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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 21 Mar 1946

Vol. 100 No. 2

In Committee on Finance. - Public Health Bill, 1945—Committee (Resumed).

Debate resumed on amendment No. 22:
Before Section 9 to insert a new section as follows:—
All the powers, functions and duties conferred or imposed on local authorities by or under this Act, or any regulation or Order made thereunder, shall be reserved functions.

When the House adjourned last night, I was arguing that this Bill teems with items purporting to refer to local bodies under which it is assumed that local bodies will have some control. This amendment was designed with the object of giving local bodies some actual power. The Parliamentary Secretary said that it was an attempt to amend the Managerial Act. I do not know that that was the intention of the proposal. But if somebody had proposed an amendment to that effect, it would at least have had my hearty support. During the discussion of the Managerial Act it was again and again reiterated by the Minister in control that local bodies were secured in the eventual control of practically everything, inasmuch as they had control of finance. Time and again in the discussion of that Bill that was guaranteed by the Minister. Some Deputies on this side of the House had their doubts, but they were persuaded by the Minister that there was no need for doubt, that the Bill preserved the rights of local bodies to the full in regard to the financial control of items under their administration. It was argued that the Managerial Act would not result in taking any great powers from the local bodies; that in controlling the purse they naturally would control most of the administration. Subsequently, it transpired that that guarantee was not worth very much. Local bodies discovered that whatever powers they thought they had were being taken from them one by one, until eventually it was made clear that the last semblance of control they had over finance had vanished, so that they were left with nothing.

Almost everything has been said on this amendment that could be said, but I should like to tell the Minister that it is not an attempt to amend the Managerial Act. It is an attempt, as I see it, to bring local bodies back into the Bill. They are mentioned several times in the Bill, but it is merely a verbal reference. They have no power to do anything, to control anything or to advise on anything, and it is in an effort to bring them into the Bill that this amendment is put forward. Deputies on all sides who have any regard for the privileges of local bodies ought to be in favour of it. It does not take from the Bill—rather it strengthens it.

Most of us have in mind the financial clauses of the Bill and their effect on the ratepayers in general. If the representatives of the ratepayers on the local bodies have not got some say in the matter of the expenditure under the Bill, goodness only knows what the rates will be eventually. The trend of legislation in this House has been more and more to pass on to local bodies items of expenditure which really ought to be provided for from the Central Fund, and the country generally is fearful that a continuation of that policy will result in the eventual breakdown of local administration. If the present policy of passing these items on to local bodies is continued, it is bound to result, sooner or later, in the inability of local authorities to meet their obligations and in a breakdown of local administration. We on this side are desirous of having some semblance of authority vested in the local bodies, and, in a last attempt to achieve that object, this amendment is brought forward.

Apparently the Parliamentary Secretary does not think it necessary to say anything more than he said earlier on the amendment. I want to try to impress, not only on Deputies but on the Parliamentary Secretary, what this amendment seeks to achieve. Under the Bill, if it becomes law in its present form, the Minister may by Order impose certain duties on a local authority. That imposition on a local authority may result in heavy financial obligations. The Minister may by Order direct a local authority to build any sort of institution which, in the opinion of the Department, is desirable from the point of view of public health, irrespective of the cost, and what I want to get home to Deputies and to the Parliamentary Secretary is that, so far as that financial obligation or that cost is concerned, neither the local authority nor the Dáil will have any check on it.

Suppose the Parliamentary Secretary decides, when this Bill becomes law, to direct, say, the Dublin Corporation, to which he has already given one shock, to build an institution costing £500,000. He does that by Order and, by reason of the refusal of the House to accept an amendment which we put forward yesterday, that Order does not even come before this House. Once the Order is made—and remember that it is the Minister and the Minister alone who determines the type, the size, the location and the cost of the institution —neither the corporation nor the city manager will have any more to do with it than Nelson below on the Pillar. Purely on the Order of the Minister, which is not subject to check by either the corporation or Dáil Éireann, that institution, which may be considered by the Minister and by the Minister alone as necessary, desirable or suitable, must not only be erected but must be equipped and maintained by a body which has not been consulted in any way, and which has no power whatever to affect the carrying out of an Order made in the Custom House.

This is not, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, a matter of trying to take away from the county or city managers powers which were granted to them, because whatever powers and whatever independence were given to them under the Managerial Act, they have been completely flittered away now, and, as I have already said, when the Local Government Bill becomes law, so far as the city or county manager is concerned, he is just about as independent of the Minister as any official of the Department sitting in the Custom House. The real purpose of this amendment is to secure, so far as we can secure, that the people who will have to shoulder the financial obligations, the very heavy financial obligations, that are bound to flow from this Bill will have some say in the matter.

They have no power to refuse to strike whatever rate may be, in the opinion of the Minister, necessary. It does not matter whether the rate is 23/6 or 33/6 in the £ and the rates may be driven to that point, not by the corporation or the county council, but in spite of them, by duties imposed upon them over their heads and over which they have no control whatever. They will not have left to them even the right they had up to recently of determining by themselves the rate for their own district and the rate which they think the ratepayers can meet. In future, the rate, in effect, will be determined, not by the county council or city council, not by the county manager or city manager, but by the Minister, because if a local authority refuses to strike a rate which the Minister considers sufficient to meet, not the ordinary obligations that fall to be met by a local authority but the extraordinary obligations to be placed on them by this and other Bills——

Is that not by another measure?

I do not want to bring in the Local Government Bill, but it is very closely allied to this measure. If I may say so, although it came before this Bill, this Bill is the father of the Local Government Bill, because the latter was introduced to give Ministers the necessary powers to steamroll through this Public Health Bill and the obligations it will impose on local authorities. Indeed, the House may recollect from some of his speech on the Second Reading and on the Committee Stage of the Local Government Bill, that that Bill was brought in for the very purpose of clearing the road for this particular Bill and similar measures that are to follow. Recently, a member of this House, whom I am not purporting to quote, mentioned that, in some set of circumstances, the ratepayers of the City of Dublin might be faced with a rate of 30/- in the £.

The Minister cannot be made responsible for a speech made by a Deputy.

No, Sir, and I am not trying to fasten it on him. All I want to say, in passing, is that many people thought that was very farfetched and that the Deputy was drawing on his imagination; but when one tries to picture the financial obligations that are going to be placed on local authorities under this Bill one realises that, instead of being fantastic, the Deputy was probably conservative. One of the reasons why we want to retain some power for the local authorities, one of the reasons why we want to see that further obligations will not be imposed on them without giving them some check, is that the Minister has refused—whether because he is unwilling or unable, I do not know—to give us even an approximate idea of the cost of this measure.

He mentioned one service to be provided and said it would cost approximately £500,000 or £600,000, half of which would have to be met by the local authorities. Therefore, we can start off from that point, that the putting into operation of one of the services dealt with by this Bill—and that not by any means, perhaps, the most costly —is going to plank down on the local authorities an additional £250,000. At the very time when that financial obligation —which, unfortunately, we cannot even measure because we have been refused the information which we should have got—is being placed on the local authorities, we are taking away from them whatever little vestige of real power or authority they had left. That is, in effect, the amendment before the House.

If we are going to place additional duties, functions and responsibilities on local authorities, we should at least give them some say in the matter. The Parliamentary Secretary not only refuses to consider this amendment, but refuses even to argue. He has failed to give any sound reason why the amendment should not be accepted. In so far as he did get on his feet to speak, when this amendment was proposed, he hardly referred to it at all and most of his statement was far removed from it. It is an amendment which calls for careful consideration. Otherwise, we should once and for all give up the sham and camouflage of talking about having local government and local authorities in this country.

We have had already the rejection of the amendment proposed yesterday evening, asking that Orders made by the Minister should be placed on the same plane as regulations, and if this amendment is rejected now, the position will be that the Minister may, by Order, place financial obligations. running into hundreds of thousands, or maybe millions of pounds, and neither the local authority nor Dáil Éireann has any machinery or power by which they can deal with those Orders made by the Minister.

I put positive questions to the Parliamentary Secretary yesterday in connection with this amendment and I think the House is entitled to hear some kind of answer about them from him. I entirely agree with Deputy Bennett and Deputy Morrissey to-day and with Deputy McGilligan last night, that the purpose of the amendment is to secure that additional burdens will not be placed upon local authorities and the responsibility for dealing with them taken entirely out of the hands of the local representatives. I pointed out seven or eight different sections here and I asked the Minister, in relation to those sections, whether the responsibility was to be discharged by the county manager without any reference to the local representatives or whether the local representatives had complete responsibility for discharging those duties in whatever way they considered proper. In particular, I referred to Section 13, where the local authority may be ordered by the Minister to provide certain institutions; to Section 14, where the local authority may be ordered by the Minister to discontinue certain institutions; to Section 15, where the local authority has the power to make an agreement with some institution outside its own area rather than make use of or set up an institution inside its own area to deal with certain services; to Section 16, where a local authority has the responsibility for arranging certain charges for institutional services; to Section 17, where it has the responsibility for making regulations for the management of institutions; to Section 31, where the Minister may by Order direct that certain machinery will be kept for carrying out certain processes of disinfection or disinfestation; to Section 32, where the county authority may have to provide certain temporary shelters or housing accommodation; to Section 33, where the Minister by Order may direct that the conveyance of certain persons shall be in certain classes of vehicles; to Section 34, where the local authority may have to provide for certain people suffering from certain infectious diseases, or for their dependents if they are unable to carry out their ordinary avocations. These are very simple and very clear matters and I am asking if these are matters which will be entirely the responsibility of the local authority, that is, of the local representatives on the local authority, and not matters that the county manager, either on his own initiative or on dictation from the Minister, may carry out irrespective of the wishes of the local representatives.

As the debate on this Bill develops, there may be a clearer manifestation by various members of the House of a different approach to the basic principles on which the Bill is drafted. It is quite clear that there are issues involved, which will arise in the debate, on which there will be keen difference of opinion. It has already been expressed outside the House and was expressed inside the House on the occasion of the Second Reading. While it may be quite good debating tactics for the Parliamentary Secretary to try to offset criticism of the kind shown by some reckless charges, by play acting and playing politics, it seems to me that there is a more grave duty placed on him than that of merely reacting to criticism from any side of the House in what definitely appears to be a somewhat reckless and careless attitude. There are members of the House who desire to support the principle of the Bill, even though they may have viewpoints of a special kind in regard to certain matters and are prepared to air their opinions here.

It seems to me that the attitude adopted by the Parliamentary Secretary with regard to the request for some general information about the commitments that we will enter into under the Bill, and also his attitude on the point we debated last night, as to whether the House will be afforded the opportunity of acquainting itself and dealing with certain Orders, has not been very satisfactory. We have an attitude developing on the part of the Parliamentary Secretary which will not be helpful to anyone who wishes sincerely to deal with the principles of this Bill that have as their aim an improvement of public health. If we are to have that large-scale approach to the problem of public health which seems to be indicated by the Parliamentary Secretary in several statements he has made to the House, it seems to me that it is fundamental in a Bill of this character, where we are introducing certain features, or perhaps re-emphasising old features of administration in regard to which there is undoubtedly fairly widespread objection and uneasiness, that one essential thing should be attempted by those responsible for public health administration, and by the Parliamentary Secretary, and that is to try to allay in every way possible any suspicion that this legislation and its administration are intended for any purpose other than to improve the health of the people.

If that is to be done, one basic thing has to be admitted. Whether the Parliamentary Secretary realises it or not I do not know, but it seems to me that this House of 138 representatives, including the Parliamentary Secretary, the Ministers, apart from the officials, should not attempt to carry through a public health reform without the co-operation of the citizens generally. Most important of all, we should have the co-operation and goodwill of the public-spirited men and women who constitute the local authorities in different areas throughout the country. It is from that point of view that I wish to support the amendment.

The reply made by the Parliamentary Secretary last night did not attempt to meet the justifiable criticism that was offered on the basis of this amendment. It may be that what he says is quite true, that the amendment is seeking, through the backdoor as it were, to nullify certain provisions of the County Management Act. Would it not be better if he took the amendment and showed us in detail to what extent what he suggests is the case, and to what extent the purpose intended by the amendment will be dealt with in so far as the provisions of the Bill are concerned?

Of the main provisions in the Bill, one refers to certain health facilities, either in the form of institutions or health services or treatment. These require not merely an Order by the Minister or a decision by the local authority, but they also require financing and administration. Is it too much to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to indicate the course to be followed with regard to the provision of an institution, say, under Section 13? If the Minister decides that an institution is to be provided by a local authority, to what extent is the local authority to be consulted? What say will the members have as to the type of institution for which they will be raising funds and for the administration and servicing of which they will be responsible?

That does not come under this section.

Perhaps the Deputy will submit these questions to the Parliamentary Secretary on the relevant section when it is reached?

I submit they are relevant to the amendment. We are dealing here with the functions of the local authority, and the amendment seeks to secure that certain functions will be retained by the members of the local authority. If we are to be asked to express an opinion on the amendment, surely the Parliamentary Secretary should be in a position to guide the members of the House? I suggest the guidance we have received from the Parliamentary Secretary with regard to financial commitments has been very unsatisfactory. Now we have got a step further. We do not know what the financial commitments will be and now we are not to be told on this amendment where local authorities will stand.

If the Parliamentary Secretary wishes to carry through his new code of public health legislation and wishes to do it on the basis of co-operation and appreciation on the part of the citizens, then I think he has started off on the wrong foot. I do not know whether he has time to make a change, or is capable of making a change, but if he wants the co-operation of the people in bringing about an improvement in public health, then he is adopting a wrong attitude. He should try to realise that there are Deputies who are anxious to see even this limited form of public health legislation going through, to be applied for the benefit of our people. If it is to be a question of imposing it upon them by mandate, or by some ukase from above, then it would be as well to hand this Bill to the Parliamentary Secretary and he should not trouble about bringing it under the notice of the House at all. In effect, that is what the Parliamentary Secretary is doing.

I beg to move the adjournment of the House until such time as the Government make up their minds to put in a Minister who will help the House to do its business. This is merely a travesty of Parliamentary institutions.

I cannot accept that motion.

I would like to argue the matter.

The Deputy has moved, and his motion has not been accepted. What is the argument to be about?

I ask for a count of the House.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present.

As Deputy Larkin very properly pointed out, except this matter is discussed with proper leadership in this House the public health of our people may suffer. He indicated very properly that on the main principles—if there is a whole principle in the Bill—there may be differences of opinion, and that unless we get these differences properly dealt with this House will not be doing its work in a proper way. A short time ago I asked to be allowed to move the adjournment of the House, in order that the Government might be given an opportunity to say whether it would put a Minister in the House who would help to lead and guide the House in this discussion. Deputy Larkin indicated that the public health might suffer as a result of the manner in which the Parliamentary Secretary has refused to take part in the discussion. Disservice might be done which might be graver than what might be done to the public health. I think the Parliamentary Secretary is simply trampling underfoot the Parliamentary institutions which our people struggled to build up, in order that by discussion of national affairs we might do the best that the joint representatives of the people could do, so that the public health and other matters affecting their social and economic life would be catered for in the best possible way.

From the time that the discussion opened the Parliamentary Secretary was simply insolent and utterly disrespectful to Parliamentary institutions and debate. It is not easy to carry on the business of the House when not only is there no contribution from the Government Benches on an important matter like the public health, but when the Parliamentary Secretary, who is the only person the Government sends into the House to deal with this measure, keeps silent in the face of serious questions put to him, questions on which, unless they were put by us, we would not be doing our duty. The Parliamentary Secretary's attitude on the amendment is such that it must direct the attention of every representative of a local body to the dangers that lie in front of our people, as far as representative institutions go, as well as the duty that devolves upon them to keep very wide awake as to things that are happening. They should not allow discussion that might take place here to affect them, but should endeavour to form public opinion and to prevent injury to the public interest, either through neglect or ignorance. Each representative on a local authority, such as county councils and other councils, should be wide awake as to what is happening in the legislation put through this House by the dumb voting powers of the Parliamentary Secretary and his Party. They should see that over the public interest in every county health area there would stand representatives of the people to see that public interests are looked after.

I again ask the Parliamentary Secretary, in relation to Sections 13, 14, 15, 17, 31, 32, 33 and 34, if the matters referred to in them are ones that the county manager will have power to deal with irrespective of the wishes or the directions of representatives of local bodies.

Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 25; Níl, 49.

  • Anthony, Richard S.
  • Bennett, George C.
  • Cogan, Patrick.
  • Coogan, Eamonn.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Finucane, Patrick.
  • Hughes, James.
  • Keating, John.
  • Keyes, Michael.
  • Larkin, James (Junior).
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Dockrell, Henry M.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Mongan, Joseph W.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • Redmond, Bridget M.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Sheldon, William A.W.

Níl

  • Allen, Denis.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Burke, Patrick (Co. Dublin).
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Colbert, Michael.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Daly, Francis J.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Fogarty, Patrick J.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kissane, Eamon.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McCann, John.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Connor, John S.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Sullivan, Ted.
  • Rice, Bridget M.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
  • Walsh, Laurence.
  • Ward, Conn.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.
Amendment declared negatived.
SECTION 9.

Has the section been moved, Sir?

It is not usually moved in Committee.

In view of the attitude the Parliamentary Secretary is taking up, I submit that the section is not before the House until such time as it is moved.

Technically, that is so.

I move that Section 9 stand part of the Bill.

Again, Sir, may I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary, when he is moving a section to an Bill, that it ought to be done in an orderly way? Will the Parliamentary Secretary be good enough to tell us what the meaning of the section is, what moneys are covered by this section, by whom they are to be paid and for what they are to be paid?

I think that matter was dealt with on the Money Resolution that was before the House already. They will be mainly licence fees and fees for carrying out analytical work under various sections of the Bill. We have dealt with that matter already.

Am I to take it, therefore, that this section has no relation whatever to any moneys to be paid or any proportions of the cost to be paid by any local authority in the State that may be affected by this Bill?

It has no relation whatever?

That is what I have said.

Section agreed to.
SECTION 10.
General Mulcahy rose.

Wait now. The section is not before the House.

I move that Section 10 stand part of the Bill.

Would the Parliamentary Secretary say what is the amount of the administrative costs that is likely to be incurred under this Bill in his Department.

No. I think this point also arose on the Money Resolution. I am not able to give an approximate estimate of the administrative costs. It would depend on how far the administrative costs, for example, of carrying out analyses of food and analytical work in respect of the control of proprietary medicines, would be self-supporting or more than self-supporting. It cannot be estimated in advance because we do not know the extent of the work that may be carried out under those sections.

In other words, the Parliamentary Secretary is in a position as bad as his Minister considered Most Reverend Doctor Dignan was in in regard to his scheme?

The Deputy is welcome to that.

He does not know.

Section agreed to.
SECTION 11.

Amendments Nos. 23 and 24 are the same.

Amendment No. 23 not moved.

I move amendment No. 24, in the name of Deputy Costello:—

In sub-section (1), line 45, page 7, to delete the words "considers desirable" and substitute the words "is by law empowered to take".

I do not know really what the intention of Section 11 is at all except it is to ornament this Bill in the same way as some section of the Constitution ornament that document, without having any force at all. But in so far as it is put in to be an ornament to the Bill then I think it ought to be drawn in a simple way. Sub-section (1) reads:—

"It shall be the duty of the Minister to take all such steps as he considers desirable to secure the preparation, effective carrying out and co-ordination of measures conducive to the health of the people, including, in particular, measures for—"

—certain things. Deputy Costello's amendment No. 24, which I am moving instead of my amendment No. 23, in relation to amendment No. 29 would make the section read that it shall be the duty of the Minister to take all such steps as he is by law empowered to take for the purpose of these things. Then it says that it shall be the duty of the Minister to prepare such new legislative proposals as are shown from time to time to be necessary. It leaves the Minister's own particular person and the things he may consider desirable out of it and it takes the general public situation into consideration.

Deputy Mulcahy refers to this section in a rather sarcastic way and he describes it as being an ornament. The Deputy has a short memory. This particular ornament that is being introduced into the Public Health Bill is practically a verbatim repetition of the ornament that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government injected into the Local Government Act of 1925. It may have remained merely an ornament during all these years. It may not be possible to give effect to the various directives set out in it now, and I doubt very much if, as a directive, it is going to be of much practical use. That is my own honest opinion about it. But we are attempting to co-ordinate, to some extent at any rate, the public health code, and if this section is to remain in our statutory code at all, it is more proper that it should be in a Public Health Bill than that it should remain in the Local Government Act of 1925. If Deputy Mulcahy feels that it was a mistake to introduce that section into the Local Government Act of 1925, that it should never have been there, I have no great objection to dropping it out of this Bill. But if it is to be transferred, even as a directive, from the Local Government Act of 1925 to the Public Health Bill before the House, I am at a loss to know, if the Deputy is really in that helpful mood that he asks the House to believe he is in, why is it that he wants to impose all the restrictions on the Fianna Fáil Minister that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government would not impose on their own Minister in 1925?

Section 18 of the Local Government Act of 1925 reads as follows, and I ask Deputies to keep a close eye on the wording of the section before the House:—

"It shall be the duty of the Minister, in the exercise and performance of his powers and duties, to take all such steps as may be desirable to secure the preparation, effective carrying out, and co-ordination of the measures conducive to the health of the people, including measures for:

(a) the prevention and cure of diseases, including the avoidance of fraud in connection with alleged remedies therefor";

I do not think that up to the present any effort has been made to give effect to that particular directive, though it is there now for over 20 years:—

"(b) the treatment of physical and mental defects, including the treatment and care of the blind;

(c) the initiation and direction of research, and the collection, preparation, publication, and dissemination of information and statistics relating thereto;

(d) the training of persons for health services:

Provided that this section shall not be deemed to confer on the Minister any power in addition to the power otherwise conferred on him by law."

Where does he come into that section?

He does not come in at all.

He comes into what I object to.

It is the Cumann na nGaedheal Minister who came in here in 1925.

No, he did not.

"It shall be the duty of the Minister, in the exercise and performance of his powers and duties, to take all such steps as may be desirable to secure...."

"as may be desirable." This section says: "It shall be the duty of the Minister to take all such steps as he considers desirable".

That is the point. In the 1925 Act the wording is: "It shall be the duty of the Minister ... to take all such steps as may be desirable..." The difference is that Deputy Mulcahy's constructive and helpful suggestion is that it should not be steps that the Minister considers desirable, but that the Minister is to take steps, apparently, that somebody else considers desirable. It is all right if it will serve the Deputy's purpose for a little further debate, but I do not think it will impress anybody.

The Parliamentary Secretary got annoyed because Deputy Mulcahy described this section as an ornamental one. Then he proceeded to agree with Deputy Mulcahy by saying that he did not think the section mattered at all; that he did not believe himself that it could be put into practice or that it would have any practical effect. The only justification he offered for it was that a similar section had been put into the Local Government Act, 1925. I would not object to this section going into this Bill if local government in this country in 1946 was in the same position as local government was in this country in 1925, because in 1925 local authorities were in complete and absolute control of local government. Will the Parliamentary Secretary be good enough to read again the last clause in that section which he quoted from the 1925 Act?

"Provided that this section shall not be deemed to confer on the Minister any power in addition to the power otherwise conferred on him by law". Does the Deputy make the case that he had not statutory power to do things?

The Parliamentary Secretary says that we are trying to curb his efforts to deal with public health. He talks about putting restrictions on the Minister. What are the restrictions?

Then I will not talk.

Whether you talk or not, I do not think it makes very much difference.

You said that before, and you were held up by the Ceann Comhairle.

Whether the Parliamentary Secretary talks or not leaves me quite cold. As a matter of fact, it would probably be more helpful, if one is to judge from the few efforts we have heard from him——

You said that before, too.

It is no harm to repeat a good thing.

What about amendment No. 24?

I want to say again that, judging by the Parliamentary Secretary's contribution to this amendment, I am not so sure that it would not be more conducive to good health as well as good order in this House if he remained silent.

It would be better for your Party.

Let the Parliamentary Secretary start worrying about his own Party.

I am worrying about the amendment.

Then, Sir, you ought to remind the Parliamentary Secretary that I am supposed to be in possession. Any time the Parliamentary Secretary or any Minister interrupts me, I will reply.

People can be provocative.

And if I cannot make the Parliamentary Secretary talk in an orderly way, I hope I shall be able to make him talk in a disorderly way, subject to whatever length the Chair will allow him to go.

And object to his talking then.

I stand corrected to this extent, that I am inviting the Parliamentary Secretary to talk in an orderly way.

To come now to amendment No. 24.

I am coming to it. The Parliamentary Secretary's case for the section, in so far as he made a case, was that a similar section was put into the 1925 Act. My answer, and I think it is a complete answer, is that there has been a big change in the world and certainly in local government in the last 20 years.

And in central government, too.

Yes, and in central government, too, because 25 years ago we knew where we stood with regard to both central and local government. Twenty-five years ago the central government stood over its own obligations, whether financial or otherwise, and did not try to shift them over on to the shoulders of the local authorities, having shorn the local authorities of any power to resist that additional burden, and 25 years ago Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries did not sulk and refuse to deal with amendments or with criticisms of Bills.

Do not accuse me of sulking, of all things. I am in the best of humour.

The Parliamentary Secretary apparently imagines he is giving a good-humoured smile when he is giving an ill-tempered sneer.

I should like to hear the Deputy on the amendment.

The extraordinary thing is that I am proceeding to deal with the amendment, and with the amendment alone, and only go off it when the Parliamentary Secretary takes me off. The Parliamentary Secretary will discover in time—and on this Bill he will have plenty of time— that he will not derive either very much amusement or very much profit out of his interruptions of me. I do not mind how often he interrupts, but I know the Chair does. Fortunately, I am in a position that I have not got to worry about that and the Parliamentary Secretary can interrupt me as often as he thinks it desirable to do so. I want to point out to the House again, on this amendment and dealing with this section, that we cannot ignore what has already happened, what has happened with regard to the last amendment put before the House and which was defeated, and we cannot ignore the fact that amendments dealing with the Minister's Order were defeated. It might be some protection for a local authority if the Minister were to proceed only in accordance with the law, but here the Parliamentary Secretary resents any legal restriction being imposed on him. Why should the Minister be circumscribed by the law of the land? He describes as restrictions being put on him by the Opposition the fact that he is asked when operating this Bill to act in a legal manner.

Has the Deputy looked at sub-section (2)?

Of Section 11.

Will the Parliamentary Secretary read it for me and tell me what it means?

It is there. Read it yourself.

If the Parliamentary Secretary has no desire to act otherwise than in accordance with the law, why does he not accept the amendment? I give him his choice of amendment No. 24 or amendment No. 23.

I give the Deputy his choice of sub-section (2).

That is no choice. We know how that choice could be described. The real fact is that we have here set up again for us by the Parliamentary Secretary the same line as was set up by his Minister, that is, that they will not suffer any restriction, any correction or any direction by any authority in this country. The line of the Parliamentary Secretary and of the Minister is that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary are superior to and above any constituted authority, that nothing holds in this country but the Minister's power, his dignity and his duty, as he conceives it. I had to remind the Parliamentary Secretary yesterday that, when he talks about his duty to the people, he ought to begin to exercise that duty in this House, and if he insists on treating the Opposition in the manner in which he has attemped to treat it since the Bill entered on its Committee Stage, to the extent to which he is attempting to treat the Opposition with contempt, he is treating the people outside, whom we represent, with contempt. We are simply asking in this amendment to a section about which the Parliamentary Secretary feels so little that he admits it is ornamental, and that he is not worried as to whether it is left in or not, to ensure that whatever action he takes under it will be taken in accordance with law.

Would the Deputy tell me how the Minister can act outside the law in the light of the terms of sub-section (2) of Section 11, which sets out:

"Sub-section (1) of this section shall not confer on the Minister any power in addition to those otherwise conferred on him by law"?

If he has not the power conferred on him by law to enable him to do the various things set out in sub-section (1), he cannot do them. If he wants to do these things, he has to come to the Dáil and get statutory power to do them.

That being so, may I ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he will, even now, tell us why he refuses to accept the amendment?

Because the amendment is silly, in the light of the terms of the sub-section.

Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us then why he changed the words in the 1925 Act, as he is basing himself on the 1925 Act? The 1925 Act, as quoted by him, set out that "it shall be the duty of the Minister to take all such steps as may be desirable..." Why did the Parliamentary Secretary change the words "as may be desirable" to "as he considers desirable"?

That was the obvious meaning even of the 1925 Act. It was the Minister who was going to determine the desirability of the steps because it was he who had to take the steps.

Surely, with the change here, the obvious meaning of it is to ensure that the Minister will be a dictator. Make no mistake about that. The difference between the position at the time of the 1925 Act and the position to-day, as Deputy Morrissey has pointed out, is that the whole local government situation has completely changed.

Oh, is that it?

Absolutely. At that time, a local authority had some authority and power to decide what services it would have and would not have. By this, the Minister, whether a local authority likes it or not, whether it is in a position to pay for a particular service or not and whether they want an institution or not, will decide, completely regardless of their views.

Under this section?

It is the whole spirit of the thing which is involved.

The prevention and cure of diseases—does that not involve the provision of an institution? Are they not all linked up together?

I suppose there is some connection between different Parts of this Bill, but I have heard on two sections and two amendments already a debate on these institutions, on the question of Orders. I should like to know if it is to be raised on every amendment of the 500.

Does the whole thing not hang on the section?

The section is not before the House. There is an amendment before the House.

We have to read the section in relation to the amendment, and we can scarcely argue the amendment without some reference to the section and what it implies. Our attitude is that the people of this country and of the world must have learned something in recent years.

We need not go back to 1925 at all to see the danger of regimentation and bureaucracy. We want to see properly vested in the people the authority that belongs to the people and we do not want to have that filched from them, as is aimed at in this section and in this whole measure.

The Deputy cannot discuss this whole measure on every section.

There is a very important principle involved in this section—that what the Minister says and what the Minister considers desirable must stand, regardless of what the people consider necessary or essential. Their views are to be ignored, the power of Government is going to compel them, whether they like it or not, to toe the line, to do what the dictator says must be done. That is going to be done through the instrument of the county manager, the creature of the Minister.

That does not arise.

It surely arises if the Minister is going to have power, as he desires and as he thinks desirable and essential, to do all the things set out in this section. That is why we feel it is necessary to ensure that the people will have a voice in those matters. In doing that, we are not opposing in any way the provision of measures to improve the health of the people; but we feel it ought to be done the right way and that the principles and the rights of democratic institutions should be preserved.

The Deputy is trying to make a Second Reading speech on a very small matter.

This is not a small matter. The Parliamentary Secretary gave, as a reason, that it was taken out of the 1925 Act. If that was so, he was very careful to change it in substance and he has not given any reason for the change.

The draftsman did that.

It is rather a pity the Parliamentary Secretary did not accept the fatherly advice given to him by Deputy Larkin, and be a little more sympathetic and intelligent in dealing with the amendment. If the Parliamentary Secretary would use his intelligence—and he certainly has a good deal of it—I am sure he could make a good case against this amendment.

Give me a hand.

The section as it stands says:—

"It shall be the duty of the Minister to take all such steps as he considers desirable to secure the preparation, effective carrying out and co-ordination of measures conducive to the health of the people...."

If you put the amendment into it, you make the position worse. I do not support the section, but if we accept the amendment the position will be:—

"The Minister shall take all such steps as he is by law empowered to take...."

That may mean he will be taking far more drastic steps than would be implied by the section as it stands. The law as it stands is very drastic and, if the Minister takes every step the law empowers him to take, he may possibly go even further than he might go if allowed a little discretion, bad as that would be. He could meet the situation reasonably by adopting the phrase used in the 1925 Act. That would be better than the section as it stands and it would also be better than the amendment now suggested.

The Parliamentary Secretary is inclined to blame the Parliamentary draftsman for this alteration, but I cannot conceive his altering the words "as may be desirable" to read "as he considers desirable" without some prior consultation with the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary. Whilst the proviso in Section 11, sub-section (2) does preserve the position as obtaining in the section quoted from the 1925 Act, nevertheless you get the position now that, where steps might be taken before which were desirable in the public interest or which the public desired, you are now reduced to the position that it is no longer a question of public desirability but of the Minister's opinion, irrespective of the public demand. We find ego written into this section, the ego of the Minister.

Again, I can see in this, as Deputy Morrissey has hinted, the old theory that "the Minister can do no wrong". This runs right through all local government legislation, not only in the letter of the law but in the attitude of the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary. It is said: "We are the people responsible and we will shoulder the responsibility and to blazes with the rest of you."

That is the attitude, in a nutshell. There is a distinct and a very broad difference between the words "as may be desirable" and the words "as the Minister considers desirable". This is bringing about the position where the steps to be taken are those which the Minister will dictate. There is no need for any heat or long controversy on the matter. I think the Minister sees quite clearly the distinction between the 1925 provision and this one.

I can see it all; I can see the game, too.

He said he is quite prepared even to drop the section, as he did not see any great need for it. He has, indeed, enough specific power given to him by later sections, without this omnibus clause here. I am not so sure that it is an ornamentation. It means giving a very wide power to the Minister, to do anything he considers desirable to promote certain things, (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e). "Desirable" is a very wide term and "desirable, according to the opinion of any one man" makes it wider still.

Deputy Coogan makes the point against this, that if the amendment I suggest is put into the Bill, the Minister will have to do everything that is put into the Bill and that that would be a shocking thing, because it is a shocking Bill. We ought not pass laws in this House hoping that they will not be put into effect, and if we are going to slither along, particularly with the kind of attitude the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government Party have shown, and pass bad and oppressive laws here, hoping for the best, we are simply surrendering all our sense of responsibility.

I asked the Parliamentary Secretary why the general phrase in the 1925 Act, "as may be desirable", has been translated into "as he considers desirable". We are told it is just a slip of the Parliamentary draftsman, or simply an idea of his. I confess that I see in the change the spirit of Fianna Fáil ascendancy and Fianna Fáil dictatorship and the ego that Deputy Coogan speaks of. My general approach to this section is indicated by the general line of my two amendments. I described it as an ornament and the Minister agrees that it is an ornament and might as well be left out.

It has been an ornament in the past.

Well, some people can make use of an ornament, and I am glad to have this ornament here for the purpose of giving me an opportunity to put down amendment No. 28. I am going to ask the House to see that it will be the duty of the Minister to institute, within one year, a council of public health, such as has been recommended in the report of the Commission on Vocational Organisation, and in general keeping with my outlook on how this section should read. Introducing the idea into the section of a council of public health, I think it is undesirable that any Ministerial "he" should show itself so prominently in sub-section (1). For that reason, I am pressing the amendment that is in Deputy Costello's name and which I have moved, so that the opening shall read:

"It shall be the duty of the Minister to take all such steps as he is by law empowered to take...."

to deal with these general matters. It may be considered that this is just a matter of drafting and that, particularly when you view sub-section (2) of the section, the Minister's drafting might be allowed to stand. I am moving in amendment No. 29 and in amendment No. 30 to delete sub-section (2) and substitute in the section the idea contained in my amendment No. 29, which says:

"It shall be the duty of the Minister to prepare such new legislative proposals as are shown from time to time to be necessary."

I mean shown in a general way and, from my point of view, shown particularly in the way that would be indicated in a review of all the matters affecting public health by the recommendation of a council of public health. That is my general approach to Section 11, and that is why I hold for a change in the wording of sub-section (1), a change which the Parliamentary Secretary cleverly tried to say came from the 1925 Act, but which, in fact, did not. The great Ministerial "he" is hereby introduced, and I think the Parmentary Secretary should take a back seat.

I would be prepared to support the amendment, but for an entirely different reason from that of either Deputy Cogan or the members of the Fine Gael Party. The Fine Gael Deputies seem to be somewhat perturbed. They seem to be anxious to limit the power of the Minister, to confine his powers to what may be given to him within the law. Deputy Cogan takes the reverse view. He hopes that the Minister will not give effect to the law. My purpose in supporting the amendment is to ensure that there will be no possibility left of the Minister not carrying out the law. The carrying out of these duties by the Minister in relation to the various sections will be dependent purely upon the consideration by the Minister of the enforcement of the powers given to him in his considered opinion, and as it may be changed with varying moods. I would like to see the amendment adopted so that it will be the duty of the Minister to carry out the law.

My fear in connection with this legislation is that the powers given to the Government will not be used for the benefit of the people from the health aspect. When I was reading the Bill in the early stages, trying to understand its implications, I made inquiries among medical men and endeavoured to find out their opinions. I am not going to express them now, but one of the peculiar comments made to me was that they were not concerned so much with the powers taken by the Minister as they were with the fact that powers already in possession of the Minister for long periods had not been utilised in the way they should have been. The Parliamentary Secretary twits Deputy Mulcahy that certain of these powers were in the 1925 Act and no use was made of them. They were put into that Act 25 years ago and the Parliamentary Secretary's Government has been in power since 1932, 14 years ago. Surely in that period of 14 years the Parliamentary Secretary and his officials could have utilised even those limited powers.

We have, Deputy.

I am like the man from Missouri, I will wait to be shown. In view of the continuous pressure and agitation that have had to be carried on to get the Department to move in public health matters, my fear is that the powers that will eventually come to the Minister under this Bill will, unfortunately, not be used in the direction intended—that is, for an improvement in the health of the citizens. I fear that we will be in the air. Although we give the powers to the Minister, he may not consider it desirable to give effect to them.

It is quite clear why the Parliamentary Secretary will not argue this case, in view of the failure of the Department to take advantage of its statutory powers.

Does the Deputy want an argument?

He fears a charge of failure to perform his statutory duties if these words are included in the section.

Question put:—"That the words proposed to be deleted, stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 51; Níl, 24.

  • Allen, Denis.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Burke, Patrick (Co. Dublin).
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Colbert, Michael.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • O'Sullivan, Ted.
  • Rice, Bridget M.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Fogarty, Patrick J.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kissane, Eamon.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McCann, John.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Connor, John S.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
  • Walsh, Laurence.
  • Ward, Conn.

Níl

  • Bennett, George C.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Coogan, Eamonn.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Dockrell, Henry M.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Hughes, James.
  • Keating, John.
  • Keyes, Michael.
  • Larkin, James (Junior).
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Mongan, Joseph W.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Sheldon, William A.W.
Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy; Níl: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.

I put down amendment No. 25 in order to include in the general terms of the section a paragraph dealing with "housing, feeding, and employment in such a way that diseases arising out of evil economic conditions will be avoided."

It is out of order.

I have been informed by the Ceann Comhairle that his ruling is that other Ministers might be responsible for some of these things. Housing and feeding are to a considerable extent the responsibility of the Minister for Local Government, but employment is somewhat outside his sphere.

It is out of order.

I accept your ruling.

Amendment No. 25 not moved.

I move amendment No. 26:—

In sub-section (1), page 7, to delete paragraph (b) and substitute the following paragraph:—

(b) the treatment and care of persons suffering from—

(i) physical defects,

(ii) mental illnesses.

This is a drafting amendment. The section as drawn says that it shall be the duty of the Minister to take all such steps as he considers desirable to secure the treatment and care of persons suffering from physical and mental defects. The amendment is for the purpose of differentiating between mental defectives and persons suffering from mental disorders. It is the responsibility of the Department of Education to educate and train persons suffering from mental defect. It is the responsibility of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to look after persons suffering from mental disorder. Hence the change of terminology from "mental defects" to persons suffering from "mental illnesses".

Does the term "mental illnesses" include mental defects?

Amendment agreed to.
Amendment No. 27 not moved.

I move amendment No. 28:—

In sub-section (1), after paragraph (f), to add a new paragraph as follows:—

(g) the institution within one year after the passing of this Act of a council of public health representative of all branches of the profession and all other professions dealing with nursing, sanitation and public health.

This amendment is to add a new paragraph (g) to the matters that it shall be the duty of the Minister to look after. The amendment follows generally the line of the recommendation unanimously made by the Commission on Vocational Organisation. It is clear to everybody that the public health and measures taken for prevention or for cure will require the full support of the people as a whole and of every organised section of the people, particularly those sections that have to deal in any way with the medical profession, the nursing profession or the hospitals, those dealing with sanitation and other matters, and local authorities generally. Reviewing the matter, the commission, in paragraph 542 of their report, say:—

"The efficient safeguarding of public health requires the close and cordial co-operation of all these professions and bodies as well as of the general public. Central and local authorities, the professions and the hospitals are entitled to the fullest support from employees, workers and the public generally in measures for the preservation of public health. Such unified support would obviously be necessary in the event of a serious epidemic. The best utilisation of our available resources for the prevention and treatment of sickness and disease, for the improvement of sanitation and hygiene, and for the development of a strong and healthy population demands systematic and unified action.

The need for such co-operation has long been recognised by all interested in public health. As far back as 1919 a public health council consisting of representatives of local health boards, of the medical, dental, nursing and veterinary professions and of approved national health societies was suggested. In 1927 a standing committee of doctors and representatives of local boards to advise the Minister on matters of public health was recommended by the Committee on Health Insurance and Medical Service. Some partial realisations of this ideal of co-operation have already appeared in the Hospitals Commission and the Bed Bureau Committee, in the Medical Research Council, in the 1941 Departmental Conference of Medical Specialists to deal with the outbreak of diarrhoea and enteritis, in the recently established body to combat tuberculosis, and in the Dublin Rheumatism Clinic Association. We have received evidence of the willingness of the medical and other professions to act on a council of health and of their conviction of the desirability, and indeed necessity, of such a body."

They then go on to make a recommendation that a council of health be established and constituted more or less as follows:—

"First by representatives of central and local authorities: one from the Department of Local Government and Public Health, one from the Department of Industry and Commerce, one from the General Council of County Councils, and one from the Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland. Secondly, representatives of the medical profession, to be appointed by the Medical Professional Board: one from the Medical Research Council, one from the teaching bodies, one from the voluntary hospitals, one county medical officer of health, one dispensary doctor, one general medical practitioner in private practice. The third group would be representatives of other professions to be appointed by their respective professional boards: one dentist, one veterinary surgeon, one nurse, one engineer or architect, one chemist, and one pharmacist. Fourthly, representatives of other organisations: one from the National Health Insurance Society, one from the voluntary bodies such as the Red Cross Society, one from the Council of Education and one from the National Conference of Agriculture."

These recommendations suggest the class and the type of persons that the commission considered ought to be brought together to form a council that would advise the Minister and would help to co-ordinate and to plan generally the lines upon which public health services would be dealt with in the country. The commission go on to say:—

"It should serve first of all as a consultative body, possessed of specialised knowledge, information and experience, to which the Minister could look for technical advice on public health problems. It should examine and report to the Oireachtas on proposed public health legislation. It should ensure that in housing schemes the requirements of public health in regard to drainage, sewerage, sanitation and hygiene are met."

Generally, the commission outline the almost necessity of having such a body brought together for the purpose of envisaging the whole problem that required to be dealt with and advising the Minister with regard to the lines upon which this problem should be tackled as well as being there as a body that would stand over the legislation passed by the House and the work that was being done through the country to improve public health. It would be a guarantee to the public that the work was being organised upon the soundest lines and would organise behind those responsible for the administration of public health the fullest possible understanding of the people and their full support.

I think this Bill would be a better Bill, a Bill better understood by the country as a whole, and supported better by the country as a whole, if such a body as this had reviewed the problem of public health in the country and if we could feel that the Minister had got systematic and competent advice in framing this measure. I think I have pointed out on Second Reading that this Bill has come out of the dark recesses of the Department of Local Government, without any public advice, public discussion or publicity of any kind. The result has been that the Parliamentary Secretary has had to bring in certain radical changes by way of amendment, and another result has been the unfortunate and unsatisfactory type of discussion that we have had to have when considering it in Committee.

It is very hard to understand Deputy Mulcahy's attitude on this particular section and this particular amendment, because surely Deputy Mulcahy knows perfectly well that the Minister has information at his disposal and that information has been at the disposal of the officers responsible for guiding the drafting of this Bill and that their medical officers all over the country and county medical officers and others have sent in reports. Deputy Mulcahy implies that the Minister took it upon himself to draft this Bill without consulting anybody and having no experience beforehand of doing so. It is very difficult to conceive such a state of affairs. The section as it stands, and even with the amendment, is for the general good, as far as I can see. I do not think, if we are to get on with this Bill, that the Bill should be attacked from the position that it has been attacked by the various amendments. We descended so low even as to attack the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister personally. If we are to be practical we have to argue for what it is worth. I am firmly convinced that anything which has been done by the Parliamentary Secretary in this particular section or in the Bill as a whole has been done after research and experience gained by himself and the officers of his Department.

Deputy Burke apparently resents the fact that anybody should make any attempt to improve this Bill. According to the Deputy, it cannot be improved because he is satisfied that the Parliamentary Secretary only introduced this Bill after taking advantage of the best information at his disposal in the country. The Deputy said that it was hard to believe that the Parliamentary Secretary did not obtain the advice, help and assistance of the various professional men and others in this country who are concerned with and have a practical and expert knowledge of all public health matters. It is hard to believe that this Bill would be introduced without that step being taken. But has the Deputy any evidence that these steps were taken by the Department of Local Government when the Bill was being framed? Has the Deputy been assured by the Parliamentary Secretary that he consulted these people and took advantage of the advice that was at his disposal? If the Deputy and the Parliamentary Secretary desire that this Bill should have beneficial effects so far as the public health of the community is concerned, does the Deputy suggest that it would be less effective or less beneficial if the Parliamentary Secretary had at his elbow the best expert advice that this country could produce? That is all the amendment asks.

Mr. Burke

That is true. But surely the Deputy must understand that the Minister's own Department alone is really the centre of all information from all over the country on public health matters.

There is the Fianna Fáil mentality in a sentence. Absolutely infallible. In the Department of Local Government we have the last word in medical and surgical science and in nursing, sanitation, etc. Without in the slightest wishing to reflect in any way on the ability of the medical section of the Department of Local Government, I want to say that I do not believe that that section is the last word on these matters in this country and that they have within their own minds all that can be said and all that can be done so far as public health is concerned.

Mr. Burke

If the Deputy follows that to its logical conclusion, the public health section of the Department of Local Government is no use at all.

Mr. Burke

There is no information there at all. Is that the position?

I suppose it is idle to try to meet that attitude of mind. The only thing it conveys to me is a possible explanation of the attitude which Ministers adopt in this House. I have come to the conclusion that Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries are not to be blamed if that is the sort of reaction they get at their own Party meetings from their own members. It is really not surprising that they come in here looking upon themselves as little tin gods.

Mr. Burke

Do not destroy your argument. Do not go into personalities.

If I knew where the Deputy's point was, I would try to get to it, and keep to it if I could. So far as I could see any point in his argument, it was that there is nothing we can do or no advice we can get from any section in this country that can improve on the advice the Minister has in the Department of Local Government, and that there is no Minister in this country, or in any country in Europe, more capable of dealing with a matter like this than the present Minister. Let us come back to the amendment. Deputy Mulcahy quoted from the report of the Vocational Commission.

Mr. Burke

I read that report.

Deputy Mulcahy quoted the appropriate paragraphs. That was a very serious commission composed of some of the best men in this country, and set up by the present Government, I presume, in a serious way. That commission went to the trouble of inviting evidence from the medical profession and all the allied services, if I might put it that way. They got evidence from these expert witnesses, and that evidence was so clear that it enabled the commission to make a unanimous recommendation. The evidence was that a body such as Deputy Mulcahy seeks to have set up should be set up, and that that body would be of tremendous help and assistance to the Minister. If the Deputy can see anything in that which would take from the Bill, I should like him to tell us in what way it would do that.

Mr. Burke

Does not Section 12 cover that?

Tell me what it covers?

The setting up of consultative councils.

Will the Deputy read the amendment? It is not quite the same thing.

Mr. Burke

There is very little difference.

If there is very little difference, will the Deputy advise the Parliamentary Secretary to accept the amendment and we will be all happy?

I am afraid that the acceptance of one amendment would not make the Deputy happy.

In spite of the Parliamentary Secretary's rejection of the various amendments, I am still in a fairly happy frame of mind, because I am not without belief in the ability of the people of this country eventually to see through what the Parliamentary Secretary some time ago described as the game.

They are bound to see it in time.

Exactly. That is what makes me have some little faith and hope and allows me to retain the amount of happiness to which the Parliamentary Secretary refers.

Keep up the faith, but I would not hope.

As a famous man said on one occasion, "wait and see". The Parliamentary Secretary may be nearer to it than he believes. It will not require many more measures like this to hasten the day, and, of course, another half-crown or two in the £ on the rates as a result of some of the Parliamentary Secretary's actions would help to strengthen his position and bring the people to believe that this was the best of all Governments in the best of all countries in the world.

You will lose Deputy Larkin, if you are not careful.

Deputy Larkin is well able to look after himself and well able to deal with the Parliamentary Secretary, when he thinks it necessary to do so. I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary need worry his head about either Deputy Larkin or myself. It will take him all his time to look after his own "p's" and "q's", not to bother looking after ours. Let us hear from the Parliamentary Secretary—we have not heard it from Deputy Burke— whether he intends to accept this amendment, and, if not, why not.

As I came into the House, Deputy Burke was warning us of the dangers of too deep descents into the sea of unparliamentary discourse. It is a pity he did not address that warning to the Parliamentary Secretary before this debate began. He went on to speak of the infallibility of the Parliamentary Secretary and his Department. If Deputy Burke believes in those statements, as I am sure he does, I am afraid his belief would be sadly shaken if he were to read Section 21, as it appeared originally and which the Minister has been forced to delete. In that ridiculous and absurd section, we had all kinds of absurdities sought to be imposed upon the House by way of legislation. The ordinary man in the street is at a disadvantage in dealing with the medical profession because the members of that profession have degrees before and after their names and have surrounded themselves with an atmosphere of superior knowledge which scares off the ordinary layman and there is nothing which shakes the ordinary layman's faith in the medical doctor as when he finds him changing his medicine.

I am very sorry the Deputy has that fear of doctors.

We might have been inclined to have some sort of feeling at the back of our minds that the Parliamentary Secretary and his Department knew everything about public health, if the Parliamentary Secretary had not found it necessary to make so many and such violent changes in the Bill as originally introduced. I refer particularly to Section 21.

Is the Deputy pleased about it?

The new section—we are perhaps anticipating another discussion —is not altogether as absurd as the original section.

That is all I was hoping for.

Having revealed his absurdity to the House and to the country, the Parliamentary Secretary must take with a pinch of salt the flattery addressed to him by Deputy Burke. Having revealed that absurdity and that lack of infallibility, the Parliamentary Secretary would be well advised to accept this amendment and to allow all branches of the medical profession to unite in setting up a public health council as the amendment suggests. There is something to be said for vocationalism. It cannot be altogether wrong when we have so many responsible, influential and important personages in the State recommending it after careful deliberation, and I think that a council truly representative of the medical profession would be very useful in advising and helping the Parliamentary Secretary, and in saving him from walking into some of the blunders into which he occasionally walks.

What have all the medical officers—dispensary doctors and county medical officers of health—and members of the nursing services all over the country been doing over all these years?

Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary is unable to digest their representations.

The Parliamentary Secretary has a good digestion. He would need it, to stomach some of the speeches he has to listen to here. If this amendment were accepted, the Minister would be under an obligation to institute within one year after the passing of the Act a council of public health representative of all branches of the profession and all other professions dealing with nursing, sanitation and public health. I hope the House will not misunderstand me when I say that the amendment is not acceptable. I do not think it would be in the interest of public health to accept such a statutory obligation, in the light of the actual experience I have had over a long period. I do not think we can properly envisage the purpose of this amendment without reference to the proposal in Section 12 to set up consultative councils. I am at a loss to know why this amendment has been moved to Section 11, in the light of the terms of Section 12. However, perhaps Deputy Mulcahy could clarify that point, if he is not satisfied that his amendment ought not to be pressed.

My trouble is that a council constituted as suggested here—let me concede right at the beginning that, on a variety of complicated scientific matters, the Minister from time to time requires the advice of the best medical scientists that can be found—will not answer the purpose. From time to time over a long number of years, and particularly during recent years, the Minister has been faced with many difficult medical scientific problems concerning which he required the advice of medical scientists. So numerous were those problems, so diversified were they, that not only had he from time to time to call in one or two groups of medical scientists but he has found it desirable, necessary and useful to call in various groups of such scientists, and what I want the House to appreciate is that the results the Minister will aim at securing can best be secured by setting up from time to time particular committees to advise on the particular problems which arise.

I could give examples to the House of the types of problems that have presented themselves. Some of them are not understandable by laymen but some are understandable by anybody. The problem of the epidemic of enteritis in children here in Dublin has been one which caused anxiety to the Government and to members of this House, no matter what side they are on. As Deputies are aware, we called in a group of leading medical scientists to advise and assist us on that particular problem. We called in quite a number of them, as we required all the medical scientists who had specialised knowledge of that particular problem in order to assist us in trying more effectively to grapple with it. Had the Minister, in relation to that particular problem, an advisory council such as is envisaged here, it would not have been of any use to him, since at most we would have had on that council only one adviser on the particular problem facing us at the time.

In very recent times, we have had in this House very serious discussions on the problem of tuberculosis and how best to deal with it. Every section of the House contributed its part in that debate. We found a unanimity for the proposed measures that is rarely got in this House, but bear in mind that, before I came to the House and submitted the proposals to the House, I had repeated consultations with groups of medical scientists who were best able to advise me on that particular problem.

There are other problems, too. There is the problem of venereal disease, there is the problem of other infectious diseases in this city, notably diphtheria. In recent times a number of medical scientists in and around the City of Dublin—and in Cork and Galway, for that matter—have come into my Department and have sat there for days, wrestling with these problems and placing at my disposal the best advice that medical science could provide. I think it would be wiser that the Minister should be free to set up, not one advisory council but half a dozen in the 12 months, if it should be necessary to do so.

Let me say this, while I am on the subject, that every one of those scientists who were called in from time to time on the different technical and scientific problems that have confronted us, has given his services free, to the Minister and to the nation. I think they deserve the appreciation of the House, as we do not get that service to the community from any other profession that I am aware of.

There are many other matters on which we have had conferences and on which we have had committees set up. Some of them were pretty technical ones. There was the question of setting up a biological standards bureau, the question of our bacteriological services, the question of the potency of the sera we are using, particularly in diphtheria, the question of the potency of the agents we are using in our immunisation schemes, whether, in fact, those agents are calculated to give the highest degree of immunity. Questions of the greatest technical difficulty and of the greatest importance to the community have arisen. We have had committees working on them and we have some working at the present time. It is not in any spirit of opposition to an amendment moved by Deputy Mulcahy or by any other Deputy that I would have to ask the House to reject the amendment, but rather because I do not believe it is going to help us. That is my firm conviction. If I believed it was going to help us or improve the Bill, I would accept it.

May we congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his changed attitude and hope he will continue on that basis?

I have not changed a bit.

It seems to me that we are at some cross purposes in what some of us think should be embodied in such a council of health and what the Parliamentary Secretary thinks it should be. It is as well to say, at the outset, quite clearly, that the point of view put by the Parliamentary Secretary in regard to the necessity of the Minister and the Department being able to obtain expert medical advice on the many problems they have to deal with is one that I personally would not suggest interfering with.

Nor would I.

In regard to the particular type of machinery of which the Parliamentary Secretary has spoken, or as to the medical or other scientific problems on which expert advice of the highest standard is required from time to time, that advice should be sought direct from the most eminent men and women available through the direct contact of his experts.

But is there not something more than that? It is quite clear that in many of the public health problems we have to deal with there is, in the first analysis, a basic scientific and medical problem to be solved, if possible. There is also a question of public health policy which is, in many cases, equally important and which very often must be the guiding factor in applying the scientific knowledge the experts have. In my view, a council of public health would not be a concentration of all the scientific and medical knowledge of the highest standard available to the Minister on particular problems, but rather a group of persons having knowledge either of the most expert kind or knowledge gained by their activities in public life, who would devote themselves to the general question of policy from the point of view of improving the public health generally, along the general lines set down in Section 11.

If at any time the need arose for the Minister, or even for that council of public health, to obtain the latest scientific knowledge of discoveries in relation to any particular problem, then certainly let us call in those groups of experts. I suggest that there is no conflict between the provisions of Section 12 and the amendment. The last sub-section of Section 12 states that every consultative council shall have special knowledge of matters in respect of which they are to give advice and assistance; in other words, that they will be based on the practice the Parliamentary Secretary has already outlined. But can we not envisage something broader, in the way of a council of public health, which will interest itself more in the question of policy and support the Minister, as a responsible member of the Government charged with carrying out the duties imposed on him under this Bill?

Take the very two diseases the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned— gastro-enteritis and tuberculosis. Is it not true, in relation to the medical problem of gastro-enteritis, that there is also a social problem and very often it is the social conditions of this disease which make it such a scourge among certain sections of our population? In the case of tuberculosis, let us give all credit possible to the Parliamentary Secretary and the officers of the Department for the measures brought before us recently, on which there was a high degree of unanimity. But is it not also true that over recent years there has been a campaign widespread throughout the country on this question, arousing public opinion regarding tuberculosis? Is it not correct that a certain amount of general propaganda has been handed on to an organisation which is, in some sense, a replica of this council of public health, that is, the Irish Red Cross Society? From that view, the only point I can find which the Parliamentary Secretary could make against the proposal would be one made in regard to a similar proposal in another sphere of public administration. That is, the possibility of conflict in regard to policy between such a council and the responsible Minister. I do not think that is a very serious danger, nor do I regard it as an argument that should weigh the balance against the proposal in the amendment. We have already got a somewhat similar type of council in regard to agriculture, and we have only set up a somewhat similar type in regard to transport. I cannot see that that danger of conflict in relation to policy has become apparent in those two fields. If at any time such a council was in existence, and the members of it made any pronouncement to which the Minister did not see fit to give effect, then the Minister has sufficient independence and a sufficient sense of responsibility to take a definite stand.

I think it would be helpful to the Minister if he had such a council, not composed, as might appear from the amendment, on a purely professional basis, but on the broad basis of bringing together leading people selected because of their social attitude and public-spirited activities in the matter of health. By bringing together people of divers attainments, there would be concentrated a general pool of knowledge which would be helpful in forwarding and supporting any public health policy to which the Minister might wish to give effect.

Deputy Burke has asked why there is need of this council when the Minister has all the knowledge he may require available, either through his Department or through the county medical officers. He says that all this knowledge comes into the Department, where it is considered and dealt with and on that knowledge is based the policy of the Department. It may be that at times it is the best possible policy to meet the situation, but there are occasions when that policy may need to be improved. In all questions affecting public health, no Minister, regardless of the political Party which may support his Government, should be averse to being given advice with regard to measures which might help to improve public health. He may not accept such advice and he may disagree with any suggestions that are submitted, but I suggest that it is helpful to have such advice, even though much criticism may later be levelled against it.

Deputy Burke and the Parliamentary Secretary raised the point that consultation can be had directly with groups of experts. I have every respect for an expert in any field, but I am aware that sometimes an expert may be an isolated individual in his own field and it is only when his knowledge is brought out and tested against the knowledge of other experts and the practical knowledge of ordinary men and women, that very often his views will become valuable and capable of being applied. We must remember the possibility of a clash between experts or an interchange of expert knowledge, and it might be necessary at the same time to compare expert knowledge with the practical knowledge of men and women in the spheres of life that may be involved. It is in these circumstances that I think this council would fulfil a more valuable function than the Parliamentary Secretary seems to envisage.

I cannot see how the existence of a council of public health would in the slightest degree limit the activities of the Minister in calling in and consulting any experts if he wishes to do so. So long as that council is there, operating on a general and continuous basis, there would be a fountain from which there could be an expression of expert and public-spirited views on general health policies. The members of such a council could make useful suggestions as to the lines along which we should try to guide our public health policy and in matters of importance they might suggest the goal at which we should aim.

I do not think there will be any difficulty placed in the Minister's way in carrying out legislation of this type. It would be of tremendous value for the Minister if he had this council to assist him. The members of it would help to make popular measures calculated to improve the health of our people, measures which might tend to become unpopular in the course of their administration. The Parliamentary Secretary must realise that under this Bill there may be certain provisions that are quite good in themselves but that might create a feeling of unpopularity. Certain sections of the people may not like them. If it were possible, as was the case with tuberculosis, to arouse public opinion to support the Minister in carrying out necessary measures to improve general conditions, it would be most desirable.

I suggest he could enlist that support by having a council such as is suggested. The Minister would gain by doing so and we would make much faster progress than by relying on purely isolated expert advice by groups of individuals who might be called in by the Minister at a particular moment.

The Leader of the Opposition put down this amendment to Section 11 because he realised that it was a completely different suggestion from what is embodied in Section 12. That is obvious to anyone who reads and studies the section and the amendment. The Parliamentary Secretary has rightly pointed out that it is necessary for the Minister to have the consultative councils provided for in Section 12 and it is obvious these councils should be composed of expert people with specialised knowledge capable of dealing with a particular problem. The Parliamentary Secretary has already told the House of the difficulties that are there and even of the doubt that is present in the minds of experts regarding the potency of certain agents for immunisation against diphtheria, and other prophylactics. He raised there an important question of policy. Once you throw any doubt on the potency of those agents and the advisability of enforcing their use, you raise an important issue. There is all the more reason why it should be necessary to encourage research workers of the kind referred to in Section 12 to give advice on particular problems.

The council this amendment seeks to provide is a different type from that provided in Section 12. So far as the administration of these schemes is concerned, and so far as inducing the public to avail of certain services, new services and new medical ideas, is concerned, there is a psychological aspect. The research worker is concerned only with finding a cure for a particular disease. So far as Section 12 is concerned, the Minister is going to provide groups of specialists and give them an opportunity of coming together to advise him on a particular matter. The council suggested in the amendment will deal with general policy and will give the Minister information on problems that the ordinary practitioner in rural Ireland is up against, so far as getting across the idea of improved public health to the general community is concerned. That is where a council of this kind is going to be helpful to the Minister, and to the Department, because the constitution of the council will give representation to every profession dealing with nursing, sanitation and public health. I do not know how far it applies in the Department of Local Government but an analogy can be drawn with the position in the Department of Agriculture.

There are many technical matters, of which experts in the Department of Agriculture are aware, and new ideas in the production of animals and crops, that have not been properly disseminated throughout the country. There is a definite gap there between the experts and the ordinary working people. Here, I fear the same gap occurs as far as local government is concerned, and the consultative councils, which the Minister is providing in Section 12 will not bridge that gap. The amendment will help the Minister to find a solution of the very complex and highly technical problems that will be built around the groups that can give him advice. As to administration, and the provision of curative methods, in order to ensure a better standard of public health, we suggest that this amendment aims at providing an advisory body to deal with the administrative difficulties, as well as with the social, psychological, and economic difficulties, and getting the necessary reaction from the public.

Question put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 25; Níl, 47.

  • Anthony, Richard S.
  • Bennett, George C.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Cogan, Patrick.
  • Coogan, Eamonn.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Dockrell, Henry M.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Everett, James.
  • Finucane, Patrick.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Hughes, James.
  • Keating, John.
  • Larkin, James (Junior).
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Mongan, Joseph W.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Sheldon, William A.W.

Níl

  • Allen, Denis.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Burke, Patrick (Co. Dublin).
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Colbert, Michael.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Daly, Francis J.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kissane, Eamon.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McCann, John.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Connor, John S.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Sullivan, Ted.
  • Rice, Bridget M.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
  • Walsh, Laurence.
  • Ward, Conn.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Bennett and McMenamin; Níl: Deputies Kissane and O Briain.
Amendment declared negatived.
Amendments Nos. 29 and 30 not moved.
Section 11, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 12.

I move amendment 31:—

In sub-section (1) to delete line 12 and substitute the words "the Minister shall by Order".

The purpose of this amendment is to achieve in a somewhat restricted sense what was attempted to be secured by amendment No. 28, that is, to provide, as set out in the section, for the setting up of consultative councils, but to make it imperative that these consultative councils shall be set up and that it shall not be left to the opinion of the Minister from time to time to decide whether or not these consultative councils will be brought into being or not. In the course of a statement on amendment No. 28 the Parliamentary Secretary referred to the practice of the Minister and the Department of calling into consultation medical and scientific experts from time to time. It occurs to me that while Section 12 does provide for the setting up of consultative councils, in effect they may be given life only to the extent that the Minister may from time to time feel that he requires such expert advice. In my opinion, if we cannot have what we sought to achieve in amendment No. 28—a full council of public health —we ought to try to get the next best thing, that is, consultative councils called in to advise and assist the Minister on particular matters of public health in respect of which the persons appointed on the consultative councils have special knowledge.

I suggest that these consultative councils have a continuous and permanent value and that it should be mandatory on the Minister to give effect to the amendment and not to leave it, as is suggested in the section at present, a matter for the Minister to decide from time to time whether it is desirable or requisite to bring into being such councils. Even if the amendment were accepted, a great deal of leeway is left in regard to the actual setting up of the council because the actual councils to be brought into being will still largely be determined by the Minister. If we could have the spirit of the amendment carried, then the Minister would realise that so far as Section 12 is concerned, the House had expressed the viewpoint that there should be consultative councils on a permanent basis rather than on a temporary basis for casual consultation from time to time. These councils should be on a permanent basis as a means of supplying a permanent and systematic measure of advice and assistance to the Minister on the particular problems in respect of which they might be set up.

The House will appreciate, I am sure, that it is not necessary on this amendment to go over all the ground that has been covered on amendment No. 28. The arguments are precisely the same. I have explained in considerable detail to the House the type of scientific problem that from time to time confronts the Minister, the steps that have been taken in the past and those that will be taken in the future to secure expert scientific advice if and when it is required. It might reasonably be argued that Section 12 would not be necessary at all if it was proposed to continue the policy in future that has been carried out in the past. But Section 12 gives us somewhat more power than merely to set up consultative councils. We do not require any statutory power to set up consultative councils from time to time. But we do need statutory power to pay any expenses. If we bring a medical scientist from Cork or Galway and he loses three, four or five days in the service of the community, I think he is entitled at least to out-of-pocket expenses. It was for that purpose that the section was put in here. From the practical point of view, it was not necessary, because the policy has been to seek expert advice on any matter concerning which our own advisers are in any way puzzled.

The amendment would, I think, be entirely ineffective and inoperative anyhow. Sub-section (1) says that it shall be lawful for the Minister, by Order, to establish consultative councils to do certain things. The amendment proposes that the Minister shall, by Order, establish a consultative council. Who is to determine how many of these councils are to be set up? Who is to determine when they are to be set up, or in what particular circumstances they are to be set up? Are not these matters that must be determined by the Minister? Will the Minister set up so many councils, regardless of whether there is any particular problem to be submitted to these councils for advice? Is there to be no limitation on the councils he is to set up? What will his position be if he is bound to set up councils regardless of whether he requires their expert advice or not? It does not seem to me to make sense. I think the present arrangement is a much more satisfactory one within which, as and when various scientific problems arise concerning which the Minister requires or desires to have expert opinion, he is empowered to set up such committees. The committee might be only in existence for a period of a week until it would have discharged the particular function for which it was brought into being. It might be like the committee that we had advising and assisting us on the enteritis problem. That committee sat at intervals over a period of months. But rarely have we run up against a scientific problem that involved keeping a committee in being for a period of more than a few days.

I think it would be better just to leave the section as it is. I do not think Deputy Larkin's amendment in any way improves it. What is the use of putting a statutory obligation on the Minister to bring these bodies into being inasmuch as it is the Minister who must determine, at any rate, whether it is necessary to set them up or not? If we had never had any consultation with scientific medical thought outside in the past, there might be some justification for coming along and trying to bludgeon us into accepting some principle that we had resisted in the past. That is not the position. When we are faced with a scientific problem of complexity, not only are we willing, but we are most anxious to secure and have always secured the assistance of the medical profession outside. I think it would be wise to leave that alone. It has worked well in the past, and I have no doubt that it will work well enough if it is permitted to do so.

From what he has said, I think the Parliamentary Secretary looks upon this section as it stands as a mere empty gesture; that it has no reality; that it does not enable him to do anything that he is not at present empowered to do beyond paying the expenses of people who come up here. Deputy Larkin's amendment gives reality to this section. As it stands, the section is permissive. The Parliamentary Secretary is not bound in any way by the passing of the section to set up at any time any consultative council. His complaint against Deputy Larkin's amendment is that he would be compelled to set up a council regardless of whether he wanted advice or not.

If the Deputy had been here during the debate on the other amendment he would understand the position more clearly. I think he was not in the House when we were discussing the other amendment when the full case was made.

That may be so. I have not been absent from the debate for any lengthy period. I regret very much if I missed any of the pearls of wisdom that fell from the Parliamentary Secretary.

I am not making that point against the Deputy.

I am commiserating with myself at the loss I suffered by that temporary absence when apparently the Parliamentary Secretary dropped some words of wisdom.

Everybody was delighted. I am sorry the Deputy missed it.

I suppose I would share in the general delight. We have had the same approach to this as we have had to every section of the Bill so far by the Parliamentary Secretary and that is that he does not want to have his freedom to do what he considers to be the right thing interfered with or circumscribed in any way. The Parliamentary Secretary rejected the setting up of the council proposed in Deputy Mulcahy's amendment and relied on the fact that he was going to set up consultative councils. The Parliamentary Secretary wanted to read a whole lot into Deputy Larkin's amendment that is not in it. He asked when they were to be set up, how they were to be set up, what they were to do and how often they were to be called together. All that is covered in the section which reads:—

"It shall be lawful for the Minister by Order to establish consultative councils to give to the Minister, in the manner prescribed by the Order...."

Who is to prescribe the Order?

"....advice and assistance in connection with such matters affecting or incidental to the health of the people as may be specified in the Order."

I do not want to labour this because the issue is a very simple and clear one. The difference is between leaving it completely to the option of the Minister to set up a consultative council or obliging the Minister to set up that council and to seek its advice.

I support entirely the spirit of the amendment. I do not think that if Deputy Morrissey had heard the Parliamentary Secretary on the kind of inquiry he had to make from specialists it would in any way have changed his point of view. Why should groups called together to advise the Minister on a particular point be assigned such a description as "consultative council" in the way in which the words have been included in this section? I think the Parliamentary Secretary appreciates that point when he says that if he simply carried on as he carried on in the past it would not be necessary to have the section. I think it was absurd to put the section into the Bill unless the Minister intends that he will have consultative councils on special points upon which he requires advice and direction.

The whole attitude of the Parliamentary Secretary with regard to councils requires to be explained to us. When the Vocational Organisation Commission was set up, the Taoiseach described vocational organisation as an organisation of society in which people who are engaged in similar callings or professions naturally gravitate together to promote the interests of these professions or callings, but in discussing the directive given them by the Taoiseach when he met them at the beginning of their labours, the Commission had to remark that they felt that the Taoiseach did not intend it to accept this as a comprehensive definition of the function of a vocational organisation. Whether it was the intention of the Government or not to restrict the function which vocational organisation would be suggested for, the Commission, happily and luckily, went more widely and developed the idea of function and of vocation brought into practical application to civic and governmental life.

I take it that, while in his attitude to the last amendment of mine, the Parliamentary Secretary turns down the whole idea of vocational councils, of a vocational council in respect of public health in the same way as it has been turned down in respect of education, implying perhaps that the Government have turned their backs entirely on the theories and recommendations in this commission's report, Section 12 suggests that there must be some spark of the commission's ideas in the Parliamentary Secretary's mind. I think it necessary for the House to give a specific direction to the Minister which would imply that he does want vocational consultative councils to assist him in general matters of public health. He has spurned the idea that he wants a council to deal with fundamental things—with a review of social, economic and employment matters only upon which our whole public health scheme can be properly built, and is now confining himself to accepting consultation in council to patch up the defects which arise in public health matters, as a result of some of the difficulties which a public health council, advising him basically, might enable the country to avoid.

I support the idea that a directive should be given in the measure to the Minister that he should not carry on without consultative councils for special matters requiring attention in his Ministry. It may be that the amendment, as it is, leaves the Minister a free hand to ignore the intention of Parliament in the matter of consultative councils because the matters in respect of which he should have these councils are not defined, but I think the House should take a decision now, by passing Deputy Larkin's amendment, that consultative councils should be set up for special purposes, and on Report Stage we could deal with the question of the special matters in respect of which the House thinks consultative councils should specially be set up, without limiting the Minister in any way in respect of other matters in relation to which he could set up councils and inquiring bodies.

I am not concerned with the question of the Minister or the Department obtaining expert medical or scientific advice on a particular narrow problem which, as he says, may be dealt with in a matter of a day or two. I would refer the Parliamentary Secretary to the duties we have imposed on the Minister under Section 11. There is, first, the duty of the prevention and the cure of disease. It may be quite true that there may be a number of very difficult and deep scientific problems which have to be dealt with in relation to the cure of disease—he has referred to them himself already—but when we come to deal with the question of prevention, which is now also part of the Minister's duty, there is a wide field in which there can be a continuous basis of activity for a consultative council to operate on and to give valuable and consistent advice and assistance to the Minister in the particular sphere allocated to it.

One of the particular matters with which the Minister is charged is the treatment and cure of persons suffering from mental illness. It is quite possible that the Minister might require advice as to the particular medical treatment for some form of illness which might in future be brought to his attention, but is there not a wide social field in which the illness arises and becomes more important with every day that passes? Only the other day, I read a statement by a leading person in England to the effect that one of the outstanding factors giving rise to the increased incidence of mental illness was the housing shortage. That is not a narrow scientific problem, but a problem on which we can have, and on which the Minister should have, advice and assistance in its general application from the point of view of policy.

I do not suggest that we should have these consultative councils purely on a vocational basis. This House is probably the best commentary on setting up any type of council or any form of legislature on a vocational basis. We are dealing with a medical Bill and the Parliamentary Secretary is the only medical man at the House at the moment. Those of us who are trying to apply ourselves to the measure are not medical experts. We have no medical training, but we are approaching the problem not only from the angle of our responsibilities as public representatives but from the angle of our personal interest. We might have to get the guidance of experts, but there are, at the same time, certain spheres of activity in relation to the lives of our people of which many of us have probably as wide and expert a knowledge as any medical expert. It is in these fields and from these conditions that many of the problems which the medical expert has to deal with arise.

The Parliamentary Secretary has commented on the amendment, while still failing to meet the full purpose of it with which I dealt in my speech. It is quite clear that, if the purpose of the amendment and the principle of such consultative councils were accepted either by the Parliamentary Secretary or by the House, the question of the machinery by which they would be brought into being and set going would be a purely minor matter. I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary, even on this section of his own Bill, still does not approach the question of advice, assistance and support in his drive to improve the health of our people on a broader basis than that on which he contributed to the debate on this amendment and the last amendment. I did not put down the amendment merely because of my own interest in the matter, but because a number of people outside were so interested in the possibility of having these consultative councils set up and felt that there was such value to be gained by the existence of such councils that they mentioned the matter to me. It is because I am convinced that they are correct, and that the Government as a whole, the Parliamentary Secretary notwithstanding, will be assisted in meeting these problems by the positive contribution which such councils will make to dealing with public health problems on the widest basis that I propose to press the amendment.

Question:—"That the words proposed to be deleted stand"—put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 46; Níl, 23.

  • Allen, Denis.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Bourke, Patrick (Co. Dublin.)
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Colbert, Michael.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Daly, Francis J.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamonn.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kissane, Eamon.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McCann, John.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Connor, John S.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Sullivan, Ted.
  • Rice, Bridget M.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
  • Walsh, Laurence.
  • Ward, Conn.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Ó Ciosáin and Ó Briain; Níl: Deputies Larkin and Corish.

    Question declared carried.

    Bennett, George C.Byrne, Alfred.Cogan, Patrick.Corish, Brendan.Cosgrave, Liam.Dockrell, Henry M.Dockrell, Maurice E.Finucane, Patrick.Giles, Patrick.Hughes, James.Keating, John.Keyes, Michael.

    Larkin, James (Junior).McAuliffe, Patrick.McFadden, Michael Og.McMenamin, Daniel.Mongan, Joseph W.Morrissey, Daniel.Mulcahy, Richard.O'Higgins, Thomas F.O'Reilly, Patrick.Reidy, James.Sheldon, William A.W.

    Amendments Nos. 32 and 33 not moved.

    On behalf of Deputy O'Sullivan, I move amendment No. 34:—

    In sub-section (3), line 26, before the word "having" to insert the words "including members of local authorities and social welfare workers".

    The amendment seeks to ensure that in the constitution of councils regard will be had to members of local authorities and social welfare workers. This has already been dealt with in our previous discussions. The object is to bring in public-spirited persons, not perhaps with medical or scientific knowledge, but with wide, personal knowledge in regard to such matters as the Minister might require advice on at any time.

    As I have already explained, the purpose of the section is to enable the Minister to set up consultative councils in relation to medical and scientific problems. We have discussed on more than one amendment already the point whether such councils should be entirely professional or scientific, or whether we should have other classes of the community represented on them. It is entirely a matter of the policy behind the section. The intention behind the section is to secure the advice of experts, when such advice might be required.

    Deputy Larkin has something wider in mind. If the principle embodied in his amendment were to be accepted, a different type of council from the council that the Government have in mind would have to be set up. I have opposed the viewpoint in relation to the other amendments, and I have to oppose it in relation to this.

    It becomes clear as we go along that the Parliamentary Secretary and, apparently, from what he has now said, the Government, are concerned only with the curing of disease.

    Ah, no.

    If we can draw any conclusion——

    I dealt with that matter, too—the difficulties we have regarding curative and preventive measures and the expert advice we require.

    If the Parliamentary Secretary has in mind preventive measures, then I submit that if those preventive measures are going to be effective, he has to get outside the purely scientific mind. Some of us have certain ideas as to the various causes of disease in this country. Some of us believe that certain wants are responsible for a considerable amount of disease and for a considerable increase in disease in this country. We believe that the measures to be taken to remove those wants and prevent disease are measures upon which the Parliamentary Secretary would not necessarily get the best or most practical advice from what he calls experts. I think, from what he has said and the way in which he has said it, that he has in mind, almost solely, medical experts.

    That is right.

    I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary whether the type of person envisaged in Deputy Larkin's amendment would not be better able than a medical expert to advise him as to what steps should be taken to prevent an increase in disease. I do not know whether a medical expert would have more knowledge on this matter than the type of person set out in the amendment. I am satisfied that the main reason for the expansion of disease is that many people are not able at present—and have not been able in the circumstances which have obtained for a long time—to obtain nourishment necessary to fit their bodies to resist disease. I am perfectly satisfied that we are not going to prevent disease by stipulating that a working man, with seven or eight children dependent on him, should be nailed down to a wage of £2 per week as a maximum. I am not satisfied that by taking that step—and particularly when it is taken by the Department of Local Government and Public Health—it is tending in the direction of preventing disease.

    I believe that social workers, whose work daily brings them into close contact with working-class conditions, would be in a better position to advise the Minister and the Department. They could give advice in a much more practical way than any medical expert. When you come to deal with the prevention of disease, it is more of an economic matter than a medical one. We have in this country heads of families on wages of less than £2 per week. There is an increase in the cost of living of 72 per cent. and the real purchasing value of the £2, as compared with pre-war days, is not much more than £1. From conditions such as these you can only have a growth in disease.

    I would like the Parliamentary Secretary, before this Bill becomes law, to read the report—if he has not already done so—of some of the county medical officers of health. I would be very glad if he would read the report of the medical officer of health for North Tipperary, covering the last three or four years. He will see there what the opinion is with regard to one of the main causes of disease in this country. The amendment should be regarded as a very reasonable one, unless all this question of consultative councils in the Parliamentary Secretary's mind is so much make-believe and unless the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government are concerned solely with curing disease and not taking any steps whatever to prevent it.

    The Minister's attitude to Deputy O'Sullivan's amendment is very revealing. Sub-section (1) reads:

    "It shall be lawful for the Minister by Order to establish consultative councils to give to the Minister, in the manner prescribed by the Order, advice and assistance in connection with such matters affecting or incidental to the health of the people as may be specified in the Order."

    There is not a word about the medical or scientific aspect of the question. Sub-section (2) states the Minister may out of the moneys provided pay to the members expenses. Sub-section (3) says:

    "Every consultative council established under this section shall consist of persons having practical experience or special knowledge of the matters in respect of which they are to give advice and assistance."

    There is nothing about medical or scientific matters which affect, or are incidental to the health of the people. I would have thought that Deputy O'Sullivan's amendment was not necessary; that members of a local authority and social welfare workers would be regarded as persons having practical experience and knowledge of matters that might be inquired into. Certainly, the Minister would have full power as the section stands to inquire into them. For the Parliamentary Secretary to say that he is only going to take medical and scientific matters into consideration is very revealing. It is particularly so in view of the attitude of the Department on a certain occasion recently. The Department decided to take a number of people for training in nutrition, and although there was, in the vocational schools in the City of Dublin, a special department dealing with instruction in nutrition, from the scientific and technical aspect, when a body was set up by the Department to select persons to undergo a course that would enable them to go through the country and study nutritional problems, it was not people with qualifications in the study of nutrition were selected originally. It was social workers, people who had attended lectures and courses for social science. It was only when the persons so qualified in social matters, as distinct from technical matters, refused, because of the inadequacy of the provision made for their upkeep in Great Britain, that persons who had got scientific training from the nutritional point of view were sent. While the Minister insists that it is only people with scientific and medical qualifications are going to be used by him for his consultations, I do not know the cause of turning down the original scientifically qualified people.

    Be fair? The Minister did not turn them down. The selection board did.

    Oh, it is the selection board select people with social qualifications, rather than those with technical qualifications. But the selection board was selected by the Minister.

    Yes, but the Minister accepted their recommendations. It is a bad position for the Deputy.

    The position is that the Minister sent for the type of persons with social rather than with technical qualifications.

    Is the Deputy satisfied with the constitution of the selection board?

    We were not allowed to know what the constitution of it is.

    The Deputy knows it well.

    It is not necessary to go into the history of all that.

    The Deputy cannot throw any mud about that.

    Surely the Parliamentary Secretary does not consider that I am throwing mud. I am seeking information and asserting that the Minister, or the Department, or whoever wants to be described as the operating factor acting for the Minister, did, in order to prepare people for certain examinations, select people with social and administrative qualifications rather than those with technical qualifications. It was only when they turned down the Minister's offer of expenses that the Department had to fall back upon the purely technically trained people. It is a fact that the Minister takes power to establish consultative councils to deal with such matters, affecting or incidental to the health of the people, as may be specified, and he tells us that he is not going to pay the slightest attention to any matters, except those that are medical or scientific, or that are remedial and curative rather than preventive. I must point out, as many Deputies pointed out, that housing, feeding, employment and conditions of employment, are matters that will much more effect improvement in public health than any preventive or curative measures that the Department may consider or develop.

    I refer again to the position disclosed by the report of the housing of the working classes in Dublin by a committee which was set up by the Minister to inquire into housing conditions in the city. The committee reported that a survey was made in 1938 by the Corporation, and that in that survey they covered 11,000 houses, housing 33,000 families, and that when for the purpose of examining the social conditions of these families taken at random, 9,200 out of the 33,000 had their income investigated. Appendix 17 shows that 2,100 or 20 per cent. had an income of less than 20/-; that 2,677, or a further 25.5 per cent., had an income of less than £2 per week, and that 995 or 9.5 per cent. had an income of less than £2 10s. 0d., so that you have 56 per cent. of 9,200 families with less than £2 10s. 0d. coming in, under Dublin housing conditions, to maintain such families. Looked at from another point of view, it was disclosed by appendix 23, on the assumption that for essential subsistence for the first two people in any family, 20/- a week under 1938 conditions was required, and 5/- additional for each subsequent member, that being the amount required for food alone, for mere subsistence, without anything being left of the family income to pay the rent, or to pay for any other thing that the family might use, in addition to the amount of food absolutely required for their subsistence.

    The examination disclosed that in the case of 30 per cent., or 2,754 families, there was not a halfpenny left over and above the money required for food. There was not a halfpenny left for rent, fire, fuel, or anything a family might require in addition to food. In the case of 7.4 per cent., or 675 families, in addition to the subsistence level in respect of food there was only 5/- out of the total family income. In the case of 778 families, or 8.6 per cent., over the subsistence level in respect of food, there was only 10/- to pay for rent, fire, or anything else that the family might require. The situation was that, of these 9,200 families whose social condition was examined in the City of Dublin by competent officials of the Dublin Corporation, 46 per cent. had only 10/- over the merest food subsistence level of income to provide for the families, and 30 per cent., or 2,754, had not a halfpenny at all.

    The Parliamentary Secretary talks about public health and about setting up consultative councils to give advice and assistance in connection with such matters incidental to the health of the people as he may specify in his Order and he not only resists the suggestion made by Deputy Larkin and Deputy O'Sullivan that members of local authorities and social welfare workers might be employed on consultative councils, but he tells this House that he is not going to get a single consultative council to look at any aspect of this problem. I think there is one consultative council that it would be essential that the Department of Local Government should set up at once, that is, a consultative council that would examine and advise as to whether it is possible, and on what grounds they consider it possible, for a rural worker to maintain a family in stable and satisfactory conditions on 38/- or 40/- a week, the wage level to which the Department of Local Government are by emergency Order, and contrary to the unanimous representations of many local authorities, keeping rural workers in those classes over which the Department of Local Government have any grip.

    Can the Parliamentary Secretary, if he is interested in the basis upon which our public health could be built up, give any reason as to why he maintains the attitude that the rural workers should be able to maintain their homes and their families in stable and contented conditions on 38/- a week, and can he give any reason why, if he still maintains that attitude, he cannot put before us facts, collected by his Department or put before him by some consultative council, that would persuade us that he has any warrant for the assumptions upon which he is acting when keeping rural wages down to the point at which he is keeping them under emergency powers?

    Deputy Mulcahy has questioned whether this amendment should be necessary and suggests that we might almost take it for granted that on certain matters in respect of which consultative councils would be set up, almost automatically, the Minister would include members of local authorities and social welfare workers. After the experience we have had during the last few hours it is quite clear that the amendments dealing with this particular question of councils have been very expedient and very necessary.

    Not for the purpose of adding anything to the Bill but merely for the purpose of dragging from the Parliamentary Secretary, bit by bit, a clear and definite statement of the attitude of the Department to the fundamentals of public health in this country. Is it not quite clear that, in the first place, we are not going to have a council of health which will deal with public health policy, and secondly, we are not going to have consultative councils that must be set up regardless of whether the Minister has any personal opinion in the matter or not?

    If those councils are set up they are going to be restricted to the most narrow, rigid and limited basis possible. All through we see quite definitely a clear indication that in so far as the basic problems that would give rise to the problems of disease, both physical and mental, in this country are concerned, there is not going to be any body given any standing or authority by the Minister which would be able to apply itself to these fundamentals of public health. It seems to me that in so far as we are being asked in this House to try to deal with the commencement of a new code of public health, we are just playing with the problem. If the Parliamentary Secretary feels, in this day and age, that our only approach to public health is to be on the basis of medical cure, then I think we might save ourselves a lot of trouble. I think he knows and realises as well as any of the laymen on these benches, that so long as we have problems of poverty, of overcrowding, of the pressure of economic and social factors on the minds and bodies of our people, we are going to have these other problems of disease and that if we are ever to find a basis for a modern progressive code of public health in this country, sooner or later, either his Department and his Government or someone else in this country has to start at the base and try to work up. It is quite clear that all of this machinery referred to in Section 12 is only put in, frankly, for what the Parliamentary Secretary says—in order to legalise the payment of expenses of certain medical experts —for no other purpose and of no other value. We should be quite clear on that and we should be clear that what we are dealing with here is not a code of public health at all but that it is purely a question of codifying certain administrative measures and in so far as having any drastic and permanent effect, any positive effect, upon the public health of our people is concerned, we have to wait, not only for a more enlightened Government, but also for a Parliamentary Secretary who would try to approach in his own particular sphere of responsibility a broader understanding of the problems that the men and women of his own profession outside this House are bringing forward day after day for our attention.

    I rise to support this amendment. I was particularly struck by what Deputy Mulcahy has said. He read out very revealing figures which referred to the City of Dublin and which are known to members of the Corporation. These facts, I venture to say, are not so well known to individual members of the medical profession, and, if we are to believe what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, these consultative councils, if and when they are called together, will consist exclusively of the medical profession. Members of the medical profession do very good work in their own particular spheres and they have a definite and important place on consultative councils, but I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary has made a case for having consultative councils composed exclusively of the medical profession. I know something of the working of various committees of the Dublin Corporation, which is the largest local authority in this country. This amendment has been moved by Deputy O'Sullivan, who is also a member of the Dublin Corporation. I should like to assure this House that there are very many people taking part in local government as members of local authorities in this country. They have a wide experience of public health matters as it affects certain sections of the people and as it affects their own areas. In the Dublin Corporation we have a housing committee, a public health committee, a child welfare committee, a school meals committee and different aspects of life are touched by these various committees. Unfortunately, from what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, it is obvious that the experience of members of these committees is to be entirely cut off from the consultative councils. I submit that these consultative councils will thereby be very much weakened. I agree with what Deputy Larkin said that we now see that public health in this country is to be entirely divorced from any direction outside that of scientific medical opinion. This Bill, I take it, is an effort to improve the public health, that is to say, the health of the citizens generally. We know that in various parts of it there are matters which are completely new to our citizens. To get these new ways put across to the citizens you will need all the help that lay opinion as well as medical opinion in this country can give to these matters. We find that the help of social welfare workers and members of local authorities is to be entirely cut away from the Minister and the Department of Local Government. I think that is a great mistake and a weakness which will become manifest if this amendment is not accepted.

    I support the amendment. I have an amendment down which I think the Parliamentary Secretary has met. Nevertheless, I am strongly in favour of this amendment. If we are to have a council of any kind I think it is necessary that we should define the classes of persons who will form the council. There are in the country members of local authorities possessing expert knowledge of public health matters. Certainly one can visualise a few with expert knowledge on this particular matter. There are also social workers that one could describe as experts also. There ought to be provision made in the Bill for the inclusion of these people. The Parliamentary Secretary has caused a lot of this debate to be centred on himself. When I put down my amendment originally I was inspired by the manner in which the Parliamentary Secretary met the House on the Second Reading of the Bill. The Parliamentary Secretary was asked if he consulted any local authority or any representatives of a local authority and he said he did not, that he did not think it necessary. Perhaps that was one reason why Deputy O'Sullivan was inspired to put down this amendment, just as I was inspired to put down my amendment, because when the Parliamentary Secretary was asked if he had made any representations to the medical association he said he had not. He went further than that mere negative reply by almost offering an insult to that medical association, because he insinuated that, if he had, he might be appealing to a political body. The Parliamentary Secretary made it apparent in his Second Reading speech that he had no intention of consulting either the local authorities or the medical profession through their organisation or having any cooperation with them. That was one of the reasons that inspired me to put down my amendment. Perhaps it was one of the reasons that induced Deputy O'Sullivan to put down his amendment. Whatever the reason was, we have in this Bill provision for a consultative council to be established for certain purposes. If we make provision for a consultative council, is it unreasonable to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to define the representation that will be on that council? Is it unreasonable to ask that there should be a representative of local authorities on that council, as well as a representative of social welfare workers and the medical profession, whom the Minister has now referred to in better terms than he did on the Second Reading?

    The debate on this amendment has been very interesting to me. The gyrations of the Opposition, and particularly, the attempt of Deputy Bennett to get away from his amendment are very entertaining. Deputy Bennett is, I presume, a member of the Fine Gael Party still. He turned over with the new alliance and lined up in accordance with the general agreement that appears to have been reached over there. Deputy Bennett solemnly put down an amendment that would confine the membership of the consultative council almost entirely to the medical profession.

    What about those of practical experience?

    What does the Oxford Dictionary say about the word "almost"?

    "Every consultative council established under this section shall consist of persons having medical or surgical degrees and practical experience...."

    Practical experience or special knowledge of certain matters.

    Deputy Dockrell was particularly struck by Deputy Mulcahy's speech, and so was I, but perhaps not just in the same way. Deputy Mulcahy's speech was certainly a striking one; one of the most striking of the many striking contributions that he has made to this Bill already. I am sure Deputy Mulcahy would be surprised to know—I hope he will not be offended— that I am beginning to have an admiration for him.

    That is the most damaging thing said about him for a long time.

    He has taken chances on this Bill that nobody but a courageous man would take.

    He always had courage.

    I never denied that. Whatever I may have said about him, I never said he was a coward. He is very critical of Section 12.

    I think it is an excellent section if operated properly.

    It is an excellent section if it is operated properly. The whole fault of the section, if there is any fault to be found with it, is that it has never been properly operated.

    And may not be operated at all.

    Deputy Bennett comes to the rescue when all fruit fails. Does Deputy Mulcahy know—if he does not, it is time he did, and it is time that the House knew—that Section 12 is practically a verbatim copy of Section 19 of the Local Government Act of 1925 passed by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government?

    I said it was a good section if it were worked properly.

    That section empowering the Government who preceded us to set up a consultative council, and in this way and in no other, has been there since 1925. Sub-section (3) of Section 19 of the 1925 Act says:—

    "Every consultative council established under this section shall consist of persons having practical experience or special knowledge of the matters in respect of which they are to give advice and assistance."

    It is word for word what is in the section which Deputy Mulcahy now wants to amend.

    I approve of its very wide terms.

    Deputy Mulcahy approves of this section so enthusiastically, but yet from 1925 they had this statutory power and not a single consultative council was set up, medical or otherwise.

    You have had 14 years.

    Oh, but the difference is that I have set up many consultative councils. I have had numerous consultative bodies advising on the different technical and professional matters which arose. The Deputy missed a whole lot when he was out. The Deputy had to go out some time. It is only an iron man could stick it from morning until night, without having to go out some time. I am not blaming him for that, but if he had been here at that particular time, he would have profited greatly. He missed a good deal by being out. Do not ask us to go over it all again.

    It was so good, that I think it should be repeated. If it was at all as good as the Parliamentary Secretary seems to think it was, we should have it again.

    There is every indication that the discussion on this Bill will last for a few days longer and the Deputy will have an opportunity of reading it. If he would like to have it amplified afterwards, I shall amplify it for him the following week.

    I would much prefer to hear you speak it.

    The section was a fine section when the Cumann na nGaedheal Government enacted it. It will not do at all now. We must not only have consultative councils now, but we must have the type of consultative council which Deputy Mulcahy thinks we must have. Deputy Larkin joins with him and Deputy Coogan is smiling. He is not sure which side he will be with, but I believe he will be with them anyhow, and that they will all be together on this matter, because it seems to be good politics. They are welcome to it, but I have doubts about their political wisdom.

    You are a good judge from that point of view.

    I am, from this point of view, too, that the people are better judges than either the Deputy or I.

    That is our only hope.

    And they have passed judgment in no uncertain terms, and on many occasions. Will Deputies opposite adopt a reasonable attitude at any stage of this Bill? Will they stop this political stunt? Surely they do not expect anybody to believe that they are sincere and honest in these matters when they spend hours criticising the very sections which are taken verbatim from the legislation they themselves passed? This is a co-ordinating measure. If we are to coordinate the law, we must translate the powers we have under the existing law into the new measure, if these powers are to have any effect at all. That is all we have done here. Yet we have brought this tirade of abuse on ourselves because we have taken something which Cumann na nGaedheal handed down to us. Perhaps we should not have taken it.

    The Parliamentary Secretary has stuffed his ears with such stubborn determination not to listen to what we are saying that he has completely failed to hear anything I said on this section.

    I listened, with pain.

    I feel that it has to be recorded, following the Parliamentary Secretary's remarks, that without recalling all that was done in 1925—thanks be to God, the Parliamentary Secretary can forget some things, even if he will insist on remembering others——

    Do not ask me to forget this. It is too much.

    I actually read out this section to show how wide and how empowering it was, and I even committed myself to the suggestion that I did not think, if it were operated reasonably and properly, it was even necessary to make any addition.

    The Deputy did not operate it at all.

    That is all I wanted to say with regard to the section, but in view of the attitude of the Parliamentary Secretary disclosing his intentions with regard to the lines on which the section was to be operated, I thought it advisable to have the amendment which Deputy Larkin previously proposed, making it mandatory on the Minister to have consultative councils, and secondly, that it should be the expressed opinion of the House that persons with public experience on local authorities and persons with experience of social work should be eligible for membership of them, in order to advise the Minister in regard to what the section says they are required for, that is, matters affecting and incidental to the health of the people.

    Why did you not put it into force 21 years ago?

    Because it was not necessary then.

    Not at all. You had a good Government then.

    And if the Parliamentary Secretary has nothing to learn from the past 21 years but the things he tells us here he remembers or has learnt, it is a poor look-out for public health.

    You were there for a while after 1925.

    The Parliamentary Secretary started his tirade by telling us that he had been very much entertained by the speeches made in support of the amendment. I am afraid we cannot return the compliment.

    I knew that.

    We have not been either entertained or instructed. He talked about the abusive speeches made by the combined Opposition on this amendment. It is a pity we could not make a record of his own speech, so that he could listen to it later. I become more troubled in my mind about this Bill every time the Parliamentary Secretary speaks.

    You will be in a bad way before I am finished.

    I feel a certain amount of fear when I have to keep in mind also the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary is likely soon to be promoted to the position of Minister. That is the rumour. I venture to say that it is positively dangerous to put the powers contained in this Bill into the hands of a Parliamentary Secretary who shows the type of mind disclosed in the speech he has just made. He accuses people on this side, in a series of cheap jibes, of being concerned only with politics on this Bill. Every time the Parliamentary Secretary has opened his mouth, from the start of this Committee Stage, he has shown that he himself has never risen above the petty politician.

    Will the Parliamentary Secretary get it into his mind that there are people in this country and in this House as well as himself who are interested and concerned about the public health of the community, at least as much as he is, and that there are people without expert knowledge, without medical degrees, on this side of the House, who are as concerned about the health of the people of this country as the Parliamentary Secretary is, either as a Parliamentary Secretary or as a doctor? He should not use his medical degree to hurl cheap jibes across here to Deputies who are not professional men, jibes that we are joining up and that there is a new alliance. Instead of learning something from the fact that the Fine Gael Party, the Labour Party and Clann na Talmhan feel that this amendment would improve the section if it were put into it, he learns nothing from that. Why are they united on it? Merely because they can see how beneficial it would be, which he apparently fails or refuses to see.

    He falls back again on the jibe: "This section is lifted word for word from the 1925 Act". One would imagine that the world has stood still for the last 21 years. There is this to be said about the section, when it was put into the 1925 Act, that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, unlike the present Government, did not believe they were infallible, that anything they put into a Bill could not be improved. The Parliamentary Secretary shouts that it is something to be ashamed of to suggest that when a section was framed 21 years ago, in the circumstances which obtained in this country and in the world at that time, in relation to the public health of the country at that time, that section was then so perfect that it requires no amendment now to meet the new conditions.

    I want him to let us know, here and now, with 600 further amendments before us, whether at any period during the Committee Stage of this Bill or the subsequent stages, he is going to face up to this very serious measure— a measure that may be a matter of life and death for some of our citizens—or if we are to have the cheap political play-acting from the Parliamentary Secretary that we have had so far. If it is not a serious matter to him, it is to some of us and certainly is to the citizens, not only from the point of view of their health but from the point of view of their pockets. Some of us here are more concerned with the prevention of disease than, perhaps, with the cure of it. We are talking about spending £24,000,000 on hospitals and public assistance institutions. It will not stop at £24,000,000, if we are going to have a Parliamentary Secretary, promoted into a Minister of Public Health, whose only concern is with the cure of disease. If he is not going to take effective steps to deal with the prevention of disease, he will require more hospitals, more sanatoria and more public assistance institutions than even £24,000,000 would give. I hope we have heard the last from him about people who are playing cheap politics. The cheap sneers and the cheap jibes of the Minister do not concern us. This is the national Parliament of the country, and the work we are engaged in will affect every citizen in some degree. We are dealing with a measure that will give into the hands of a Parliamentary Secretary, grown up into a Minister, extraordinary powers. He will not bring into this Bill a provision to get the advice and assistance of members of local authorities or social workers, but in other sections he will bring in the police to dragoon the people into public health.

    The Parliamentary Secretary would surprise this House very much, and probably would bring all Parties together, including his own, if he graciously accepted this amendment, or even if he went so far as to agree to consider it carefully and having something done about it on the Report Stage. However, when he takes up an aggressive and rather insolent pose and talks about an alliance between all those Parties which differ from him, he is simply acting in a very irresponsible way, a way which is not becoming, having regard to the importance of this measure.

    He has indicated that he intends to rely, in regard to these consultative councils, on expert medical opinion. If these councils are intended to deal with various matters which arise under this Bill, surely they should have a much wider scope, and should not be confined purely to expert medical opinion? He seems to have forgotten that Parts V, VI, VII, VIII and IX of the Bill deal with matters on which people other than purely medical experts would have rather wide knowledge and experience. A medical expert could not know everything required to be known about drainage, water supply, temporary dwellings, the use of the land for camps, public baths and wash-houses, bathing places, and the regulations in regard to food and drink. These are all part of this Bill which he is trying—very clumsily, I think—to conduct through this House. Having regard to the wide scope of the Bill, it ought to appear to him to be desirable to have a fairly wide type of representation on the consultative council, and he should realise that local public representatives who have given long service on public boards, and social workers in the various counties, should be able to give him very wise, prudent and expert advice on matters which arise, even within the scope of this Bill, apart from other matters which would arise in regard to the general administration of this Department.

    He has talked about what happened in 1925. He seems to have forgotten completely that things have changed very much in the past 21 years. The whole approach to social, medical and health problems has changed fundamentally, but even if it had not changed, surely he will admit that the local government legislation has changed very fundamentally in the past 21 years? The powers which local councils had in 1925 do not exist to-day. For that reason, it is desirable, since the locally elected representatives have practically no power on the local bodies, that some of them, at any rate, should have an opportunity to meet the Minister face to face and put their views before him.

    As much as ever the Parliamentary Secretary will ever know with regard to the views of local councillors will be the resolutions they pass or the decisions which they may reach. I think the Parliamentary Secretary ought to be gracious, during the last few minutes of this long and trying day, and I suggest he should accept this amendment with good grace.

    This amendment has been moved by me on behalf of Deputy O'Sullivan who, in addition to being a member of this House, is a member of a local authority, and he has occupied a leading position in what is probably the leading local authority in this country. Whatever may be in the mind of the Parliamentary Secretary with regard to myself, at least Deputy O'Sullivan has not been in the House to-day, so that any suggestion of a line-up so far as the implications in the amendment are concerned, seems to be out of place. So far as I am concerned, I have very little fear that to-day or at any time anyone will confuse me with Fine Gael. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary can feel equally assured. My mind goes back to the day many years ago when a deputation waited on the Leader of the Parliamentary Secretary's Party, urging him that he would lead his Party into this House to protect our section of the people against the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. I remember, in 1932, that the same section of our people supported his Party again in an effort to secure ourselves against the Government then in power. I have no doubts or any confusion in my mind in that regard, but it seems that we have reached a point in this country where a change of name in the Government Party to-day would lead very many of us to believe we were back in exactly the same position as in 1927 and 1932.

    Surely not? Many of the things for which we have regret are the things that happened in 1927 and 1932 and in later years. Maybe we paid too big a price for it. In so far as this Bill is concerned, I do not know whether, at this late hour, the Parliamentary Secretary can get rid of the difficulties under which he seems to be labouring. I am not concerned with whether he charges me with lining-up with Fine Gael or any other Party.

    I was not present in the House when the Second Reading of this Bill took place and I had no opportunity of expressing myself in connection with its various provisions. But, right from the beginning of the Committee Stage, I have expressed strong support for the main principle of the Bill. On a number of occasions I tried to suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary what I thought were easy and suitable ways of meeting criticisms from this side of the House. Apparently he does not want criticisms, he does not want suggestions or he does not want help of any sort. Apparently the whole purpose behind his Bill is not concerned with the health of the people. It is, as he said, merely codifying administrative measures. While many of us seem to be, even at this late hour, trying to concern ourselves with what should be the purpose of the Bill and trying to improve what may be weak sections, we are left in the position largely of wasting our time here, not because our contributions are not of some value to the discussion, but because, no matter what contribution is made, it will not be met by the Parliamentary Secretary in the manner in which other members of the Government would meet Deputies. There are other Ministers who could teach him a lesson in how to deal with a Bill. We had such an experience early this afternoon on the Committee Stage of another Bill and I suggest he should read the report of the debate on that particular measure. If he would only do so, maybe he would get a lesson not only in how to steer a Bill through the House, in addition to any lesson he might get in political wisdom, but he would also get a lesson in good manners.

    What has amazed me in this debate is the attitude taken up by the Parliamentary Secretary. He felt he had a really good scoring point against this Party when he said that this particular section was lifted out of the Local Government Act of 1925. I would expect the Parliamentary Secretary, feeling his position and his responsibility to the country, to say that what was good enough in 1925 is not nearly good enough 21 years later; that the world has made tremendous advances in that time, not merely medically but socially and, I hope, economically; that there are the advances of other countries in this matter and that we hope to attain the same standard here. I might remind the Parliamentary Secretary that two or three years ago representatives of a number of nations met at Hot Springs and they passed resolutions in relation to a good standard of health in the various countries concerned. They endeavoured to guarantee freedom from want for their peoples.

    In this matter of public health there is a very important social aspect and, if the Parliamentary Secretary is really concerned to get good sound advice, advice concerning not merely the medical and curative aspects, but the social aspects as well, he should not have much difficulty. Possibly a preventive policy with regard to public health is much more important, or ought to be, than the curative aspect. If the Parliamentary Secretary is merely going to make provision for consultative councils and the advice that may be offered to him through consultation, and if he is going to provide facilities merely for medical experts to deal with curative problems, then I am sure the House will consider that that is not going far enough and that possibly the social aspect will have a very important bearing in relation to a higher standard of public health.

    The problem of housing and incomes and a better standard of health can only be solved by ensuring that a sufficient income and proper amenities are there to provide the high standards at which we aim. If the Parliamentary Secretary thinks that those problems are going to be solved exclusively by medical men, I think he is making a great mistake. He must have advice from people who are up against this problem in their everyday lives. The amendment simply asks that he should make room for people with practical experience on the consultative bodies that he proposes to set up. It seems strange that the interpretation given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the section would exclude people with practical experience and that he simply is going to use the section to provide the expenses that may be incurred by calling medical men to town for two or three days to advise him on a special problem. The Parliamentary Secretary has informed the House that already he has operated something similar to this section. We are simply asking him to go a little further. He tries to suggest that it is for political reasons that the amendment has been put down. Does he suggest there is no one sincere in this matter except himself, that there is no Deputy honest or sincere or concerned about the health of the people but himself, and that he is the sole individual in this Parliament who is anxious and concerned about the welfare of the public? We are sent here by the people to improve this and other legislation. I move to report progress.

    Progress reported, the Committee to sit again.
    The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 22nd March.
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