Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 1 Mar 1946

Vol. 99 No. 15

Private Deputies' Business. - Legislation by Order—Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That a Select Committee of the Dáil be appointed to consider and report upon the extent to which the growing practice of legislation by Order, without the prior approval of the Oireachtas, is inconsistent with the powers which the Oireachtas should exercise under the principle of democratic government as enshrined in the Constitution.— Deputies Anthony and Byrne.

Major de Valera

Before the adjournment on the last evening I endeavoured to show that there was a case of necessity for the existence of this system by which the broad principles and essential parts of legislation are provided for in an Act of Parliament and the subsidiary details, particularly the administrative details, are then worked out by the Minister and published as Orders under his name. That delegated legislation is essentially subordinate in nature and the conclusions arrived at, both from reason and supported by the investigations of the Donoughmore Committee and others, were that the practice was advisable, that in any case it was inevitable under modern conditions, and that it was becoming more and more necessary as the functions of Government were taken up with the details of everyday life more and more as time went on. Further reasoning brings us to another conclusion and again it is a conclusion supported by the investigations carried out by the committee of which I have spoken. That is, that there is clearly a danger in this system, a danger of the Executive possibly acting beyond the will of Parliament. We may as well face the fact that there is a problem here and it is not a problem peculiar to this country. It is not a problem that, as some members on the Opposition tried to make out, is peculiar to the present time here.

It has been convenient for a certain line—I cannot call it policy—recently to work up certain catch-cries, and it is convenient for them to advert to this question of Statutory Rules and Orders now. I should like to remind the House, however, that this problem has arisen in England, perhaps more acutely than here, and that it is a problem for all democratic Legislatures at present. In facing up to this problem, it is accepted that the system must be worked and the question is how to work it. How to work it turns upon the question of safeguards. What are the safeguards that are necessary? The safeguards are these: firstly, that the Orders remain always subordinate to Parliament. Nobody can suggest that this House has not complete power to revoke or alter in the appropriate way any Order of the Minister; the supremacy of this House remains as it has been and as it is.

The second safeguard is that it is desirable that members of the Oireachtas should have access to these Orders. I do not think anyone will deny that it has been the practice, in the case of Statutory Rules and Orders generally, to place them on the Table of the House. In most cases I think there is a provision of annulment within a period of time. If that is not sufficient notice, it is difficult to see what would be. Not only are safeguards provided in the House itself but there are other safeguards for the public. Reason dictates that safeguards be provided, and again it is a question for the House to see how far they have been carried into effect. Publicity, for instance, is one obvious safeguard. What is the publicity afforded? In the case of every Statutory Rule and Order, notice of its enactment will be published in the Official Gazette—Iris Oifigiúil. In addition to that, the Order itself is printed and is available at the Stationery Office. There are copies at the Stationery Office for anyone to buy. I might qualify that by saying that during the emergency certain emergency Orders were roneoed off, prior to printing, in order to save time, but definitely in regard to ordinary Rules and Orders, which I understand form the subject of this motion, they are printed and on public sale at the Stationery Office. What other publicity can you have within reason? Of course it is open to every diligent member of the House to secure copies of these Orders. He can read the gazette to find out what they are, what they relate to and where they are. He can then, if he is energetic enough, go down and purchase a copy and if he does not like the terms of the Order and wishes to criticise it, he can put down a motion for that purpose in this House. What more do Deputies want in the line of safeguards, from the point of view of publicity and questioning the matter in the House?

To return to the Donoughmore Report, the Donoughmore Report mentions safeguards and proceeds to deal with such matters as the need for having the powers of delegation clearly defined. If any Deputy cares to inspect the normal peace-time enactments of this House, I think he will find that the powers of the Minister to prescribe regulations are strictly confined to certain matters, that there is no general power to enact or no power that would give a Minister an opportunity of overriding an Act. In certain cases—I think the Road Traffic Act might be one—you will find the actual matters about which the Minister can legislate enumerated alphabetically. I do not see how you can go further in circumscribing and defining the matters about which the Minister can make regulations, unless, of course, you are going to tie him and prevent him making any effective regulations at all and then you are in the danger, of which I spoke previously, of having the intention of an Act of Parliament negatived by the absence of administrative detail for its implementation.

This logically leads to consideration of the famous Henry VIII clause. That was a clause that virtually delegated complete legislative powers in certain matters to a Minister. That clause you will find is exceptionally rare in modern delegated legislation and the recommendation of the Donoughmore Committee was that it should be used only for very grave and serious reasons. Again I suggest to Deputies who are interested in this matter to examine the statutes which have been passed by this Parliament. Let them take the sections which empower Ministers to make Orders and they will find that this type of clause is of very rare occurrence. I do not know myself of any such clause in normal peace-time Orders. One could go further into detail in regard to this matter but, as I had already taken up a good part of the time of the House before the adjournment, I do not propose to go into the question further. I would ask Deputies who support this motion what other method for making democratic government effective can you have? Is it seriously proposed that we should legislate for every little detail in this House? Let them ask themselves that question and give an honest answer to it. When they do, they will find they have to delegate power to some executive body —and what better executive body can there be than a Minister of State? Ministers are responsible to this House and it is not the practice to delegate to anyone else the powers to make Orders. The House also has complete control of penalties, as it is not the practice to delegate the power to inflict penalties. Again I ask what other system can the House have to make democratic institutions effective in practice?

To return to the terms of the motion, the proposers ask to have a select committee set up. The next question then is—what is the need for such a committee? Again, what can such a committee find out? Here is a problem that has been examined exhaustively and in detail. We have the Donoughmore Report of 14 years ago, we have books published on it from both points of view, we have had the Ministerial answers and the Opposition speeches in this House and in many other Houses. The problem has been thoroughly examined and there is an inevitable conclusion, both from reason and on the findings of those investigations. Delegated legislation by order is a necessity. There is unanimity in regard to the safeguards that should be observed. Why, then, waste the time of this House with a committee to examine such matters? The members of the House would be much better concerned—as they are concerned—with the legislation going through.

I suggest that there is no case for a committee, that the practical problem before us is to continue to work our institutions. In order to administer the law and keep the functions of government going, Ministers will be making Orders from time to time, as may be necessary, and this House can keep its control on Orders. Any Deputy can ask questions or move motions here and so keep the Minister within bounds. The exercise of that safeguard is much more desirable than the setting up of an academic committee to consider something already sufficiently discussed. While the committee may be sitting and considering, and in the end only coming to conclusions already come to, the necessary work from day to day may be neglected. For that reason, I suggest that no case has been made for the appointment of a committee. We are all agreed that there is an inherent problem in this matter, and we can be equally agreed that the only one way to solve it is to provide certain safeguards. In other words, we should make democracy work instead of hindering democracy by some of the talk indulged in by some Deputies who have supported this motion.

For these reasons, while sympathising with the desire of the proposer and seconder of this motion to guard our fundamental Parliamentary rights, I do think it is unnecessary to set up any select committee and I would recommend to the House that that should not be done.

Mr. Coogan

I welcome the reasoned remarks by Deputy de Valera on this motion. I think he has put the case fairly and squarely. At the same time, I do not agree that he has made a case against setting up a committee of the House to investigate this problem. We know that the matter has been fully investigated in other countries and that certain conclusions have been reached as to the safeguards necessary to prevent the arbitrary exercise of power by Ministers. We have, however, the position in this House that, in Bill after Bill introduced here, the Minister in charge is seeking to secure to himself the most despotic power. Not only that, but he is seeking to secure to himself the final arbitration in any matter of dispute that may arise in the administration of the Act. We generally find the phraseology in all these Bills now that "the decision of the Minister in this matter shall be final and conclusive". In other words, we have reached the position where, in measure after measure, the aim is to circumvent an appeal to the courts.

I am not going to argue that this system of delegated legislation is inherently bad. Having regard to the complexity of our modern life and to the growth of economic and social legislation as a result, we are compelled to delegate our powers to Ministers and subordinate authorities. My quarrel is that, in this delegation, we are not safeguarding the rights of the citizen as against the Minister. The recommendations put forward by the Sankey Committee, presided over by Lord Donoughmore, are, on the whole, sound. I would entirely agree with the present system, if there were a right of appeal to the courts of the land, that is, in a matter of dispute as between John Citizen and officialdom, if the final word did not rest with officialdom but the aggrieved citizen had the right to appeal, not to the Minister but to a court. That may give rise to a host of cases and a lot of litigation and might inevitably lead to our having to consider setting up some sort of administrative court to deal with matters of that kind. I think that is inevitable, if legislation is to continue on the modern lines we have at present. The need of a select committee would be apparent to the Deputy if he were listening during the last couple of days and saw the attitude adopted by the Minister for Local Government on the Local Government Bill.

We have got to this position, that the Minister says: "I will not be advised by an independent tribunal, neither will I be advised by a tribunal of my own subordinates. I refuse to become the agent or servant or instrument of my subordinates in my Department. I refuse to be bound by their recommendations or decisions and neither will I agree to the setting up of an independent tribunal." That mentality is very nearly the mentality of Louis XIV—"I am the State"— and throughout this debate the Minister has been emphasising: "I am the Minister for Local Government, I am the final arbiter. I am the person vested with jurisdiction under the Constitution and I alone will decide these issues." That may be all very well, but it is quite possible to conceive that in certain cases, perhaps with a political complexion, the Minister so minded is not entirely unbiased and that he cannot be trusted with a judicial decision in matters of that kind, that his outlook from the start is biased.

It is fundamental in our law that no man should be the judge of his own cause and, when you vest powers of the extraordinary nature that you are getting under present-day legislation, you have to ask yourself what is the protection to be afforded either to the official or the citizen when the Minister concerned comes to exercise his powers? What redress has he? None whatever that I can see. The citizen is concluded. The Minister to-day, dealing with this matter, says that the aggrieved official or citizen has a very welcome form of redress; the matter may be raised once a year or once in a lifetime on the annual Estimate relating to the Minister's Department in this House. What in the name of Heaven redress is that for the unfortunate official aggrieved by the Minister's decision, or the unfortunate citizen who has been turned down in some matters by officialdom?

The essence of all administration and law is that it should be as open as possible, that there should be nothing of a secretive or hidden nature about the matter, that a decision, when reached, should be founded on definite grounds and that the citizen or official who is aggrieved by that decision should have the grounds communicated to him. When you hand over to a Minister the right to decide certain issues, in practice it means that you are handing over to some anonymous official the right to decide these matters. If he does not decide them per se, he will have a large influence in bringing the Minister's mind to bear upon them. It is quite conceivable that in very busy Departments it would be a physical impossibility for the Minister to decide petty matters.

The weakness of the system is that, first of all, the decision reached by the Minister is reached in the conclave of the Government office; it is reached behind the back of the party interested in the matter; it is reached in an atmosphere of secrecy, perhaps of suspicion. The aggrieved party has no opportunity of challenging the decision. He is concluded by the particular Act. He has no access to the courts to ventilate his grievance and, furthermore, in the process of reaching this decision, he has no means of challenging the officials who are ruling against him.

It may be inevitable that this procedure has to be adopted. I am not questioning that, but what I do question is that where decisions are reached and they lead to grievances, then the citizen or the official so aggrieved should have the right to have an appeal to the courts and have the matter fully thrashed out where the parties to the issue can be examined and cross-examined in the full publicity of a court of law. That is one point I would like to make.

The only other thing I would like to mention is that in all these matters we have to bear in mind that the Minister is not entirely disinterested, that very often he is an interested party and, in any case, where the Minister has an interest in a decision, then I think he should not have the power to reach a final decision at all—that some independent tribunal or method should be found in order to get a fair and equitable decision. The mentality displayed by some of the Ministers is such—I am not saying they are all suffering from this mentality, far from it—as to raise seriously in the minds of every Deputy the necessity for setting up some form of safeguard of the kind I have indicated and of the kind I have been trying to get the Minister for Local Government to accept under the Local Government Bill.

If we must delegate legislation to outside Departments and to subordinate bodies, then this House is entitled to ensure that when that legislation comes to be implemented and administered the citizen will have fair play and the only place, to my mind, where the citizen can get fair play is in the courts of our land. It is not enough to say that the citizen will have the right of appeal to the Minister. That is tantamount to giving the citizen a right to appeal to the devil when the court is held in hell.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Coogan made an excellent speech, with the main material of which I find myself in entire agreement, but it seemed to me to relate to a topic of an entirely different nature from that under discussion in this motion. As I understand the motion, it deals with the question of the making of legislative Orders by Ministers; it has no reference to the other very great evil of the consistent effort of the Executive to set the courts aside and deny the citizen the right to go into court and assert his interest against that of the State if it challenges him.

Deputy de Valera confined himself strictly to the specific evil that is envisaged in the motion and seems to think that we cannot take any measures to mitigate the evil without attacking democracy. I hope he will not thus early fall into the common error that infests those benches, that anyone who criticises the Fianna Fáil Government is attacking democracy. We sometimes think that the Government errs too much on the side of reserving to itself the right to legislate, independent of the Oireachtas, and anyone who has experience of a legislative body such as this cannot but have considerable sympathy with the over-burdened Minister who is trying to get the work of his Department done as expeditiously as possible and who does feel a certain impatience with the somewhat ponderous procedure of a democratic legislative assembly in enacting the law. Nevertheless, it is a very great danger to freedom if bureaucracy is entitled or encouraged to supplant the Legislature in its legislative functions.

It is quite true that, with the increased intervention of the Government, of all Governments, in the everyday lives of the citizen, to legislate in the old Gladstonian way is becoming impracticable, but I think we should try to meet that in two ways. One is to reverse in so far as we can the tendency to ask the Government to intervene in the daily lives of the citizens.

I think it would be a most salutary experience for every Deputy to go out to Ballsbridge. I want to make it clear that, when I had occasion to go there, I received from members of the Civil Service every assistance and courtesy that could be expected. Nevertheless, as I treaded my way under competent guidance through that infernal machine which is the Department of Industry and Commerce at Ballsbridge, I realised the magnitude and the impersonal attitude of that whole vast machine. I could not but think of the small shopkeepers who are my neighbours, who get caught in that huge machine and who, from the moment they make contact with it, cease to be human beings, simply becoming pink files that go through that inalterable and inflexible machine.

There is no use going in and trying to persuade that mighty machine that Mrs. Foley, who told an inspector to go to hell, had sciatica since last week, or that her uncle's nephew was on a drunk the night before and had scandalised the family. The answer of that vast machine is that Mrs. Foley will get the same treatment as every other caller, no more and no less. Looking at it in that way, at hundreds of thousands of pink envelopes, if you invest those they represent with sciatica, you would never get the work done. If you intervene in every detail of people's lives you cannot retain full respect for human frailty and the natural difficulty of each individual citizen, because if you did, you would have to have ten times as many civil servants, and the result would be that all would be civil servants and there would be nobody for the pink envelopes.

If we are to mitigate the problem, our first line of approach should be to relieve the central Government as much as we can of those duties which involve interference with the daily lives of the citizens of this State. I think one way to do that would be to encourage decentralisation. Most Deputies will agree that there is a tendency to draw control of everything to Dublin. That results in turning us all into pink envelopes. Could we reverse the process? Many Deputies will remember the old district councils, which had very small areas of jurisdiction. We knew the councillors, and the councillors knew the people, and when some particular matter relating to social services with which they were dealing arose, they not only knew that an applicant, say Mrs. McGrath, had a sick baby, but they knew that they had been kept awake the night before because, through the back window, they heard the baby roaring. That act of sympathy, of understanding, and recognition of the individuality of those in whose lives our social services are required to intervene, introduced a human element into the relations which made the administration of the social services, and various other services, a more tolerable system than a great centralised machine working at Ballsbridge, which, in the circumstances, must, of its very nature, be impersonal in order to get the work done. That is one way in which this evil might be met. The other way also requires to be looked into.

What this motion complains of is that the Legislature is habitually asked to delegate its legislative functions to Ministers and, on that delegation being made, it virtually abandons its own right to review such legislation as Ministers may have by Order made. It is quite true that they can be brought up on motion or by question in this House, but it is also true, Deputies will agree, that very often members' motions are on the Order Paper for 12 months without being reached. We tried to remedy that in some measure by restricting the time during which Private Members' motions can be discussed to three hours. Without going into details, in effect, and in practice, emergency Orders or Statutory Rules are very rarely raised by way of motion. The general machinery of this House tends rather to prevent that taking place. The right way to do it would be to establish a Standing Committee of the House, which would arrange with representatives of the whole House that each Minister making a Statutory Order would be required to send it the Order, and to place upon that Committee an obligation, either positively to pass it, adopt it, or to have some method whereby they would be deemed to have passed it. That procedure would involve that the Standing Committee for Statutory Rules would meet, say, every Tuesday when the Dáil was sitting, or possibly it might be necessary to meet every Tuesday during the year, except during the holiday period and the long recess, and when it met the duty of the clerk would be to present, or to send in advance, to members an agenda setting out the Orders it would be called upon to approve or reject. The chairman of the meeting would then go through it, as we go through the sub-heads of an Estimate in the Committee of Public Accounts, calling out each Order as he came to it and, if any Deputy wanted to raise an objection or call for an explanation, he could stop the chairman and say, for example: "On item 17 on the agenda there is a point I want to object to", and another Deputy might say: "In regard to No. 19, I simply do not know that Order means." That Committee should have the power to send for persons and papers. In 85 per cent. of cases it would not require to send for either. People often think that if you confer a power of that kind on a Committee of this House it may be abused and that they would be sending for Ministers and busy Secretaries of Departments, calling for files, and so forth. That really in practice is not true. I was seven years Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, with power to draw all the files in the Government offices if I wanted to. I suppose most Fianna Fáil Deputies, had they realised that they were conferring that power upon me, would have fainted away at the thought of my being constituted chairman but, in fact, I only drew seven files in the whole time I was chairman. We did not do it. It does not become necessary to do it. Outside this Chamber, Deputies usually behave very reasonably and if you exclude the Press, and if you exclude, better still, the official reporters, everybody becomes astonishingly reasonable after the first couple of days.

Donnchadh O Briain

Including the Deputy.

Mr. L.J. Walsh

Including the Deputy himself.

Mr. Dillon

I abstain from personalities in that regard and I suggest to our friend, the Deputy from Drogheda, that he will emulate my excellent example. Thus, I think, the essential control of this House over legislation would be preserved. I am one of those old-fashioned people who believe that the preservation intact of fundamental principles is an immensely important thing. Even though much of what one is doing is of a formal nature, so long as the observation of that form operates to preserve a fundamental principle, it is good and useful and so long as the Legislature retains and insists upon its ultimate right to have all legislation submitted to it or to its appointed delegate, a standing committee of itself, a very important principle is preserved.

The last word I want to say is this: usually when I make suggestions of this kind in the House everybody shakes his head angrily. Almost invariably, within five years, they do what I have suggested and say then that somebody else proposed it. You will see this standing committee set up some time, not in the immediate future, but sometime. It is quite inevitable and will certainly be done. When it does come to pass I want to remind the Taoiseach, who is present, and the members of the front Opposition Bench of the Labour Party, who may then constitute the Government, that such a proposal as I have in mind will involve a very heavy additional burden of work on the Deputies who constitute the membership of that committee. I take this occasion to refer to it because, if you establish special committees of this House, there are two alternatives, one, that the Deputies on them will not do their work and the other that, if the Deputies on them do their work and attend to their Parliamentary duties as well, they will have no time to do anything else. That is a serious difficulty.

If a man is trying to earn his living, and finds that faithfully to discharge the duties he has undertaken in connection with Parliament occupies so much of his time that he has no time to earn his living, that is a problem which Parliament will have to face. If you provide a special supplementary allowance designed to compensate members of standing committees for the extra work they do—let us be plain and frank—what is going to happen is that all the lame ducks in the House will line up at once for accommodation on the special committee. Trailing wings will appear outside the Taoiseach's office, outside the Leader of the Opposition's office, outside the Leader of the Labour Party's office, outside Deputy Blowick's office and even, I have no doubt, though I hesitate to be rude, it is possible there might be a trailing wing outside the office of the National Labour Party. I am in the happy position that I cannot trail a wing to myself. I stand alone. There is that problem and it is a very difficult one. The right course would be to enable members of a standing committee of that character to receive an allowance from the Legislature which will enable them to give as much time to their work as Parliamentary Secretaries give, but I see no escape from the difficulty that, if you do that, you will have a committee of lame ducks. That is a problem for which probably we will find some solution.

In the meantime I recommend that the evil complained of in this motion should be met (1) by a limitation of bureaucracy; (2) by an assertion by this House of its unique right to legislate for the country and, in the event of delegation of these powers becoming necessary, that this House should delegate it to its own committee and not to any Minister in the certainty that such a committee will expeditiously dispose of every Order submitted to it and will constitute itself no real clog on the efficient discharge of executive duties.

Mr. O'Connor

Deputy Coogan stated that Deputy de Valera had failed to make a case against this motion. That, I think, was a rather peculiar way of putting it. He should have said that the proposers of this motion had failed to make any case whatever in favour of it. It is rather remarkable that, during some hours' discussion in reference to the Statutory Rules and Orders, we have not had a specific reference to even one of them. Not one number has been quoted. One would imagine that to come to this House and ask for a Select Committee to be appointed one would need to be in possession of a mass of facts and detail showing the great hardships that had been suffered by our people by reason of this practice of legislation by Order. Not one single Order was quoted. Not one single instance of any hardship or injustice was cited.

Mr. Dillon

If the Deputy wants to ask this kind of question, he will get an answer.

Mr. Byrne

The standstill Order on wages.

The Taoiseach

Has not that been discussed several times before the House?

Mr. O'Connor

Deputy Anthony said he was not dealing with Orders made as a result of the emergency and I do not propose to deal with them either.

Mr. Dillon

I am surprised, Deputy.

Mr. O'Connor

Deputy Anthony, realising that he was failing to make a case, informed us that he had the material upon which his case would have been based but, unfortunately, he had left it behind him. I accept that from Deputy Anthony without any hesitation, but I suggest, when he found he had not got the material upon which his motion was intended to be based, he could have asked this House to adjourn the motion or he could have abandoned it, but simply to put up the motion without giving any grounds for it is wasting the time of this House. Deputy Alfred Byrne did not attempt to give any facts upon which the motion might be based but one does not expect facts from Deputy Byrne.

Mr. Byrne

I wanted to let the Deputy in first. I will come in later.

Mr. O'Connor

I would never expect facts from him. It has been suggested that Ministers were anxious to evade responsibility by vesting authority in civil servants. I have never heard Ministers adopting that attitude. I have always heard Ministers stating that the officials are the Ministers' officials: Ministers have always accepted full and complete responsibility for their actions. Some of the earlier speakers to the motion suggested that the civil servants wanted wider powers and suggested that it would be an evil thing to give the civil servants such powers. A stranger listening to these remarks might well wonder of what race or breed of men these civil servants were, and where did they come from, and would be surprised if he were told that these are our own people, that we have some of the best brains in the country in the Civil Service. Deputy Dillon says civil servants treat our people as being just a pink envelope. That is not my experience of civil servants.

Mr. Dillon

That is a grotesque misrepresentation of my remarks. It is a specious one.

Mr. O'Connor

I have found, dealing with officials, that you will get as much understanding and sympathy from officials as you will get from any of our judicial functionaries. Thousands of these Orders have been made in recent years.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Connor

And I expect there will be thousands more in the years to come.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Connor

Does the Deputy want to say that again? I will wait every time.

Mr. Dillon

I will give you a signal.

Mr. O'Connor

Thanks. If there had been any hardship, if any person had been deprived of his rights by any one of these Orders, surely we would have had the specific case and the specific detail quoted to us?

Mr. Dillon

There is a case going on in the law courts at present about it.

Mr. O'Connor

By failing to quote any specific instance, the proposers of this motion have completely failed to make any case for it. The motion states that the Orders are made without the prior approval of the Oireachtas. That would be impossible. Under our Constitution no Minister can get power to make Orders or regulations except from the Oireachtas. The Act must first be passed by the Oireachtas, and then the Minister has power to make the Orders.

Deputy Coogan would appear to be satisfied with the making of Orders if a right of appeal was given to the courts. He did not mention any specific case. There are many Acts under which these Orders are made. There are many types of cases, and I cannot say what was in his mind or for what type of case he would like to have a right of appeal to the courts. The Deputy knows that at the present time our courts are fully occupied. He cannot point to any court, from the District Court up to the Supreme Court, which has not sufficient work to keep it going. I wonder did he try to visualise what would be the position of our courts if a right of appeal against every Order made by a Minister was given. How many courts would you need; how many lawyers would you need? The entire financial resources of the State might be needed to pay for the courts alone, if you gave the right that Deputy Coogan suggests you should give.

Mr. Dillon

I am not surprised that Deputy de Valera is fleeing from his friends.

Mr. Coogan

Expenditure should not be a hindrance to justice.

Mr. O'Connor

If you have got the money. Some of the words used by other Deputies sounded rather strange in a State like this, such as "despotism,""despotic control,""bureaucracy," etc. Reference was also made to the statement of the chairman of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce who said: "We are rapidly approaching that totalitarian structure." I deprecate those statements. We are all proud of our Constitution; we are all proud of our democratic institutions. I do not know of any other country which has better or more democratic institutions than ours. I think it is most undesirable that these slanders should be uttered, particularly when they are slanders, not against an individual, but against the State itself. The Minister who takes power and accepts himself as being the sole arbiter in anything displays great courage. Having accepted such power, if anything goes wrong he cannot come to the House and say: "I would have put this right if I had the power." He accepts the power and, with the power, he accepts the responsibility. Overriding all this is the basic fact that when a Minister gets power to make regulations he does not get the power for the remainder of his life, as was mentioned by Deputy Coogan. He has only this power so long as he remains a Minister, and the people of our State have the right, at least every five years, to say whether they will continue to have such a Minister in office or not. The voters are the arbiters and the final court of appeal. To suggest that there is anything undemocratic in that procedure is mere propaganda.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This debate must conclude at 1.30 p.m. and Deputy Anthony must get some time to reply. Deputy Byrne, who formally seconded the motion, also reserved his right to speak.

The Taoiseach

I should like to say a few words on behalf of the Government.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If the House wishes to continue the debate until 2 o'clock it could be done by suspending Standing Order No. 83 with the unanimous consent of the House.

The Taoiseach

If there is a vote called for what happens?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

At 2 o'clock?

The Taoiseach

You can have a vote?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If the House unanimously agrees.

The Taoiseach

Can we have a vote on the motion at 2 o'clock?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

You can have a vote.

Mr. Anthony

I would be satisfied with 10 or 12 minutes to reply, or even less if any other Deputy wants to speak.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If the House wishes to carry on until 2 o'clock, it will be necessary to suspend Standing Order No. 83. Is that agreed?

Agreed.

Mr. Flanagan

I support the motion. I can recall that in 1937, when the Taoiseach was speaking in my constituency, he dwelt for some time on the rights of citizens. He dealt very ably with the question of democracy on that occasion. The reason why I could not forget the Taoiseach's speech on that night is because I was beside him on the platform. As a matter of fact, I was holding an umbrella over his head on that very wet night in Portlaoighise. I can recall every word of his speech. It was a complete statement of his future policy, which, he said, was going to be completely democratic. The Taoiseach usually comes into this House with encyclopædias or dictionaries when he wants to get round corners. I see he has some of these with him to-day, and very probably he is going to give us some information as to what dictatorship means from some of the encyclopædias or dictionaries he is accustomed to consulting when confronted with criticism.

Deputy O'Connor said that no examples had been quoted by the supporters of the motion of any difficulties or inconvenience caused to citizens as a result of Orders made by a Minister. I can say that the vast majority of the work which I have to do as a Deputy is as a result of inconveniences caused by taking away the liberties and rights of citizens. Take, for example, the huge machinery of the Department of Industry and Commerce, which Deputy Dillon referred to. Deputy O'Connor told us that thousands of Orders were made by the Government since the emergency. We know very well that there were cases where the citizens' rights were completely taken away from them by Orders made by the Department of Supplies and the Department of Industry and Commerce. For example, during the emergency, as Deputy O'Connor must know, there was only a limited number of motor cars on the roads. Complaints were made that motors were used to take people to races and to football matches and the report of the local Gárda or civil servant was accepted in each case, with the result that the owners of these cars were completely deprived of their means of livelihood by the Department of Supplies at the time under an Order introduced by the Minister. Such a citizen did not get an opportunity of proving that he had not his car at the races or the football match, or was not doing any other kind of work than that which he was legally entitled to do in order to secure a livelihood.

The same thing applies to rationing. We have had various cases in which small shopkeepers were charged under an Emergency Powers Order with failing to keep records. These people's licences were taken from them and their business was completely closed down and they were deprived of means of earning their livelihood. From our own experience we know that injustices are committed every other day against citizens because they are being penalised to a great extent as a result of the enforcement of Emergency Powers Orders. If they disobey the word of a Minister their permits are withdrawn and their means of livelihood is taken from them. The famous standstill Order prevents men getting an increase in their wages. As regards all these matters, there is no question of appeal. It is very hard on the general body of traders, and on people with small shops, that if their licences to sell tea and sugar and other commodities are taken from them that they have no right of appeal. They may make an appeal to the Minister to alter the decision taken by his Department, but the reply they get is that he sees no reason for making a departure from the decision already given.

I believe that we have a complete dictatorship so far as the making of Emergency Powers Orders is concerned, just as I believe that the County Management Act represents a dictatorship. The only difference that I see between the dictators in this country and the European and other dictators is that the latter sometimes bump themselves off while our dictators do not. I think our people are becoming alive to the fact that democracy has never got a chance here. Deputy Vivion de Valera said that democracy must be encouraged. In other words, he said, democracy must be catered for in order to prove its good result for our people. In my opinion, the vast majority of the Emergency Powers Orders made by members of the Government were to the detriment of citizens who have no means whatever of making any defence against them. We have now reached the stage when Parliament is being ignored. Yesterday the Taoiseach was asked a question about statements of national importance.

An Ceann Comhairle

That does not arise on this motion. This is not an Emergency Powers Order.

Mr. Flanagan

I believe that all questions relating to administration should be discussed in this House. Parliament should be consulted first. It is in Parliament that the laws are made and, therefore, I submit that future Government policy should first be discussed and, if necessary, criticised in Parliament. What I find is that Parliament is being more and more completely ignored. I realise, of course, that Ministers must have power to do various things, especially during a war or an emergency. It was for that reason that, at the beginning of the emergency, there was very little opposition in this House to the delegation of powers to Ministers. During the emergency period we were silent on the question of these Emergency Powers Orders because we believed that a certain number of them were necessary at that time. We had a Press censorship during the war, but that ended with the return of normal conditions in the world. To our astonishment, however, a number of these Emergency Powers Orders that, I think, are detrimental to the people, are being continued and, as one Deputy pointed out, some of them, such as the wages standstill Order—the most hated Emergency Powers Order of all —are being enshrined in our permanent legislation. That is one of the dangers that I see, especially in view of the fact that the emergency ended nine months ago. I think it was Deputy O'Connor who said that many more of these Orders are likely to be made. That will not be very encouraging news for our citizens who have been victims of these Orders.

I think that this motion, tabled by Deputy Anthony and Deputy Byrne, is a very useful one. I hope that the Taoiseach, when replying, will realise the grave danger such Orders as these are to the rights and liberties of our citizens. With Deputy Dillon, I trust that a committee will be appointed by the House for the purpose of considering the Emergency Powers Orders that are made by Ministers. I think that if we had such a committee, representative of all Parties in the House, Ministers would not make such drastic Orders as they have been making, and that the work of the committee would be productive of good results. The position is, I think, that Ministers have got too much power. They have taken complete power from Parliament. I hope that the committee will be set up, and that any recommendations it makes will be considered by the Government. A very useful debate has taken place on this motion, and I trust that good results will follow for those members of the House who are interested in the preservation of the rights and liberties of the citizens.

The Taoiseach

Deputy Flanagan seems to be interested in the books that I have here with me. I do sometimes bring books with me because I find that people use words without, apparently, taking the trouble to understand them. Therefore, instead of giving my own views as to the meaning of words, I sometimes think that those who wish to understand might listen somewhat better to a standard book on the subject than they would to a statement of mine. When Deputy Flanagan said that he had held an umbrella over me at a meeting at which I spoke about democracy, and added that he had never forgotten the speech, I was wondering whether he had learned very much from it, because he does not seem to understand very clearly what democracy is.

In dealing with this subject that is before us to-day, one can say that the older members amongst us have our longings for the spacious days of long ago. I must say that I regret, as I am sure many other members of the House do, the passing out of the saddle horse and the four-in-hand: the passing of the days when the village shoemaker was able to superintend, in absolute detail, the work of his journeymen, and to take a pride in the work of his own hands, and in the work of their hands. I share, as I say, the regret of these people for those days. If we could bring back some of the features of those days we would be very happy, but, unfortunately, those days are gone, and, I am afraid, gone for ever. We have no longer the saddle horse and the four-in-hand: we have now the motor car, the swift motor car. On the seas, in the matter of communication between Continents, we no longer have the old sailing vessel: we have the swift aeroplane; and we might as well think of the days of the dip candle when we are talking about this matter, forget the development of the open gas jet and the superseding filament lamp, go back to the old days of the dip candle and think that such days are possible now. But we simply cannot do that, whether we like it or not, and some of us do not like it at all. The Government, and legislation generally, have nowadays to intervene very much in what would be regarded as the private concerns of the individual, but none the less it is a fact—and we cannot get away from it—that as a result of all these developments you now have hundreds of legislative enactments where you had only to have one or two before. In the old days, Parliament had to concern itself only with keeping law and order, with collecting taxes and revenues, and with defending the State, but now it is an entirely different problem, and what we have to deal with now are the problems of the present day.

I think it was Deputy Costello who said that between 1922 and 1932 something like 3,000 Orders were made here. Whether that is right or not I do not know, but supposing that there were hundreds of Orders made, does not that show that the enactment of these laws was due to something that was happening at the time and not due to something that had been done by the present Government? Deputy Costello, incidentally, was not slow to suggest that it was due to the despotic ideas of the present Government, and suggested that it was because we were really, at heart, dictators. Now, when I was listening to Deputy Costello, and when he was lecturing us on dictators and all the rest of it, my mind went back to a certain time, when a certain Bill with regard to the wearing of uniforms was passing through this House. Deputy Costello was opposing the passage of that Bill, and here is an extract from his speech— it is in Volume 50, column 2237 of the Official Debates. Deputy Costello, on that occasion, said:—

"The Minister gave extracts from various laws on the Continent, but he carefully refrained from drawing attention to the fact that the Black Shirts were victorious in Italy and that the Hitler Shirts were victorious in Germany, as, assuredly, in spite of this Bill, and in spite of the Public Safety Act, the Blue Shirts will be victorious in the Irish Free State."

Now, one would imagine that, of all people, the last to talk about dictatorships, and all the rest of it, would be Deputy Costello, and this whole suggestion that the device of Statutory Orders was a device by this Government, and was indicative of their desire to get dictatorial control, is something which is harmful to the country both internally and externally. The truth is—and everybody knows that it is true—that we are at the moment one of the most democratic States on this earth. Our Constitution gives our people fundamental control. They are the masters. They cannot, of course, be masters from hour to hour. We might as well go back, as I have said, to the days of the dip candle as to try to go back to the days when the whole community could meet in assembly and keep control day after day. We cannot keep control—the people cannot keep control—in that sense. The way the people keep control is by having a representative Assembly, an Assembly representing them, which will legislate and control the Government. Now, we have that here, and we have it in a wider sense here than they have it in Britain, because here we have proportional representation. I do not want to say that proportional representation will give you, or can give you, representation of every political point of view, or every other point of view, that might be held in the country, but we have here a representative Assembly, and it is through this representative Assembly that the control of the people works.

Now, this Assembly has two main functions. Its first function is the making of laws, and no law is made in this country without the prior consent of this Assembly. It is with the prior consent of the representatives of the people that every legislative enactment is made here, whether directly, in the case of the Bills that we pass, or, indirectly, through the powers that are given to individuals or bodies under their control. The first is the legislative power. The next power that this Assembly has is the power of control of the Executive. We have here in this country a system corresponding to the system they have in Britain, in which the Executive body —the Government here—is dependent from day to day on getting the approval of Parliament: getting the approval, I mean, of the Dáil, here, which is this branch of the Legislature. If a majority in this House—a majority representing the people—at any time finds fault with either the collective acts of the Government or with the act of a Minister, that will mean—it must mean—that the Government has to be changed or that the Minister must be changed. A Government cannot exist in this country except by the support of the majority of the people, as represented in this House. How, then, can anybody say that this Parliament, or the people, as represented by it, are losing control, or have lost control, as long as those who make the subordinate legislation are responsible to them?

That is the position. If the attitude of the Dáil is to be that they must be in a position to supervise at all times every act of the Executive, then it means that they must think of themselves as the Executive; they cannot do that, but that is what the device of having a Standing Committee of the Dáil set up to deal with such matters amounts to. The Dáil realises, however, that they are not in a position to follow and supervise at each particular minute the Executive acts which are necessary, but it is quite wrong to suggest that therefore in this State the people, through their representative Assembly, are not constantly in control.

What we do here is what is ordinarily done in business. In a business you have a board of directors, and they have the authority to delegate to certain managers executive power of deciding matters from minute to minute and from hour to hour. That is done as a matter of necessity. It is the same thing here. There is no other way in which executive power could be carried out except by delegating that power, as you do, to the Government, and then holding the Government responsible. Now you must give them power to do that; and it is a good general principle, if you want work done, which you cannot do immediately yourself, to give to some other person the power of doing it and hold him responsible for his acts. That is what is done here. The Government is given power to do certain things, and you hold the Government responsible for its acts, and if at any time this House disapproves of any act of a Minister or of the Government, and shows its disapproval by a vote against it, then that means the end of that particular administrator or of that particular administration.

Surely, then, that being the case, nobody can suggest for one moment that you have not democracy working fully here. Just as this House could not make itself responsible for the day-to-day carrying out of acts of the Executive, so this House is not capable of enacting all the legislation that is necessary in modern conditions. Portion of it must be delegated. As has been stated, this matter has been fully examined several times and everybody who has given it any attention has been forced to admit that this system is necessary but that there are dangers in it.

There are always dangers when you delegate powers but, if you do not delegate them, the work will not be done. If you want the work done, you must delegate it and then ask yourself what safeguards you can have. The matter has been somewhat complicated in the debate by the introduction of Emergency Powers Orders. The emergency has, naturally, been present to our minds. A greater number of Orders were made during the emergency than would have been made in a normal period. I shall refer to them only for a moment. Everybody recognises, particularly those who are interested in democratic control, that, if democracy is to survive in a crisis, then democracy must give practically plenary powers to the Executive. The necessary swiftness of action would not be possible without that. The Dáil, like other Parliaments in similar circumstances, recognised that fact. It gave, with certain limitations, practically unlimited powers to the Executive. We have passed through six years of emergency. Deputies opposite may say that, during that time, we did certain things that were wrong but I do not think that any Deputy can honestly say that those powers were abused with a view to getting dictatorial control.

Mr. D. Morrissey

They were certainly abused.

The Taoiseach

That is the Deputy's opinion, to which he is, of course, entitled. We do not admit that those powers were abused and we did not believe at any time that they were being abused. I am sure that the Deputy will not say they were abused with a view to getting dictatorial control.

Mr. D. Morrissey

That is the whole tendency.

The Taoiseach

When you have to act swiftly and when you cannot wait for consultation the tendency in those circumstances is to act. Those who have the responsibility will act under those conditions. If you call that dictatorship, I am afraid we shall have to go to the dictionaries again.

Mr. Dillon

Eschew the dictionaries and Maureen O'Hara and let us wrestle with the matter with our own intelligence.

The Taoiseach

The Deputy sometimes requires to be instructed, just as Deputy Flanagan requires to be instructed.

Mr. Dillon

I thought that Maureen O'Hara had instructed——

The Taoiseach

Maureen O'Hara served a very useful purpose in bringing a certain question to the attention of the Irish people and other peoples. Speaking of that, I may tell you that the Press report was all wrong. It was only in a private examination, apparently, that this question was put up. It was not put up by the judge in public, and the judge did take the view that she had no allegiance other than allegiance to this State.

Mr. D. Morrissey

And she repudiated that allegiance.

The Taoiseach

Sometimes, when we are using words, it is necessary that they should have a common meaning. The nature of the emergency demanded swift action. Those who were responsible had to take that swift action. If it is suggested that that was done for the purpose of obtaining dictatorial control, I wonder why the Dáil gave the powers. They gave the powers and would give them again. They would have to give them again in a crisis of that sort.

Mr. D. Morrissey

We would have to get some guarantees.

The Taoiseach

In a crisis of that magnitude, the Deputy would not be able to get guarantees, which would mean that those immediately responsible for executive action would be helpless. Deputy Costello referred to my appeal at the last election for a strong Government. Again, the suggestion was that, because I appealed for a strong Government—which I believed was the best thing for the community—we wanted a dictatorship. The trouble with the Opposition is that they will not accept the fact that they are a minority and that decisions can be taken only by a majority vote. There is no other way.

Mr. D. Morrissey

It is a pity you did not always believe that.

The Taoiseach

I did and always stood for it.

Mr. Morrissey

A majority has no right to do wrong.

The Taoiseach

I am not responsible for many statements that were ascribed to me. I did stand for that principle, and, what is more, I stood for the constitutional State which was established. It was not I who was pulling down the State. However, I do not want to go into the events of that period. As regards the reference to a strong Government, an English professor was quoted by the Deputy to indicate that behind that was the philosophy of dictatorship. I have here a book by an Irishman, a Professor of History, who was, I think, formerly associated with some of the Deputies on the opposite benches.

Mr. Flanagan

It is not Webster, by any chance?

The Taoiseach

This is a recent book on "Election and Representation" by James Hogan, Doctor of Literature, Professor of History, University College, Cork. As a Professor of History here, I think that he knows more about our circumstances and conditions than would somebody in Oxford or a member of the King's Inns in London.

He says:—

"As anarchy, the parent of tyranny, is the malady to which representative democracy is most characteristically susceptible, and as impotence in government is invariably the immediate author or occasion of anarchy, it follows that representative democracy can afford, in less measure than any other type of political régime, to dispense with the conditions of self-reliant, firm, consecutive government. The great complexity of the economic, social and international conditions to which a modern democracy has to adapt itself, if it is to survive, calls for increased Government action in very many directions. Hence, far from having decreased, the need for strengthening the function of government has greatly increased. No one who has fairly studied the evidence can doubt that one of the major factors in the decline of the Parliamentary system has been its failure to develop itself as efficiently on the executive as on the legislative side.

If we may accept as universally valid a political proposition which in effect is directly challenged only by those who repudiate the principle of government as such, that is to say, if we acknowledge that government to be good must be effective, then it follows that democratic government, like any other form of government, must needs possess within its assigned constitutional and legal limits a real freedom of judgment, initiative, and action in all matters where the ordering of the affairs of the community is concerned. When, furthermore, we have to concede, whether we like it or not, that there is no other practical way of avoiding under modern conditions the extremes of chaos or dictatorship than to accept a considerable extension of the functions and activities of government, it will be evident that there could be no fallacy more disastrous in its consequences than to think of the representative process as primarily designed to neutralise, checkmate, or obstruct the activities of government. There are the strongest reasons why we should welcome, under almost any conceivable circumstances, the possession of a strong and constant majority in Parliament by whatever properly - constituted Government happens to be in office."

That is a calm and philosophic consideration of the problems of government in modern times by a man who knows intimately the conditions here. I asked at the elections for a strong Government. I asked for a consecutiveness of government in order that policy might be carried out and I am no more dictatorial in mind than is that author. I stood for that for the same reason as he does. What the Opposition seems to want at every stage is to reduce the Government to impotence so that it will be ineffective and cannot do its work, possibly hoping that by that means another Government will be got into office. We do not propose to allow ourselves, if we can help it, at any stage to be reduced to the position of the old man and his ass in the fable which used to be in the school-books in the old days. We believe there are certain things which ought to be done and we want to have the machinery by which we can do them. We want the majority by which we can do them and, so far, we have been supplied with that majority.

Any proposals coming from the opposite benches designed to make democratic control more effective will certainly be considered and if at all possible adopted by us. I am anxious to see this Assembly, as representing the people, effectively in control, in control all the time and I can see no better way of achieving that than by the Government's delegating—it has to delegate its executive functions—in so far as it is necessary its legislative functions, on the understanding that it can hold those who make these Orders responsible. No suggestion of any kind has been put up in the debate to enable us to deal with that problem.

Mr. Dillon

Oh, yes, I put forward some concrete suggestions.

The Taoiseach

I was going to say that no new suggestion has been put up because that is not a new suggestion. It is one of the safeguards referred to in the Donoughmore Report.

Mr. Dillon

I never read the Donoughmore Report.

The Taoiseach

Even before that, it was suggested in this House as a remedy. It is worth examining and I shall give it some consideration. I also sympathise with those—I think it was Deputy Dillon made the suggestion —who say that there should be more decentralisation. I believe in decentralisation and I should like to see it in operation. The only trouble about it is that the machinery for it, on account of the work that would be involved, would have to be generally so elaborate that it would become very costly, because you would have to give to the local authorities, if they were going to be effective, all the machinery which would enable them to deal with various problems and it would become very expensive. Whether we should stop just at that is another question. I deplore—I do not know whether Deputies who accuse me of dictatorship would believe me but it is true—the fact that we are driven by modern conditions to centralise more and more because I regret that human beings who have to be dealt with, should be simply names in pink files. I dislike that but I cannot help it.

If we are dealing with, say, the petrol position in the country, nobody can suggest that you can deal with it by allowing each particular person to plead as an excuse for a breach of the regulations that he was using his motor car for a good purpose. I have seen a case where a doctor appealed and stated—there is a possibility that the statement was true—that he went to a race meeting in his car for the purpose of attending a case there or some excuse of that kind. That may be true; I do not know, but how would it be possible for the Department to deal with affairs, if it had to examine cases like that in detail and test them out to see whether in fact the excuses given were genuine or not? We have a problem, and we cannot deal with it otherwise than in the manner in which we have been dealing with it here. These Statutory Orders are simply something that has evolved out of the complexity of modern life. The objection taken to that is that they have been evolved unsystematically.

There has been a great deal of examination with a view to having greater system in the procedure, and various suggestions have been made. My own belief is that the best safeguard we can have is that when a Bill comes in here which gives the right to delegate powers, it should be scrutinised carefully, that the nature of the powers should be carefully examined, and that those who are opposed to giving such powers should give their reasons for opposing the delegation of those powers. It is at that stage that the most effective control can be exercised, and if the powers are abused, the person who abused them can be called to account by the House. I cannot see any other way of dealing with it.

In regard to the other matter, I have already seen it in the Donoughmore Report, and have given a certain amount of consideration to it personally, but I have not discussed it with my colleagues, and have not come to any decision as to whether or not it would be practicable. As Deputy Dillon said, in speaking of it, it obviously can be abused by those who want to checkmate the executive—to use the phrase from Professor Hogan's book— and prevent it from being effective. If it were used as Deputy Dillon proposed, a great deal of the dangers would disappear, but one has to face the other possibility.

I think the mover of the motion has done everything he wanted to do by getting this matter discussed. There would be nothing new to be learned by setting up a committee. The Deputy probably has not had an opportunity to read this report. If he reads it, he will find that, on account of the similarity of circumstances, practically everything that would suggest itself to him as a thing to be examined has been examined, and conclusions have been arrived at. I think he will agree that the conclusions arrived at are the same conclusions as we would arrive at here.

Mr. Byrne

The Minister for Local Government and Public Health has not much faith in that report.

The Taoiseach

I do not know the circumstances, as I was not present at the debate. I do not know what view the Minister has taken on it. All I can say is that, as far as we have seen it, and with regard to the particular question we have here at issue, that committee, composed of Lord Donoughmore, Professor Laski and a whole range of people with different political views on various matters, having examined all the circumstances thoroughly—and they were not different from our own circumstances— arrived at conclusions which are supported by such arguments as to convince anyone who reads the report.

I think honestly that it would be a waste of time to set up a committee to find out to what extent the present procedure here is inconsistent with the powers which the Oireachtas should exercise. It does not seem possible to have now the day-to-day control which was possible in former times. The only question that arises is whether there are any methods of control we can adopt to keep closer contact with what is being done and supervise it better. Is there some better supervising machine than we have at the moment? If any members of the Opposition have a proposal to make, they can make it, but the only suggestion I have heard is that from Deputy Dillon. I have been considering that point and I think a committee has already been set up in Britain to consider it. It is a matter for consideration as to whether we should follow their example in that regard. Apart from that, I do not think anything would be gained by an inquiry such as the Deputy suggests. I would not wish to have a division on this motion and I urge the Deputy strongly to be satisfied with the discussion that has taken place and with the fact that he has drawn attention here to a thing which undoubtedly is dangerous. He might leave it at that and leave the Government an opportunity to consider whether it is possible to adopt the proposition with regard to some committee or other.

Mr. Cosgrave

I agree that Deputies Anthony and Byrne have done a good service by introducing this motion. It is principally lawyers who are afflicted by the provisions of Statutory Rules and Orders, but it is the public who are affected by them. Some Deputies may not realise that, under emergency powers legislation and under Statutory Rules and Orders, the provisions contained in those Orders have the full effect of law. Time and again, individuals are brought before the court and find themselves arraigned on charges under these Orders. The duty then devolves on the individual's legal advisers to ascertain the provisions of the law on a particular point. It was said lately that it was practically impossible to ascertain what the local government law in this country is at the moment. That is perfectly true. Most of the local government laws are contained in statues enacted either by the British Parliament or by this Parliament. Deputies who try to consider what the law is, as enacted by various Orders, will realise that it is very complex and difficult. The local government law and the rent restrictions code are two very different spheres in which the law is widespread and affects almost daily a large number of people.

It is practically impossible to ascertain precisely what the law is on a particular point. Most Emergency Powers Orders run something like this: "Emergency Powers (No. 20) Order, 1940 (Second Amendment) Order, 1942." Not even a lawyer has the slightest idea what that Order deals with. He has to look into the Order and then sees it begins: "In this Order, the expression ‘the principal Order' means the Emergency Powers (No. 20) Order (S.R. & O., No. 2), 1940." Deputies who have had occasion to look for these Orders in the Oireachtas Library will find there is there an admirable system of filing Orders, alphabetically and numerically. It is easy for Deputies to realise that the Librarians are there for that purpose, but outside this House, not even in the Law Library, there is nowhere such an efficient system of filing and there is difficulty in ascertaining the law on a particular point.

You cannot look the Orders up alphabetically because "No. 20 Order, 1940" conveys nothing, not even to a lawyer, until he ascertains the provisions. People affected are placed in the difficulty of securing both a numerical and an alphabetical compilation. There is even one case where there is an Emergency Powers Order No. 41 (f) of 1941, signed by the Taoiseach on the 31st December, 1941. It was a most drastic Order, by which the Government, in exercise of the powers conferred on them by the Emergency Powers Acts, 1939 to 1941, named four persons then in custody and ordered them to be brought before a court. Under another Order, they were indicted on a certain charge. As far as I am aware, that Order was never on sale and was made out only in typescript. There is not a printed form of that Order available either in the Oireachtas Library or elsewhere.

I think there is a strong case to be made. That is, possibly, an extreme example, but still it is an example of an Order which placed certain people in custody and ordered them to be tried before a special court. That Order was signed by the Taoiseach on the 31st December, 1941. It was not tabled in the Dáil until the 28th January, 1942. Deputies will realise that almost a month had elapsed and the provisions of the Order could have been completely carried out within the month before the members of this House would have had an opportunity of drawing attention to the gravity of an Order of that kind and the fact that it had not been made available to Deputies or to the public.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is now 1.50 p.m. There are only ten minutes left to the proposer of the motion.

Mr. Cosgrave

I will give Deputy Anthony his chance and, with a few more sentences, I will conclude. We have heard many lectures on democracy here and it strikes me that the Fianna Fáil Deputies are like Hamlet when he said: "The lady doth protest too much." I would refer those Deputies to a speech made by the present Soviet Foreign Minister on democracy. It was made within the last month and in that speech he said his Government was one of the most democratic Governments in the world. I am sure he is as convinced of his opinion, and the soundness of it on that policy, as Fianna Fáil Deputies are on theirs.

The Taoiseach

What about the Deputy's?

Mr. Cosgrave

I think Fianna Fáil protests too much, just like Shakespeare's Hamlet.

The Taoiseach

What about the Deputy's opinion?

Mr. Byrne

As regards this motion, which was put down in the names of Deputy Anthony and myself, I may say that we felt that the supremacy of Parliament was being undermined and that its powers were being minimised by the rapid growth of legislation by means of delegating powers. In an effort to stop that growth and the continuous minimising of Parliamentary powers, we put down this motion.

Deputy de Valera to-day used the Donoughmore Report to a great extent to support his claims. He and others quoted that report as a great authority. I believe it is a great authority, but yesterday the Minister for Local Government tore the Donoughmore Report to pieces and said it was not a document that had been accepted as reliable by the British Parliament. Now, members on the Government Benches cannot have it both ways.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, they can, and always have.

Mr. Byrne

It has been quoted in one instance as unreliable and, in another instance, it has been quoted as a great authority. I believe it is a great authority. I think this motion will result in some kind of good being done. We were encouraged by the Taoiseach's statement to-day. I believe the time that the House has given to this motion has been time well spent.

Mr. Anthony

I have only five or six minutes in which to reply. In accordance with the promise that I gave, I endeavoured to get some facts and some data which would enable me to reply more effectively than I otherwise could have done if I were without those necessary facts and data. I was prepared to reply effectively, but now I find I have only five or six minutes in which to make that reply. Of course, that is due to my generosity in giving way.

An Ceann Comhairle

If the Deputy had appealed to the Chair, he would have been called upon earlier.

Mr. Anthony

I am quite encouraged by the fact that this motion has given rise to a very important and illuminating debate, which was conducted without any recriminations and without any heat being introduced from any side. I had intended to refer to the way in which the administration was carried out during the time of the British occupation and I intended to draw attention to the legislation by which our country was governed at that time, particularly with relation to local government. Those Acts were amended from time to time in our own Parliament, and we took away whatever little liberty was possessed by the citizen even under the British régime.

In the British House of Commons orders are made from time to time and they are known as Orders in Council. They correspond somewhat to the Orders made under the delegating powers which our Ministers have been given. I am not against the idea, under the conditions mentioned by the Taoiseach a moment ago. I am not opposed to the delegation of certain powers under modern conditions. I want to reject the insinuations made by some members of the Fianna Fáil Party that offence was intended or given to civil servants. I have the greatest regard and respect for our Civil Service. The members of that service are second to none in any country in the world, and I want it to be made quite clear that there was no intention on the part of any Deputy speaking from this side of the House whether as an Independent, as a member of Fine Gael or the Labour Party, to cast any aspersions on the civil servants of this State, as such. They are the servants of a system imposed upon them by this Government.

I was encouraged by the way in which the Taoiseach met this motion. He has at least given some kind of hope, as he favours certain reforms along the lines indicated in the motion, though he is not prepared at the moment to make any drastic changes in this method of power delegation. Perhaps he may not be unwilling to undertake the responsibility, as has been done in other countries, of lessening the amount of delegated power.

I suggested in my opening speech on Wednesday that a body such as our Committee on Procedure and Privileges might be made use of to fulfil the purpose that the council in Britain fulfils, the body that issues Orders in Council. I said, as an alternative, that if there was any emergency situation arising you could have a Committee of the House set up, representative of all Parties, the members being resident within easy reach of Dublin, so that they could be summoned at ten minutes' notice—or they might live in the City of Dublin, if necessary. I threw out that suggestion because I feel that some body of that nature should be established.

I was further encouraged when I read a recent report of the debates in the Seanad. I saw the Taoiseach's reception of a motion that was submitted there and I was interested in his comments. I will refer now to the debates in the Seanad, columns 152 and 153 of the Parliamentary Debates of 24th January, 1946. The Taoiseach was speaking there on a matter somewhat analogous to the subject-matter of this motion—it bears some relation to it, at any rate—and he said:

"As for the future, on the broad question of the giving of powers to Ministers and to the Government to make Orders of this kind, it will be for the Dáil and the Seanad to see that such powers are given in a restricted form, if that can be done. In particular cases, there may be special difficulties and it may be necessary to insert an omnibus clause but a time restriction could be inserted. If powers were given, for example, to enable an Act to be put into operation, it might be provided that the initial part would be done in a certain time and then any difficulties likely to crop up would show themselves."

This is, I think, the operative sentence:

"You could also have a safeguard in the provision that Orders be laid before the Dáil and Seanad and be open to discussion."

There is a lot of explanatory matter, and it is open to members of the Dáil to read this report for themselves. I do not want to take any of the sentences out of their context. In view of the attitude of the Taoiseach and the manner in which Deputies, speaking generally, have received this motion, I do not intend to press it to a division. I have consulted with my colleague, Deputy Byrne, and I do not think there is any necessity for putting it to a division. I have to thank the Taoiseach, especially, for the liberal manner in which he interpreted what was behind the minds of the two Deputies who submitted this motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

The Dáil adjourned at 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 6th March, 1946.