is concerned, we are only stool pigeons. If a member of the committee goes to the mental hospital he is allowed to talk to the inmates there as long as he likes. But if an attendant comes along and asks the member to do something for him and that becomes known, the man is dismissed. I was not a member of this House when the County Management Act was passed, but I was interested in it at the time. If the Fine Gael Party had fought that Act as they are fighting this section, it would not have been passed, because the Fianna Fáil Party had not a majority in the Dáil at the time.

Amendment put.
The Committee divide d: Tá, 53; Níl, 37.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Buckley, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick (County Dublin).
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Carter, Thomas.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Collbert, Michael.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Fogarty, Patrick J.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Kilroy, James.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McCann, John.
  • McCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Connor, John S.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Rourke, Daniel.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Mary B.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
  • Walsh, Laurence.
  • Ward, Conn.

Níl

  • Beirne, John.
  • Bennett, George C.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Broderick, William J.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Commons, Bernard.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Henry M.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Donnellan, Michael.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Everett, James.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Halliden, Patrick J.
  • Hughes, James.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • O'Donnell, William F.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • O'Reilly, Thomas.
  • O'Sullivan, Martin.
  • Pattison, James P.
  • Redmond, Bridget M.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Rogers, Patrick J.
  • Sheldon, William A. W.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Ó Briain and Brady; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Amendment declared carried.
Amendments Nos. 32 and 33 not moved.

I move amendment No. 33a:—

In sub-section (3), page 11, line 39, to delete the words "and collecting" and substitute the words ", levying, collecting and recovering".

This is merely a drafting amendment.

Amendment agreed to.
Amendment No. 34 not moved.
Question proposed: "That Section 23, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

This is now a very remarkable bit of legislation, which will have a very big effect, unless the country is very wide awake, not only on the political side—on the way in which the people, through their institutions, are allowed to carry on public business—but on our social and economic position. We have heard many references to history while this amendment has been under discussion, but the really important phase of history of which we have heard nothing is that since October, 1945, when this Bill was introduced and had its Second Reading in this House, which induced the Minister to introduce the amendment which has just been discussed. It is perfectly clear to anyone who has been listening to the discussion, whether to the speakers on the Fianna Fáil Benches or to those on any other benches, that we are now in the position where, when a technical officer of any local body—a county medical officer of health, or a county engineer or any other technical officer—presents an estimate for the carrying out of any work for which he is responsible under that local body, it is not the local body which ultimately will fix the rate. That rate can and will, in the last resort, as Deputy Walsh puts it, be fixed by the Minister.

Through the whole of the local government system, the State manager which the Minister for Agriculture spoke about in November last, has very definitely appeared on the scene. What, then, are local representatives to be? They are to be people who will act—if they lack the courage necessary to stand up to the situation and to their local responsibilities—as the smoke-screen behind which the Minister's will will be carried out, in certain places, as simply the public will. Deputy Dillon has drawn attention to the fact that, under sub-section (2) of the section, as amended, the Minister, if he disagrees with the rate that has been struck, can order that a new rate be made, and the local authority shall have to make a new rate. If they do not, there are two courses open to the Minister, namely, to mandamus them into doing his bidding or to wipe them out. The Minister indicates that his measure is designed to help the innocent, weak, misguided local authorities, but I think he has very definitely planned to endeavour, by threat of mandamus, to get the members of local authorities weakly to agree to his instructions. That would be even a more degrading and a weaker result, and have a worse effect on the country as a whole, than if a local authority, standing over its local responsibility regarding local problems, should decline to carry out the Minister's Order. That would expose the Minister, who has now taken up the position that, in the last resort, he will strike the rate in any county where the local authority disagrees that it is the right thing in the interests of the people to do so.

The position to which the ratepayers have been brought up to the present time, as the result of Fianna Fáil policy, has been mentioned here and, arising out of certain figures given by the Minister to a Parliamentary question within the last day or so, comparing the net expenditure of local authorities in 1932 and 1942, and the amount of money received by the State to meet that expenditure, a figure has been quoted here that would suggest that the increase in rates between 1932 and 1942 has been 46 per cent. It has been more than that. It has been 60 per cent. The net expenditure of local authorities in the year ended March, 1932, was £9,446,000 and, of that, State sources contributed £3,522,000 and the local authorities contributed £5,924,000, of which £4,677,000 was raised by rates; the other smaller amounts of £1,000,000 odd came in from other sources that the local authorities had.

In the year ended March, 1942, the last year for which we have the information, the net expenditure had risen by £4,024,000 to £13,471,000, or about 46 per cent. But of that increase of £4,024,000, State sources contributed only £1,009,000 and the local authorities had to contribute an additional £2,852,000. In March, 1932, the total amount collected in rates was £4,677,000. In the year ended March, 1942, the rates had to contribute £7,529,000, an addition of £2,852,000, or an increase of 60 per cent. The only figure we have available up to the present is the increase shown in the warrants issued for county councils and I think you will find these are up by something like £400,000.

That is the position in which the Minister finds the country, on the one hand, and in which the local authorities find themselves, on the other. The total amount taken from the rates has gone up by 60 or 61 per cent. between 1932 and 1942 and, with the additional expenditure that has come on during the last four war years, they are now facing the plan that the Government have for loading on the local ratepayers the work of one kind or another that the taxpayers find themselves unable to bear because of the extraordinary increase in taxation. Taxation went up since 1932 from £21,000,000 in that year to £39,000,000 in the year ended March, 1945.

We have had a rather formative period in our national history, politically, socially and economically. The only thing that will maintain this country will be the efforts of the ordinary people in agriculture and in industry, and the only political stability that we can have will come if the people in every part of the country address themselves to the organisation and the management of those matters which require to be managed politically in order to have a society here and to maintain our institutions.

This legislation is machinery for taking more and more money out of the people's pockets, spending it through Government channels and leaving the people to have less to spend on their own initiative and on their own planning. That leads to more poverty. Why do we hear about social services? We hear about social services here because road workers throughout the country cannot get the increase in their wages, inadequate though they might be, that local authorities consider they ought to have. I asked the Minister the other day whether any examination had been made which would suggest that 40/- a week was sufficient to maintain a family whose breadwinner was working in one of the vital services of the country. I refer to road workers. You might apply the same to agriculture although, as Deputy Morrissey pointed out, the minimum for agricultural workers is the maximum that is apparently being paid to road workers.

A country whose economy is such that persons working at necessary vital occupations in rural districts have to be kept at wages like that must, if you like, provide social services to help them to eke out a living on their wages, but it cannot and will not continue to do so. The Minister may, in order to hold up his prestige and the prestige of his Government and the dignity of doing things through an emergency period, take his powers, but it should be realised that there are no powers and resources in this country outside of those that the people handle and there is no real intelligence that can make any use of them to build up the country economically or politically except that of the people themselves.

This is a measure to cow, restrict and restrain the intelligence of the people and the intelligence of the local representatives standing over their local problems. These are, if you like, symptoms of the absolute bankruptcy of mind of the Government in approaching the political, social and economic problems that exist.

The Minister attempted to dissipate the warning I gave the House last night. I submit that, in his attempt, he has hopelessly deceived himself. This section, as now amended, gives to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health in this country a power which no Local Government Act has ever given to any Minister in any civilised country heretofore. We all know that in the past there were certain mandatory services imposed upon the local authority. They were imposed by the statutes of this House and, if the local authority refused to carry out these mandatory services, anybody could institute mandamus proceedings against that authority, force it to do so, and the members who had refused to do their statutory duty would be mulcted by the local government auditor for the costs of the mandamus proceedings which they had properly defended and in which the verdict had gone against the council of which they were members. But this section, as amended, is the first attempt to incorporate in the law of this country the doctrine that the Minister, examining the same facts as were examined by the local authority and coming to a different conclusion on the same facts from that reached by the local authority, can order the members of the local authority to act not on their judgment, but on his.

If the members of a local authority should conscientiously believe that they are bound in duty to those who voted for them and those for whom they stand trustee to adhere to their decision, the Minister now, instead of dissolving the body, instead of dismissing them and sending them home, can start mandamus proceedings against them, not to carry out a statutory duty of which this House had prior knowledge, but to do what he thinks they ought to do, although he knows it is something which they conscientiously believe they are not bound to do. If the members, honestly doing what they believe to be right, strike a rate of 15/- in the £, honestly believing that the people of the county in which they live are not able to afford an additional burden, the Minister can say: "In my opinion, you should have struck a rate of 18/- in the £." The council stands by its decision and the Minister then, under sub-section (1) of this section, can make an Order directing them to strike a rate of 18/-.

Observe what happens then. In the existing state of the law, if the local authority adheres to its refusal, the Minister can dissolve the local authority, put in a commissioner and depend on the commissioner to strike the rate he thinks is right. The only consequence of that is that the members of the local authority are now private citizens and have no further responsibility as local representatives. That is the law as it stands now. If we pass this Bill in its present form, when the Minister issues his Order directing a council, in violation of their conscience, to strike the 18/- rate and the council rejoin that they have a conscientious scruple about doing it and will not do it, the Minister can then institute mandamus proceedings in which he is bound to succeed, because sub-section (2) now says that,

"within 14 days after the date of the receipt by the secretary or clerk of a rating authority of notification that a requirement has been made under sub-section (1) of this section the rating authority shall comply with such requirement."

If then the members who acted conscientiously at their next meeting declare that it would be contrary to their conscience to comply with the requirement made under sub-section (1), mandamus proceedings can be instituted.

Every Deputy who has any knowledge of local government procedure realises how immensely expensive such proceedings may be, and, inasmuch as the attitude of the council would be in direct conflict with sub-section (2) of this section, when those expenses came to be reviewed by the local government auditor, he would unquestionably surcharge those members of the council who were in the majority voting to reduce the Minister's requirement. Bear in mind that the surcharge will not be made on all the members of the council. It will be made on the members who voted to refuse to comply with the Minister's requirement, and that means that the individual small farmer in Roscommon or Mayo may find himself confronted with a bill of £50 to £100 for doing what he wanted to do, for doing what he believed it was his duty to do.

If that is the case, do Deputies want to impose on members of local authorities a liability not only to have their term of service arbitrarily ended but to be heavily mulcted in a fine for doing what they believed it was their duty to do? If you intend to put that burden on prospective members of a local authority, who do you think will go on to local authorities? What has always happened in rural Ireland is that if, in the popular cause of a particular district, you require a man to face an oppressive authority, you put up a man of straw because you did not want to give the oppressive authority the power effectively to injure decent, conscientious men who were only doing their duty and who were vulnerable in that they had property which might be taken from them and sold to John Brown, or somebody of that kind. Do we want all the local authorities to be manned by men of straw who will act at the council meetings merely at the instance of an extern corpus which will tell them what to do when they go in and which will send them in to do it, because no independent man will become a member of a local authority lest he find his person and property made liable under sub-section (2)?

The Minister has now gone off to his tea—I hope he enjoys it—but I direct the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to this because it is a very grave matter. We have a lot of friendly neighbours coming over from Great Britain reading the Riot Act to Sir Basil Brooke in Northern Ireland for that he has denied to the people of Northern Ireland the universal suffrage to which they are clearly entitled in their local affairs. I endorse that remonstrance by public-spirited British politicians in regard to the Sir Basil Brooke administration, but observe what we are doing in this country. We gave universal suffrage ten years ago and what have we been doing ever since? We have been taking back from the persons elected by universal suffrage on our local authorities all effective powers. Having given universal suffrage and having made a great to-do about it——

In spite of the Deputy.

On the contrary. I think the Deputy will remember that General O'Duffy—Lord have merey on him—the then Leader of the Party, to which I had the honour to belong, was strongly in favour of universal suffrage. He was much more profoundly convinced of it than I, but it certainly was the policy of our Party at that time to give universal suffrage in local elections. For the last ten years, the effect of the legislation submitted to this House by the Fianna Fáil Government has been piecemeal to take away from the local bodies elected by universal suffrage all their authority and to convert them merely into tools to give effect to the various decisions of the Minister sitting in the Custom House. In fact, what we are working to in this country is a centralised, authoritarian régime in local government, with the disguise of democratically elected councils throughout the country, who heretofore were under notice that, unless they were prepared to do precisely what the Minister told them, they would be dissolyed, but who now are to get notice that, unless they are prepared to do promptly what the Minister tells them, even in respect of the last reserved service left to them under the County Management Act, they are liable not only to be dissolved but to be heavily fined as well.

What, in the name of Providence, is the use of giving universal suffrage in local government if no man of property dares to become a candidate for a local authority, lest his property be taken from him as a result of conflict with the Minister for Local Government? What is the point of giving universal suffrage to electors in local affairs when all the legislation of this Parliament is designed, and has been designed for the past ten years, to take from the representatives elected by universal suffrage every shred of power which local authorities might ordinarily expect to exercise? Surely this House should not abandon itself to an orgy of hypocrisy. Is it not much more honest for the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland to say: "I will not let anybody vote in an election in any part of my jurisdiction unless I am satisfied that, on the result, the local authorities will be dominated by people of my political view," than to say as we do here, "everybody will be allowed to vote, and, having allowed everybody to vote, we are quite resolved that none of them shall function unless they are prepared to act in the way we tell them to act under the sanction that should any of them dare to dissent to our instructions we will first fine them and then dismiss them"? Why do we not wake up to and face the facts? I invite the Parliamentary Secretary, at an early stage, to answer me this question: Is it not true that under sub-section (2) he can mandamus the members of a local authority to do not a mandatory duty imposed by statute of this Oireachtas but an act dictated by the Minister and in conflict with the conscientious convictions of those members? Taken with all the other powers that he has taken under the Local Government Acts since 1935, is it not true that, while in theory we have universal suffrage under local government in this country, in fact the only person who can freely function on a local authority in this State is someone who is prepared to act the part of the stooge on orders handed to him by a Fianna Fáil Minister sitting in the Custom House? If that be true, would he not agree with me that the position taken up—open, barefaced and above-board—by Sir Basil Brooke, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, is a great deal more honest and straightforward than the pseudo-democracy of the Minister to whom he is Parliamentary Secretary, and of the Taoiseach who is responsible for all the legislation which the Government brings in?

The danger that I see in this section, if it is passed, is that the first victims under it are going to be the ratepayers of the City of Dublin. The Minister for Local Government has made a demand on the Dublin Corporation for a sum of £186,000 to subsidise the maintenance of patients in voluntary hospitals. That sum is equivalent to a rate of 1/9 in the £, so that it will mean an increase in the rates of close on 2/-. The Minister has informed the corporation that he must get that money, and that it is not his intention to allow the interest on Hospital Trust Investments, which amount to £8,000,000, to be drawn on for the purpose of meeting the deficits arising on the working of our voluntary hospitals. The Minister said that Dublin is a rich city, and that it could well afford to pay this amount. His demand has been presented to the corporation at the point of the pistol. No opportunity has been given to say "yea" or "nay" to his demand. With the other demands made on the Dublin Corporation by outside authorities, and over which the corporation has no control, this demand by the Minister will mean an increase in the Dublin rates this year of 2/6 in the £. That means that the rents of working-class cottages, and the rents of the rooms in the working-class flats built by the corporation and occupied by people with very moderate wages, are going to go up by 3d. or 6d. a week, probably per room. The finance committee of the corporation, which met to consider the Minister's demand, decided that it had obligations to those people who are not able to pay for their maintenance in the voluntary hospitals, and made an offer of 9d. in the £ to the Minister instead of 1/9, the payment to be in three 3d. instalments. The object of that was that the increase would not fall too heavily or too quickly on the people. I have no knowledge that the Minister has given any reply to the offer made by the corporation.

I have seen for a long time that this section was put in not for the purpose of dealing with roadways or of making county councils bring their roadways up to a proper standard, but for the deliberate purpose of forcing the hand of the Dublin municipality to pay this demand that I speak of, and of seeing that other public bodies will do likewise if similar demands were made on them. Under the section the Minister gives the public body the chance of meeting the demand. If it does not do so, then he will direct an inquiry to be held by one of his own officials. He will make a report to the Minister. The official may see some justification on the part of the local authority in refusing to meet the demand, for example, the hardship that it would cause to people whose rents would have to be increased in order to meet the increased rate demand. If the official reports on any points in favour of the municipality, the Minister will take jolly good care that his report will be pigeon-holed, as happened in the case of the report concerning the Cork Street Fever Hospital.

I am opposing this section because I believe that all local government authority is now in the hands of a dictator in the Custom House under the Managerial Act. One of the few powers that was left to a local authority under that Act was the power of striking the rate. Now, that power is being taken from us by the Minister. He is putting himself up as a dictator. This is just a beginning of a greater dictatorship in other affairs in this country. I warn all representatives in this House, Fianna Fáil and others, who are members of local authorities, that the day is rapidly approaching when they may find their local bodies dissolved, and when they will have no powers. You will have one man a dictator in the Custom House. He will give orders to his manager or commissioners, so that local government in the country will be carried on by one man in the Custom House. If you think well of it you can do that, and, mind you, there are some people who think well of it. We know there are critics of the local authorities. We have seen some of their published letters criticising local authorities, so that there are some people who think that this power may do no harm. Dictatorship leads to trouble. Some Deputies to-day instanced the case where a county manager recommended a small increase in the wages of a few workmen in the county council to help them to meet the high cost of living and it was refused. The day is coming when the local authority will not be able to move without the sanction of the Minister.

I put it to him that the intention of this section is to force the authorities to put up the rates to meet demands of local government that should be met by national taxation. Why should there be an attempt to put on to the ratepayers of any county the cost of the maintenance of the hospitals and of the patients? That charge should be distributed over the whole country and I maintain that the proper fund from which to draw for the upkeep of those who have to utilise the public services is the national fund and not the local rates. The Minister has no right to introduce these services and then to force the cost of them on the local authority. There are many measures required for the benefit of our people and they should be introduced, but the national taxpayer should pay his share of the cost. It should not be borne by the local rates all the time. I, therefore, oppose the section.

We must all admit that a rather contentious amendment has been inserted in the section, an amendment on which various views have been expressed. That matter has been decided, and the House must apply itself to a consideration of the effect of the amended section in the light of experience which is definite and in anticipation, which is largely speculative. In the light of experience, the first question that occurs to us is, have these powers ever before come within the authority of a Minister in this or any previous Government? We find that in principle the power has been exercised and that various public councils, for the time being, have been abolished, whether to the advantage of the ratepayers or not, in individual cases, is a matter which must be considered in a general light. We know that in some cases, as, for example, the recent case of the Kerry County Council, the abolition was to the advantage of the local ratepayers to the extent of something like 1/6 in the £ in their rates. I am not in possession of the details, but in other cases both the past Government and the present Government considered it necessary to apply the provisions now embodied in this section to the administration of the public services. We have had much talk from Deputy Dillon about what is to be done by a dictator in the Custom House, but this House by now, I regret to say, is pretty well aware, and to some extent sick, of the exaggerated statements of the Deputy. At very critical times he made very damaging statements.

How is the Minister to adjudicate on the question whether a rate is adequate or not? Surely it is on a report from the county manager appointed under the Managerial Act which is part of the legislation adopted by this House. The county manager is guided by the advice of his technical advisers, engineers, surveyors public representatives on the various sub-committees for public assistance, mental hospitals, and various other services. After discussion with the public representatives, and after such adjustments have been made as the public representatives in their wisdom advise and the manager and his advisers are prepared to accept, then it comes to the Minister, and if the Minister sees that the difference between what the technicians and the county manager advise and what the local authority are prepared to strike is so serious as to affect the public services or the maintenance of the roads in the county, then the Minister will step in and, if he thinks fit, will order an inquiry to see who is right in the matter. The result of the inquiry goes before the Minister and he judges the case in accordance with the circumstances put before him.

Roads will be the principal item of contention. At any rate, that has been suggested to the House. Deputies on all sides of the House said that they are in favour of social services. The provision of social services is a statutory obligation and the local authorities are bound to carry it out. Therefore, the provision of roads will be the bone of contention. Roads are the arteries of the country and there is no use at this stage in trying to decide between main roads and county roads because we all use the main roads as much as the county roads. Since the new policy of tillage was put into operation, since there has been beet-growing and wheat-growing, farmers are not willing to bring their produce over the county roads in their own carts. They want the lorries to come in over these roads, which they never travelled before in any great numbers, and to bring the produce direct from the farmyards to the mills and to the factories. Consequently, the movement of lorries over the county roads to a greater extent than before has caused deterioration and, therefore, the charges in respect of roads, both county and main roads, will perhaps be a more serious item for the community than before. But the community request the services and use the services. Let us recognise the fact that, for the 20 years, 1922 to 1942, motor taxation contributed £16,500,000 or, approximately, on an average, £825,000 a year, to the Road Fund. It was stated to be about £1,125,000 before the emergency, but it diminished last year to something like half that figure.

Would the Deputy relate that to the section?

Because of its application to the contentious matters raised about rates and the powers of the Minister.

Surely every purpose to which a rate was devoted is not to be discussed. Why single out the roads?

Because of their nature the other items are statutory, but the roads are a variable item. Deputy Mulcahy and other Deputies stated that the Minister had failed to sanction advances in the case of road workers, and the condition of these workers was commented upon. I think no Deputy adverted to the fact that because of the inadequate allocation of rates for certain roads last year, the workers not only did not get an increase, but they have not been working since the middle of January, and will not be working until next April. Are these men not worse off than others who got regular wages because the county allocated sufficient rates for that purpose? I agree that this is a serious matter.

It was stated in the debate yesterday that the Minister was unreasonable, and did not give sufficient facilities, in certain cases, to public representatives who wanted to examine the affairs of institutions on which public money was being spent. Let me say at once that I disagree with that view. I disagree in the particular instance that was mentioned. I believe that the Minister gives all reasonable facilities in that respect. Doneraile Sanatorium was mentioned. There are 20 members on the committee, which usually meets on the same day as the county council meets in Cork in order not to put the expense of going an extra 28 miles to the institution on the rates. The Minister gave permission to members of the visiting committee to go to the institution twice a year to look into its affairs. When a claim was made to increase the number of visits to four a year, it was granted. That meant that by taking one car every member of the committee would visit the institution within the year.

I suggest to the Deputy that he might settle that matter with his fellow Deputies from County Cork.

I did not want a false impression to be created as against the Minister by the remarks of any Deputy. I hold these views just as strongly as my colleagues, and I hope I will have the same privilege of speaking my mind. In this particular matter I am prepared, in the light of my experience, to support the section. I would be very sorry to think that any responsible Minister, either in a former Government or in the present Government, would use his power in order to curb the rights of elected representatives. I do not believe there is any such intention. The control that the county manager has now got over officials may give him more overriding authority in the councils, and to some extent take from the elected representatives the power of exercising the criticisms that they formally exercised. While these criticisms could be effective, considering all aspects, no other alternative is open to us but to give the Minister power, where local authorities fail in their duties, to order an inquiry, and to take all necessary steps to see that the social and national services within a county would be effectively carried out.

I wonder could we hear the Minister on the important point put to him with regard to mandamus.

In intervening in this prolonged debate I hope I will make certain matters, which have been the subject of most ridiculous speeches by the Opposition, clear to Deputies. The suggestion has been made that we are abandoning democratic principles through the application of this amendment. The suggestion has been made that there is no real liaison between electors in their capacity as electors for local authorities, and electors in their capacity as electors for the Dáil. The suggestion has been made that it is possible to impose, through this section, such a burden of expenditure on a local authority that the rate struck will be intolerable to the community. No one in opposition seems to have adverted to the fact that a general election and an election for a local authority take place regularly, and, by the ordinary process of political controversy, if under any circumstances—apart from the circumstances attending this amendment —the people consider the burden placed on the rates is excessive, they can elect a national Government, and can elect a Dáil which can either reduce the whole level of expenditure, as far as a Government grant is concerned, or can decide to award a greater proportion of expenditure in respect of local services, which are the subject of State grants. A great many of the observations of members of the Opposition fall completely to the ground when that is borne in mind. One would imagine that the whole expenditure of the State was entirely rigid and unchangeable. One would imagine that no Government was capable of altering their opinion as regards the total expenditure of the State, or as regards the contribution of local authorities. The fact is that, under this so-called Fascist system of government, the local authorities have elections every three years, in which the county councillors and urban councillors can express their view in regard to the burden of expenditure. The Dáil, in the ordinary course, has an election every five years, if not more often, in which the people can express their view in regard to the burden of expenditure as between the local and central authorities. The smooth, continuous working of those two processes should eliminate any such danger as has been foreseen by members of the Opposition in connection with this amendment.

Going further into the question, members of the Opposition have entirely failed to appreciate the intention underlying this amendment. It is not designed to enable the Minister to say to each county council: "You must strike a rate of so much in the £; you may not strike a rate of 15/-, the rate must be 19/-; it must not be 20/-, on the contrary, it must be 24/-." The purpose of this amendment, as defined by the Minister, is that of making local authorities balance their budget, making them strike a sufficient rate to defray the expenditure they are to incur. There is no other intention behind this amendment. In connection with certain services, there has been an obligatory striking of a rate over a number of years. In the Vocational Education Act, 1930, and the Agriculture Act, 1931, there are provisions for a prescribed rate in the £ which local authorities are bound to raise. In the Local Government Act, 1898, there is provision whereby the contribution to the upkeep of asylums is dependent upon certain conditions being observed and a certain rate being struck. The Local Government Act, 1925, clearly indicates that there must be some minimum expenditure upon the maintenance of main roads.

Aside from those particular items of expenditure, I am not aware that there has been in the past five or six years any such controversy as between the Department of Local Government and the local authorities in respect of the numerous and comprehensive services which they administer as would suggest that, when this amendment is passed, the Minister will say, not only in connection with vocational education, not only in connection with agriculture, not only in connection with the maintenance of main roads—controversy in connection with which on a serious basis has taken place in only two counties—but in connection with other services: "You must not strike only so many shillings for this; you must increase the rate; we demand that you do so." There is no precedent for that. During my period of office, which, I grant, is short, there has been no ground for suggesting that we are going to start to use the whip to compel local authorities to increase their expenditure in respect of multifarious services. The sole purpose of this section is to secure that local authorities pay their way.

I want to advert once more to the difference between the Minister's powers before the passing of this amendment and after its passing, because a number of Deputies, frightened with the thought of an oncoming Nazi or Fascist movement, seem not to have properly examined the position. Before the advent of amendment No. 31a, the Minister, if he observed a rate deficiency, could order an inquiry and, satisfied that there was a rate deficiency and lack of responsibility on the part of members of the local authority, could proceed to dissolve the local authority. That was, and is still, the precise position. Under amendment No. 31a, the procedure is more elaborate and provides opportunities whereby procedure so drastic may not, in fact, be necessary. It provides an orderly method by which the members of the local authority are given an opportunity to reconsider their position— not an opportunity by the mere will of the Minister, or because of his desire to avoid disagreement between himself and the local authority, but by statutory requirement. The statutory requirement—I must repeat it—is that the Minister, having observed that there would appear to be an insufficient rate struck, is bound to hold an inquiry.

If he satisfies himself that the proposed rate is insufficient, he then indicates to the local authority that they should strike a sufficient rate. If the local authority, having been reminded by him of their responsibilities, do not strike a sufficient rate, then the Minister may proceed to remove the local authority.

When Deputies make accusations to the effect that Fianna Fáil is either Fascist or Nazi in its tendency, they should think the matter out quietly and, in an impartial spirit, review their opinion upon this amendment. I want to repeat that, prior to the passing of this amendment—at present—the Minister could order an inquiry as a result of the striking of an insufficient rate. What he did during the course of the inquiry or as a result of the report of the inquiry depended to a considerable extent upon his will and not upon statutory requirement. Whether he gave the local authority a chance to strike a sufficient rate was a matter for his will and not an Order of this House. He could proceed to dissolve the local authority the moment he was satisfied that they had not fulfilled their responsibilities. Now, he must hold an inquiry, he must satisfy himself that the rate is insufficient and he must give an opportunity to the local authority to review their position. Only when they have reviewed their position and are still unwilling to balance their budget, so to speak, can the Minister remove the members.

Or mandamus them.

Some people who have suffered under various forms of tyranny during the past century would laugh at the Opposition if it was suggested that this was something in the nature of a move towards a Fascist State or any other kind of dictatorship.

Can he not mandamus them?

I grant that the application of 31a depends, as in the case of all legislation of this kind, on the Minister having a sense of his responsibilities but I should like to remind the House that this Dáil exists by will of the people and that the Minister is responsible to the Dáil in respect of his every Ministerial act. If, at any time, any Minister for Local Government was foolish enough to use this section in order suddenly to increase the burden of expenditure in respect of rates, as apart from central taxation, he would deserve all he would get from the electors at the next general election. What Minister in his senses in a Government of our time, and with the publicity afforded in all matters of finance, would use such a section in order suddenly to alter the proportions or the weight of the burden placed upon the taxpayer in respect of rates and general taxation? Any Minister for Local Government elected by this Party, and I would say any Minister for Local Government elected by Opposition Parties, if they were good politicians, apart from having the interest of the country at heart, would refrain from using this section in the manner I have indicated.

I have been asked by Deputy Dillon about the use by the Minister of mandamus proceedings. I have not had an opportunity of making a detailed study of this matter but I should say that procedure by mandamus is not the procedure contemplated under the section, nor would it be appropriate. If the courts were asked to intervene, I think that they would say that the procedure which the Minister should use was clearly indicated in the amendment. There is nothing that I, as a person of common sense and not as an expert lawyer, can see in the amendment which would suggest that it could be interpreted by the Minister in such a way that he could use mandamus proceedings. I see no danger of members of local authorities being mulcted as special defendants should they lose an action in mandamus proceedings. I am not an expert lawyer; I am merely relying on the advice I have received. Reading this section, I cannot see why the Minister should need to do any other thing than that clearly indicated to him in the words of the section. It is the most normal thing to do; it is the wisest thing to do, and it will cause least friction between him and the local authority. It will result in difficulties that have been experienced being cleared up in the simplest way, and it will give everyone a chance of examining the position that has arisen. I should like to say, in conclusion, that the section empowers the Minister to do in an orderly way certain things which before he could only do, if he so willed it, in a way which prevented proper consideration being given to the whole problem.

I was awaiting the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary to the question put to him by Deputy Dillon. It is perhaps unfair, in the absence of the Minister, that he should be called upon to give a reply to something that is essentially a technical matter. I find myself in complete agreement with Deputy Dillon, and I find the answer of the Parliamentary Secretary completely unsatisfactory. The speaker who spoke before the Parliamentary Secretary made, so far as I was able to ascertain from his observations, only one clear contribution to the debate—that he was in favour of the powers contained in the section being conferred on the Minister. He stood up immediately after Deputy Dillon, presumably as one qualified to answer Deputy Dillon. The only way he was able to answer Deputy Dillon was to indulge in some cheap sneers at Deputy Dillon, because of what he alleged were over-exaggerated statements in the past. Deputy Dillon at least had the courage to make these statements, and to give his reasons for his statements. The Deputy who presumed to reply to him cannot answer the reasoned statement made by Deputy Dillon by merely sneering at his past utterances. I say categorically that I am entirely in agreement with practically everything—indeed I may say everything—which Deputy Dillon stated this evening.

The Minister stated in the course of one of his speeches on the section that he had already the power of dissolution, and that the section in its present form made it more difficult for the Minister to get a mandamus. Then he went on to make the fatuous observation that it was intended to protect the innocent, the weak and the misguided. Implicit in the Minister's statement, if I have correctly given expression to what he uttered, is the admission that Deputy Dillon is correct in the assertion that he made before, and that he repeated to-day, that under this section, if it is passed into law, the remedy of mandamus will be open to the Minister. The Parliamentary Secretary stated that it was not the appropriate remedy, nor was it the remedy contemplated. We may start with the fact, admitted by the Minister, that the remedy is available under the section. Therefore, there can be no controversy about Deputy Dillon's statement that this power is put into the hands of a Minister of this State for the first time.

The Parliamentary Secretary stated, in extenuation of the matters put to him by Deputy Dillon as emerging from the section, that the power of dissolution was there before, but certain additional machinery had to be put in which was not there before this section was introduced. I fail to see how that is an answer to the allegation made by Deputy Dillon. There was no power of mandamus in circumstances such as are contemplated in this section. There was a power of dissolution. There is now the power of dissolution and the power of seeking the assistance of the courts by way of mandamus. In other words, the Minister before could eliminate the local authority. Now he can both scourge and eliminate members of a local authority, because, as Deputy Dillon has—correctly in my view—pointed out, this section imposes upon a local authority a duty and every statutory duty imposed upon a local authority is one that must be carried out.

Failure to carry out that duty can be made the subject of mandamus proceedings, naming the persons who have refused or who, it is alleged, have refused, to carry out the duty, as special defendants in the mandamus proceedings with the consequence to them personally in the first instance of being made subject to the heavy costs of these proceedings, and secondly of becoming the victims of the machinery of the court, if the court proceeds to put its order into operation by proceedings for contempt or adopting the other means by which an order of mandamus is enforced. So, in addition to the powers of dissolution, there is the power of fastening the costs of mandamus proceedings on the members of a county council with the possibility of their being put into jail for failure to carry out the orders of the courts under mandamus. It is idle, therefore, to suggest that these extensive powers are not in the section. It is idle to suggest that they are not contemplated or intended. The point is not whether they are contemplated; the point is whether they are there.

The Minister, having probably been told by one of his legal advisers that the issue of a writ of mandamus is discretionary, has sought to show that because the issue of the court order is discretionary, it will not be granted because of the fact that there is the power of dissolution. He says that because of the existence of that power of dissolution, the courts will exercise a discretion and refuse to grant the mandamus. I say that there is no substance in that contention, if it is made by the Minister, and it is only implicit in what he has said. It is suggested that that power will not be exercised, merely because there is the power of dissolution. It will be noticed that the power of dissolution is not in itself mandatory, and where there are in these two sub-sections, (2) and (3), duties cast upon the local authority, irrespective of whether or not there is another remedy open to the Minister in his discretion, that remedy can be availed of.

Of course, it is perfectly obvious that this procedure by way of local inquiry has in recent times fallen into disrepute. The public have become alive to the fact that local inquiries were merely the pretence by which the Minister endeavoured to cover up his actions, having already in nine cases out of ten decided upon a certain course of action before the local inquiry started its proceedings. It was merely to delude the public into thinking that something would emerge from the public inquiry that the proceedings were started. Even before the Cork Street Inquiry had awakened certain sections to the injustice of some Ministerial actions, many people were aware of the fact that local inquiries were a farce and that in many instances it had been decided to punish the local authority long prior to the beginning of the sittings of the local inquiry. So public money and much private money of individuals, whose livelihoods were jeopardised by the holding of such inquiries, were spent, all to no purpose and to no avail. Now, the position is that the Minister, having got frightened, has a different opinion on these local inquiries and does not like the task, if he can avoid it, of dissolving local authorities, and a new instrument is devised—the powerful instrument of the writ of mandamus. That can be sought first and an endeavour can be made through the machinery of the courts, while still maintaining the facade and the pretence of democratic institutions, to force particular members of local authorities to comply with the Minister's wish. Having done so, and the Minister having fastened the costs of these proceedings on individuals, and perhaps having brought down on them the wrath of the court for contempt in not carrying out the orders of the court— all that having been done, then these local authorities can still be dissolved under this section. So that, instead of there being the same power—as was rather suggested by the Parliamentary Secretary—in this Bill as there was formerly, and instead of having additional safeguards provided, the position is, actually, that an additional instrument, of a very virulent and forceful character, has been put into the hands of the Minister, in order that he may keep up the pretence of democratic institutions by keeping the local authorities in existence and not dissolving them, while using the machinery of the courts to hold up individual members of these authorities as persons who will not obey the orders of the court.

Sir, last night I described Deputy Dillon's argument as a cobwebby fantasy, intended merely to blind the eyes or the intelligence of those who realise that this is a practical matter: that if we have to dissolve a local authority because it refuses to do its duty, and if we have an expeditious weapon at our hands to deal with such a situation, then we would do so in a way that would involve us in the least amount of expense. Before Deputy Costello leaves, I should like to put a question to him. Deputy Costello referred to the Cork Street Hospital Inquiry, and the findings connected with it. Now, I understand that Deputy Costello appeared at that inquiry.

In my professional capacity. Any reference I made to the Cork Street Hospital Inquiry had nothing to do with my attendance there as a professional man. I made no reference to that inquiry except from the political point of view, and I ask the protection of the Chair against any reflection on me professionally.

If anything was said against the Deputy professionally, yes. The Deputy referred to the Cork Street Inquiry, and if any reflection is made on the Deputy as a professional man, he shall certainly have the protection of the Chair, but the Minister did not do so.

I did not refer to that inquiry except to say that even before it was held certain things had taken place. I did not refer to it in any way from the point of view of my professional capacity.

The Deputy suggested that it was shown that the findings in the inquiry were not justified by the evidence.

I certainly did not say so.

Very well. If that goes on record, I am satisfied.

Will the Minister withdraw his allegation?

In this case, I must have misunderstood what the Deputy said, and, if so, I make the fullest retraction. I am glad to know that the findings in that matter were not contrary to the weight of evidence. However, in regard to this matter of mandamus, that is a practical matter which does not arise, as the Minister has already this remedy at his hands in any case in which a local authority refuses to discharge its statutory duties and statutory obligations. It has been said that a mandamus is a remedy for every default on the part of a local authority. Naturally, the Oireachtas, by law, imposes obligations on local authorities, and in the case of an additional obligation, the conditions in which mandamus may be imposed on local authorities are enlarged. It is true that every fresh statutory provision relating to a local authority, which is embodied in an Act of the Oireachtas, is also the ground upon which a mandamus can be sought, but prior to this it has never been put forward here as a substantial argument against the enactment of legislation that if the Oireachtas makes a law, the parties affected by that law are entitled to go to the courts to enforce it. That is the basis of Deputy Dillon's criticism: that in making a law we are giving, to a party affected by the law, the right to go to the courts of this land and ask the courts to enforce the law. I think that that was a fantastic argument to produce against this section. As I have said, it was a cobwebby argument, because it was meant to draw a veil over the intelligence of Deputies as to the merits of the section.

There is nothing more than that in the argument used by Deputy Dillon in regard to this section, and, accordingly, I ask the House to accept this.

Question put: "That Section 23, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
The Committee divided: Tá, 51; Níl, 32.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Buckley, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick (County Dublin).
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Colbert, Michael.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Fogarty, Patrick J.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Kilroy, James.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McCann, John.
  • McCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Connor, John S.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Rourke, Daniel.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Mary B.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
  • Walsh, Laurence.
  • Ward, Conn.

Níl

  • Anthony, Richard S.
  • Beirne, John.
  • Bennett, George C.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Broderick, William J.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Commons, Bernard.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Henry M.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Donnellan, Michael.
  • Everett, James.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Halliden, Patrick J.
  • Hughes, James.
  • McFadden, Michael Óg.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • O'Donnell, William F.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Sullivan, Martin.
  • Pattison, James P.
  • Redmond, Bridget M.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Rogers, Patrick J.
  • Sheldon, William A.W.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies O Briain and B. Brady; Níl: Deputies Bennett and M.E. Dockrell.
Question declared carried.
SECTION 24.

I move amendment No. 35:—

Before Section 24, page 11, and in Part II, to insert a new section as follows:—

(1) The Minister may from time to time by Order vary the existing division of a rated area into collection districts or, in the case of a rated area forming one collection district, divide such area into two or more collection districts and, in the former case, may, in particular, by the Order increase or reduce the number of collection districts in the rated area.

(2) The Minister may by an Order under this section make provision for such (if any) transfers of rate collectors of the rating authority concerned as in his opinion is rendered necessary or expedient in consequence of the Order.

(3) In this section—

the expression "rated area" means the area in which a rating authority is empowered to levy rates, the expression "collection district" means the area for which a rate collector of a rating authority is appointed.

This amendment is to clear up a certain amount of confusion and to make it clear what the Minister's position is in regard to the variation of divisions of rated areas into collection districts. Article 65 of the Public Bodies Order provides that a rating authority may, with the consent of the Minister and in such manner as the Minister shall approve from time to time, divide a rated area into separate districts for the purpose of the collection of rates. Now it happens that the division of an area into districts is not a function that has been expressly reserved to the elected body. For that reason, it has been assumed that it is a matter for the manager, although the making of the rate and, in the case of a county council, the appointment of a rate collector is a reserved function. There has been a tendency in some counties in the past to create more election districts than are warranted or would be necessary. On the other hand, when it is desired to undo this process and to amalgamate the areas and make them more reasonable units, a conflict of opinion sometimes arises as to who is entitled to do this. I propose to resolve such conflicts as may arise, by giving to the Minister final authority in the matter, to give him power from time to time to vary an existing division of a rated area into collection districts or, in the case of a rated area forming one collection district, to divide it. In some cases, the collection districts are unwieldy and cannot be conveniently worked. Others are so small as to make it impracticable to appoint a rate collector who would be able to do the job efficiently for the remuneration which may be available to him. So, on occasion, questions have arisen as to the amalgamation of a district or as to the division of a district and there has been a conflict of opinion as to what authority is the rightful authority for the purpose of amalgamating the districts or subdividing them. I think the only way in which we can resolve that now is to give the Minister the final authority and, no doubt, he will take into consideration the views in that connection of the local authority.

This amendment is in accordance with the policy of the Minister under his amendment No. 31a. He wants to reserve full and absolute control in his own person. He wants to filch whatever power the local authority has to determine whatever areas are most suitable in their administrative districts for collection purposes. He wants to say whether districts should be amalgamated or subdivided. I wonder would he tell us what the function of the local authority is when this Bill becomes an Act? Is it to be a mere pretence that it is a body with certain powers? Even in this particular matter, the Minister is not prepared to let the situation stand, where the local authority had the right to do certain things with the sanction of the Minister. He now proposes to take away that right and says he is to determine from the Custom House the most suitable district in any administrative area in the country. So far as we are concerned, we are not prepared to give the Minister that power and we do not subscribe to the policy of ignoring the elected representatives and vesting absolute control in the Minister. If the Minister is going to press this amendment, we will be forced to divide the House on it.

Before the Deputy finally makes up his mind in that regard, let me repeat what I said. This, in fact, is apparently not the function of the elected representatives. It is not a power expressly reserved to them by the Act and, therefore, it has been held—or, at least, it has been contended—that it is a power which rests in the manager. Therefore, if the Deputy is going to oppose this on the grounds that I am going to deprive the elected body of some power which it has, I think he is acting erroneously. The position seems to be that, in so far as there is any power to do what is proposed here—either to amalgamate collection districts or to divide them—it would appear that the person in a position to operate it is the manager. I want to clear up that and see that, if proposals come up to me and if they have the consent of the local body, I will be able to confirm them.

The Minister seems to have some doubt and, even on his own admission, it appears to be the function of the manager.

It certainly is not the function of the elected representatives.

Well, as the law stands, if it is the function of the manager, probably the manager would consult the local authority, if he is going to operate the County Management Act in the spirit in which the Minister suggested it should be operated—that there should be co-operation between the manager and the local authority. In that case, the manager will consult the local authority; but we are now putting in this provision to ensure that he will not consult the local authority but will ask the Minister to intervene and make an Order deciding what subdivision should be made in a district or, in fact, ask the Minister to determine the rating district.

The Minister has said in his speech that he may amalgamate two or more areas into one, if he thinks fit. The section goes on to say that the Minister, by Order, can increase or reduce the number of collection districts in an area. If he should do so and redundancy follows and if there is a rate-collector with certain rights, due to his appointment and his having been 20 or 25 years in the rated area, and if that rate collector is about to lose his appointment, is the Minister providing any compensation or giving him any benefit, such as in Article 10 of the Treaty, if he does not wish to continue the employment? Does he propose to give such collectors an opportunity to retire voluntarily and will they get the benefit of a provision similar to Article 10 of the Treaty, which gave men the opportunity of getting out if they felt it was impossible for them to continue under such a régime?

With all due respect to the Deputy, I think that point is covered by Section 25, which deals with amalgamated offices. Perhaps it is not, but in any event I will look into what the Deputy has said and will see if I can safeguard the position. It certainly is not the intention to force a rate-collector out of his post and refuse to compensate him.

But if he loses his appointment as a rate-collector, will he be adequately compensated?

Well, so far as my mind goes in the matter, there would be no proposal to amalgamate or divide a district unless the post happened to be vacant. I will look into the matter between now and the Report Stage and see what I can do.

I would not have any objection to what the Minister proposes to do, but if the tendency is to increase the areas of collection, I do not think that is a very good policy. If the county is divided into pretty equal areas, it would be a good thing. There are undoubtedly some unwieldy areas at the present time and it is very awkward to collect. Strange to say, the collector in many cases does not live near the centre of the collecting area and he has to travel perhaps quite a number of miles before he enters his collection district. He might have a small portion of the collecting area near where he lives, but the bulk of the area would be far away. It would not be a bad thing if the Minister had power to reorganise these areas but, on the other hand, I would feel opposed if the tendency were to make the areas too large, thereby doing a number of people out of employment.

I know there is such a thing as the Department and the councils and the managers wanting to get people of substance, people of substantial means, to carry out the collections. I quite agree with that, but at the same time you can have a fairly poor man just as honest as people of substantial means. If the idea is that the areas will not be made too large, I have no objection. Naturally, I have a lot of experience of this matter and I agree with the Minister. There are many areas unwieldy at the moment and they require adjustment.

I want to make clear what our attitude is in regard to this.

Whatever doubt there may be about the function of the local authority or the manager in this matter, the Minister wants to clear that up, but the Minister, in doing so, definitely wants to cut out any control or authority that the local body would have. If he was going the other way, ensuring that the local authority would have some control and authority in the matter, he would get full support from this side of the House, but because his whole attitude is to withdraw any control or authority from the local body, we are opposing the amendment.

I may say that I have known, within the last few years, since the Managerial Act started to operate, rate collectors to die and the county manager divided their areas, amalgamating them with certain other areas, and he did not consult the council. In practice it has not been done.

Now is the time to clear that up and make sure about it. The Minister could put in an amendment to the effect that the manager should consult the council but, instead of that, he puts down an amendment in order to give himself full authority.

I know of a case where a rate collector received up to £700 a year. The collector died, a vacancy occurred and the county council recommended the manager to divide the district and give a decent living wage to a man in one area and £350 a year in a smaller district. The county council recommended the manager to make the division and to ask for the Minister's sanction. I do not see why there should be any opposition to this particular section because the manager, unless he is a particular dictator altogether, will only consult the county council. I can speak for our county manager who is very reasonable and reports everything to the county council. In this particular case the county council recommended him to ask the Minister for sanction and we are awaiting that sanction. If the proposal is sanctioned there will be two districts instead of one. I take it that it will be only on a recommendation from the council or the manager. How will the Minister know otherwise?

The Minister is seeking very peculiar powers under the Bill.

Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá 52, Níl 31.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Buckley, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick (Co. Dublin).
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Carter, Thomas.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Colbert, Michael.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Fogarty, Patrick J.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Kilroy, James.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McCann, John.
  • McCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Connor, John S.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Rourke, Daniel.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Mary B.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
  • Walsh, Laurence.
  • Ward, Conn.

Níl

  • Anthony, Richard S.
  • Beirne, John.
  • Bennett, George C.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Broderick, William J.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Commons, Bernard.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Dockrell, Henry M.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Donnellan, Michael.
  • Everett, James.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Halliden, Patrick J.
  • Hughes, James.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • O'Donnell, William F.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Sullivan, Martin.
  • Pattison, James P.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Rogers, Patrick J.
  • Sheldon, William A.W.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies O Briain and B. Brady; Níl: Deputies McMenamin and M.E. Dockrell.
Amendment declared carried.
Section 24 agreed to.
SECTION 25.
Amendment No. 36 not moved.

What has happened to all the democratic zeal of the Opposition?

Amendment No. 36 has not been moved.

Perhaps discretion has operated in this matter.

I move amendment No. 37:—

Before sub-section (5) to insert the following new sub-section:—

The powers conferred on the Minister by the next preceding sub-section of this section may be exercised only in circumstances analogous to those mentioned in sub-section (2) of this section.

In sub-section (2) of Section 25, certain offices which will be affected by the section are set out and the amendment is designed to ensure that should the Minister revoke or amend —the question of revocation does not arise for us—an Order, the amendment of the Order will be circumscribed within the limits of the offices set out in sub-section (2).

Even if I were prepared to accept the principle of this amendment, I think it would have to be redrafted. I am not going to commit myself with regard to it, because there are very strong objections to it. I do not think it at all probable that a Minister who made an Order amalgamating offices would revoke or amend that Order unless the amalgamated offices were vacant. It seems to me to be extremely unlikely. If he did, I assume that he would have to have very strong grounds indeed for doing so. He might even be made do it at the instance of an officer who found that the duties of the amalgamated office were too onerous, or he might have to do it, because despite anything that the holder of the amalgamated office would say, experience might have shown that the amalgamated office could not be efficiently filled by one person. While I say I am not at all inclined to accept the amendment, I would have liked to have heard a stronger case made for it than has been made, and if it would be more convenient to the Deputy perhaps he would withdraw the amendment and discuss it again on the Report Stage.

I am prepared to withdraw the amendment on the assurance given by the Minister. As I have said, the amendment has substance in it, in view of the fact that the Minister, in sub-section (4), actually takes power to issue an Order either to revoke or to amend. The amendment is designed to ensure that any amendment made will not go outside the terms of sub-section (2). I think that is reasonable, and would meet any Order made by the Minister which might very well do that. However, on the assurance given by the Minister I am prepared to withdraw the amendment.

I am not giving the Deputy any assurance. I want to be quite clear about that. If there is a case for this I do not think it has been adequately made. It certainly has not carried conviction to me. What I am suggesting is that if it is not convenient for the Deputy to press the amendment to a division, to which it would ultimately go in my present frame of mind, he can, if he wishes, withdraw it and discuss it on the Report Stage. I want to make this clear, that I am opposing the amendment unless I hear a stronger case made for it.

It can be moved again on Report Stage.

On that understanding, I withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 25 agreed to.
Amendment No. 38 not moved.
Section 26 agreed to.
SECTION 27.

I move amendment No. 39:—

In sub-section (1), line 10, to delete the words "appropriate Minister" and substitute therefor the words "local authority".

I think that all the amendments to this section might be discussed together.

Amendments Nos. 39, 40, 41 and 42 can be discussed together.

The object of the section is to facilitate the holder of an office who wants to be absent from duty for an indefinite period. If the appropriate Minister is of opinion that he should get that leave of absence, the Minister can make an order authorising someone to perform his duties by deputy. Sub-section (2) of the section empowers the officer concerned to appoint the deputy. Our objection to the section is that it completely ignores the local authority which is the body that is paying the official's salary. We feel that if an official has to be absent from his office for an indefinite period, he should at least have the approval and sanction of the body that is paying him. The Minister is proceeding on the same old policy here. He wants to ignore the local authority completely and to deal with the matter himself by order, giving approval to the official being absent from his office. In the Bill the officer concerned is given power to appoint a substitute. The Minister, in amendment No. 44, is proposing to delete the word "appoint" and to substitute the word "nominate". As I have said, the Minister in doing that is completely ignoring the local authority. I would like to hear him defend that policy. It is analogous to the policy running through the whole measure. The Minister wants to arrogate to himself complete control and authority, while the poor fools who will have to find the money to pay the officer are to be completely ignored.

On the narrow point of all these amendments, I would like to indicate to the House that if the amendment were carried the effect of it would be to leave the power of authorisation in the hands of the manager. It would not put it in the hands of the elected body but would leave it in the power of the manager. The choice, therefore, would be between the manager and the Minister. I think that the section as drafted has manifest advantages. If the Minister is responsible for the authorisation, as he would be under the section as it stands, his conduct can be challenged in this House and can be debated here. On the other hand, if it is going to be left to the manager the local authority will not have power to discuss it, and it could not even be discussed in this House. Therefore, if the desire is to ensure that this authority will only be given in circumstances where it is clearly warranted, I think that the section as it stands meets the case much better.

I must confess that I cannot follow the Minister's reasoning. I take it that for the purpose of this section, the local authority includes the manager. The position at the moment is that the manager has certain powers and certain authority, and that the local body has certain reserved functions. I think it is correct to say that the local authority has nothing whatever to do with the appointment or removal of any official at present operating under the manager. That is a managerial function. It seems to me that what the Minister is doing is this: he is not satisfied merely with taking power altogether from the local authority, but wants to take to himself even the functions of the manager, and to remove this matter completely from any contact with the locality. The point here is whether we are going to give to an official of a local authority the right to nominate his own deputy. If we do, then neither the local authority nor the county manager will have any say whatever in this matter except, as Deputy Hughes has said, to provide the official's salary. May I say to some of the Deputies on the opposite side, and particularly to Deputy Walsh, that this is taking us a step further as far as the powers proposed to be taken in this Bill are concerned.

There is this in it, that, generally speaking and following, if you like, upon the Minister's circulars and advice to county managers, there is fairly close co-operation between managers and local authorities and although the county manager has the power to do things without the permission, or in spite of the views, of the local authority, county managers who have any common sense try to get as much common agreement as possible. If we are completely to take away, not only from the local authority but from the county manager, power in this matter, I think it is a step in the wrong direction.

The viewpoint we take is that a nomination of this character should only apply to a pensionable, whole-time officer and in such case I could well imagine circumstances arising from time to time where it would be necessary for such officer to have temporary leave, say, for a period of three months. Obviously, cases of that kind can be cited. The Minister made the point, which was an interesting one, that there is not very much in so far as the claim for the local authority is concerned seeing that, if he conceded the point, in the last analysis, it would rest merely with the county manager as distinct from the local authority and, therefore, he asks the House to decide as between the county manager and the Minister. I think the point made by Deputy Morrissey is an exceedingly good one and those of us who are in close touch with some of the managers will agree and will very gladly testify to the fact that there is an element of co-operation as between the council and the manager. The point made is quite correct, that is, that a manager who is trying to do his job right will naturally try to keep the atmosphere sweet in so far as the council is concerned. In this respect I would point out to the Minister that, even on the distinction he makes, if it were left to the county manager, as such, in any event the manager would have to make an order for such an appointment and it would be open to the council to discuss his order under the Standing Orders of the council and in that way the local authority would be associated. I would ask the Minister, in view of that, to agree with us that his action in arbitrarily confining a nomination of this kind to himself is detracting from the power and influence of local authorities and will be viewed in that way.

I agree with Deputy Morrissey and Deputy O'Sullivan. If the local authority means the manager, as the Minister has pointed out, and as it does, because it is an executive function of the manager, the manager must make the order and the local body has a right to question that order at the next meeting, if they desire to question it. In any case, the manager will desire to have harmony with his local body and will do the right thing. But there is no opportunity for the local authority to question the Minister in the matter. So far as that is concerned, it is preferable to have the function rest with the manager. He will have the co-operation of the local authority and the local authority will have the opportunity of making their observations on his order.

Question—"That the words proposed to be deleted stand"—put and declared carried.
Amendments Nos. 40 to 43, inclusive, not moved.

I move amendment No. 44:—

In page 13, to delete the word "appointed" in lines 19 and 33 and substitute in each case the word "nominated" and to delete the word "appointment" in lines 22 and 27 and substitute in each case the word "nomination".

It is not desired to allow an officer to appoint his own deputy. The amendment proposes to substitute the word "nominated" for the word "appointed". There was an amendment, I think, put in by Deputy Hughes, and we are prepared to accept that amendment.

I had another amendment, the Minister may observe. I wanted the local authority's consent to it as well as the Minister's.

Amendment agreed to.
Amendments Nos. 45 to 47, inclusive, not moved.

I move amendment No. 48:—

In page 13, to insert in lines 20, 22 and 26, before the word "Minister", the word "appropriate".

Amendment agreed to.
Amendments Nos. 49 to 51, inclusive, not moved.
Question proposed: "That Section 27, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

I want to ask the Minister why he has not thought it wise to fix some limit to the period that an officer may be off duty. According to the section as it stands, a man may be permitted to absent himself for ten years. Surely that is not desirable. There ought to be some limit set to the period of time that he can be absent from duty and can perform his duties by deputy. In what circumstances does the Minister contempiate that this section is necessary?

In view of Section 28, which requires the holder of an office to devote the whole of his time to the duties of that office, does it not seem rather inconsistent that, for no apparent reason, an officer can absent himself for an indefinite period? In the normal course, if a holder of a particular office under a county council is incapacitated through some form of illness or disease, he or she may be allowed a period in which to recuperate. But, apparently, for reasons which are not stated in the Bill, and for an indefinite length of time, officials of local authorities are to be allowed to vacate their offices and to have the rather unusual privilege of nominating a deputy to fill those offices, with the approval of the Minister. I think this is a very unusual provision in a Bill and it requires some justification, not only in respect to the reason for vacating the office but also in respect of the length of time that these people may be absent. As Deputy Hughes has said, they may be absent for ten years. As I read the section, if the Minister were prepared to approve, a person might leave such an appointment for life and nominate a deputy.

I think the position is not quite so unsatisfactory as it has been described. It is impossible, in certain circumstances, to say how long a person holding an office, not necessarily a whole-time office, in fact an office in respect of which the remuneration would be by fee, might be absent whether through illness, on public duties, or otherwise, and I think the realistic way to approach this matter is to have regard to sub-section (4) of the section, which gives the Minister power to withdraw approval given under sub-section (2) and to terminate the appointment of the officer.

That might be the best way to approach the problem where, as I have said, the circumstances may be obscure, and where a period of time would be difficult to prescribe, because, if the appointment of a deputy were to be unduly prolonged, the Minister's action in allowing his original Order to stand could be challenged. In fact, the opportunity would occur, I suppose once a year, to challenge the Minister's action in this House, and he would be, naturally, called upon to justify the Order which he had made. If he could not justify it, because the Order had been in operation for an unreasonable time, then, I think, acting on sub-section (4), he would revoke the Order. Quite frankly, it is not possible for me to prescribe, in advance of circumstances as they arise, a definite time. If the circumstances are such that the Minister for the time being feels justified in making an Order of this kind then, I think, we may assume that as long as these circumstances remain unchanged the Order should stand. If the circumstances change then, naturally, I suppose the Minister's attitude in regard to this power to nominate a deputy could be challenged, and presumably would have to be modified.

The position we are dealing with is rather a peculiar one. In most cases, unless a personal certificate is required, it would not be necessary to take this power at all, because, in fact, the holders of some public appointments, particularly holders of part-time legal appointments, who work through subordinates or who supervise work which employees do, or work as partners. In their case no question of a personal certificate arises, and there is no difficulty. There are other appointments where a personal certificate is required. For instance, apart from the case mentioned in the House before the recess, it occurs to me that certain medical officers might be required to give a personal certificate in certain circumstances. Normally, perhaps, they would function through a deputy, not a deputy officially appointed under the section, but through a deputy selected by them unofficially. That, I believe, is quite customary. Yet, as we look into this, it is possible, by reason of the fact that they had not secured power from the Minister for the appointment of a deputy, some of the proceedings might be invalid in a court of law.

There is also the case of people who have to give a certificate in respect of bacteriological tests. There again a personal certificate is essential. If it should happen, for one reason or another, that a person was allowed to prosecute a course of study, and was not personally available, he could not act unless a deputy were appointed under the section. That is the position we are trying to deal with. I suggest that the section provides the fairest and the best safeguard that the powers given the Minister will not be abused. The Minister having power under sub-section (4) to revoke a certificate, if it is allowed to last over a long period of time it can be challenged.

All that the Minister has said might have some weight if we had no local authority and no local government. He seemed to forget the fact that for close on 50 years we have been operating under local authorities in accordance with the Local Government Act, 1898. I cannot understand why the necessity of taking these extraordinary powers has arisen, so to speak, overnight. The Minister spoke about certain people who perform their duties through a deputy, but he overlooked the fact that, even though that may be essential in regard to certain classes of workers, there might be physical impossibility on the part of people holding these appointments to carry out everything that they were supposed to do. But they are still responsible for seeing that the work is properly carried out. If I may say so, that is a point the Minister overlooked. The official has the right, even in the amended form of the section, to nominate a substitute, and neither the local authority, the county manager nor the city manager, as the case may be, can in any way question that. They will have no say as to whether the person nominated is the most suitable person. It is only the Minister will have a say there. This section takes away the power not only of the local authority but of county managers to have any say. I think the Minister will find it almost impossible to make a convincing case for doing so either in this House or anywhere else.

I want to put this question to the Minister: what has arisen, after 47 or 48 years' experience of local government, to make it appear to him to be desirable to make those terribly drastic changes from the ordinary routine? While I know that it has been the practice of certain officials of local authorities, notably dispensary doctors, or doctors attached to hospitals, to be given the privilege of nominating their own substitutes, the local authorities always had the right to refuse to accept the person so nominated and to appoint anybody they liked. At least, they were in this position, that with their knowledge of the duties to be performed, and of the substitute named, they could either accept or reject. They will have no such decision when this section becomes law, because the matter will be one that will be in the hands of the Minister alone. As was pointed out, a deputy might be allowed to act for a month, for six months, for 12 months or any period. Not only is the holder of the office relieved of the work when he nominates his deputy, but he is relieved of the responsibility.

The Minister has not convinced me that it is wise to leave the period completely indefinite. He would be well advised to put a limit to the period in which an official can be absent from duty even by order of the Minister. If there be no limit, an official will be able to plan for a long absence. If there was a limit, officials would appreciate that, in planning to take up a post-graduate course or any other type of course, a limit had been set by law to their absence and that they could not exceed that limit. I do not suggest that the period should be unduly narrowed but it is not desirable that we should provide in law facilities for an official to be absent from duty and to have his duty discharged by a deputy over a long period. I am completely against the cutting out of the local authority and leaving the decision to the Minister absolutely. Take the case of a medical officer who may have private duties to perform. If a local authority is concerned with the approval of his substitute, they may feel that the arrangements made are not sufficient to cover the services that are essential in a remote district.

It might be difficult to find a suitable substitute over a long period in an unattractive district. The Minister would be concerned with ensuring that provision was made for local government services but he would not be concerned with the private service which the doctor would be called upon to perform. The local authority would realise that private individuals would require the services of that particular doctor and, if arrangements were made for a neighbouring dispensary officer to discharge the duty, it might not be satisfactory to the local authority. The local authority would know the local circumstances and have a better appreciation than the Minister of the services which would be required from the substitute in a case of that kind. The Minister has made no attempt to convince the House that the local authority should be cut out in this matter. Surely, commonsense dictates that, in a case like this, in which the local authority pays the whole of the bill, they are the people who should be consulted. The man who pays the piper is entitled to call the tune. In this case, the man who pays the piper is to be ignored and the Minister is to call the tune. The Minister should sleep on this matter. He should realise that the people will not stand for this type of dictation. He may get away with it at present but, some day, somebody will call a halt to this form of legislation. The local authority are the best judges of what alternative provision should be made during the absence of an individual but they are completely ignored and the Minister, who is not conversant with local affairs, is to make the decision.

I put it to the House again that, if this principle is to be accepted at all, it is much better the Minister should carry the whole of the responsibility. The Minister has certain responsibilities under this section as it stands. He must satisfy himself that the person to be nominated shall possess the necessary qualifications. If he is to discharge that obligation, I do not think that much is to be gained by dividing responsibility. In that event, while the Minister would be the person responsible for the qualifications, you would have an officer of the local authority responsible for the actual appointment. The Minister has to come to this House once a year with his Estimate. If his action is challenged, he will have to show the House that the person acting as deputy for a particular person is fully qualified. If the continuance of the deputyship appears to be unduly prolonged, he will have to justify his continuance of the Order. That will have to be done in this House, where it will attract an amount of attention which it might not otherwise receive. That circumstance will, no doubt, make the Minister concerned to ensure that reasonable criticism cannot be levelled at him. For that reason, I suggest to the Deputy that the section in the form in which it has been drafted meets the case of those who are concerned to ensure that nothing improper will be done under it. I am reluctant to prescribe any period for the deputyship because I can envisage circumstances in which future officers of local authorities, and even officers of State, with whom we are not concerned here, might be sent abroad to pursue post-graduate courses of study.

For how long?

Perhaps two years. I am reluctant to prescribe the term, but if the Deputy feels strongly about that aspect of the matter—the other aspects have been disposed of by amendment—I shall look into it between now and Report Stage and see if we can prescribe a term.

I congratulate the Minister on the remarkable reticence with which he has dealt with this section, particularly in view of his undoubted knowledge of the unusual circumstances which surround it. To me, as to Deputy Hughes and to Deputy Morrissey, this is a remarkable departure from the usual provisions in the local government code. If the Minister is of opinion that special circumstances surround a particular office, he can allow the holder of that office to vacate it and to nominate a deputy for an unspecified period even while he, the holder, may have another appointment. If the holder wished to vacate the office entirely, the Minister might even have sufficient power to appoint a person permanently to it.

No, not if the office is vacated.

Possibly not, but there is nothing to prevent the holder from being absent for an indefinite period and the Minister allowing the deputy to hold the position whilst the officer is occupying another position. I think that is a very serious encroachment on the rights of the local authority, particularly when the local authority is paying for the services rendered. The local authority has no say whatever at the moment because most of these appointments are made by the Local Appointments Commission, but the local authority has the responsibility and the duty of providing the funds. In this case the Minister takes power to appoint for an indefinite period. While the Minister states that the matter can be reviewed in the House there is not the usual provision at the end of the section that, on a motion being put down within 21 days, the Minister's decision can be annulled. I think this section is designed for a specific purpose and for a specific person and I think in these circumstances it should not be passed.

Let us be clear as to what our attitude is. Our attitude is that the Minister should be required to sanction the provisions made by a local authority to fill an office temporarily and I think that is perfectly reasonable. The Minister then gets an opportunity of seeing whether the deputy is qualified in every way to fill the office. If he feels he is not qualified, he does not sanction him. There the local authority is consulted and the local authority has an opportunity of saying whether the members feel that the nominated deputy is suitable for the office. The Minister has not attempted to answer my suggestion that there may be considerations, so far as a particular office is concerned, outside mere service under the local authority. I gave as an instance the case of a medical officer who may have a private practice. If he is going on a course of studies abroad for a protracted period, the members of a local authority are surely the best people fitted to decide whether the nominated deputy is best suited to fill the office, not merely under the local authority, but to discharge whatever private duties may have to be performed for people who are not entitled to get them under the local services. The Minister is not concerned with that aspect of the case and he is anxious to cut out whatever control the local authority should have. The Minister has evaded that by trying to entice me into agreeing with him on a minor matter because I suggested that a limited period should be set. The issue is not the limited period; that is a minor matter. The issue is the policy of filching power from the local authority and vesting it in the Minister himself.

I wonder would the Minister instead of having a person nominated to fill the office temporarily have the vacancy filled by the Local Appointments Commission? It could happen that a person could be nominated for 20 years under the section as it stands. This is looked upon as a very important matter by local authorities and county managers. They are not deemed capable apparently of even filling a minor post but the man getting extended leave can fill the post himself. In fact he is a sort of a new Appointments Commission. That is what it amounts to. I heard members of local authorities discussing this point before now and it is one that could lead to a good deal of abuse. There is something in it that the Minister does not realise but members of local authorities who have given thought to the matter can visualise what it might lead to. It can lead to endless trouble; you can give the privilege to one and refuse it to another. I suggest if there is a reason for it—and I do not believe there is a very sound one—if the appointment is for longer than six months or three months or for some specified period, it should be made by the Local Appointments Commission. That would remove some of the odium from the section. The Minister knows that it can lead to all kinds of abuses and the only way to prevent these abuses is to provide that the appointment, if absence is longer than a specified period of, say, six months, should be made by the Appointments Commissioners. I understand that the Appointments Commissioners cannot make appointments for a limited period but I have known cases where such appointments were made by the Appointments Commissioners. Take the case of house surgeons for instance. There is no reason why appointments such as are referred to in this section should not be made by the Appointments Commission instead of the person leaving the office being given power to nominate a person to act for him.

All kinds of questions may arise under this section. You may have medical men or clerical workers all of whom are pensionable making arrangements to nominate people to act for them for a long period. It may come to the time even when road workers may be pensionable and they would equally be entitled to nominate somebody to act for them. As I say, it could lead to all kinds of abuses. I have discussed this matter with members of local authorities over a long number of years and they can see probably better than the Minister what the reactions of this power will be because the Minister or some other Minister following him will be forced into a position that he will not at all like. I would suggest that the Minister would consider the section before Report and see if he could amend it in any way.

I am glad that Deputy Allen has made this contribution to the debate. His suggestion, if accepted by the Minister would, as he said, remove some of the odium from the section but I do not think it would go far enough. There is a big principle involved. My old friend over there is laughing at me again but I should like Deputy Walsh to appreciate that what we are asked to do here is to give to an officer a function hitherto exercised by the local authority, that is to make an appointment subject to the Minister's consent. Remember that is exactly what this section means. It means that an officer or an official can appoint his own substitute subject to the sanction of the Minister. I put it to any Deputy that that is something we ought not to accept unless, as I said earlier to-day, we have made up our minds completely to wipe out local authorities, as we understand them. I do not think the Minister has been able to make a convincing case for the section. I do not think any man could make a convincing case for it. I am not concerned with any particular circumstances, any particular position or any particular person. The thing is absolutely wrong in principle. As Deputy Allen has said, it could lead to a great deal of abuse. Then there is the other point that we cannot get away from, that is that we are not only moving away from the powers of the county council, but even from the powers of the county manager in this matter, and that is something that, I suggest, we cannot stand over here and still talk about democracy. I do not think that the Minister, or anybody else here, could make a convincing case for the section as it stands.

I think that in some of the suggestions that Deputies have made to meet the difficulties of the situation they have not taken full cognisance of the facts. First of all, the section does not deprive any local authority of power of appointment, because local authorities, in fact, have not anything more than nominal power of appointment to an office, since, as Deputies know, practically all these appointments are made by the Local Appointments Commission; and, certainly, the manager has not the power of appointment to an office. The next thing is—I am not going to be so precise and definite about this—that, in general, the Local Appointments Commission can only make appointments to offices which are vacant. Now, the essence of this section is that the office is not vacated; that there is no vacancy to which the Local Appointments Commission may make a recommendation. So that it would require, I think, an amendment of the law—I am not speaking now cx cathedra, and I do not want this to be taken as a wholly accurate view, as I may be wrong—to enable the Local Appointments Commission to fill a vacancy in such circumstances. Now, there is another aspect of this matter. In general, holders of offices to which this section may apply will not be whole-time officers of the local authority. They will be mainly carrying on a private professional practice, as in the case of a doctor or a chemist, and the local authority concerned will only be one of their clients. Now, even in the case of dispensary doctors, the right is given, or at least it is acknowledged, to practise as ordinary practising professional men, in addition to acting as the medical officers of health in a dispensary district. It is acknowledged that they are not only in appointment as the medical officers of health in that dispensary district, but that they also have a practice as ordinary, practising professional men—a practice embracing a number of private patients and, in some cases, if you like, a number of private clients. In such a case, naturally, the person who has to vacate his office temporarily, and who has to ask for authority to appoint a deputy, must be concerned to see that the deputy appointed is one in whom he will have confidence and who will retain, unimpaired, the private practice which, probably, will form the main part of his livelihood. Consequently, I do not think that such a person would leave the appointment of a deputy to some outsider. There may be cases in which the title to an appointment of this sort is not valuable so far as the remuneration immediately to be derived from it is concerned, but it is valuable from the point of view of the prestige and professional standing which it gives. In many cases, the holder of an office of the type to which this section would apply may have been engaged for a considerable number of years in a public, professional practice, and, in the course of these years, may have acquired a professional standing and professional goodwill which might easily be destroyed if an unsuitable person were appointed as a deputy. Therefore, it seems to me, that in a matter of this sort the person who holds the appointment will be as concerned as the local authority to ensure that a proper deputy is appointed.

Now, the local authority, on the one hand, and the Minister, on the other hand, have also responsibilities; but the Minister, under the Local Government Act, as it stands, is given power to prescribe qualifications for these professional posts. He must prescribe them after consultation with the Local Appointments Commission, but the Minister has the power of prescription, and therefor it seems to me that in these circumstances it is in accordance with the spirit and, perhaps, the letter of the existing law, that the Minister is the person to be satisfied that the proposed deputy has, in fact, the qualifications which are necessary to enable him to fulfil the duties of the post.

We are not questioning that.

No, but I want to make the position clear. I am not suggesting that the Deputy is questioning that, but I could envisage this position: I think it would be quite possible to write into the section an amendment which would limit the range of selection. I might prescribe that the deputy to be nominated by the holder of the office would be a person who holds a comparable post, if you like, under another local authority. That would mean that, beyond yea or nay, the deputy would be a person who had been selected by the Local Appointments Commission as being fully qualified for the office. I think that that would meet the point of view which Deputy Allen has expressed. At any rate, at one remove, we would have, as the person selected by the Local Appointments Commission to fill the position, a person who had held a similar office to that in which the holder was temporarily prevented from acting. That, as I have said, would ensure that the person would be fully qualified. It would leave to the holder of the office who, as I have indicated, has other interests and other rights in the matter, the power to nominate the deputy who has to act for him. Now, if the House will accept that, I am prepared on the Report Stage to bring in an amendment to ensure that the deputy will be a person who holds a comparable post under another local authority, and I am prepared to consider bringing in on the Report Stage an amendment which would prescribe the period during which the deputyship would run.

So far as he has gone the Minister has dealt with one side of the matter only. With regard to the amendment which he is prepared to consider introducing, that the person to be appointed as deputy would be a person who had been selected by the Appointments Commissioners for a similar position, holding similar qualifications, it is conceivable that there would be a position to which a deputy or a substitute would have to be appointed for which there was not a corresponding number, so to speak. In other words, it is conceivable that, under this section, you may have a person seeking, for any reason you like, to be relieved of his duties for any period you like and wanting to exercise the right to nominate a substitute, and that there may not be available a person having all the qualifications which the Minister said he was prepared to consider putting into his amendment. That is so far as that goes. With all respect to the Minister, I do not think the proposed amendment would be of any value.

With regard to what was said about a dispensary doctor, that is not at issue at all so far as this is concerned, because the practice has been, as Deputies who are members of local authorities know, that if a dispensary doctor wants to pursue a post-graduate course or to take his holidays, he nominates, or suggests if you like, a doctor to be appointed as locum tenens. The Minister said that he had rights. He has not that as a right. But the members of the local authority, being sensible people, are quite conscious of the fact that the doctor has a private practice which, in most cases probably, is far more valuable than his position as a dispensary doctor. I suggest to the Minister that there is another side to this, that the local authority have the right to say yea or nay to the person nominated by the doctor. I have practical knowledge of this, because I have known a case where a dispensary doctor going on holidays asked to have appointed as his locum tenens another dispensary doctor living a considerable distance away from the dispensary of the doctor who was going on holidays. We refused to accept that person as a locum tenens, because it was obvious that he could not attend to two sets of private patients, his own and the private patients of the doctor who nominated him to do locum tenens, and the two dispensaries. That is where local knowledge is valuable.

I honestly think that it is beyond the wit of the Minister so to amend the section as to remove the really objectionable part of it, namely, that you are giving an officer or an official a right to nominate his substitute or deputy and the local council, the county manager, or the city manager, as the case may be, has no say in the matter. An official who is vacating a post for any period from a month to 20 years would have the right to nominate a person and the Minister merely would have to sanction that or not to sanction it. I do not think it is within the competence of the Minister or the draftsman or his officials to draft an amendment that will remove that objection. With the best intentions in the world, I do not think the type of amendment which the Minister has promised to consider between now and the Report Stage will cover the positions which may arise from time to time. The case of dispensary doctors is the simplest one, because in recent years they have been appointed through the Local Appointments Commission, except those who were put into vacant dispensaries by way of promotion by the local authority. That is simple enough. But, if you take the case of a chief executive officer in any branch of the local services, you may not be able to get a person so easily. I do not think you will be able to cover that by an amendment. If you do put in an amendment, I think it will be of a type which will not work out in practice. I do not believe that this section can be so amended as to remove the objectionable part. The whole trouble is that the mind of the Custom House is running all the time in one direction, and that is to have whatever little authority remains in local government centralised and exercised through the Minister. You cannot have that and have local government. You have to make up your mind which you are going to have.

I think Deputy Morrissey was not correct in saying that local government was being more centralised because the local authorities have not dealt with the appointments at any time.

They can appoint a substitute.

No. The manager appoints the substitute. I suggest that when the Minister is considering amendments to this section he should make the person nominated or appointed subject to the local authority. At present under the section the person nominated will not be subject to the local authority in the way the person who makes the nomination is. He is the person who is subject to the local authority, not the person doing duty for him. That is an important fact to keep in mind.

On that point, it seems to me that a local authority have this safeguard, that, naturally, the office-holder would be responsible for the conduct of his nominee, and if the nominee were unsatisfactory, the local authority always would have power to terminate the appointment by suspending the officer.

Question put: "That Section 27, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
The Committee divided: Tá, 49; Níl, 29.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Buckley, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick (Co. Dublin).
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Carter, Thomas.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Colbert, Michael.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kilroy, James.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McCann, John.
  • McCarthy, Seán.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Connor, John S.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Rourke, Daniel.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, May B.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
  • Walsh, Laurence.
  • Ward, Conn.

Níl

  • Anthony, Richard S.
  • Beirne, John.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Broderick, William J.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Commons, Bernard.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Dockrell, Henry M.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Everett, James.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Halliden, Patrick J.
  • Hughes, James.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • O'Donnell, William F.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Sullivan, Martin.
  • Pattison, James P.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Rogers, Patrick J.
  • Sheldon, William A. W.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Donnchadha Ó Briain and Brian Brady; Níl: Deputies MacMenamin and Maurice Dockrell.
Question declared carried.
SECTION 28.
Question proposed: "That Section 28 stand part of the Bill."

What does the section mean?

Section 19 of the Act of 1941 provides that the appropriate Minister may make regulations for a number of purposes specified in the section. It has been found necessary that he should have power to make it a condition of appointment that the person appointed to an office under a local authority must devote the whole of his time to the duties of the office. Now, I want to emphasise that this does not mean that the Minister will convert existing part-time officers into whole-time officers. The purpose of the section is to enable the question of whole-time or part-time services to be determined specifically in the same manner as the other conditions, such as those relating to remuneration and hours of duty, are settled. Ordinarily those matters will be settled in the general officers' scheme for each public authority.

I also want to point out that despite what was said on the Second Reading of the Bill, the condition that whole-time officers shall devote the whole of their time to the duties of their office does not mean that every hour of an officer's life must be given to official work. It means broadly that an officer who is supposed to be giving whole-time services to a local authority cannot give that time which belongs to the local authority to any other gainful occupation which requires his attention during official hours. If his hours of duty are nine to five or ten to five then, during that period, he cannot pursue any other avocation. He may, if he likes, late in the evening, lecture in the university or in the local technical school or, if some relatives have a shop, he may assist him or her in that business after official hours. We want to ensure that where officers have been appointed to whole-time posts they will give the whole of their time to those posts during the prescribed hours.

It is not proposed by this amendment to interfere in any way with membership of the Oireachtas. If there were to be any limitation or any bar upon membership of the Oireachtas, that would have to be dealt with in an Act specifically regulating and relating to that matter.

Does the Minister not feel that the terms of this section go a bit wider than his expressed intention? Will he consider making it read "requiring holders of the office to devote the whole of their official time to the duties of their office"? The "whole of their time" is a phrase that I am sure there would be all kinds of judgment on.

Yes. If Deputies would be good enough now to give me their views in regard to that particular matter, I certainly will consider them between now and the Report Stage. I do not want to do anything which would interfere with existing rights. I do want, in relation to future appointments, to be in a position to say that the officer appointed to the post will give it the time that the post is presumed to require by the regulations; but if it is felt that there is any danger in regard to this, I am prepared to consider an amendment on the Report Stage. If Deputies feel any uneasiness about the section as it stands, I would like if they would discuss it now.

I want to know if this section covers all officials who are at present whole time. That is number one. Next, is every official who holds a pensionable office supposed to be holding it as a whole-time office or not? We have some very peculiar things happening from time to time, and I think it is time that the Minister clarified the position. I have in mind the unfortunate position of the Cork ratepayers. They are paying a pension of £750 a year to a man about whom very eminent lawyers sent down an opinion to the county council setting out that he was only a part-time official. Still, he got a pension of £750 a year as a whole-time officer.

We have running right through the whole of this legislation what you might call grades. I do not think they are recognised in the Constitution or anywhere else. If you are an ordinary, whole-time worker you cannot accept any other services. If, on the other hand, you are in any one of the professional classes, then of course the word "whole-time" is merely an anomaly; it is not meant to cover you. I would like the Minister to give us a clear definition of what he intends to do now. Is this another sample of class distinction, another class grade? To whom is it intended to apply? Is it intended to apply to an officer who has a pensionable post? Is he to be a whole-time officer? Is he not supposed to do any other work during general office hours? Is he supposed to devote all his time to his own duties? Does that apply to an engineer? Does he come into that category? I would like a clear statement on that point.

Does it apply to all pensionable officers? I understand that in order to be pensionable you have to be a whole-time official. Does this apply to such persons, or has the Local Government Department graded them, each for special classes, special distinctions? The ordinary home assistance officer is supposed to be a whole-time officer because he is pensionable. He is supposed to work full-time in his office. On the other hand, the engineer, though he is a whole-time officer and is paid a salary for whole-time work, has various other jobs besides, as is generally found. In his spare time he carries out other work. That applies to county surveyors and engineers to boards of health. I hold that in these offices, in connection with which the Department has taken very good care that the salary paid will be sufficient to enable a man to devote his whole time to the work, the public are entitled to the whole-time services of these men.

We want no back-door methods in this connection. Let the Minister tell us plainly and simply what particular branches this is intended to cover. Is the engineer appointed to the board of health position at £600 or £700 a year a whole-time officer and is he covered by this? Is he supposed to devote his whole services to the board or can he be an architect in the building of a new church in some other county or the building of a new school under the Board of Works in another county and 15 or 16 other jobs of that description, all in the time that he is supposed to be, not alone paid a salary, but earning a pension, the bill for which will have to be paid afterwards by the ratepayers? I want an explanation of that particular point from the Minister before we let this section through.

Would I be correct in assuming, from the statement the Minister has made, that an employee of a local authority, who can make suitable arrangements for periodic absences from a locality, will not be precluded from membership of the Oireachtas? Am I correct in taking that inference from his statement?

I should not like to put it precisely in those words. No existing right which any existing member of the Oireachtas has in regard to that matter will be interfered with by this Bill.

Existing members?

Existing members, and I suppose, until the conditions regulating membership of the Oireachtas are changed, future members, too. There are at present members of the Oireachtas who are whole-time officers of local authorities. The practice has been for them to apply for leave of absence to attend to their Parliamentary duties. That leave has invariably been given, and, so far as I am concerned, will be given in future, but I am not in a position to say that at some time some other Minister, without reference to this section at all, may not say that attendance here is incompatible with the discharge of his duty to the local authority. I cannot bind my successor, but, so far as I am concerned, if an officer of a local authority is elected to this House and all that is required to enable him to attend is that he should be given leave of absence, I should feel myself bound, as the precedent has been created, to treat him as any other citizen has been treated.

I should like to make it clear that this is to enable the Minister to prescribe qualifications on conditions of employment under Section 19. Section 19 of the 1941 Act states that the appropriate Minister may make regulations applying to all the officers in relation to which he is the appropriate Minister and to their holders and to such of these offices as belong to a specified class, that is to say, determining remuneration, regulating the payment and amount of travelling expenses, determining hours of duty, providing for records of attendance, regulating the granting of sick and other leave and the payment of remuneration during leave, requiring holders to give security for the due and proper performance of their duties and regulating the nature and amount of such security; prescribing the procedure to be followed by local authorities in making appointments otherwise than on the recommendation of the Local Appointments Commissioners, etc. We propose to add to those a provision requiring holders to devote the whole of their time to the duties of their offices. A person can be required to devote the whole of his time to the duties of his office, and, at the same time, could be given leave of absence by the Minister to attend to duties here, but unless he gets that leave from the appropriate authority, if he is a whole-time officer, he must devote the whole of his time to the duties of his office.

With respect to what Deputy Corry has said, if an engineer is appointed as a whole-time engineer, it seems to me then that, during official hours, he must devote the whole of his time to the work of the board. It is not true to say, as the Deputy has suggested, that all pensionable offices are necessarily wholetime offices. The Deputy is well aware that dispensary doctors are only part-time officers but have pension rights, so that it is possible to be the holder of a part-time post which carries pension rights.

Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 29.

I move amendment No. 52:—

Before Section 29, page 13, to insert a new section as follows:—

Sub-section (1) of Section 26 of the Act of 1941 is hereby amended by the insertion of the word "appropriate" before the word "Minister" where the latter word occurs secondly.

Amendment agreed to.

With regard to amendment No. 53, in the names of Deputies Keyes and Murphy, I have to point out that the amendment is out of order because it is equivalent to a complete negativing of the section.

I can put forward the argument for the amendment on the section.

Amendment No. 53 not moved.

I move amendment No. 54:—

In sub-section (2) to delete the word "October" in line 48, page 13 and line 1, page 14, and substitute in each case the word "August" and to insert the word "appropriate" before the word "Minister" in line 53, page 13 and lines 6, 15 and 20, page 14.

This again is a drafting amendment. There might be more than one Minister involved in the section.

In what way can changing October to August be a drafting amendment? What is the significance of the change?

"October" was a drafting error. August 26th was the date on which the Local Government Act, 1941, came into operation. It was also the appointed day of Emergency Powers Order, No. 216, which this section will replace.

If changing "October" to "August" implies that we are embodying Emergency Powers Order No. 216 in this measure, I object to the amendment.

It does not mean that we are taking that Order and embodying it in this measure, but perhaps it would be better to agree to the amendment and to discuss the point on the section. It is a question of a misstatement of date.

Will the Minister say what is the relation of the change to Emergency Powers Order No. 216?

If we are on the section——

We are not; we are still on the amendment.

Then all I can say is that August is the appropriate month, and not October.

The Minister wants us to accept the amendment before he is prepared to tell us anything about it, and——

I have already told the Deputy that 26th August, 1941, was the date upon which the Principal Act of 1941 came into operation. In the Emergency Powers Order No. 216, the expression "local authority" has the same meaning as it has in Part II of that Act. The Emergency Powers Order became effective as from 26th August, 1941.

What is Emergency Powers Order No. 216?

It is the Order which gives to the Minister for Local Government the right to give or to withhold sanction in respect of proposals of local authorities relating to the remuneration of their employees.

Does that include road workers?

It includes road workers.

Does it include county managers?

County managers are already covered by the Act.

They have already got their increase?

No, their remuneration is already controlled by the Minister.

Plus the bonus.

Amendment agreed to?

As a drafting amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

I move amendment No. 55:—

In sub-section (3), page 14, line 21, to insert the word "appropriate" before the word "Minister".

Amendment agreed to.
Question proposed: "That Section 29, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Sub-section (2) sets the ceiling as at 26th October, 1942, for salaries and wages. I am at a loss to know why that particular date has been fixed, or whether the Minister has taken cognisance of the fact that salaries and wages which operated in 1942 might bear no relation whatever to the conditions operating five years hence. It is still more interesting to point out that the Minister already has power to control salaries and wages which cannot be conceded without his consent. Why, therefore, in this sub-section try to superimpose the authority that he is now seeking? The amendment was put down to ascertain from the Minister the purpose of this particular sub-section.

Has the Minister anything to say about the section? It is customary for a Minister to do so.

The Deputy knows that the Minister is a stickler for order, and, generally, waits until the Chair calls on him. In this case Deputy O'Sullivan forestalled me. Prior to the emergency, the Minister's powers over remuneration were exercised in relation only to officers except where Government grants were granted for the relief of unemployment. In 1941 an Order was made bringing the pay of every employee of a local authority within the Minister's control on the coming into operation of the Local Government Act. The Act, under which the Order of 1941 was made, was repealed, and a new Emergency Powers Order became necessary to preserve that power of control. That Order was made, as I have said, in 1942, and the purpose of this section is to preserve the powers of control given to the Minister by that Emergency Powers Order. That does not mean that a ceiling has been definitely fixed for the remuneration of officers and employees of local authorities. It only means this: that, where a proposal is made to increase the existing remuneration of employees of a local authority, that proposal will not become effective until it has been sanctioned by the Minister. That is the purpose of the section.

Indeed it is not, with all respect to the Minister. The effect of this section will be to make permanent in our legislation the notorious emergency standstill Order. The purpose of the section is to put Emergency Powers Order No. 216 into an Act of Parliament, so that as far as the lowest paid workers in this country are concerned, the emergency is going to last for ever if the Minister can see to that. Let us see what we are condemning those workers to. The cost of living in this country has increased since 1939 by approximately 72 per cent.

That is the official figure, though I do not agree that it covers the real increase in the cost of living. By the Minister's exercise of Emergency Powers Order No. 216, which he is now seeking to put into our permanent legislation, thousands of working men in this country—I think I can safely say the majority of them with families to maintain—have been pegged down, in most cases, to an increase of 4/- per week in their wages, from 35/- to 39/- to meet an increase in the cost of living of at least 72 per cent. I would like Deputies to realise that it is for the purpose of continuing that state of affairs and that gross injustice that this section is before the House. The dishonest argument has been used from the Front Bench opposite that the sole reason why they will not agree to an increase in wages to, let us say, bog workers or road workers, is because agricultural workers might be induced to go off the land and on to the roads. I need not tell anybody with any practical experience how dishonest that argument is, mainly for the reason that, owing to the restrictions that were in operation during the war, there has been less work on the roads during the last five or six years than in any period during the last 22 or 23 years. It is dishonest also, in this sense, that we are taking a class composed of the lowest paid workers in this State—and more shame it was for us to do it—the agricultural workers, and deliberately pegging down thousands of working men to their standard. Let me put this to the Minister and to those who use that argument about the agricultural workers. The rate of wages fixed for agricultural workers is the minimum rate.

I am very glad to be able to say this, that there are great numbers of decent farmers in this country who are paying a wage to their workers that is substantially in advance of the minimum of £2 per week. Let me put the other point, and in doing so do not take me for one moment as suggesting that even now the agricultural worker is being paid anything like what he should be paid. If the industry could afford a better wage he certainly should get it. But the fact is that the agricultural workers wages have been at least doubled. They have been increased by 100 per cent. to meet the increased cost of living, whereas the road workers' wages have not been increased by 10 per cent. I want to put to the Minister and to his Parliamentary Secretary who is sitting beside him, that, as ordinary men, we know what the cost is of the ordinary necessities of life to-day: the cost of clothes, of boots and of food. In the case of road workers and quarry workers, there is more wear and tear on their clothes and boots than there is in the case of men in normal occupations. In that situation, what is the use in saying that these men can support themselves and those depending on them on a wage of 39/- or £2 a week? It cannot be done. Is it not absurd, therefore, to be talking here about hospitals, about the millions of pounds spent on tuberculosis, to be talking about malnutrition and about bringing up a healthy race? How can a healthy race be brought up on such wages with the cost of living what it is to-day, especially when we think of the cost of boots and the cost of clothes? I defy contradiction of this: that a pair of boots or shoes bought to-day, particularly children's boots, will not last a quarter of the time that a pair of boots or shoes bought seven years ago would have lasted. That statement cannot be contested.

What case can the Minister make to the House for this section? I challenge any Deputy who has a conscience to go into the Lobby and vote for putting Emergency Powers Order No. 216 into our permanent legislation. If there is one scandal greater than another of which we have been guilty, it is the way in which that standstill Order has been operated, remembering the circumstances and the atmosphere in which it was introduced. The Government said at the beginning of the emergency that, if we were not to have chaos and inflation, profits and wages would have to be controlled.

Will any man on any side of the House say that the Government have been able to maintain the balance between profits and wages? Would the Minister dare to suggest that? Will he try to reconcile a 72 per cent. increase in the cost of living with a 10 per cent. pegged-down increase in wages? And that 4/- a week goes only to the lowest-paid section of workers. Small as is that figure of 39/- a week—and it is small enough—the workers are not sure even of that, when broken time is deducted from their wages. With weather such as we have had recently, some of those men would be fortunate to get three days' work a week. Are we to remain for ever in the days of the past? What do we mean by saying that we have our freedom if we are not able to give a better standard of living to the man and his family than can be extracted from 39/- a week? All that talk about freedom is, in such circumstances, so much froth.

I believe that this country can afford a better standard than that. I believe that the Minister has sufficient power to control any move by any public authority to give more than a just wage. The members of local authorities, particularly the members of county councils, constituted as such councils are, are just men. I do not think that they could be described as extravagant or wasteful when dealing with the ratepayers' money. You will not get an increase from the average county council unless the members are fully satisfied that the increase is merited. Nobody with any experience of county councils will dispute that. Thousands of families will be affected by this provision, and it brings us back to Section 27, which we discussed a short time ago. The local authority, when striking a rate to be paid by local people, with a knowledge of local conditions and of the men they employ, decide, after due consideration, to give a moderate increase. In no case has it been suggested that an extravagant increase has been given by a local authority. That having been done, a letter is received from the Custom House stating that the Minister refuses to sanction the increase. You may be talking about your hospitals, Public Health Bills, tuberculosis, and schemes that are to cost millions. Until such time as you feed and clothe the children as they should be fed and clothed, you will have disease, and you will require Public Health Bills and so forth. You will not have a healthy nation.

It is important that every member of this House should realise that, during the next year, we shall be marking the character of the society we propose to have in this country. If we do not realise that, we shall make a terrible mess of our national affairs. We are at a colour point in the social and even in the political life of the country and the manner in which we mould our institutions will have a very radical effect upon us. It is made clear in this Bill more than anywhere else that we are doing that. If we are not going to say that the society we are to have will be one that will maintain itself by wages earned in employment, then we are entering a very disastrous social situation. With the lips of Ministers dripping so much regarding social services, it is a shocking thing that in a measure which gives the Minister for Local Government so much power over administrative machinery and the lives of our people there should be a clause showing that we are pinning the salaries and income of a large section of our people to a level which cannot maintain those who are doing vital work in carrying out social services. We hear a lot about the ideals which we had in the past. We hear a lot about Pearse. What was Pearse doing in 1913? He was writing a pamphlet to put courage and energy into our people and he was declaring that it was a crying shame that employers in the City of Dublin should think they were properly employing a man when they paid him £1 per week. He looked for revolution and revolutionary feelings in Dublin because men and women in the city were being asked to support their families on a wage of £1 a week.

What are we paying the road workers of South Tipperary? Forty shillings a week, at a time when the cost-of-living figure is 298—three times greater than it was in 1938. The Minister is preventing the local authority from paying wages higher than the equivalent of 13/- a week when Pearse was challenging the whole social idea of expecting men to work in the City of Dublin for 20/- per week. The Minister brings in the ghastly figure of Emergency Order No. 216 and pins back the wages of local employees to what they were in October, 1942, except for the change of terms. The cost of living in August, 1942, was 250. It is now 298. It has risen one-fifth since the date of the figure the Minister seeks to insert in permanent legislation as the level above which wages or salaries of local employees cannot be raised without his express sanction— the express sanction of a man who declined to receive six members of a county council, who were anxious to come up here, putting themselves to the inconvenience and expense to plead with the Minister that they could not look upon men in their employment endeavouring to rear families on 40/- a week. They asked if they could come at their own expense, and in their own time, to plead with the Minister to lift his ban and to enable them to raise wages by a few shillings.

The Minister was not here the other night when I was putting certain aspects of this matter before the House. We are anxious to keep our people at home. We proclaim loudly that we are anxious to see our people staying at home under conditions in which they will be able to raise educated families in comfort and decency, in circumstances under which they can live in a Christian way, get most out of their resources, more out of their abilities and out of their capacity to do good for themselves and their country. We boast of these things to people who ought to live and stay here, but a man who was condemned by the Minister's edict to remain at work here at 40/- a week, when the cost of living has risen 300 per cent., can go to Great Britain and become an ordinary British soldier and after a few months' training, by the 1st July of this year, if he is married, he can get 42/- a week for himself and 25/- for his wife or a total of 67/- a week, as well as food and clothing.

And his wife would get one dried egg a month.

His wife can stay in her Irish home, and she will get more to keep herself and her family here than the man would be paid under the regulation made by the Minister. Does the Minister seriously argue that this is a section that should be in any permanent legislation? How does the Minister think that men and women are going to live in this country and rear families, if the State machine, employing permanent and necessary servants on essential services, is going to pay them such wages and salaries as would not maintain their families? How does the Minister think that a society like that can build expensive hotels, can build expensive roads, or build expensive luxury hotels for luxury-minded visitors who come here? Surely the Minister must realise that his whole outlook on the world is upset. Surely he cannot realise that he is talking to an Irish Parliament that wants to concern itself with every aspect of our national affairs, and that wants to build on solid ground. Surely the Minister realises that Irishmen never had any strength in either economic or political life except the strength of the mind and the strength of heart of its men and women. To what condition will the men and women of this country be reduced if our public services are to be reduced to the state the Minister wants to reduce them? I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister recently whether any examination had been made into the cost of things required to keep a man and his family, which would warrant him suggesting that 40/- a week at the present cost of living in Ireland would keep such a family. I ask that question again now. I do not think the Minister should ask us to pass this section, without giving us some particulars as to the wages and salaries that are being paid to the lower-paid classes in the service of local government.

There is an aspect of this question which is worthy of the attention of the House, and one which, I should say, has a practical application as far as the section is concerned. The Minister defended it on the grounds that wages and salaries may be increased with his consent. I suggest that a matter the House should consider is whether that consent shall be withheld unreasonably in the light of events as we see them. The Order Paper for a number of weeks past contained a series of questions relating to bonus Orders for staffs of public authorities. I know for a positive fact that a number of public authorities suggested that bonuses, which operated in other public services from the 1st January, should be extended to the employees of these bodies. In his reply the Parliamentary Secretary admitted that there were at least eight such authorities. But the actual position is —and I want the Minister to face up to this—that a state of shall I call it unsettlement and indecision has arisen in local affairs recently, as between the Custom House, county managers and local authorities, which is not making for good local administration.

I think it will not be denied by anybody with experience, much as we may abuse the system of county management—which we may leave aside now— that there are aspects of the actual position, as far as county managers in their administration are concerned, with which from our experience we may very well sympathise. We must know from experience that, in fact, there are occasions when they are between the hammer and the anvil, and a situation has arisen now when some managers feel that if they make certain approaches to the Custom House they will be unfavourably received, and in consequence they are immediately up against local councils. I suggest to the Minister, anxious as he is for the success of the County Management Act, that he might pay attention immediately to that indecision and unsettlement on the part of county managers. No better start, as far as public authorities are concerned, could be made than on the question of salaries and wages. Managers are undecided, shall I say, whether they can afford to make an approach or not, lest they encourage the displeasure of the Miniter. I think that will not be denied. The result is that a number of managers have actually sent in recommendations in connection with bonuses, but so far there has been no indication that the Minister is prepared to give consent, or what is still more important, to give any direction to local authorities, to wit county managers, that they may certify in connection with bonus Orders.

I suggest the time has arrived when this foggy atmosphere should be cleared so far as the managers and the Minister are concerned and that a smoother and more harmonious arrangement, resulting in good administration of local councils, might very well be influenced by closer collaboration between the local authority and the Minister on the lines I have indicated.

Deputy Morrissey has alarmed some of us by stating that this section is an effort to enshrine in an Act of Parliament the most unpopular Emergency Powers Order ever brought into this House, that is, the Order clamping down wages of workers while the cost of living continues to rise. If that is the position, it is up to every member of this House who is here to-night to keep the debate going. Each Deputy should state the case as he knows it in his constituency and the debate should be kept going until we have a fuller House to listen to us. Only half the members have been in the House to-day for the discussion of this most important Bill. The absence of members is deplorable. If this is an effort to bring in as part of permanent legislation an Emergency Powers Order that will keep down wages while the cost of living is increasing—every Deputy knows that the cost of living will further increase in the next month or two—we ought to show our strength and the Deputies of the Minister's Party should be the first to stand up and appeal to the Minister not to put them in the false position, the unenviable position, of having to support the section that he is asking the House to accept.

Deputy Mulcahy, very properly, drew attention to conditions and wages operating on the other side. The Minister's contribution was that the soldier's wife who went to England would get "one egg a month". Now that he knows that there is only one egg a month for the gallant people on the other side who are giving employment to thousands of our countrymen, what is he going to do about improving the position for the people who are bearing such hardships and for our people who are sharing the hardships with them? The fact that they have only one egg a month is no reason why he should taunt Deputy Mulcahy or use that as a lever to induce our workers not to seek high wages or to look for better conditions. There are many women in this country who would be very happy if they could get passports and cross the water, join their husbands, put up with the conditions there and have the one egg a month rather than endure the conditions here and be without their husbands and see their children, as Deputy Morrissey said, half naked and cold. They would take that risk. I think it is up to the Government to see that the conditions of our loyal body of workers, as outlined by Deputies Mulcahy, Morrissey and O'Sullivan, are improved. We see children who are cold and shivering for the want of clothing while the shares of drapery houses and clothing manufacturers who are manufacturing shoddy clothing are increasing, in some cases tenfold, because the Minister did not clamp down profits. We have only to look at the Stock Exchange returns to see that the shares of various concerns engaged in the clothing business jumped from 3/- and 4/- to 23/- and 24/-, within five years, because the Minister who is now so determined to enshrine in permanent legislation the standstill wages Order was not able to keep down the cost of living as represented in the high prices for clothing.

In many cases working-class people are not able to buy clothing because of the high prices. In at least one house in this city the shares increased tenfold without any effort on the part of the people associated with the concern but simply because they saw and availed of the opportunity. Clothing was wanted. Boots were wanted. The Minister could not keep down the cost of living. To-night he is trying to embody in permanent legislation the clamping down of wages. It is up to every member of the House to resist the Minister in his efforts.

I join with Deputy Morrissey and Deputy Byrne in protesting in very strong terms against any proposal to enshrine in permanent legislation any measure such as the Emergency Powers Order which controlled wages. If any Order made by the present Government got the vast majority of the citizens up against them, it was the standstill wages Order. To-day I raise the question as to how any unfortunate working man could be expected to exist at the present rate of county council wages, 39/- a week. I am the member of the Laoighis County Council who proposed a resolution to grant an increased bonus of 4/- per week to the county council workers of Laoighis. Deputy Gorry, representing the Fianna Fáil Party on the council, saw fit to fall in line with the resolution and it was passed unanimously. The resolution instructed the county manager to forward for the sanction of the Local Government Department a proposal for an increase of 4/- per week in the wages of our employees. At a meeting of the county council four weeks later, the county manager stated that he had not sent the resolution to the Local Government Department and that he would not sent it to the Department because, as he pointed out, it was Government policy to keep wages of local authorities' employees under the agricultural wage rates. A sewerage scheme caretaker and a nurse in an in stitution are employees of the local authority. I cannot see what relation the wages of a nurse in a hospital or of a sewerage scheme caretaker has to the wages of an agricultural labourer. I do not understand how the Minister or the Government has arrived at the miserable sum of £2 per week as the wage basis for agricultural workers, nor do I understand why it should be taken as a basis for local authority employees, whose wages must be 1/- or 1/6 less than that figure.

Deputy Byrne pointed out a few moments ago the conditions in England. Does the Minister realise that the 175,000 able-bodied Irishmen who are employed in Great Britain to-day did not leave this country for the love of England or the love of the British Empire? It was not their intention to go over to slave in the malt-houses and munition factories in England in order to help England's war effort. It was simply because this Government failed to give them even an existence in their own country. The Government saw fit to bring in an Order which, as Deputy Morrissey has pointed out, they are now trying to embody in permanent legislation, to keep the working-class people of this country in misery, semi-starvation, and poverty, as we have seen for many years past. I say that is the sole reason why the vast majority of our young men went across the Irish Sea to the land of our traditional enemy to slave in coalmines, munition factories and malt-houses during the past six or seven years simply because they were denied the right to a fair wage and a decent standard of living here in their own country.

Does the Minister realise that the legislation he is trying to put over on this House at the moment is absolutely contrary to Christian teachings? Does he recall the statement of the great Pope Leo XIII that every worker was entitled to a living wage in order to enable him to bring up his family in Christian decency? Wages, he said, should be sufficient to enable any worker to rear his family in Christian decency. Surely, the Government is not acting in accordance with Christian principles when they wish to have legislation passed here giving the Minister authority if he so desires to increase or decrease wages? I think this House should protest in the strongest possible terms against any attempt to make a permanent fixture of the wages standstill Order. If there is one thing to which the workers of this country are awake to-day it is to the prevalence of low wages. I warn any Fianna Fáil Deputy from my constituency that if he votes for this legislation I shall make it very hot for him in my constituency and I should be very glad if other Opposition Deputies would throw out the same challenge to Government Deputies in their constituencies.

We are going to make that fact known throughout the length and breadth of the various constituencies. I challenge any Deputy representing my constituency on the Government benches to get up and say that he will stand over the Minister's action in trying to make the wages standstill Order a permanent fixture. There are people, county council workers, in that constituency who are toiling from sunrise to nightfall, from week-end to week-end, and these workers, as Deputy Mulcahy pointed out in this House a fortnight ago, are trying to exist on 39/- a week and to rear large families. Some of them are living in county council houses in towns where the cost of living has increased by leaps and bounds.

I may say that I am put to the pin of my collar to try to exist on £10 a week and I fail to see how any unfortunate citizen can exist on the wages paid by local authorities on turf production, drainage or other schemes carried out by local authorities. No steps have been taken by the Government to improve the lot of these poor working people. If anything put the writing on the wall for the Fianna Fáil Party, it was the wages standstill Order and the one piece of legislation that will complete the writing on the wall for them is the introduction of this section to a Local Government Bill. I hope Deputies generally will act in accordance with the dictates of their consciences and I believe there is no Deputy whose conscience is so bad as to leave him under the impression that any employee of a local authority can exist on his present wages. How can a man be expected to feed and clothe his family on these miserable wages? The vast majority of the children are going around the country half naked. I see them in my own constituency going bare-footed and half naked through hail and frost, wading through floods in their bare feet to school and no steps have been taken to give any consideration to the conditions under which the parents of these children have to exist owing to the standstill Order. I submit that wages ought to be sufficient to enable every person to live in decency.

I trust that the Minister's attention will be drawn to the seriousness of the present situation. I believe the situation has become so serious that workers throughout the country are prepared to rise up in arms to protest against this standstill Order. The day is coming when no decent citizen will sit on a local authority because when local authorities do grant an increase of wages to their workers, they are told that it is a matter for the Minister and that they have no voice in it. When in Leix we increased workers' wages by 4/- a week we saw that we were up against it and that all our talk at the county council was just so much hot air. The decision was not implemented and will not be implemented. Here we are now faced with a proposal to put into permanent legislation a provision that all future wage increases will be controlled in a similar manner. Is it any wonder that tuberculosis has got such a great grip on the country seeing that the vast majority of workers of the country and their children are half starved? The only cure for tuberculosis is good food, sufficient woollens and clothing, and proper housing accommodation, and a man cannot provide these things unless he has proper wages. Until such time as wages are fixed at such a rate that workers will be able to purchase the necessities of life, to keep themselves and their children well nourished and well clothed, there seems to be little hope of success for the attempts of the Government to combat the awful scourge of tuberculosis. Low wages are responsible for present conditions. Surely to goodness half-starved parents cannot be expected to nourish properly their children; because, if the parents are half-starved, it follows that the children must be starved entirely.

That is really a very gloomy picture to paint in this House, but it is a picture of the position as I see it in my constituency. I trust that some steps will be taken to remedy that awful state of affairs. I believe, with Deputy Mulcahy, Deputy Morrissey and others, that we could offer our people a much better standard of living. Did it ever occur to the Minister that shortly before the war broke out there were thousands of people unemployed in England? Does the Minister remember reading of a black coffin being carried up to 10 Downing Street by the unemployed as a protest against the awful conditions which the working people had to endure at that time? Does he recall that hundreds of people died outside the railings of Hyde Park from hunger? Does the Minister remember when thousands of people were lying on the streets of Manchester, Liverpool, Hull and other cities in England with cards tied on their breasts proclaiming that they were dying of poverty and hunger?

Does the Minister remember that within two months after the war broke out wages in England were increased by at least six times as compared with the period to which I refer? It was found possible to pay £10 per week in cases where only 10/- per week was paid formerly and every available man was put into productive employment. Even the women were put into full employment. Those who were not capable of work, such as cripples, were given the job of sitting and looking at others working and were paid wages as timekeepers and overseers. They were given a decent wage, not a miserable 39/- or £2 a week. I know the case of a cripple in Hull who had not worked since the war which ended in 1918, and during the last war he was in receipt of £9 per week simply for sitting and looking on at others working. We cannot give our able-bodied men any more than £2 a week to carry out the Taoiseach's appeal to produce more food in order to provide our people with the necessities of life. Does the Minister remember all those incidents in England? I am sure that his memory is not so failing that he cannot go back over the past five or six years, when any amount of money could be provided for war and for the destruction of mankind and civilisation, but not a penny piece could be found for the thousands who died from hunger and exposure before the war. I want to throw out a challenge in this House to any Deputy from my constituency to support the Minister in this, and if any Deputy from my constituency does support the Minister, I am prepared to go from north to south of my constituency and expose the thing in much stronger language than I have used here to-night.

The section which we are discussing seems to have a very much wider signification than a section merely conferring on the Minister the power to remunerate the employees of local authorities. It appears to me that the section gives an indication that what was war-time Government policy of low wages and salaries, justified by emergency conditions, is now becoming their policy for peace and their policy for a long term because, as has been pointed out, this section embodies in it the principles of the Emergency Powers Standstill Order (No. 216). The Minister stated that the only object of the section was to enable the Minister to have power to prevent local authorities increasing the remuneration of their employees without his consent. I have always understood that that was the existing legal position. Now, I hesitate to state, as a matter of law, anything in connection with local government law. It was stated in a recent case, or cases, by an eminent judge, that he had once taken a plunge into the jungle of local government law—a very good description of local government law. In the course of his remarks, speaking about the denizens of the jungle, he said that the difference between the denizens of the jungle and the denizens of the jungle of local government law was that the denizens in the jungle knew their way about the jungle, whereas the denizens of the jungle of local government did not know their way through the jungle of local government. I hesitate, therefore, to express an opinion on any matter concerned with local government, but I do think that it was always the law that the Minister had power to see that remuneration was not increased without his sanction. I am not sure whether that is so or not. If it be so, then what is the necessity for this section? If it be not so, and the Minister is seeking such powers, why is this section based entirely on the emergency legislation? There can be only one conclusion from that: that what was the war-time policy of the Government is now becoming their long-term, peace-time policy.

I want to affirm and reaffirm my political faith, that was so well and ably stated by Deputy Morrissey and Deputy Mulcahy, and that is that we believe that it is not merely possible but essential to bring about an increase in the purchasing power of the people of this country, and that can be brought about by increasing wages and thereby increasing purchasing power. The policy of the Government has been the opposite to that—to depreciate wages and, accordingly, to depreciate purchasing power. They pegged down the wages of the worker during the emergency, but they failed miserably to peg down the prices of essential commodities. Here we have an Act of Parliament purporting to be part of a code and part of local government law, and which would codify all the statutes dealing with that particular branch of the law, and yet into that must be put a section which bears all the marks of the Emergency Powers Standstill Order (No. 216). There can be only one conclusion from that: that this is an indication that since this section is being put into a permanent Act, then, by virtue of that fact, so long as this Government is there, that will be the standard policy so far as the workers, in particular, are concerned: a policy of keeping down wages and depreciating purchasing power, while at the same time not taking power to keep down prices of essential commodities.

We stand for a different policy from that, a policy of increasing wages and, thereby, increasing purchasing power. We hear a lot of talk about the social services, but the less social services you have to provide your people with, the more it is an indication that your people are happy and contented, and the more social services you have to provide it is an indication that the people are unable to keep their wives and children in a decent standard of comfort. It is the boast of the present Government that they have set up a great many social services, such as free milk, free school books, and so on, but the more of these social services there are, the more it is an indication that there is disease in the body politic, and the more employment there is, the less social services you require. If you increase the standard of living, increase wages, and so increase purchasing power, you can then decrease the necessity for the multiplicity of social services which we are creating in this country and, thereby, increasing taxation. You can decrease taxation by decreasing the social services, and you can decrease the necessity for all these social services by pursuing a reverse policy to that which is being pursued here, a policy of low wages, which means a decrease in purchasing power. If you increase wages, you increase purchasing power and, as a consequence, there will be less taxation necessary to provide for these social services.

When the devil was sick, the devil a saint would be;——

That is an old one.

——when the devil was well, the devil a saint was he.

Can you not think of anything better than that? That is a very old cry.

It is. It is like the old Fine Gael cry about the poor workers, and Fine Gael are very sick now. It was amusing to hear Deputy Mulcahy on wages and it was also amusing to hear Deputy Flanagan. Deputy Flanagan, some time ago, was very eloquent in this House on the salaries that were being paid to Deputies, and he now tells us that he cannot live on the £10 a week he is getting. He proposed an increase, which, I take it, Deputy Flanagan thought was sufficient, for the road workers of Laoighis from 39/- a week to 43/-. Apparently he thought that 43/- a week would be sufficient for the workers in Laoighis to enable them to rear a wife and family, although he himself cannot live on £10 a week.

He has gone out now.

Yes, he has gone out, and I should like him to hear this.

When I endeavoured on the last section to raise another matter, I noticed there was general silence in the House, that nobody was interested in it only myself. In this matter we have to face a rather difficult situation. If I am to judge by the general position of the agricultural community and the wages paid to agricultural workers, I am sure there is nobody in this House who will not admit that the agricultural worker is the hardest worked individual in this State to-day. At least 75 per cent. of the farmers can be put on the same basis, because they too have to work the same hours and, in a great number of cases, far longer hours than their employees. Deputy Morrissey said the maximum wage of agricultural workers was 40/- and that employers are willing to pay more. A lot of employers are paying more and when the work is done, they have not 40/- for themselves.

They were often worse off and the Deputy knows it.

They were worse off for a very long time and, if we went back to the policy of Fine Gael again, they would be a damn sight worse off.

Let us hear about the emergency.

I do not want interruptions from Deputy Morrissey. I did not interrupt him.

There are no grounds for interruption.

No. We must remember that the agricultural workers, with their 40/- per week, were not given an opportunity of appearing before a tribunal for a bonus. They were not allowed to put up their case. The farmers were not allowed to show what they were getting for the produce they were producing for this nation during the emergency. I should like to see some of the classes that come under Section 28, which was galloped through here, pegged down on the basis of the agricultural workers' wages. I am not in favour of low wages; I never was and I never will be. I never paid any man in my employment the bare minimum wage. I always paid more. If they were not worth more than the minimum wage to me, I would not keep them. I would vote for an increase in the wages of these workers, and always did when some of the people who are shouting here were trying to pull them down. I voted for an increase when some of the people who are talking very loudly now about the miserable wages paid were endeavouring to cut them down. But I do not say that we are getting value for our money. That is not the fault of the road workers. It is the fault of those who come under Section 28, the supervisors, who are to be whole-time officials in future. When I endeavoured to find out what they were going to be, no Deputy stood up to help me. You cannot get more than a pint out of a pint jug.

That is an insult to the Minister.

If you go over the line in regard to one section of the community, the supervisors, you will not have anything left to give to the men who have to use the shovel and spread the stones. You have to face that condition of affairs. You have to consider the position of 70 per cent. of the population of this country who are living on less than £2 per week.

If that is so, we ought to be ashamed of it.

When Deputy Morrissey was supporting the previous Government the wages of these men were less than 29/- a week. Deputy Morrissey knows that very well.

He should know.

When we took office, the Government was paying them 22/6 a week.

Mr. Morrissey

I shall deal with that. It was worth far more then than £2 is now.

I suppose it was.

The Deputy is trying to keep going until the tick of 10.30 o'clock.

I will keep going as long as I like.

The Deputy is not discussing the matter before the House.

I am. If Deputy Morrissey was able to ramble, I have no intention of rambling. I want to keep as close as I can to this matter. Let us find out where we are in connection with this. Is Deputy Morrissey in favour of an increase in the price of agricultural produce?

Is he in favour of an increase in the wages of agricultural workers?

Deputy Mulcahy was the person who went around and said the farmers should not get any more than 3d. a gallon for milk.

The Deputy is not well.

They were shouting: "Give us back our markets."

Why did you not do it?

Fianna Fáil are shouting that now.

I wonder will Deputy Mulcahy induce any of the unfortunate farmers he is trying to dope at present to send butter to Great Britain at the present price of butter there?

We have not got it for ourselves.

Section 29 is the question before the House.

This has to do with Section 29.

Will the Deputy move to report progress?

I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, February 15th.
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