I move:—
That a Select Committee, consisting of 11 members to be nominated by the Committee of Selection, of whom four shall be a quorum, be appointed with power to send for persons, papers and records, to inquire into and report back to the Dáil within three months on the management and conduct generally of the affairs of the Gaeltarra Éireann section of the Department of the Gaeltacht, with particular reference to the production and marketing of Gaeltarra Éireann goods over the past five years.
The matters which I seek to have examined by a Select Committee of this House are not by any means new to the House. A variety of reasons have been attributed by both the present Minister for the Gaeltacht and his acting predecessor for my complaints in this regard. The Minister's acting predecessor, now the Minister for Education, made the bold statement in this House that I was raising these matters because of a vendetta, to use the words of Deputy Haughey, or a spleen against a particular employee of Gaeltarra Éireann, to use the Minister's own words. Later, the present Minister for the Gaeltacht attributed to me another motive—that I am making these complaints in order to give air to some sort of curious difference of opinion that exists between Deputy Blowick and myself.
Apart from the fanciful words in which two Ministers ascribe two different reasons for my motives and for my actions, I want to state here and now that each Minister is wrong in the opinion he has formed or that the information he has received is wrong, that each effort of each Minister in ascribing these motives to me is an attempt to whitewash the action taken not by the present Minister for the Gaeltacht but by the Minister for Education acting as Minister for the Gaeltacht, in restoring to the services of Gaeltarra Éireann an agent whom I dismissed when I was Minister for what I recorded as being misconduct within the terms of his appointment.
It was alleged there was something curious about the fact that this dismissal took place on the 19th March, 1957, a day before the change of Government. My answer to that is that there was nothing extraordinary in it, having regard to the fact that from 8th January, or some day around that date. I was conducting a departmental inquiry, presided over with meticulous care by the permanent head of the Department of Education—the Secretary of that Department.
I became Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Gaeltacht and the Minister for Education on 2nd July, 1956. It was not, however, until 15th October, 1956, that the Gaeltacht services section, including Gaeltarra Éireann, of the Department of Lands was by order transferred to the Department of the Gaeltacht. I became Minister for the Gaeltacht on 24th October, 1956, so that the particular services of this branch into which I now want to have inquiries made was one week in the Department while I was Parliamentary Secretary prior to my becoming a Minister.
The Minister for Education, in his capacity as Acting-Minister for the Gaeltacht, in the course of a reply to the debate on the Estimate for the Gaeltacht on 25th June last year, recorded it as an extraordinary fact that I had been in the Department from October to January without making a move in this matter. That, of course, is where the present Minister's predecessor is wrong. It will readily be accepted that, in matters of this kind, where there were irregularities, where the people outside were talking about irregularities, where within the branch itself these irregularities were the subject of jealousies and envy, one had to proceed with the greatest possible caution, with, it might be argued, even the greatest possible stealth in order to get the necessary preliminary information upon which one could find the true basis of a departmental inquiry.
I was engaged, with the help of my then private secretary, a civil servant, in interviewing people from all over the country on these matters and it was as a result of those inquiries, made privately without any reference to any other official except my private secretary, that I was able to get the information from which I formulated questions and had them directed through the permanent head of the Department into the official channels of the Gaeltarra Éireann section of Gaeltacht Services.
The response to these official inquiries was delayed and the information was meagre. It was alleged here that during the Christmas of 1956 an incident occurred outside of this city between the particular agent and myself that led to what the Minister's predecessor, the Minister for Education, was pleased to call an inquisition. The incident, was a simple one. In the midst of some social activity this agent, as he then was, an agent employed in what was than my Department, tried to foist his company upon me and my company because he knew by then that inquiries were on foot, the result of which might be the unfolding of what I now allege and then alleged was the playing of havoc with public money that falls very short, of fraud. His efforts at making any sort of headway as a result of that overture were repulsed and that is all that was in the incident which the Minister's predecessor, the Minister for Education, sought to clock with such mystery.
As I said, the departmental inquiry moved with its characteristic slowness. A general election took place in the meantime, and I want to put on record that in spite of the fact that there was a general election campaign going on, I twice left my constituency deliberately to go to my office in Dublin for no other purpose than to marshal these negotiations and find out exactly the extent to which they had moved. The result was that I was ready for face-to-face discussions with the officers of my Department on the 15th March, and on the following day with officers of the Department plus the three Irish agents. When I say the three Irish agents I mean the agents operating in Ireland as distinct from the agents abroad.
In acceding to the request to set up an inquiry into this matter the Minister, I take it, seeking the advice of the Government or giving the Government advice, would be doing nothing more than putting the public mind at ease with regard to the situation which obtained over a long number of years in this service and, if I might also say so, giving the Ministers themselves the opportunity of showing that they were justified in not standing over the action I took and discrediting me, or, on the other hand, justifying me. But the overall hand, objective must be the vindication of the people who pay the piper, the taxpayers in this country, with particular reference to the excellent men and women, mainly women, who control the industries of the Gaeltacht and particularly the girls who work there for what could only be described as little more than a pittance.
I may mention, in passing, that I wanted to know why the commission paid to these agents differed in regard to some of the areas and differed with regard to persons. I was informed as follows by the Acting-Minister at column 1198, Volume 162, of the Official Debates of the 25th June, 1957:—
"Mr. J. Lynch: It should be understood that these positions are not permanent. Neither are they pensionable. The commission is not in any way out of the ordinary. Deputy Lindsay suggests that 1 per cent. would be sufficient.
Mr. Lindsay: No; I do not.
Mr. J. Lynch: Or, rather, that men in comparable positions get 1 per cent. from their companies."
That was true.
"If one applies that to the total remuneration earned by these men, the highest would have been £800 a year, ranging down to less than £400 a year, in the four years quoted by the Deputy."
In other words, at that time, on the 25th June of last year, we find the Acting-Minister for the Gaeltacht vigorously defending a commission of 5 per cent., 5½ per cent., 6 per cent. and 6¼ per cent. as being the ordinary commission—"nothing out of the ordinary," he says. If may information is correct, within the past few months these agents have been either asked or ordered to accept something between 3 per cent. and 4 per cent.
If it was to be vigorously defended as the correct percentage in June of this year, why should it be reduced within the past couple of months? I wonder would I be reckless in venturing a suggestion that this reduction in the percentage commission to agents was part of the campaign to have the affairs of Gaeltarra Éireann put into some semblance of order before this motion came on? In any event, the House is entitled, first of all, to be told whether it is true that these reductions in commission percentage have been made and secondly, if they have been made, what was the object in view. Thirdly, if they were ordinarily commissions of sufficient size to be defended in June what was the intervening factor that made it necessary, or justifiable, to have them reduced in the succeeding time that I have mentioned?
In the Vote for the Gaeltacht on 25th June last the then Minister for the Gaeltacht, acting as he was, was not so concerned, in my view, with giving to the House the facts of the matter as they stood at that time. Rather was he concerned with keeping the House either uninformed or misinformed as to the facts with a view to discrediting my actions and in order to whitewash this agent, restored by him. I hope to prove, in so far as proof can be given on a motion of this kind, that this agent was restored through the influence of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, coupled with the influence of the Minister for Finance, side by side with the withdrawal of influence that might be used on behalf of others by the Minister for Defence. They are all in it.
I must say at this stage that in relation to all that part of the story the present Minister must be exonerated as not then having any responsibility in the matter. But we shall come to a part of the story, as it unfolds itself, where the present Minister found it necessary to defend by evasion, or otherwise, of the facts, this agent who obviously means so much to somebody somewhere
To give but a brief example of the type of evasion to which I refer it will be necessary for me to refer to the minutes of that inquiry—minutes which, by the way, have been placed at my disposal even though taken in my time—by the Minister's for Educacessor, the present Minister for Education. In the course of these minutes, vouched for as accurate by the Secretary of the Department, it will be seen that this agent was behaving in a manner which certainly called for an investigation and from the investigation there could be no doubt in the minds of any business man but that that behaviour amounted to gross misconduct in the carrying out of his affairs.
On the 15th March, 1955, there was an order from this agent to sell to Messrs. Todd Burns in this city a total of 2,160 garments for £2,580, less 13 per cent. On the 28th March, 1955 there was an invoice for 1,196 garments at £1,831 1s., less 13 per cent. and on the 31st March, 1955, there was an invoice for 1,120 garments at £932 1s. 9d., less 13 per cent. These latter two invoices are signed by the manager of Gaeltarra Éireann and there was no reference to 25 per cent. It is stated clearly and unequivocally on these two invoices "less 13 per cent."
It was not until the 18th June, 1955, three months later that there is a reference on the departmental file to a request from that particular company —Messrs. Todd Burns—where they demand special discount, namely 25 per cent. On the 19th July, 1955, one month later, after the company demanded a discount of 25 per cent., which is 12 per cent. over that which was specifically set out on the invoice, the manager of Gaeltarra Éireann writes on the file "Find out from Mr.—(the Dublin agent)—what it is about." There is no further reference as to any inquiries being made from the agent as to what it was about until 27th August, 1955, a month after that, when there is a strong letter from the southern areas agent complaining that garments were to be got in his area at a lower price than their value. These garments were not substandard in any way. I put that question deliberately to the southern area agent in the course of my inquiry, presided over by the permanent head of the Department: "Were these garments substandard in any way? Were they unsaleable by way of tinting or shades?" The answer was: "No, the garments were perfectly standard in every respect."
These of course were the garments that Messrs. Todd Burns and some other shops around the city with whom the agent dealt on the 25 per cent. basis, were selling to smaller places down the country at a lower price than that at which the Department's own agent for that area could sell them. That was on 27th August, but, on 13th September, 1956, there is a memo from the manager of Gaeltarra Éireann that these garments were substandard.
That memo is from the man who signed the invoices for two lots of them, on 28th March and 31st March, 1955, as so many garments, at such a price, less 13 per cent. That was the standard discount for standard goods, but here he makes an inquiry from the agent: "What is this about?" The company did not state what they sought the discount for, but, in September, six months later, when these garments made by girls in remote areas of the country for starvation wages, and passed by the authorities in Gaeltarra Éireann as standard goods, had been shoved all over the country, scattered by the wholesale houses of Dublin, who have pals of this agent in every one of them, when there was no possibility of tracing them or bringing them back in any bulk, they were certified by the manager of Gaeltarra Éireann as substandard.
Having regard to the Parliamentary replies given to me that the number of substandard goods was negligible; that they were graded as standard, substandard but saleable, and unsaleable —standard to be sold in the ordinary way, substandard but saleable to be described as such, and unsaleable to be sent back to the centre for redoing —could anybody imagine that a responsible manager would send out three lots, invoice them as standard and six months later certify them as substandard, without some very good reason?
In the course of the inquiry, I asked the manager, as a result of the knowledge privately sought and ascertained by me, prior to Christmas, 1956, if he was afraid of this agent or if he was indebted to him in any way. The answer, of course, was no. In the course of the next inquiry, two or three days afterwards, I reminded him of the query I put to him and said I was now going to put it to him more mildly by asking was he in any way influenced by this agent. He replied: "I am", explaining that he was a very strong character and a great customer of Gaeltarra Éireann. Of the strong character part I have no doubt, because I am as certain as I am of standing here, that I was told an untruth when I was told he was not under the influence of the agent. I know he was indebted to the agent in no inconsiderable way. If you hold the whip hand over somebody, either morally or monetarily, it is easy to get a certificate as to the standard of the goods.
On another occasion, as has already emerged in the course of the debate on the Vote for this Department, I made it known that this agent, conniving and conspiring with the manager of Gaeltarra Éireann, put into the stocks of Gaeltarra Éireann linen of a type and quality never used by Gaeltarra Éireann before, that never would be used and never could be used by Gaeltarra Éireann, and received in exchange for it in relation to his own business a credit note for tweed. He has a business of his own —I will come to that later—it is a company with a typist holding one share and, therefore, he is not the sole proprietor, according to the Minister's predecessor.
The strange thing about it is that while I was conducting the departmental inquiry, I was not told about that £109 transaction in relation to tweed. I was not told that this agent had sufficient influence with the powers that were officially, so that the incident would be closed by his taking back the linen, wiping the matter out, and the manager, who was subject to this strong character who was a good customer, was stopped increments by way of punishment. That is only a little sample; it is only one of the things that were discovered, and it is a thing I would never have discovered officially, were it not for the fact that I was able to carry on a personal inquiry, prior to setting up the official one. I may as well add that it came as a great surprise to the persons concerned when I was able to talk to them about it.
On 15th December, 1954, 45 garments were involved to Messrs. O'Reilly, North Earl Street, Dublin, at a cost of £65 1s. 3d., less 13 per cent. That may appear a small figure, but it was a figure capable of examination at the time of despatch. It did not comprise a huge bulk of thousands of garments and it was marked as standard, less 13 per cent. On 21st January, 1955, about five weeks later, the company demanded 25 per cent. discount. On 2nd February, 1956, there was a letter from Gaeltarra Éireann to the company saying: "We are not aware of any arrangements made to allow you special discount." That letter was written on 2nd February, 1956.
Curiously enough, in response to this denial of any responsibility for the 25 per cent., the company do not reply until the 8th March. Again, a delay of five weeks takes place. On that date the company—I might say with great and deliberate tact— phoned; what they could not have contemplated was that the official mind could not resist recording a telephone conversation, and it was recorded. What the company phoned and what the note says is: "The company phoned to say that there was a special arrangement about it with Mr. A., the agent."
The Minister's predecessor had that before him. I asked the question: "If he would state the reasons given by Dublin traders, whose names are already known to him, when they applied to his Department for a trade discount of 25 per cent. on knitwear?" Listen to the reply of the Minister's predecessor, bearing in mind what I have just read out, which is official and which the Minister has in front of him now, if his file is complete: "The traders in question claimed 25 per cent. discount by sending debit notes to Gaeltarra Éireann. No reason was given for the claim in any of the debit notes." So far, that little bit is true. But for some reason the tactics of evasion seem to have been abandoned and the Minister went on: "And there is no record in my Department that these traders gave any reason whatever for their claim in any other way."
There is the reason—the memorandum from the company by phone recorded in the office saying there was a special arrangement about it with the agent. So much for the credibility of the previous Minister and the credibility of those supplying him with answers to Parliamentary Questions. The same story goes on in relation to different other Dublin traders, all claiming the 25 per cent., all claiming it, having taken sufficient time to dispose of the goods and the Department having taken sufficient time to ascertain why the 25 per cent. should be given. When the whole coast is clear you then have the reason given: "the manager certifies them as substandard."
I asked the Minister's predecessor the question: "Whether the granting of claims for a percentage discount higher, than that authorised by the management of Gaeltarra Éireann to firms, and business houses in the City of Dublin has resulted in a loss of public moneys and, if so, what steps he proposes to take to make good the said loss?" Listen to the Minister's reply: "No discount was given to any firm in Dublin City without authority from the management of Gaeltarra Éireann. The second part of the question does not, therefore, arise." Those are two answers given by the Minister's predecessor, one of them certainly not in accordance with the facts, namely, that there was no record of any reason why these claims were made. And the second is an evasion of the fact because what he is trying to say is that by showing that these discounts were authorised by the management, it did not really matter—in fact, he did say it on the 25th June last—whether they were certified as substandard prior to the sale or in retrospect.
Perhaps I might be allowed to deal with one matter in the speech of the Minister in reply to the vote on the Estimate last June, arising from a question raised by me of the southern areas agent complaining that goods were to be found on sale in the shop in Shannon not sold to the shop by him. The Minister's reply, given to him from a source at his elbow which should have been the correct source and which should have had the correct information, was as follows—I am quoting from Volume 162, column 1199:
"The second point on which the agent concerned was dismissed was that he sold goods in another agent's district. First of all, there was an allegation made by the southern agent, at one of the conferences held by Deputy Lindsay a few days before he went out, to the effect that Gaeltarra Éireann goods were found on sale at Shannon airport and that these goods were not sold by the southern agent even though Shannon airport was within his district."
That allegation was true in substance and in fact.
"That was accepted as an act in breach of his conditions of appointment by the agent in the Dublin area. But the fact is that those who run Shannon airport—Aer Rianta or whoever it is—are responsible for the goods on sale there. They have their own distributing centre in Dublin and all goods of that description sold in Shannon airport are supplied by that centre. Gaeltarra Éireann goods sold in Shannon airport are not supplied by the southern agent."
Gaeltarra Éireann goods sold in Shannon airport are sold by the southern areas agent and any goods in Shannon airport of Gaeltarra Éireann texture, quality and supply are sold by the southern areas agent, because there is no other source. Aer Rianta never supplied any goods to Shannon airport, and we had the sorry spectacle of the Minister for Education coming in here the following day to correct what was an obvious falsehood and saying that what he meant was that C.I.E. in Thomas Street supplied the G.S.R. hotel in Galway. Could anything be more positive than that statement about Aer Rianta? I know now—I did not know then—why he had to come in to make his correction. He came in to make it because the phones from Shannon airport nearly burned up the Department telling him, for God's sake, to put the matter right, that they had never bought goods from Aer Rianta, that Aer Rianta never supplied them with goods and such was not the practice.
That is the kind of fraud with which I was dealing. That is the kind of fraud which I tried to eradicate, and I believe that in dismissing the agent I did eradicate the greatest portion of the evil. That is the kind of fraud that the Minister's predecessor and the present Minister are prepared to stand over in the interests of this agent who must owe somebody something very great.