Vol. 226 No. 2
I move:
That a sum not exceeding £4,085,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1967, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, including certain other Services administered by that Office.
I want, first of all, to deprecate the practice, which is only too common in this country as in many other countries, of visiting all our indignation on the Revenue Commissioners. The Revenue Commissioners carry out the law. We make the law; the Revenue Commissioners implement it. Often, when I hear of the intolerable oppressions of the Revenue Commissioners, I am concerned to point out that the Revenue Commissioners are the most reasonable of all people provided you can persuade them you are not trying to put your finger in their eye. I always remember a distinguished old friend of mine coming into my office when I was Minister for Agriculture and saying: "Now, Mr. Dillon, I am quite prepared to deal with you on the basis of catch-as-catch-can or on the basis of cards on the table" and, knowing the reputation of the man, I said: "Cards on the table, if you please," and we never had a cross word afterwards. If you deal with the Revenue Commissioners on the basis of cards on the table, they are glad and willing not only to concede all that you are entitled to but to exert themselves to ensure that an ordinary citizen will get his full rights. But, if you start on the basis of trying to put your finger in their eyes, they take very good care that you will not get your finger into their eyes and you will probably hurt your finger in the attempt to insert it.
There is, however, one fault I have to find with the Revenue Commissioners. It is a fault that calls for correction. The first person a tourist meets coming into this country is the preventive officer of the Revenue Commissioners at the point of entry. I have come in through Dún Laoghaire and through Dublin Airport and I have a pretty wide experience of preventive officers. Most of them, when they know you, naturally exert themselves to ease your entry but I met one, God bless him, who did not know me and the chief preventive officer seemed to find fault with him for not recognising me. I said: "Stand back and let me thank God that at least we have one man in the country who does not know me." It is a most refreshing thing to meet a fellow who did not know who I was and let him open my bags and dance a can-can if he liked. It is a joy to find he does not know me.
Here is the problem. Watching preventive officers operating, I know that 99 per cent of them can do their job and at the same time, maintain an air of geniality, but the ladies, whether it is they think we think them too feminine or that we would attempt our masculine wiles upon them, advance upon you with the visage of a Gorgon. When I was a young man, more years ago than I care to remember, I went to study business in London and I remember being instructed before going behind the counter in the retail distributive business, and that instruction was largely devoted to training one to be agreeable to the customers. You were told you would meet some very cantankerous, difficult customers, and you were exhorted to remember: "We depend for our living on these people and, even though they are cantankerous and cross and difficult, and even if they are dishonest, we will watch them, and we will see they do not get away with anything, but their cash is as good as anybody else's and we live by bringing them back." We live here on the business of bringing tourists back.
I must admit I am a pretty formidable tourist myself when I arrive, but some of the Gorgons I meet are infinitely more formidable. So far as I know, these girls are nice, friendly girls, if only one got to know them, but they would frighten the life out of you and, if you bid them the time of day, they nearly hit you. I have no specific complaint to make. I have never seen them exceed their duty. But there are two ways of doing one's duty, a pleasant way and a disagreeable way. I am not asking these ladies, who have a very difficult job to do, to mitigate the rigour of their inspection, but one can search a man's or a woman's baggage as exhaustively as one thinks it one's duty to do agreeably as well as disagreeably. One can bid a person "Good morning" or say it is a wet day, or a cold day, or a hot day, and put the person at his ease. I have seen unfortunate women and unfortunate men, arriving at Dublin Airport, thrown into a state of confusion and alarm and it is the lady members of the preventive staff who are the worst offenders in this respect.
I suggest to the Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners that these ladies, whom I have no doubt are a most excellent body of public servants, should be given a period of training similar to that which I had when I was starting my career in the retail distributive trade, training in being agreeable, no matter what problem the tourist presents. I am fully aware of the fact that some of the travellers try to deceive the preventive officers. It is the job of the preventive officers to detect that and control it, within reason. Above all, they should present an exterior which will make people visiting the country feel welcome and not have them arriving at their hotels all hot and bothered and distressed. It is important to remember that 99 per cent of the people coming in pass through the customs without a ripple but if one person feels he has been unnecessarily and unjustly affronted that story will be told and retold wherever that person goes. But the people who are accommodated and assisted will never bother to mention the fact that they were agreeably received. I mention this in the House simply because I feel it is a matter which requires serious attention—and that attention is overdue. Has the Minister ever heard of this complaint before?
Yes, frequently. In my capacity as a Deputy, I often made representations about similar matters.
Perhaps the Minister would suggest to the Revenue Commissioners that my constructive proposal might be considered as a proposal which would probably put the matter to rights.
As far as I can remember, this matter was fairly fully discussed in the House on a previous occasion and I think it was indicated that training is given to these officers.
We will live in hopes.
