Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 5 Dec 1957

Vol. 164 No. 10

Committee on Finance. - Tourist Traffic Bill, 1957—Report and Final Stages.

Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.

Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass".

Mr. Sweetman

This Bill will be administered by An Bord Fáilte. I think the Minister made a grave mistake in the changes he made in the personnel of An Bord Fáilte in taking off that body the present President of the Irish Tourist Association. It is an undoubted fact that tourism, tourist resorts and the name Killarney have the widest possible connotation abroad. It was very regrettable indeed that the President of the Irish Tourist Association, who is the charman of the urban council in Killarney and represented the interests of tourism around there, should have been taken off the board by the Minister. It was an unwise step and it was particularly bad when it was done for the purpose of putting on the board a Dublin hotelier.

I do not think the Minister's answer to the question I asked yesterday was honest. The Minister knows as well as I do that the person he substituted is a member of the National Executive of Fianna Fáil. I do not think anything the worse of him for that because I do not believe in the view some people hold that it is a good thing not to be in politics. I think it is a good thing to be in politics, but the Minister would have served his purpose far better if he met the question honourably yesterday. It was a very bad thing indeed that the Minister should have made this substitution.

Mr. Dillon

I should like to second what Deputy Sweetman has said. It was a great pity the Minister decided to terminate the appointment of the chairman and the other members. These members did their jobs as well as they could. I agree with Deputy Sweetman that it would be quite a mistaken view to suggest that, because a man participates in the public life of this country, he should therefore be avoided as a pariah. I agree with Deputy Sweetman that the fact that one of the men appointed is prominent in the Fianna Fáil Party is in itself no block to his appointment to a position of responsibility; on the contrary, it may well commend him to the public as somebody prepared to pull his weight in public life. However, I regret very much that the impression should be created that when persons come forward to undertake for very restricted remuneration responsible public work and do their job honestly, conscientiously and well, with every change of Government, their appointments are immediately terminated.

This may be a reason why you will not get people who are eligible for appointments of this kind to accept them at all. You cannot anticipate that people will accept them for ridiculously inadequate remuneration, if they are to be exposed to this kind of affront. I think it is true to say that the chairman of this board functioned for about one-eighth of the remuneration paid to the executive director. He made no bones about that because he thought he was contributing to the public good. When a man has done that, it is not becoming that his services should be arbitrarily rejected in the way which was followed in this case. I think Deputy Sweetman is right to avail of this occasion to refer to this aspect of the situation and I trust that this kind of procedure will not be persisted in.

Mr. S. Lemass

In regard to the first point raised by Deputy Sweetman, I want to put him right as regards the facts. When the present Bord Fáilte organisation was set up in 1952, I made an arrangement with the I.T.A. under which I undertook to appoint as a member of An Bord Fáilte one person nominated by them from a panel of three persons to be submitted by them. That practice has persisted ever since. Mr. Downing, whom the Deputy has in mind, was a member of An Bord Fáilte by virtue of the fact that, having been nominated by the I.T.A., he was appointed by my predecessor. On this occasion, the I.T.A. did not nominate Mr. Downing and under that arrangement I was confined to making a selection from one of the other three names put forward by them. The person so chosen was not a Dublin hotelier.

When we reconstituted the board on the expiration of their term of office, there was no question of removing any member. The board's term of office had expired and I had the responsibility of renominating the members or making changes. One person I put on the board is a Dublin hotelier to whom Deputy Sweetman referred. He was a previous President of the Irish Tourist Association and had been a member of the board from its inception but had been removed from membership by the previous Government. I thought they had made a mistake in removing him. I cannot assess what their motives were. The person in question is outstandingly competent in this particular field.

With regard to the chairman, I do not think it is desirable that I should attempt now to justify the change I made in that regard. It would involve something more, perhaps, than extolling the merits of the present chairman. While I felt that a change in the chairmanship was desirable, I did not feel it was a suitable arrangement to have renominated the outgoing chairman as an ordinary member, nor do I think it was desired by himself. I feel certain that, knowing the individual concerned, nobody would think that the nomination of the present chairman was made with any idea but to get the best qualified person in the country for the position.

Mr. Dillon

May I inquire who is the present Chairman?

Mr. S. Lemass

Mr. O'Regan.

Mr. Sweetman

The Minister did not answer why he omitted one section from his reply yesterday.

Mr. S. Lemass

That is a different point. I feel strongly that if people are chosen by the Government for appointment to a State board, they should not have their other activities questioned in the Dáil.

Mr. Sweetman

Political activities are different matters altogether. As a matter of fact, was not Mr. Glynn from Galway appointed also?

Mr. S. Lemass

He was a nominee of the Irish Tourist Association.

Mr. Sweetman

I think he was appointed by the Minister. I think he has political connections as well.

Mr. S. Lemass

And he was a previous member of the board.

Mr. Sweetman

He was a candidate for this House in the Fianna Fáil interest at one time.

Question put and agreed to.