I gave notice of my intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of questions which appeared on yesterday's Order Paper. The particular questions related, Sir, to the report of the arbitration board on a claim for increased remuneration by Civil Service staff organisations. I raise the matter to-night in view of the fact that the Dáil is adjourning to-morrow and because the adjournment of the Dáil has a very direct relation to the subject matter of the question.
I would like to make it clear, at the outset, that, in raising this matter, I am concerned only with endeavouring to get the Government to recognise the obvious merits of the issue which was raised in yesterday's questions. The report of the Civil Service Arbitration Board affects thousands of lower-paid grades in the Post Office and in the Civil Service generally, but it affects also thousands of other workers who are employed in the local authority service and who are engaged as industrial employees in the Government service. In addition it affects a great number of employees of semi-State organisations. All these people have been looking forward to receiving increased remuneration under the report of the Civil Service Arbitration Board. They were looking forward to an increase particularly in view of the approach of Christmas and the inevitable higher domestic expenses which are a characteristic feature of Christmas.
I would like briefly to review the position in connection with this matter of Civil Service arbitration. On the 3rd and 4th of last month the Civil Service Arbitration Board met in public and heard a claim for increased remuneration submitted by the staff organisations. Their claim for an increase in pay was argued before the board. The Minister's representatives made a case against the grant of any increase whatever. The board having sat for two days and heard the case for and against an increase, then went into private session, and, according to the Minister's reply yesterday, he received a report from the Civil Service Arbitration Board on the 18th of last month.
The Civil Service scheme of arbitration provides that the report must be disclosed to the Dáil before it is released and if the report is not disclosed to the Dáil before the House adjourns to-morrow, then, presumably, if the terms of the scheme are adhered to there will be no declaration of Government policy in respect of the report of the arbitration tribunal until the House resumes on the 4th February, and there will be no payment of any increases in wages or salaries until after the Dáil has learned the terms of the arbitration tribunal's report. It is because of that fact, that the scheme provided for a disclosure of the report to the Dáil before it was published, that this matter assumes all the more urgent proportions. If the Government persist in withholding the report to the Dáil until the House reassembles in February next, that is another way of postponing the application of the increases until a substantially later date.
The Government has got this report for the past three weeks. Having regard to the lapse of that period of time, it is not unreasonable to ask that the report should now be released and the Government attitude on the report made known. I do not think I am expecting anything unreasonable of the Government in asking them to adopt that course, particularly when we had this declaration of policy from the Tánaiste on the 12th May, 1951, on the subject of arbitration and arbitration awards. The Tánaiste, speaking then, said:—
"It has been suggested also that Fianna Fáil would terminate the arbitration systems which had been set up for civil servants. He did not know if those systems had worked to the satisfaction of public officials. They seemed to have delayed rather than facilitated the adjustment of salary rates. But if the Civil Service organisations were satisfied with them they were quite prepared to allow them to operate unchanged and would give effect to any wage or salary increase resulting from them."
Let me emphasise the last few words. Fianna Fáil would give effect to any wage or salary increase resulting from the hearing of claims before the arbitration board. All I am asking the Government to do in this matter is to give effect, not merely to the report of the tribunal set up to deal with wage claims in the Civil Service but to implement as well the declaration of policy made by the Tánaiste, presumably on behalf of the Government, in May last year.
The lowly-paid staffs have looked forward and are still eagerly looking forward to a declaration of policy on this matter from the Government. They are looking for an early announcement of what increases will be granted to them and when they will secure those increases in order to compensate them for the substantial rise in the cost of living which has taken place for the past 18 months and in particular during the past six months.
Again I come back to a statement made by the Tánaiste on, I think, the 4th of this month at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis, in which he said Fianna Fáil deliberately decided to cut the subsidies and to allow prices to reach what he described as a realistic level. He said he recognised then and that the Government recognised that prices would go up consequent upon the slashing of the food subsidies but that they felt that wages could be adjusted to meet the increased level of prices and that the Government was not unprepared to have wages adjusted in order to meet the rise in the cost of living.
I am merely asking the Government now to implement in respect of those whose claims were considered by the Civil Service Arbitration Board the Government's declaration of policy made in May last year and the recent declaration by the Tánaiste as to the necessity for adjustment in wage and salary levels consequent upon the increase in price levels. That policy has been recognised by private employers and by local authorities. It has been recognised by semi-State bodies. The Minister for Local Government has sanctioned increases in wages for employees of local authorities. The Electricity Supply Board has already granted increases to its staffs paid out of State provided moneys. The Government is underwriting Córas Iompair Éireann losses in order to meet increases in wages granted to the staff of Córas Iompair Éireann. Every day in the week we read of awards made by the Labour Court, by a Government-created organisation and with a Government-appointed chairman, all in recognition of the fact that the increase in price levels necessitates an increase in wages in order to enable workers to adjust their living costs.
Surely the Government cannot hope in justice or in equity to remain indifferent to what is happening in the adjustment of wage levels outside and I am concerned in raising this matter especially with the position of the lower paid grades in the Post Office and in the Civil Service generally. I am concerned with the fact that the wages of postmen, telephonists, clerks, part-time postmen, messengers, cleaners, sorters and the engineering staff do not provide them with a margin with which to meet the substantial increase in prices. Persons in the same wage class and in the same salary earning group in private employment, in private State employment and in semi-State employment have already in a great many cases had their remuneration adjusted upwards in order to meet the increase in the cost of living.
On what reasonable grounds can the State claim immunity now from responsibility for increasing the remuneration of State employees? The Government has a way out in this matter, if it is not prepared to announce to the House before it adjourns to-morrow its attitude to the arbitration board award. The arbitration scheme is not a statutory scheme and the Government is not restricted by any statutory inhibitions in the scheme of arbitration now in existence. The present scheme provides that there should be a disclosure of the report to the Dáil before the document is released for general publication. The Government is also bound to tell the Dáil what it proposes to do. But there is, of course, nothing to prevent the Government in agreement with the staff side of the Civil Service Arbitration Board, or the staff side generally, suspending that part of the scheme which provides for disclosure in the first instance so that the Government may be in a position to release the report and to implement whatever increases are provided for in the report without waiting for the House to resume on the 4th February next. No difficulty will be experienced with the staff side if the Government decides to adopt that method of enabling it to deal speedily with the report when the Dáil adjourns.
I want to make one request to the Government. Here is a report of an arbitration tribunal which affects the wage standards of thousands of lowly paid workers who would, if they were employed by private employers, have already got an increase in wages. In all justice the Government cannot withhold the increases from its workers for whose wage standards they are responsible. I put it to the Minister for Finance, to the Government generally and to the Fianna Fáil Party that they should look at this matter in a broad, understanding and sympathetic way. They ought to adopt the decent, the honourable and the honest course, and that course is to release the report to-morrow, announce its provisions to the Dáil and indicate at the same time what action the Government intends to take to give effect to whatever increases are recommended in the report of the arbitration tribunal.
Outside employers have given increases. Local authorities have done so. Semi-State bodies have done so and I cannot understand on what grounds the Government pretends that there is no responsibility on it to do the same, especially in view of the two declarations of policy made by the Tánaiste on the subject.
This is a matter which calls for adjustment by the Government in the same way in which the Labour Court is adjusting claims every day in the week. The Minister will have an opportunity to-morrow to show that, having submitted the case to arbitration and having put forward the strongest case he could against any increase in wages, he is now prepared to take the proper course if the case, notwithstanding all his efforts, has gone against him and an award has been made. In fairness to the staff and in all decency the Government ought to accept the award. Even now I prefer to think that that is the intention of the Government and I hope that the Minister, when concluding, will be able to say that he has secured Government sanction for the publication of the report and that we will have an early declaration of the Minister's and the Government's intention to honour whatever recommendations are contained in the report.
