I was glad to note the tone of the Parliamentary Secretary's speech, which was in marked contrast to some of those which were made earlier today from the seat he now occupies. Perhaps if speeches in that tone were made at an earlier time today we would now be on the Finance Bill or at a more advanced stage on this Bill. We also had what one would fairly call a conciliatory speech from the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs for a particular purpose. We were to some extent invited to discuss outside the Chamber such differences as there are between us on this Bill. We expressed our willingness to do so, but the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs' pleas and our agreement to those pleas, unfortunately, fell on deaf ears. We are still willing to have a civilised discussion either inside or outside this House with the Minister for Finance if he is in form to have a civilised discussion with anybody. He is not here at the moment, which puts us all at something of a disadvantage and which makes it pretty arid and academic for any of us either on this side of the House or on his own side to appeal to him to give up this pig-headed attitude which he has adopted.
I want to say, even though he is not present, that during earlier exchanges this afternoon between the Minister for Finance and myself, after I had asked him three times to tell me where and when the Government had certain consultations in relation to this Bill and to the amendments put down to it, he finally told me that there was some sort of discussion between the Taoiseach and Deputy J. Lynch, the leader of this party. The phrase the Minister used was "they exchanged amendments". I was afraid that that implied what it is supposed to mean—that they agreed on the amendments they exchanged. I immediately pointed out that, while I had not spoken to Deputy J. Lynch about this matter, I was 99 per cent certain that there was no form of agreement between him and the Taoiseach but that I would make it my business to go away and find out and that I would confirm and make myself 100 per cent certain that that was so.
I have seen Deputy J. Lynch who tells me that there was no agreement of any kind, good, bad or indifferent, between himself and Deputy Cosgrave. It appears that Deputy Cosgrave telephoned him and after a short discussion it was quite clear to the Taoiseach that Deputy J. Lynch regretted that there could be no agreement by us on the amendments put down. It is a rather serious situation that that statement was made here today by the Minister for Finance in the course of the debate.
At that time it was only the latest in a series of statements of that kind which the Minister for Finance made here today. The Minister for Finance was forced to admit afterwards that he had no foundation whatever for the statements. He made a statement with reference to the Employer/Labour Conference and this question of the Opposition allowance. I pointed out that there was no such reference. I quoted from what he had said precisely. The Minister for Finance accepts, because we asked him to produce the reference in the report, that there was none, but still that statement was made, gaily, recklessly and negligently.
It is impossible to conduct a debate on a topic of this nature if this sort of statement is made so negligently and recklessly. This debate, which is only on a Money Resolution before Committee Stage, began five hours, 20 minutes ago. I do not know how much longer it will go on. We have got up from this side of the House — and, in fairness, I will say that Deputies on the Front Bench and on the back benches of the Government side have also got up— and spoken. We have put it quite plainly and Deputies on that side have put it somewhat more obliquely, as they are obliged to do, but the message from each side to the Minister for Finance has been the same: "For God's sake, have sense". We are waiting. It has been a long wait of five hours, 20 minutes. I do not know how much longer it will be. Once again, in common with Deputies on all sides of the House, I am appealing to the Minister for Finance to have sense in relation to this matter.
We have almost lost sight of the objections to this Bill, What has been done is to abolish the allowance to the Parliamentary Opposition in this country, something which has been a mark of Parliament in this country since 1968, and to substitute for it some kind of complicated system which ensures that the Government backbenchers get a subsidy.
It has been made clear by Deputy J. Lynch, by Deputy Colley and others who have spoken on this side of the House and even by some who spoke on the Government side of the House that we have no objection to backbencher Deputies getting secretarial assistance. We would be glad to see it on any side of the House. An effort has been made to buy us off, as indeed an effort was made to buy off the Government backbenchers with this complicated system whereby Opposition Deputies would get twice as much as the Government Deputies. We are not prepared to "buy" that one. I would hope that the Government backbenchers are not prepared to "buy" that one either, or to be bought by it.
The statement was made by the Minister for Finance that a new concept was introduced into this question of assistance for the Parliamentary Opposition in 1968 in the last Act of this nature. The Minister for Finance told the House that this new concept was that half of the allowance to the Opposition was for research and other work of that kind and that half was for secretarial assistance and work of that kind. I looked at the relevant Act of 1968. I cannot find that distinction made in that Act. To the best of my knowledge it was not made in that Act. Section 9 seems to be the relevant section. The terminology used in section 9 is "an annual sum by way of allowance for expenses". That is the same phrase as was used in the 1938 Act and, presumably, although I have not checked it, in each of the four Acts between 1938 and 1968. Therefore, for the Minister to say that a new concept was arrived at in 1968, whereby half this allowance was to be set aside for secretarial services, is totally without foundation. It is not correct.
I asked the Minister to show me any evidence, outside his own imagination, as to the foundation for that statement. If that new arrangement were made in 1968, as the Minister for Finance states, and if a new concept of allowance for Deputies' secretarial expenses were introduced in 1968, as the Minister alleges or suggests, then the Government backbenchers, which were the Fianna Fáil backbenchers in 1968, would have been entitled to it in the same way as the then Opposition backbenchers. The Fianna Fáil backbenchers of 1968 or, of any time between 1968 and 1973, never got a penny.
It makes debate on the kernel of this Bill, of the disagreement between us and the salient points of the Bill difficult when the Minister for Finance has been jumping up and down making these statements. We find that they are not right. The Minister has made statements "off the top of his head" and he has no justification for them at all. He seeks to justify what he is now trying to do on the strength of these statements, which we have demonstrated are palpably untrue.
This question of parliamentary allowances to the Opposition, which we regard as fundamental to democracy—and which we regarded in 1968 as fundamental to parliamentary democracy in this country when we trebled that allowance—has been talked about a good deal. It is the most dangerous aspect of this Bill from the point of view of whoever happens to be in Opposition and even from the point of view of anyone who values parliamentary democracy in this country. It is the thing that worries us and anyone who thinks about parliamentary democracy at all.
There are other aspects of this Bill which we will discuss on the Committee Stage. It is no harm to refer to them here. I have no objection in principle to one particular aspect. It is the proposal to provide a pension for the Attorney General where the Attorney General serves for three years at least and does not practise while he is serving as Attorney General. That is an excellent proposal. An Attorney General who practises full-time, other than his membership of the House, will unquestionably lose a substantial part of his practice.
It is the experience of all lawyers, whether they are solicitors or barristers, that when you lose a substantial part of your practice as a result of public service in Dáil Éireann or in the Government you will not get it back. That is one of the important facts of life we have to live with. I welcome, for that reason, this proposal to give a pension on the same terms as a Minister to a full time Attorney General. I cannot accept, and it is typical of the pettiness that seems to underlie this Bill, that it is written into this Bill that nobody except Deputy Declan Costello and those who follow him will get it. In other words, it applies only to those who took up office as Attorney General on or after 14th March, 1973.
I cannot understand the mentality that would put that in. There are men who gave tremendous service to this country as full time Attorney Generals in time of great stress and strain in the internal affairs of this country. Several of those are still alive. I took the trouble during the weekend to look back over the list and I found several of those men who would qualify for this are not alive but their widows are. They would qualify for a half pension on the same basis as a Minister's widow would. Those people are being treated unfairly. Any normal person looking at that situation would say they are being treated unfairly. But when we see what is being done in relation to the Opposition allowance, what is being done in relation to the Attorney General is a mere flea bite. It matters scarcely at all because there are only about four or five people who are ill done by by this provision.
This is a perfectly laudable provision, but when you bring it in and then say only the present Attorney General will get it, it seems to me to display an extraordinary limited vision, an extraordinary limitation on the sort of way that people who serve in public office should be treated. It would be rather futile for me to go through a lot of detailed provisions in this Bill, which I would like to talk about at some length, but we will have this on Committee Stage, whenever that is taken.
We are still in Committee on Finance on a Money Resolution five and a half hours after it began. We are like that because of the attitude of the Minister for Finance, not just his attitude in the amendments he put down but his attitude in the sort of reply he gave at 4.20 this afternoon to a perfectly civil short statement by the Leader of the Opposition. He went completely berserk, lost his head, screamed and roared. We are that way since and, notwithstanding pleadings from this side of the House, pleadings from his own side of the House and, in effect, pleadings from colleagues of his in the Government, we are still in the same position we were then and the Minister for Finance remains as adamant as he was.
During the past hour we had circulated a further list of amendments, which are described as substitute amendments, and we are told they are instead of some of the amendments on the green sheet. I have not had a chance to study these yet but I am told they make several changes. Whether they are of great importance or not we have yet to see. It seems extraordinary that at this stage, approximately five hours after the debate on the Money Resolution began, new amendments should be brought in, that they should be drafting amendments for the most part because the amendments which the Minister circulated were to say the least of it badly drafted, that he should have to circulate amendments to his own amendments, that it should be done at this stage and that still he cannot communicate in a civil or useful fashion either with the Opposition or with those on his own side who are pleading with him to have sense.
This is the third time I have asked the Minister to see sense in this respect. I asked him many specific questions up to now to which I did not get answers. I am not asking him any more now. I am not asking him to reply to the many questions I asked. I am asking him, for the sake of this country and this House, to climb down off his silly high horse and have sense.