Deputy Lalor gave me notice of his intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of Question No. 35 on the Order Paper of 3rd November, 1976.
Adjournment Debate: Employment Seekers.
It is unusual for a Deputy who has not raised the question to seek the permission of the Chair to raise the subject matter of that question on the Adjournment. Following consultation with Deputy Gene Fitzgerald, I sought permission this morning to raise this question on the Adjournment. I am not questioning information contained in the reply but, as the Chief Whip of the Opposition party, I am rather worried about the business of this House. I am raising this question specifically because of the fact that the information which was purported to be supplied by way of a tabular statement to Deputy Fitzgerald was not supplied and I am concerned at this development. There have been a number of occasions when Deputies did not feel that the reply from a Minister or a Parliamentary Secretary was as comprehensive as it might be, and Deputies have appealed to the Ceann Comhairle arising from the contents of some replies. The reply that a Ceann Comhairle must give to a Deputy is that he is not responsible for a Minister's reply. In Question No. 35 of the 3rd November Deputy Fitzgerald asked the Minister for Labour:
the number of persons at present seeking employment under the National Manpower Service in the following areas: Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Galway and the rest of the country; and the number of person who were seeking employment on the same date last year.
The Minister for Labour in his verbal reply said:
Mr. M. O'Leary: The reply to the Deputy's question is in the form of a tabular statement and I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to have this circulated with the Official Report.
I assumed and Deputy Fitzgerald assumed that, having got formal permission to circulate the information, that information would be circulated by the Minister. The Official Report reads as follows:
Table showing number of persons (males and females) registered for employment* with the National Manpower Service, on 1st October, 1976 and 3rd October, 1975, at the Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway National Manpower Service offices and at National Manpower Service offices in the rest of the country.
The Official Report then outlined the offices and the numbers that were registered on 3rd October, 1975, with no reference whatsoever to the numbers that were registered on 1st October, 1976. I am not saying that the Minister deliberately misled the House, but I am saying that the Minister could not possibly have issued that circulation without knowing that the information that was alleged to be contained in it was not in it. Despite the fact that it was a circulated reply and we do not normally have discussions on circulated replies, Deputy Fitzgerald asked the Minister what the total figures for the entire country were—it was quite obvious that Deputy Fitzgerald was looking for comparative figures—and the Minister replied that they were in the statement. As I see it, the Minister compounded the misdirection of the House. Deputy Fitzgerald felt at the time that the Minister was shielding behind the circulated reply, and in the light of the subsequent information I feel he was quite right in that. Deputy Fitzgerald suggested that the Minister might be embarrassed, and Deputy O'Malley logically came to the conclusion that nothing would embarrass the Minister.
Arising from this Deputy Fitzgerald asked me what he should do and whether it was a matter that could be raised with the Committee on Procedure and Privileges in so far as the Minister had misled the House and the Ceann Comhairle. Deputy Fitzgerald also told me that, following the reply to his question, he again took the opportunity to raise that matter in the House later that same evening in the course of his contribution to the debate on the social and economic policies. Deputy Fitzgerald had sought that information in relation to the contribution he proposed to make in the debate that evening. In column 1208 of the Official Report for Wednesday, 3rd November, Volume 293, Deputy Fitzgerald again drew attention to this question, he announced that he had asked the question, he gave the Minister's reply and went on to say:
In a supplementary question I asked the Minister to give me the total figures. All I got was this tabular statement which I can place on the record of the House if necessary. The table shows the number of persons registered on 3rd October, 1975. There was no reference in it to the first part of the question. I beg your pardon. There is a reference in it to the number of persons registered for employment with the National Manpower Service on 1st October, 1976, and 3rd October, 1975. There is no reference in it to 1st October, 1976. The cities and towns and the figure for October, 1975, are quoted.
Is this not misleading a Deputy in the House and the House in general? Last Tuesday Deputy Fitzgerald rang the Department of Labour in order to get the information from the official in the section dealing with this. The official referred him to the Minister's office. Subsequently the Minister's office, having obviously been contacted by the section, rang Deputy Fitzgerald to inquire as to what the problem was. Deputy Fitzgerald outlined the problem and indicated that he was anxious to have this information before he contributed on Tuesday evening of this week on our motion on the non-availability of work for young people and school leavers. The Minister's private secretary assured him that he would have that information that evening in time for the debate. Deputy Fitzgerald heard nothing about the matter since. This morning about 11.30 a.m. I gave notice of my intention to raise this matter and when Deputy Fitzgerald called to his pigeon hole in the information office about an hour ago he found a letter from the Minister for Labour saying that it had come to his attention that the circulated reply to Deputy Fitzgerald's question had inadvertently omitted to include the figures for the 1st October, 1976, that the Minister regretted the omission and had forwarded the relevant figures and that the Minister had also made arrangements to have those figures included in the Official Report.
The Minister regretted the omission of the figures but there is no question of an apology in the letter. I suppose present-day Ministers do not apologise even when they are wrong. Here is a situation whereby the Minister for Labour did not get around to writing that letter until his Department had been notified by the Dáil office that the Minister was due to appear here at 5 o'clock this evening to deal with this letter on the Adjournment. The Minister must have been aware of it, if he had bothered to look at his reply. I have some experience of answering parliamentary questions in this House and if a Minister is interested he will normally study the background to a reply. Perhaps we have a Minister here who is not interested.
For the record it might be as well to mention that the figures Deputy Fitzgerald was seeking when he raised this question on Wednesday week were in respect of the comparison between the number of persons registered with the National Manpower Service, the total number, on the 1st October, 1976 as against 1st October, 1975. The total number on 1st October, 1976 was 69,935 in comparison with 47,060, an increase of 50 per cent over the figure for 12 months ago. Those were the figures Deputy Fitzgerald sought. He sought them in relation to his contribution to the debate on Wednesday evening of last week and to his contribution to the debate on Tuesday evening of this week. Those figures were denied him despite the fact that he used the one legitimate method any Deputy has always had afforded him. I am not saying that one Deputy should have any greater privilege in this House than any other. There has been a traditional type of relationship here, which is that the front-bench spokesman on behalf of the Opposition has a line to the Minister. I presume the line here is that the Minister, instead of getting his private secretary to write to a Deputy, himself writes to Deputy Fitzgerald. Here we have this letter which was issued this evening because the question was being raised.
I do not know what explanation the Minister may have for this misleading of the House. We can put it down as having been overlooked or inadvertently left out. But this inadvertence is certainly less excusable in view of the fact that attention was drawn to it on Wednesday evening in this House, that the Deputy himself made contact with the Minister's office on Tuesday last seeking this information and was promised he would have it by that evening. The Deputy came to me this morning to ask: "What do we do?" My first reaction was to write to you, a Cheann Comhairle, and ask that the matter be put down for consideration at the next meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. Then I decided that that was not sufficient.
Here we have a development which should be discouraged. You yourself, a Cheann Comhairle, must have some responsibility in this regard. The situation is that, although it was indicated to you that the information was being supplied by way of tabular statement, only half the information was given. It cannot be accepted that we had to wait until the afternoon of November 11th from the afternoon of November 3rd for the Minister and his Department to become aware of this inadvertence, to use one term; misleading is the term I use. I am using this format for raising it and I am grateful to you, a Cheann Comhairle, for giving me the opportunity to do so, but I think you should take cognisance of whatever reply the Minister gives. Having heard from the Minister, I would ask if you could give a further ruling as to what is the appropriate way to prevent a misleading reply of this nature being given to us again in this House.
Of course, as I have stated to the Deputy concerned, there was this inadvertent omission in that the tabular statement for 1976 was omitted. The draft reply, which I saw, included the tabular statement for 1976. I regret the fact that, in its final typed form, as presented to the Dáil, that column was omitted. I regret that omission. But, as is quite apparent from my reply, in which I indicated that the totals for the entire country were given, it is quite clear that I did not, a Cheann Comhairle, deliberately mislead the Dáil. I had seen a copy of the reply which included both columns and I regret the fact that, due to clerical error, both columns were not included in the final form given to the Dáil.
There is, of course, no secret on my part, no attempt—and there never was—to disguise the figures given for the year 1976. In fact, I think it was on the 4th October I made a speech on the subject in relation to the figures for the Dublin area, which include almost half the figures for the entire country for 1976. So we can immediately dismiss the idea that there was any intention on my part, for any particular advantage whatever, to suppress the column for 1976. As I have said, it was an inadvertant omission due to clerical error. The whole matter, such as it is, could have been cleared up if the Deputy who received the reply on the afternoon it was given—I think on Wednesday a week ago; he had a copy of the reply in his hand immediately—had contacted my office on that week or immediately he had the reply——
He did.
——and saw that it was incorrect in terms of the question put, and presumably he would have had the information requested in time for the debate which concerned him. My own office, when contacted on the matter late on Tuesday afternoon were informed of the matter for the first time and undertook to supply the information, and the information was supplied today to the Deputy concerned, together with my regrets. Therefore, we can lay any scenario that a rather lurid Opposition imagination might try to paint of the matter and look on the facts as I have presented them here.
In regard to the actual material of the question, a Cheann Comhairle— and this is as good an occasion as any on which to right the record in that the column as requested was missing—the question asked was:
...the number of persons at present seeking employment under the National Manpower Service in the following areas: Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Galway and the rest of the country; and the number of person who were seeking employment on the same date last year.
We neglected to supply the column for 1976, inadvertently, and here are the figures now:
Dublin — 31,373
That figure which accounts for half the increase I had already given in a public speech of mine at the opening of the Training Centre in Beresford Place.
|
Cork |
— |
7,103 |
|
Limerick |
— |
2,462 |
|
Waterford |
— |
3,320 |
|
Galway |
— |
2,029 |
|
and the rest of the country |
— |
23,648 |
That was the column that was inadvertently omitted. No disparagement was intended of the rights of the House to hear accurate replies, in that that material was not supplied to the House on the day in question and that, as I have said, I regret.
However, we should understand that these figures provided under the National Manpower Service include all those because the National Manpower Service is available to all persons, not just those who are unemployed. It is not possible to say how many of the total on the books of the National Manpower Service at any time are job changers, this is, people with jobs seeking a change of job, people who are interested in seeking alternative employment, and who register with the service for that purpose. The Dublin Office—and this was the reason for my speech in October on the matter, referring to the problem of unemployment in Dublin when I remarked on the serious position that exists in the Dublin region in terms of unemployment— for which I have already given figures in public, accounts for just over 11 per cent or almost half of the increase between October, 1975, and October, 1976. Of course, the regional director for the eastern region has commented that the major part of this increase has occurred since April, 1976. It appears that the increase is accounted for mainly by persons who lost their jobs some time ago, possibly during 1975, who did not register with the National Manpower Service until their redundancy and/or pay-related benefits had run out. Of course, seasonally adjusted, the number of unemployed is in fact declining. The level of unemployment is not increasing, as one might expect on past trends. As I remarked, during the unemployment debate earlier this week, between the end of September and the end of October the actual figure for unemployment declined. That is surprising for this time of year.
I do not think there is anything else I have to say on this matter. One has to consider that those whose names are on the books in the various offices of the National Manpower Service include those seeking a change in jobs as well as those out of work. The column which I have given and which should have been supplied on the last day, as the question requested, makes it clear that of the increase which occurred almost half of it is in the Dublin area. I gave the figure for the Dublin area almost a month ago at a public venue.
I regret the inconvenience caused to the Deputy concerned. I am surprised he did not raise the matter of the inadequate material given in the question before last Tuesday. Once my office were informed of the inadequacy of the reply they set about remedying the defect immediately.
Two days. Does the Minister call that immediately?
I have had a lot of experience of being in Opposition and I can recall waiting for three months, not two days, for a reply when members of the party opposite were in Government.
We had a Parliamentary Secretary who had the guts to come into the House and apologise today.
From last Tuesday afternoon to Thursday to get a reply to a question is not excessive in my experience of dealing with Government offices.
It is, when the reply has been wrong in the first place.
I regret any inconvenience caused to the Deputy. There was nothing deliberate in the fact that the information supplied was not complete, due to clerical error, as I said. I hope the Deputy will accept my explanation that there were those ordinary common-sense reasons, which were basically responsible. There was no intention of suppressing the information that was sought.
In so far as the Chair is concerned, Deputy Lalor, the Chair has no power to compel a Minister to reply to a question, neither has the Chair any control in respect of replies and, indeed, never had. Consequently, the Chair cannot be placed in a position as to the accuracy of a reply at any given time.
The Dáil adjourned at 5.25 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 16th November, 1976.