Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 25 Mar 1958

Vol. 166 No. 7

Personal Explanation by Member.

Mr. Sweetman

On last Thursday week, the 20th March, in column 558 of the Official Report when the Minister for Agriculture and I were discussing milk deliveries to creameries the Minister stated:—

"At the same time the former Minister was nervy enough to repudiate in this House an approval which he gave only a few months before he went out of office. The Deputy has a good memory for this matter while he did not have a good memory for a deliberate action which he took in another regard."

The report continues:—

"Mr. Sweetman: I have a clear recollection.

Mr. Smith: The Deputy is always clear when he wants to be but he is very dull when it suits him."

The Minister and I went on somewhat in that vein. I had already at that time asked my successor in the Department of Finance for an opportunity of examining the file in relation to this matter, so far as the period when I was in office was concerned, I understood that I had a right under the Constitution or by convention to do so but, whether I had that right or not does not matter, because my successor afforded me an opportunity of inspecting the file in the Department of Finance. I want, in the first place, therefore, gratefully to acknowledge his courtesy for enabling me to do so.

Mr. Dillon

I regret I cannot say the same about my successor.

Mr. Sweetman

The examination that I made proves conclusively and beyond question that no minute from the Department of Agriculture for the termination of the double-byre grant was submitted to me for my personal approval. The file in this matter never came to me at all at any time after the 31st January, which is the date that was mentioned by the present Minister for Agriculture. I could not, therefore, have any recollection of this minute and the allegation made by the present Minister for Agriculture that I was dishonestly omitting something from my recollections is proven to be untrue.

I wish, however, to make it clear that I do not propose to shelter behind the anonymity of any civil servant, or to repudiate any civil servant for action taken in the Department when I was there. The officials of my Department knew that it was my policy to assist, so far as I could, the Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dillon, in his efforts to speed up the scheme for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. If this minute from the Department of Agriculture, and it was a minute from an official of that Department, not from the Minister himself, had come to me personally, I would have approved of it because the whole tenor and purport of that minute is not as the present Minister for Agriculture outlined, but is to stress the necessity to speed up the scheme. The minute stressed that across the water they had moved on in excess of anticipations and that we must push ahead faster than we had anticipated, and that there were difficulties in regard to the availability of technical staff.

It went on to propose that payment of the supplementary byre grants would not be allocated after the 1st April, 1958, and it specifically stated that one of the advantages of giving long notice of that would be to act as a spur to as many as possible to come into the attested herd scheme at once, because they would know if they did not come into the scheme at once they would not get the benefit of the supplementary grant. That, of course, is entirely different from what the present Minister for Agriculture alleged had my approval.

Mr. Smith

But you did cut it. Is a Minister responsible for the acts of his officials or is he not? Are we to take it that during the period of that Government the officials ran the country?

An Ceann Comhairle

Order!