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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 10 Nov 1954

Vol. 147 No. 4

Private Members' Business. - Estimates Committee—Motion to Appoint.

Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the following be adopted as a Standing Order of Dáil Éireann:—
123A. There shall be appointed, as soon as may be after the commencement of every Session, a Select Committee, to be called "The Committee of Public Expenditure", to examine such of the Estimates presented to the Dáil in accordance with Standing Order No. 117 as may seem fit to the committee and to report what, if any, economies consistent with the policy implied in those Estimates may be effected therein.
The committee shall consist of 17 members, none of whom shall be a member of the Government or a Parliamentary Secretary and five of whom shall constitute a quorum.
The committee shall be otherwise constituted according to the provisions of Standing Orders Nos. 67 and 70, and so as to be impartially representative of the Dáil.
The committee may appoint subcommittees and may refer to such sub-committees any of the subjects which are within the purview of the committee.
The chairman of the committee shall beex officio a member of each sub-committee.
The committee and its subcommittees shall have power to send for persons, papers and records and to adjourn from place to place. Three shall be a quorum of each subcommittee.
The Committee shall have power to report from time to time.—(Deputy Sheldon).

When I was speaking on this motion last week, I indicated the objections which I saw to the motion, if put into effect. I indicated to Deputy Sheldon that I believed his presentation of the motion was based, perhaps, in the main, on what was done in another place. I suggested then to the House that one of the main reasons for that Estimates Committee was, in my view, that the Estimates were not as a whole discussed in full on the floor of the House as they are discussed in this House, and that I thought it would be highly undesirable for this House to adopt any step which might lead, as a logical conclusion, at a later time to a curtailment of the discussion on the Estimates. I referred then— I did not know whether correctly or not when Deputy Sheldon challenged me— to the fact that the Estimates there were not discussed in committee. As a matter of fact, I have since then taken the figures. In 1952, out of 199 Estimates there presented, only 62 were discussed in the House; 137 were voted without discussion. In 1953, only 64 out of 191 were discussed. In 1954 only 63 out of 191 were discussed and 128 were voted without any discussion, so I think Deputy Sheldon will have to admit that what I stated then was a fact, that it is their practice there not to discuss the Estimates in full as is our practice here.

I did not challenge that.

In regard to this year, there were special considerations in the circumstances of the change of Government and the general election. I have no doubt whatever that Deputy Sheldon, when he is replying, will suggest that the two things do not follow logically. I want to put it very strongly to the House that they do, that if we were not to discuss our Estimates in detail here, then there would be a case for discussing them somewhere else. I would prefer the system by virtue of which they are discussed in detail on the floor of this House.

I want to pass from that and to indicate again, as I indicated the other night, that this Estimates Committee has got to work in one of three ways —either before the Estimates come on, before the money is spent or after the money is spent. If it is going to operate in the first way, and if that is the intention, then I think it will put an additional clog in the machinery of the various Departments. I think the position is quite sufficiently safeguarded in that respect already by the arrangement that exists by virtue of which the Estimates are submitted to the Department of Finance and the subsequent spending by the spending Department is submitted to the Department of Finance for sanction by it. If, on the other hand, the Estimates Committee is going to investigate after the money is spent, I think it will not do the job as well as the Committee of Public Accounts. In fact, it will rather detract from the very great value of that committee which the committee derives primarily from its all-Party complexion.

The Committee of Public Accounts has done a great deal of valuable work here over the years and I think on all sides of the House we would regret that anything would be done that would in any way impair its usefulness. It is an objection, as the Deputy has suggested, that it does not do its work until a very long time after expenditure has taken place, but that is a state of affairs in regard to which something might be done. It is a matter in regard to which my mind would be far more open. I think that the effect of the appointment of such a committee would be, in the one case, that it would merely follow the Party line in the Dáil or, alternatively, that it would do the job in the same way as the Public Accounts Committee would do it, but not nearly so well. After all, if that discussion at an Estimates Committee takes place before the money is spent, one must remember that the Estimates are put forward by the Minister concerned, he having justified them to himself, justified them to the Department of Finance, and, therefore, put them forward as part of Government policy. Clearly, therefore, the Government of the day will be concerned with these Estimates as they have been framed. In fact, as I have ascertained from various inquiries I have made, that does arise to a very large extent in the House of Commons, on whose procedure the Deputy asks us to base the proposal that he puts forward here.

I do not know whether he intends that the members of the Estimates Committee should have available to them any substantial skilled staff or not. If he does, it will probably mean that far from there being an economy, there would be far more expenditure on the Civil Service. If he does not, I think he will find very quickly that the committee will be without a steering guidance. In fact one of the things on which the Public Accounts Committee turns as a pivot, for example, is that there is the Comptroller and Auditor-General there who submits a report and on whose report the Public Accounts Committee in fact cogitates.

I hesitate to put it forward as an argument against the committee, because I think some people might be delighted that such would happen but there might be very well the suggestion that the existence of an Estimates Committee would, in fact, detract from the power of the Department of Finance. People might feel that when the Estimates Committee was there, it was not necessary to retain the existing powers in this House. If that were so, I should resent any such suggestion which is an argument against the committee, one frankly which I hesitate to use because I think many Deputies feel rather differently on that score than I or any occupant of this office would feel at the present moment. As far as I can understand Deputy Sheldon, he was making his case around parliamentary control. I think that this is not the right way to get parliamentary control. The way to get parliamentary control is to have the Estimates and the policy enshrined in those Estimates considered by this House as a whole and to have the check of the Comptroller and Auditor-General that we have now, in so far as he verifies the issues from the Central Fund, and in the manner in which all revenue must flow into the one fund and must issue from it in accordance with the Estimates as passed by this House, plus the Public Accounts Committee to consider such irregularities as the Comptroller and Auditor-General may find.

I think that has been not merely the experience here but also the experience in the other place on which the Deputy would wish us to model this committee. It certainly was the experience of no less a person than Sir Frank Tribe, the present Comptroller and Auditor-General, when he gave his advice on the subject not so long ago. I do not think there is any better method of parliamentary control than that the Estimates should be discussed here, that there should be a person set above the Government, as is the Comptroller and Auditor-General, whose duty it is to see that the directions of this House are carried out, and whose salary is paid out of the Central Fund for the specific purpose of making him independent as judges are independent; and, over and above all that, an all-Party committee, in which Parties as such do not play any part, on public accounts. I think that is a much more efficacious system of parliamentary control and one which is much more likely to give parliamentary control greater reality. I am afraid that, far from increasing parliamentary control, this committee would have the reverse effect and would provide the basis for the suggestion in future that it was not necessary to discuss the Estimates on the floor of this House because, since they were discussed in the Estimates Committee, that was all that was necessary.

I must confess also, that I got the impression, perhaps it was not the impression Deputy Sheldon wished to convey, reading over his speech advocating the motion the other night that one of the reasons prompting him was that Deputies might under this suggested committee get a look at the "insides," so to speak, of governmental working. I do not think it is necessary that such a committee should be established for that purpose; neither do I think that it is desirable that such a committee should be set up for that purpose. To advocate such a committee for that reason, if I am not misinterpreting the Deputy, would be tantamount to suggesting another cog in the existing machinery. Candidly, I was expecting that the Deputy would make his case purely on the grounds of economy, and I was disappointed that he did not do so because I would have liked to have underlined any remarks he might make about economy.

In the field of economy, we must take any step that appears to us likely to produce results. Large scale economies are only obtainable as a matter of policy. But, even apart from policy, there are fields in which such economies might be desirable. As I said the other night, I admit quite frankly that after five months on this side of the curtain I am not yet prepared to make up my mind as to the best method of obtaining administrative economies in the public service as apart from economies in relation to policy. I think a case could be made along certain lines more in the direction of greater freedom than towards imposing more clogs or controls. This is a matter that requires very, very careful consideration indeed. It is a matter which, when I have finished my own consideration of it, I propose to discuss with others. It is clearly a matter in which the advice of the Comptroller and Auditor - General should be sought. Indeed, I think it is a matter in which the advice of the Committee on Public Accounts should be sought should there be any suggested change in administrative procedure. But I think it will be along those lines that we will secure the greatest improvements and administrative economies and not along the lines of an Estimates Committee.

I am afraid I differ from the Deputy when he sneers at the operation of what is known as O. & M. or outside consultants. I think both outside consultants and O. & M. each has its own place in the reorganisation of the administrative machine. I think that each in its own sphere has already produced some improvement in a comparatively short time. Outside consultants are perhaps more likely to produce results where the business being done is somewhat akin to commercial business. The O. & M. section of the Department of Finance, or of any Department, is more likely to produce results where it is purely a matter of Civil Service machinery as apart from some of the more technical tasks which have from time to time to be undertaken by the Civil Service.

As I say, my mind on that subject is still very open indeed. I will require considerably longer experience on this side of the curtain before I make up my mind fully in that respect. Until I do make up my mind in that respect I must accept a suggestion which I thought when I was over there, and think even more so now that I am over here, would not produce economies but would rather produce more rambling inquiries and might very easily ultimately prove the basis in future of taking something away from the detailed discussion of the Estimates on the floor of this House that we have hitherto enjoyed and, in that way, provide a reason for the taking away from Deputies of privileges which they have at present, even though that may not be the aim of the mover of this motion.

It is quite obvious that the Minister for Finance, representing the Executive, and having regard to his serious responsibilities, should be particularly interested in this matter and should view it to a considerable extent from the angle of enabling him to have his responsibilities and those of the Government carried out satisfactorily and in the public interest.

It is understandable, having regard to the delays which occur in securing decisions, for which the Department of Finance and the Minister are generally blamed, that a good deal of the Minister's remarks should deal with the question of clogging the machinery further and tending to hold up necessary decisions. It seems to me that there is another perhaps even more fundamental and essential point of view, that is, that it is the Dáil which is the body which controls expenditure. If the Dáil in its wisdom thinks fit to adopt the suggestion of Deputy Sheldon or any other procedure which would seem to the Dáil to help to review the Estimates, as he says, to bring those of us who have no administrative experience into closer touch with the work of the Departments, to enable us if we are sufficiently conscientious and wish to apply ourselves to the work, as Deputy Sheldon has done for so many years on the Public Accounts Committee, it should lead to good results. If we had the ordinary common-sense view of how things ought to be done in order that the most efficient and economic results may be obtained and the best value received for the taxpayers' money, I cannot see why the adoption of Deputy Sheldon's suggestion should not lead to good results. I can see that there are arguments against it.

We on this side of the House, when in office, while seeing the difficulties, in particular that the Department of Finance might feel that they were being crabbed and that the time of officials would be unnecessarily taken up if they had to come before such a committee, nevertheless, felt that we could accept in principle the Deputy's proposal. The former Minister for Finance, with slight amendments, put the proposal before this House, substantially the same as it now appears over Deputy Sheldon's name on the Order Paper.

While we must all agree that it is in the Dáil that the final decision must be taken with regard to expenditure, and that nothing should be done to curb or limit the freest and fullest discussion on matters of expenditure, there is a good deal of substance in Deputy Sheldon's argument that the tendency in the Dáil is that larger questions of policy occupy the time allotted to discussions on Estimates.

My experience would incline me to agree with Deputy Sheldon that, apart from the position that arises when the Government brings in proposals and the Opposition criticises them in the ordinary political fashion, the larger questions of policy are the main subject of discussion on the Estimates. As the Deputy pointed out in his opening speech, the administration of the Department in the preceding year— something from which we can learn lessons but which, nevertheless, is finished and done with—is what mainly occupies the Dáil in the discussions on the Estimates.

I do not think that Deputy Sheldon's committee, if the Minister and the Government saw fit to adopt it, need be the last word, but private members of the Dáil would feel, as he has emphasised, that they had an opportunity of getting into closer touch with the actual work of Departments and of learning the difficulties that Ministers and Governments have. They would also appreciate the difficulty of even strong Governments with determined Ministers in making changes where there are vested interests and where bureaucratic machinery has been set up and very large schemes have been put into operation.

While the committee suggested by the Deputy might not give all the results he hopes for, it would give an opportunity for a body of Deputies to examine the expenditure in a rather more up-to-date way than occurs in the case of the Public Accounts Committee. As Deputy Sheldon has pointed out, that committee only starts work on the Appropriation Accounts long after the financial year in which the expenditures has taken place has concluded. The fact that it may start its work within the succeeding 12 months may be an advantage. Time was when it was two or three years behind. Nevertheless, one has the feeling on that committee that the effective decisions have been taken and since the committee is precluded from discussing questions of policy—which Deputy Sheldon's committee would not attempt to discuss either—and once the Department of Finance has sanctioned the expenditure the Committee of Public Accounts cannot question that expenditure, it will be seen that the functions of the committee are rather limited. The fact that it is there and can at any time question any item of expenditure and ask for information and that the Comptroller and Auditor-General is there to assist the chairman, makes it very valuable.

I think what Deputy Sheldon is looking for is a scheme whereby the work of that committee, instead of being post facto, would be brought in line with current expenditure. In connection with items such as large schemes which are in operation, like social services, subsidies, and so on, which involve very great expenditure and when once established have to continue—so long as they are on the statutes the payments have to be made and the policy accepted—I really believe that it would be of advantage that a body of sensible Deputies should look in, so to speak, on the various Departments. They could not examine perhaps more than one or two branches of the larger Departments in a single session.

In the neighbouring country, for example, such a committee made a report on the question of forestry. I read the report. While many Deputies would have been dissatisfied with it because, as frequently happens, nothing very concrete in the way of a recommendation for better working emerged, a body of members in that particular case who were specially qualified to deal with forestry reviewed the forestry organisation generally and asked questions regarding the felling and removal of timber, and so on. They went into points that were not trespassing in any way on the general policy but were directed to seeing whether better methods and procedure could not produce the same results at lower cost.

The latest report of this committee that I have seen deals with the regional organisation of departments. That has not a great interest for us here, but Deputies would be keenly interested in it in view of our discussions about the extent to which the public might be facilitated by decentralisation or regionalisation of some of the work of Government Departments. These are simply examples of the work this committee has carried out in Britain.

I regret that the Minister, if he had not been able to accept the proposal of Deputy Sheldon in toto, was not able to offer us an alternative. When his Party was in opposition, members of the Party frequently put down amendments to the Second Readings of important measures, that the measure should be referred first to a Dáil Committee—showing that they had no feeling that on matters of important legislation they were in any way taking away from the powers of the Dáil by suggesting that these important measures should be referred to special committees. At a later stage, when the present Government was in office before, there was some reference—I have heard nothing about it recently— to the setting up of a committee on the lines of the Public Accounts Committee to scrutinise the work of the State boards, which, of course, are not as much under Dáil control as the Government Departments which come up for discussion in the Estimates. The fact that such a proposal was made by the Taoiseach and other important Ministers and that they referred to it on more than one occasion, shows that they felt the Dáil could usefully appoint committees to examine important questions of public expenditure.

I might preface my remarks by saying that I do not think this motion, if accepted, would serve any useful purpose or enable this House to function any more effectively than it is functioning at the present. I had the advantage, owing to the fact that Deputy Sheldon's speech was made last week, of being able to read the report of it carefully. He set out, as reported in column 404 of the Debates, the two purposes which he felt it might serve. He said that it would enable the Dáil "to function a bit more expressly than it can under present conditions" and, secondly, he said: "I believe that at present there is a gap, and a very wide gap, in the Dáil's knowledge and the Dáil's interest." As I have said already, I do not think this proposal would enable the Dáil to function better; and I propose to deal in some detail later on with the suggestion that it might close the gap in the Dáil's knowledge.

I might start by referring to the Public Accounts Committee, of which Deputy Sheldon has been a well-known member and has been chairman for some time. In the course of his remarks he referred twice to that committee. In column 404 he said: "It has been borne in on me time and time again that something more was needed to ensure economy." Then the purpose of his motion is to ensure economy, a very laudable objective, in which we can all support him. At column 410 he said: "I think, however, that ‘committee of public expenditure' gives a clearer idea of the intention of the committee; that is, to inquire into public expenditure and ensure that for every 20/- spent value is received for every £1 spent and that no more pounds are spent than are absolutely necessary."

That is very bad reporting of what I said. What I meant was 20/- value for every £1 spent.

I do not disagree with the manner in which it was reported, as I understand the Deputy's idea very well. What the Deputy has in mind, I take it, is that the Dáil—as the Dáil is the body to impose taxation—would try to ensure by some method that we would get full value for every £1 spent. I have read through the reports of the Public Accounts Committee—I have looked through them over a long period and I have been acquainted with them to some extent. I think the committee functioned reasonably well up to the war, that is to say, up to about 1939. In the early years, particularly from the period 1922 onwards, it may have been possible for the committee to do a great deal more work of a constructive nature than has been possible in recent years—the reason being that civil servants here perhaps did not understand quite so well as they do now our method of controlling public expenditure, which is based on the British method.

I feel, however, that in recent years little, if anything, has come from the Public Accounts Committee. I say that with all respect to the Deputy who has proposed this motion and who has been chairman of that committee. I wonder if it has ever occurred to Deputy Sheldon, while he has been chairman, that in relation to its work, that is, the manner in which the Appropriation Accounts are presented to the committee, there was a possibility of a little economy?

We have suggested it this year, the Parliamentary Secretary will be glad to know—cutting out the shillings and pence.

I did not know it had been suggested this year. It has often occurred to me that this evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, being based on pre-war values of money, is completely out of date. There have been all kinds of suggestions. I am delighted to hear that Deputy Sheldon, prior to putting down this motion, did get around to that point.

I would like to make one remark about the Deputy putting down the motion. The Deputy, during the years 1951 to 1954 when Government expenditure was increased very greatly, in general supported the Government of the day. I would suggest that as a serious criticism of the Deputy's approach to this matter.

I put the motion down over two years ago.

The Deputy may have had a motion down for a committee, but I say that politically he supported the Government of the day between 1951 and 1954 when taxation——

I might possibly support this one, too.

Perhaps the Deputy will, but I hope that we will have a better record in relation to public expenditure than the preceding Government. I would like to get down to what I think is the centrepiece of the Deputy's point about this motion. In col. 408 of the Report, the Deputy said: "One of the great difficulties of the present moment is the growth of public business." In the past, before the State started intruding to a very great extent on the business of the community, the particular methods that were applied for the control of public expenditure were suitable for a stately and slow moving progress. I agree with the Deputy: there is a great deal of new public business which is mainly not the traditional type of business that the State carried out. It has very little to do with the traditional items of law and order, education, defence, and so forth. It has a great deal to do with a new approach in public matters—a new approach of the public mind to what the State should do for the people. In that connection I think, with all respect to the Deputy—and it applies to the remarks of Deputy Derrig where he said that the question of the State boards is of importance—that the question of State boards is of much more importance. Deputy Derrig suggested that the Government which was in this country from 1948 to 1951, although they made a number of pronouncements about the subject, did nothing whatever about the matter. Might I refer, in that connection, to the speech made by the then Minister for Finance, Deputy McGilligan, in Seanad Éireann on the 2nd March, 1950? That speech sets out the difficulties.

It sets out the serious problem of how you are to control the very large expenditure of State and semi-State companies and boards. I believe that problem should be attacked first. That is a much more serious problem than the problem which the Deputy has set out to attempt——

I would be delighted.

Very good. We might be in agreement about it. However, I should like to refer the Deputy to Deputy McGilligan's remarks on that occasion setting out the difficulties in relation to it. It is a problem not alone in this country but in other countries also and it has been the subject of a great deal of discussion without any satisfactory solution having yet been found to it. I am sure that, like all human problems, there is a fairly satisfactory solution. These semi-State companies and boards, not alone here but elsewhere, have grown rather rapidly to a very great size and it creates a problem which will take some little while to solve but, with respect to this motion, I think it is a problem which should be tackled first.

I do not believe that this House is unreasonable in the manner in which it controls public expenditure. On the whole, having regard to the necessary composition of the House, I think the House has a reasonable method of approaching the Estimates Volume each year. In England, of course, they do it differently. The Deputy said so in his interruptions during the speech of the Minister for Finance. With all respect, I am inclined to think the Deputy does not quite understand the full implications of his own motion. It reminds me a little bit of the fact that, in the last century, there was a feeling, I think in this country, that problems were solved by making a good speech in Parliament. There was the feeling that you did something against the people whom you were opposing by making a good speech in Parliament. More recently, I have had the impression that there is among certain people the idea that when you set up a new company or open a new office you solve some problem. We have now reached the stage where you set up a new committee.

I do not believe the Deputy's new committee will enable Deputies to get that insight into the running of the State to which he referred in his speech. He said, as reported at column 411 of the Official Report of Wednesday, 3rd November, 1954: "One very important point is that it would give Deputies an insight into the running of the State." Deputy Derrig made a somewhat similar point when—I hope I do not misquote him— he said that those of us who have not administrative experience might learn something about the running of the State. If Deputy Derrig, after 20 years of office, has not administrative experience, I do not know who in this country can acquire it, or how.

On a point of explanation. Perhaps I should have phrased my sentence more accurately. I meant those members of Dáil Éireann who have not had administrative experience.

I did not mean to misquote the Deputy. I appreciate what he meant. Might I say, however, that there would be general agreement that it takes from seven to ten years for a trained person, working every day at his desk, to acquire a reasonable knowledge of the methods of controlling expenditure? I cannot understand, then, how Deputy Sheldon could hope that a committee of this House— no matter how it might sit or how keen the members might be in their application to their duty—could control expenditure and could get an insight as to how the State machine works. In that connection, I should like to refer to something that has already been referred to this evening, that is, the firms of consultants who, I am glad to say, were brought into certain of the Government's Departments to have a look at their methods. It was found, on the whole, I think—I emphasise the words "I think"—that they made valuable suggestions about how routine work might be organised, but they did not seem to appreciate the nature of the work of the higher civil servants.

Might I say that, on the whole, I think the State here has been too inclined to set up new bodies, new authorities, new companies and new committees? Having been, perhaps, so critical of the Deputy's motion, I should not like to end without making a constructive comment. It is very undesirable that anybody should criticise a motion exclusively in a destructive way. I think there is a problem and that what is really involved in that problem is a change in the approach to the work of the State. Now that the State has got such an enormously greater volume of work of a business nature to do, let us see whether it would not be possible to adopt, to a greater extent, business methods. In that connection I think a beginning was made when the Organisation and Methods Office was established in the Department of Finance. I think some or some particular part of a machine like that might provide a solution to this problem. I do not think a committee of the sort the Deputy has suggested will, in addition to the Public Accounts Committee—for the reasons which were given by the Minister for Finance that the people who have already prepared the Estimates are committed to them and, in that connection, I have noticed that it applies to local authorities as well as to the Central Government—find favour with the various people who are connected with the work and unless such a committee of this House, which necessarily has not expert knowledge, can get cooperation I do not think it would get very far.

The Deputy referred to the wording of the Estimates Volume. On the whole, I am inclined to think the most difficult Estimate in the Estimates Volume from that point of view is the Estimate for the Department of Lands. There are references there to Land Acts and most complicated matters. Any person who asked the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Lands for a copy of the blue note on the Department of Lands would be given it, I am quite certain, by him and that would explain the nature of these apparently difficult matters. In the main you have the halving of the annuities, you have the contribution to the costs fund, you have the contribution to the price under the 1923 Act and you have improvement of estates. That, I think, covers the most difficult of all the Estimates. Other Estimates are quite straightforward.

The bulk of the Estimate for primary education consists of the salaries of national teachers and there is nothing difficult about it. It is certainly a matter of policy as to whether the salaries of national teachers shall be one thing or another. On the whole, although one is disappointed at times by the nature of the discussion in this House, that is to say, that it should at times be exclusively a political discussion, I cannot see how any committee of this kind could provide for better control of Government expenditure, and for that reason I am opposed to the motion.

I am opposed to this motion principally because I see in it a danger which the Minister for Finance thought might exist. It is a motion which I would have thought that any Party in opposition would treat with extreme caution because, while accepting fully, and I do accept fully, Deputy Sheldon's motives in proposing this motion, if such a committee were set up the logical outcome must be that ordinary Deputies in this House would have their opportunities for free and full discussion on the Estimates seriously curbed.

I want to put this problem to Deputy Sheldon. If that is not the result, what purpose is going to be achieved by the setting up of a committee such as is suggested by him? I take it if this committee were set up it would be the desire of the House, of Deputy Sheldon and of every other Deputy participating in the setting up of such a committee, to see to it that the Estimates were submitted in the first place to that committee for exhaustive inquiry and that the committee should settle down seriously to its work and make recommendations. Deputy Sheldon appears to be shaking his head.

I certainly am.

Let me call his attention to the terms of his motion:—

"There shall be appointed, as soon as may be after the commencement of every Session, a Select Committee, to be called ‘The Committee of Public Expenditure', to examine such of the Estimates presented to the Dáil in accordance with Standing Order No. 117 as may seem fit to the committee and to report what, if any, economies consistent with the policy implied in those Estimates may be effected therein."

What is the position? The Estimates must be prepared. I have put it to Deputy Sheldon that my reading of this motion would be that once the Estimates are prepared, published and possibly formally presented to the Dáil, the next move would be to refer one or more of them to this committee. That is what the motion implies, I think. In fact, I believe it goes much further than a mere implication. That is the demand inherent in this motion. If it is not, then what is the alteration which Deputy Sheldon is proposing? If it is not proposed to submit the Estimates to this committee for examination, then the position is that the Dáil will discuss the Estimates first, presumably in as detailed and as exhaustive a manner as they have discussed them heretofore, will come to a decision on each individual Estimate and will by a vote of the House or by agreement in the House authorise the Minister to proceed on foot of the Estimate which has been introduced.

If Deputy Sheldon will reconsider the first portion of his motion, he will see that it will have no validity or effect at all if the method which is followed at the moment is to be carried out, if there is a discussion here and a decision taken on the Estimates. It is because of that that I assume that Deputy Sheldon's idea was that before there could be a discussion in the House the Estimates should be considered by this committee. If the second position obtains then I think there would be a very real danger and a very immediate danger that discussion in this House would be by-passed and that the right of Deputies, particularly Deputies in opposition, to discuss the Estimates in detail, to say practically whatever they want to say with regard to particular Departments on the Estimates, would certainly be curbed and cramped. If that does not happen, the committee that is suggested by Deputy Sheldon would seem to me, if it were set up, to have no function whatever to perform.

I freely admit to Deputy Sheldon that by reason of his occupancy of the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee—for nearly a dozen years, I think it is now—he is possibly in a better position than I am to adduce definite arguments for or against the motion which he has set down here. But let us consider the possible workings of a committee such as this. Deputy Sheldon stipulates as one of the essentials for the working of this committee that no member of the Government and no Parliamentary Secretary should be a member of it. Bear in mind that the first portion of the motion sets it as a duty of the committee to recommend economies consistent with policy implied in the Estimates.

I think all of us here know that people can very often be mistaken about implications. Since I sat in here this evening Deputy Sheldon has corrected more than one speaker because of wrong implications which they have taken from words of his. Deputy Derrig corrected the last speaker on the same grounds. But Deputy Sheldon's committee is to exist in an atmosphere of implication. It is this committee, without the assistance of any member of the Government and without the assistance of any Parliamentary Secretary, that is to determine what is the policy implied in a particular Estimate. That may not be very easy. If the committee reach the correct conclusions with regard to policy they are then, if they are doing their duty seriously, going to recommend economies consistent with the policy which they find implied in the Estimates. If their implications are wrong then, I take it, it will be agreed by Deputy Sheldon—and if this committee were in operation it would subsequently be agreed by the House—that their decisions or recommendations will have no validity. All that a Minister in charge of a Department needs to do in order to say that such and such a recommendation of this committee cannot be accepted is to say the implication drawn by the committee with regard to the policy of his Department was incorrect. Assuming it is found by the committee, if it were to be established, that a particular Department by the framing of its Estimates is endeavouring to establish an order of priority with regard to particular expenditure, what is going to be the reaction of the committee? It is the Government that will decide on the order of priority. The committee in its desire for economy may decide this scheme or that scheme could not and should not be deferred. You cannot say that that is inconsistent with the policy implied in the Estimate. Nevertheless, the committee will have to function without the assistance of a member of the Government and without the assistance of a Parliamentary Secretary to explain what is the Government's attitude with regard to priorities in expenditure.

I would say this to Deputy Sheldon. If there is any value in the establishment of a committee of this sort—it may very well be that there would be— whatever value there is in it would to my mind be very greatly diminished by precluding members of the Government or Parliamentary Secretaries from being members of it. To my mind the proper approach, assuming that a committee of this sort were to be established, would be to insist that at least the Minister for Finance or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government, for instance, would ex officio be members of the committee and would be charged with the duty before the committee of explaining Government policy in relation to each particular Estimate. I think the better way would be that on the consideration of whatever Estimates are before the committee you would have the particular Minister or Parliamentary Secretary concerned to explain Government policy and any order of priority or anything of that sort which might possibly exist.

As I said when I started, my principal reason for opposing this motion is that I believe it would necessarily interfere with the rights of Deputies. I am surprised that Deputy Derrig, speaking for the Opposition Party, should give this motion his blessing because, undoubtedly, if this committee were set up the people who would principally suffer and who would be restricted in their approach to discussions in this House would be Deputies on the Opposition Benches. Deputy Derrig agreed that nothing should be done to curb full and free discussion in the Dáil. I do not know whether Deputy Derrig will agree with me in this. I think it is the logical outcome of the establishment of a committee of this sort to restrict discussion in the Dáil. Either that or you will have a hearing before the committee and a re-hearing of everything that went on before the committee when you come into the Dáil to discuss Estimates. If you are going to have a rehash of all that went on before a committee such as this, then Deputy Derrig will probably agree with me that the necessity for such a committee is not apparent.

Deputy Derrig saw certain merits in the motion. I was surprised, since he had apparently decided to support the motion, at the nature of the argument he used in support of it. He said he saw value in this motion—I hope he will correct me if I am wrong—because committees of this sort could question expenditure and ask for information. Deputy Derrig has been in this House very much longer than I have been in it but I know—I think every Deputy here knows—that in the discussion of any Estimate in the House every single member who talks and everyone who contributes to the discussion may, if he wishes, question the general expenditure proposed in the Estimate or question particular items of expenditure referred to in the Estimate. In addition to that, every person who contributes to a discussion on an Estimate is entitled to ask the Minister for information. He need not wait until the discussion on the Estimate to do that. He can put down a question for any meeting of the Dáil to elicit any information he wants to get. Yet, Deputy Derrig sees value in this motion because a committee of this sort would enable the members of the committee to question expenditure and ask for information.

I do not see that those arguments of themselves are sufficient to justify support for a motion of this sort. Deputy Sheldon seems to be in some doubt as to precisely what value the committee would be. He has, I think, secured agreement from most people who have spoken in so far as he has in mind the possibility that a committee of this sort would assist in finding economies but, as the last speaker pointed out, Deputy Sheldon, when he spoke on this motion, did not advance that as the main argument in favour of the motion.

He advanced as his main argument in favour of the motion that a committee of this sort would ensure that for every £ spent 20/- worth of value would be given. I do not think that a committee such as is suggested now, if it is going to operate at all, if it is going to examine Estimates at the Estimates stage, is a committee which can determine that for every £ spent 20/-worth of value will be given. It would seem to me—I talk, of course, subject to correction in this because I have not any experience of it—that a committee in the nature of the Public Accounts Committee would discharge that function with greater precision than a committee sitting before the expense has been authorised by this House.

Deputy Sheldon also advanced as an argument in favour of this committee that it would help Deputies to get an insight into the working of Government Departments. It might do that but I think that most Deputies who discharge their ordinary work on behalf of constituents as Deputies get a very clear insight into the working of Government Departments. In addition to that, each Minister comes along annually and renders an account of the working of his Department when he is presenting the Estimates.

I do not feel that that argument of Deputy Sheldon's is sufficient to warrant support for this motion. I do not believe that anything that has been said either by Deputy Sheldon or Deputy Derrig in any way minimises the danger to which the Minister for Finance has adverted—the danger that if a committee of this sort were established, eventually the rights of Deputies to discuss Estimates fully in this House might be interfered with.

Before I begin replying to the debate, I would like to draw the attention of the House to a mistake in the Official Report at column 407. I am afraid I feel rather bitter about it because of the particular mistake made. I am quoted as saying that "there is, for instance, the difficulty in discussing the accounts on the Estimate of any Department—the fact that the Committee on Finance dealing with it is limited to the affairs of that particular Department, in other words, what is called virement”. What I, of course, said was, “a vertical inquiry”. If I had been reported as saying any other word beginning with a “v” I would not mind so much, but as Chairman of the Committee on Public Accounts I take a very poor view of the word being used in such a context. Any member of the House who has been on the Public Accounts Committee will appreciate in full my feelings on this subject. May I go further and say that I do not see any point in putting an English word in italics? However, because it has appeared in print, I wanted to begin by drawing attention to it in case any Deputy might be under a misapprehension.

There is no doubt in my mind that what the Deputy has just said was what he did say last week.

"Virement" was a most unhappy choice. I must confess that I have no misapprehension at all as to how much blame lies at my own door for the course of this debate. As Deputies will appreciate, this motion came up at a rather unexpected hour and I must confess that my notes on the subject were not to hand, and I had to speak under that difficulty. I have only one consolation and that is that the Minister's case against the motion was very much worse than my case for the motion. Almost everything he said rested on a very obvious misconception of the facts. As far as Deputy O'Higgins is concerned, may I say that I think his trouble is that he could not see the wood for the trees?

I could not see the trees, either.

I do not know that the Minister's statement was either trees or wood. The Minister rested his case very largely on the failure of the Estimates Committee in the British Parliament and he instanced the fact that it had failed up to 1946—actually from 1939 to 1946, it was not an Estimates Committee but was supplanted by a Committee on National Expenditure. I did not touch on this in opening this particular motion because I had referred to it at length on previous occasions. The plain fact is that the British practice is founded very much at present on experience of the Committee on National Expenditure. The Minister is quite right in saying that certainly an Estimates Committee that concerns itself with discussion on Estimates in place of discussions in Parliament is a useless committee. That is exactly what the British discovered. Up to 1939 the British Estimates Committee went on the lines the Minister suggested; now, because of the experience over the war years with the Committee on National Expenditure, there is a different approach and since 1946 the British Estimates Committee has used the different approach. It does not consider those Estimates which the House of Commons leaves to one side. The Minister suggested that he has information that I have not got. He may have, and if so I should be glad to know what it is. May I mention some of the particular inquiries which the British Estimates Committee made in the last couple of years? They have brought in 21 reports. Of those reports, only one could in any way be construed on the face of its title alone as being in replacement of a debate by the British House of Commons and that is the one which deals with the Post Office.

What about the one on schools? It is exactly the same as we would have here.

Well, I will grant the Minister "schools", but then there are "export credits", "technical education"—that might be taken as a replacement—"monopolies and restrictive practices".

"Agricultural research", "regional organisation of Government Departments", "Grants-in-Aid"—the whole point of the British Estimates Committee is that it makes the type of inquiry that the British House of Commons cannot make and which the Dáil cannot make. That is, as I said already, a horizontal inquiry covering several Departments.

I went out of my way, I thought, to stress in my not too clear—I admit— opening remarks that my chief reason for changing the title back to the original Committee on Public Expenditure rather than Estimates was to try to avoid more discussion on the Estimates. Any argument raised against it on the basis that a committee of the Dáil is going to steal away the prerogatives of the Dáil and the members thereof is the greatest nonsense. No committee of this House is going to do that: it could not possibly happen and any argument based on that is a complete fallacy. The House could react very quickly indeed if any such thing happened. The Minister might have found a fairly good case, if I may say so, in what was hinted by the Parliamentary Secretary, I think, on the question of ministerial responsibility. On that, I may say, I fully agree with the Minister that by far the greater part of the increases and decreases in public expenditure are due to policy decisions. But granting that, with an expenditure of £108,000,000, even the bit that is left outside policy decisions is surely worth inquiring into.

I have stressed over and over again that what I want is a parliamentary inquiry into the efficiency of the Civil Service. The Parliamentary Secretary was rather good on that. He pointed out that it took from seven to ten years to become fully versed in the appreciation of public expenditure or to know very much about it. This House is elected to make the laws for this country, and so far no one has suggested that everyone ought to study or be called to the Bar before he is competent to make the laws of the country, but the Parliamentary Secretary considers that none of us elected Deputies knows anything about business or efficiency unless we have studied from seven to ten years. Some people might think that he had a case, but it is not a parliamentary case. If we are competent to make laws we are competent surely to inquire into the efficiency of Government Departments.

I find myself somewhat embarrassed in attempting to argue against a case which rests so much on a misconception of the facts. The Minister, the Parliamentary Secretary and, I think, Deputy O'Higgins, inquired as to what stage in the preparation of Estimates this committee would begin its work —before, during or after; but as I have tried to point out, there is no question of its interfering in that way with Estimates. There is no question of before, during or after, except that "during" might be the operative word. Over and over again I have tried to point out that the purpose of an Estimates Committee is not to interfere with specific items in an Estimate as presented. I mentioned that the preparation of Estimates is a continuous process, and that what I want to see is a parliamentary inquiry and parliamentary control over the efficiency of the Civil Service, if you like, in the preparation of the Estimates.

As to Deputy O'Higgins's suggestion, that members of the Government or Parliamentary Secretaries ought to be on the committee, the only purpose of that is to prevent any question of policy arising in the committee. I will say this—it was, I think, mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary—that it would be one essential that such a committee would work in harmony with the State Departments. It will also be an essential that it should work in harmony with the Government. A committee which attempted to interfere with policy, decisions would stultify itself. It just could not get anywhere. A committee which fell foul of Government Departments to the point that a bitter row would result, would stultify itself. Co-operation would be essential. in both cases. I do not see why that co-operation could not be found.

The suggestion that debates in this House deal with details of Estimates is possibly true, if one thinks only of the details as presented in the Book of Estimates; but no debate can deal with detail in the sense in which I mean detail. This detail is, for instance, presented to the Public Accounts Committee, and that committee has before it witnesses from the Departments. By tradition—I do not know whether the tradition could be upset, although the committee certainly has power to upset it if they with—the usual witness is the accounting officer, but there is nothing to stop the committee asking for other witnesses if they wish. That, in itself, means that the members of the committee can, by question and answer, backwards and forwards thresh the matter out.

That is not possible in this House on Estimates. For one thing, the Civil Service have not got a voice in this House, and even if one could assume that a Minister would know exactly every detail of his Department, which I think is asking a great deal indeed of any human being, it would not be possible to run a debate on an Estimate here on the basis of everyone in the House firing questions at the Minister, and tripping him up in his replies, and querying him further and further, nor could documents be put in question. If we are to assume that everything is for the best in this best of all possible Civil Services, well and good. I am not suggesting that it is not; I am suggesting that we do not know whether it is or not.

Various speakers took quotations from what I said to show that what I was really looking for was economy, and then there was the contradiction that I was not looking for economy but for something else. I will admit this: economy is one of the things which is desirable, and which a committee of this type should inquire after, but I must confess that I am personally more concerned with the aspect of parliamentary control. I mentioned in my opening speech the growth of public business, and the Parliamentary Secretary I think, rather misunderstood me in that regard. He went off on the subject of semi-State bodies, and how much more important they were, because they were under less control.

That is very true, but the State now enters into the life of the ordinary man in the street from so many angles, and it is such a complex matter that any detail is, I think, impossible in this House, and a committee sitting with expert witnesses before it from the Departments, could be very reassuring to the ordinary man in the street, that his representatives had some control over what is affecting his life. Naturally the committee could not interfere in policy—I have already dealt with that —but it is of very great interest to the man in the street as a taxpayer to know —if I may repeat a cliché—that 20/-value is got for every £ of his money spent. At the moment he has no such reassurance.

There is no Deputy in this House, with all due respect to Deputy O'Higgins, who can discover, by going in to make inquiries on behalf of his constituents in Government Departments, how a Department works, and if Deputy O'Higgins has been able to do that, I take off my hat to him.

I did suggest when I was making my opening remarks one or two types of inquiries that might be made. The British Estimates Committee has inquired into various things. Most of them are not the type of inquiry that we possibly would make here—the services are very different—but they have made some, for instance, into O. and M., and the Parliamentary Secretary apparently thinks that just because we have O. and M., everything is all right. He talked about my sneering at O. and M. On the contrary, I am all for O. and M. but what I want to know is now far has O. and M. been pursued—at what level? My impression is that it only operates at very low levels—probably very desirable—but surely the Department of Finance would be delighted if a Parliamentary Committee would pat it on the back and say: "Now you are on the right lines; go ahead. We will strengthen your hand if you want it strengthened so far as O. and M. is concerned."

I must confess that I am a little taken aback that the Minister for Finance should resist a committee which I think could be of very great assistance to the Minister and to the Department. As he has said, his be-all and end-all in life is saying "no" to expenditure. Surely if there is a Parliamentary Committee which is backing him up, and giving him very good reasons why he should say "no," he should be all for it. There is only one possible reason I can see why the Government or the Minister should resist the setting up of this committee, so far as securing economy in expenditure is concerned, and that is the possible doubt that, if economies are secured, the Government rather than the committee will get the kudos. I do not think that should weigh with the Government at all. Parliamentary committees never get any kudos for anything they do, so far as I know. The Government is always in the best position to look for the pat on the back, and very rightly so, because the parliamentary committee of itself, cannot do anything. The Public Account's Committee cannot order the Department of Finance or any Department to do anything or take any course of action; it can only draw the attention of the House to a possible solution of a difficulty, and it is only by implication that the Public Accounts committee succeeds in getting its way.

If the Department of Finance or any Department wishes to resist the Public Accounts Committee, the Public Accounts Committee can only depend on this House to back it up vis-à-vis the Department of Finance, which in effect, means the Minister for Finance. The Public Accounts Committee has not a leg to stand on, if the Minister wishes to resist it to the utmost but, in practice, that is not what happens The suggestions of the committee are usually, I will say, followed in a reasonable way. The Minister did interest me very much when he suggested, as a possible alternative to an Estimates Committee, some alteration in the ambit of the Public Accounts Committee. There is, I think, a possible line of approach there. As he said, in England it was suggested that there should be one committee, a committee on public expenditure, which would cover the ground covered by the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee. That was indeed, a suggestion by officers of the House of Commons but I am not sure that the grounds for turning it down were just those the Minister for Finance advanced. As it really has not anything to do with the discussion here at the moment I am not pursuing it but I think it is a rather weak ground.

The suggestion that the Estimates Committee would in some way be a political committee is one which I think carries no weight either. The Public Accounts Committee consists of representatives of various Parties in the Dáil. My proposal is that the Committee on Public Expenditure should be formed in the same way, that is, from a proportion of the Parties in this House and I see no reason why Party politics should rear its ugly head in one committee more than another. I think the remarks of the Minister, the Parliamentary Secretary and Deputy O'Higgins arise from a misconception of the functions of an Estimates Committee. If an Estimates Committee pursues the type of inquiry I have outlined, Party politics cannot possibly enter into the matter at all.

So far I have covered most of the points raised in this debate. May I make this suggestion? The Minister has been inclined to suggest that the Estimates Committee in Great Britain has not produced any very startling results. There may possibly be something in that. The same could be said of the Public Accounts Committee here, but I want to remind the Dáil of the fact that, when a judge goes on circuit or appears anywhere to hold a court and there are no criminal cases before the court, it is customary for the judge to compliment the Garda Síochána on the peace of their district. I have never seen a case yet where the Gardaí had a long criminal list that the judge complimented them on their efficiency in tracking down malefactors.

The Public Accounts Committee is in exactly the same position, and so would an Estimates Committee, as the police force. You cannot judge the efficacy of a parliamentary committee by the number of cases that they produce, by the number of stringent reports they make, the numbers of raps they give to departmental knuckles. The Public Accounts Committee acts very much through its deterrent force, through its mere existence. The fact that there is a parliamentary committee which may inquire into anything which happens to be wrong with the accounts has been proved time and again to be a very effective way to secure that the accounts will be correct. I think, in the same way, a Committee of Public Expenditure which would inquire into the efficiency of the Civil Service, should it never produce a report which pointed to a particular Department or section of a Department as being inefficient, could have a very good deterrent effect.

I do not think it is too much to ask the House to envisage a situation where there could be inefficiency in a Department and to discover to-morrow morning that a Committee on Public Expenditure had been set up by the House to inquire into the efficiency of all sections of that Department, without the Department setting out immediately to put its house in order. I think that in that way—you may call it a negative way—the committee would be a very useful thing. It would encourage internal checks on efficiency.

I have already referred to the fact that a committee of this type, to produce any effect at all, would have to work in harmony with the Departments just as the Public Accounts Committee acts. As members of the Public Accounts Committee realise, very often little things crop up on which the committee might report in a very stringent and adverse way, but it generally inclines rather to pull its punches. It is not because it has any fears of its opinion but because it can work best if there is harmony between it and the Departments, particularly the Department of Finance. In the same way, if the Public Expenditure Committee is to do its duty of inquiring into the efficiency of the Civil Service, it would have to work in harmony with the Department, otherwise the blinds would very quickly be pulled down and an inter-departmental committee would be left with very little evidence on which to base its decision.

Another essential would be the goodwill of the Government. As Deputy O'Higgins has pointed out, policy is debarred from consideration of the committee. Of course, the dividing line where policy begins and ends is always difficult to establish. A committee which was fighting with the Government of the day as to what was policy and what was not, would stultify itself and could never produce anything useful, so that an essential factor in the working of the Committee of Public Expenditure would be the goodwill of the Government.

The Minister is opposing the setting up of a committee, but I think the grounds on which he has registered his opposition are completely false. His statement sounds to me very like a speech made by the present Minister for Agriculture when he was Deputy Dillon on the last occasion on which I raised this matter, a speech which I took at the time to be a sort of tour de force—a sort of feeling that there was a vacuum in which he felt he had to say something. He talked quite a lot of balderdash. He said that such a committee would interfere with the prerogatives of Parliament, a thing which I pointed out to be demonstrably false. The Minister's speech in reply to my opening statement sounded terribly like the speech of Deputy Dillon on that occasion. Whatever the reason may be, the Minister has indicated that he is not willing to accept this proposal. He has hinted that some other approach may be made. If his mind runs on the lines that some adjustment might be made in the ambit that the Public Accounts Committee covers, I would be prepared to go a long way to meet him. May I suggest that it would be very useful if it could be arranged that where the Public Accounts Committee has doubts as to the efficiency of any Department or section of a Department as disclosed by the accounts, that the committee may pursue its inquiries right up to the present rather than, as now, stopping at the end of the financial year into which the committee is inquiring. Useful work could then be done.

If the Minister is thinking of business audits and efficiency audits by outside bodies, I cannot agree with him at all. My own impression, in so far as I can learn anything about them at all, is that such audits carried out by experts from outside appear to me, first of all, to take place in the wrong Departments; and, secondly, they seem to me to produce very little result for the money spent. Again, as with the Public Accounts Committee, and as it would be with a Committee on Public Expenditure, I admit it is not possible to judge precisely by the apparent effect. The long-term effect may go much further. But I am not fond of something which is not parliamentary. I still take my stand on the fact that I am a parliamentarian first, last and all the time, and it is parliamentary control I wish to see: such control may not be as efficient as some other type of control from outside; but any control from outside is merely bureaucracy under another name, and I do not want to see that.

However, if the Minister is still considering the matter—I shall not go so far as one of his supporters and suggest that it will take him five years in which to make up his mind—I will be very happy eventually to hear the results of his further inquiries. As far as the present motion is concerned, I have indicated that an essential factor in the efficient working of a committee engaged on Estimates would be the sympathy, support and approval of the Government and the Department of Finance. If that is not forthcoming at the moment I do not see that I can serve any useful purpose in doing anything at this stage other than withdrawing, with the permission of the House, the motion in my name.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
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