I am sorry. It is not my intention to deprive him of that courtesy. Mr. Smith continued:
"I want to be assured of that because I genuinely thought so—perhaps unjustifiably as we are not always just to one another in the conclusions at which we arrive. The Minister for Agriculture is one man who, I suspect, has a deep-seated prejudice against anything designed by his opponent. I would not put it past him in certain circumstances to treat it in a manner not in keeping with the treatment meted out to the land project, which is an entirely different matter. All those who work on these schemes, who are employed by the State, are all of equal importance and should be treated alike. I have no evidence but only suspicion that this might be the case. If the Minister has any such prejudices he had better mend his hand before he commits himself because when he commits himself he is hard to move."
Because of that fair warning the Minister replied:
"I do not know what the Deputy is rambling about.
Mr. Smith: I am not rambling at all.
Mr. Dillon: I think he is rambling.
Mr. Smith: There will be people in the country who will understand what I am saying. While they may not be a very wide section of the population, I am prepared to leave it to them to make up their mind and assess the value or otherwise of the remarks I am making. I am merely asking you, as Minister——"
The Chair happened to intervene then, as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle has just done, to bring me to order because of my failure to obey the rules.
I thought that the Minister should have made a quiet effort to tell me why the discrepancy to which I have referred existed, but instead of adopting the attitude which one would have expected from a Minister he took the other course of just rolling it over instead of giving me the information sought. He proceeded to ask me a question and to remind me that the conditions of employment of the farm buildings scheme supervisors were the conditions which I myself or my predecessor had determined. That is no answer to the charge I made. That gave me no information. If the terms of employment of the men who were employed on the farm improvements scheme, and who were later taken over on the farm buildings scheme, were determined by my predecessor or by myself—I believe they were determined by my predecessor, not that I want to shift any responsibility that may come my way—and if they were unjust, then when the staff was recruited for the scheme for which he had responsibility, when the available tillage inspectors were taken over and when a small number of farm buildings scheme supervisors were taken over and secured as a result the improved conditions I admitted they secured, surely he should have considered that the time was opportune to revise the conditions under which the other people worked.
I do not in the least mind being accused by the Minister of having neglected them or having treated them unfairly, if he will make a simple and genuine effort to say to me: "Here is a matter which I have been discussing with the Department of Finance. I have been trying to secure Department of Finance sanction for certain proposals I have made with regard to these officials." If I had received from the Minister any information along these lines, information to which I contend I am entitled, and if the Minister could only subdue his feelings somewhat and discharge his responsibility by giving that legitimate information to me, to the House, and to those down the country who are writing to me and asking me to do what all Deputies who are members of an Opposition have to do from time to time—to come in here and raise this question on their behalf -and if he would appreciate the rights I have which he enjoyed so lavishly during his period of membership of the Opposition here, we would not have any Adjournment debate at all.
However much I may feel that the Minister's prejudice is as strong as I have on a previous occasion alleged, if I got at any time any assurance that, even if this had not yet been done on behalf of the farm building supervisors, the Minister was keenly interested in endeavouring to secure what appears to me to be justice for them, there would be no question on the Adjournment. However, strong the feeling I hold as to the Minister's prejudice in regard to them and to the scheme they operated because of its origin, I would have been prepared to admit that I was all wrong in the conclusions at which I had arrived.
Nobody relishes, nor, I am sure, does the Minister relish, the idea of having to remain here for an extra half hour after a long day in the House and I would suggest, without feelings becoming too friendly, that in future we might have from the Minister some attempt at an understanding of what the functions of this House and the functions of an Opposition are, and a realisation that, if an organised body such as the body to which I have referred approach me, I am entitled to put down a Parliamentary Question and that he is in duty bound to give me all the information he can legitimately give. My complaint is that he has not done so. My reason for raising this matter on the Adjournment now is to ensure that the rights to which I am entitled, to which the House is entitled and to which the people on whose behalf I speak are entitled will be protected.
The simple net position is that there are two staffs of supervisors—one employed on the farm buildings scheme and the other on the land rehabilitation project. The farm buildings scheme supervisors have £5 19s. per week. They are compelled to use a pedal cycle and they get a travelling allowance only in respect of it. They have no assurance that their conditions of employment will improve or their wages will increase. I am informed that the other class of supervisors are in receipt of a wage of £6 5s. per week, that they are permitted to use their motor cars, eight h.p. and ten h.p. cars, and receive a travelling allowance in respect of them—nobody is complaining of that—and that their salaries, should they be in the employment of the Department after a period of ten years, will increase very substantially indeed. What I am suggesting to the Minister is that the treatment meted out to the supervisors under his scheme should, in all fairness, be meted out to those who are employed on the other scheme, and, if he would simply tell the House his attitude towards that proposition, we might all be satisfied.
