This Bill is in the same position, no amendments having been handed in for the Report Stage. Does any Senator wish to ask any questions?
LAND TRUST POWERS BILL, 1923. - REPORT STAGE.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
I understand the staffs of the Congested Districts Board are being taken over, and provisions are made that their position will be as good as it was under the regulation of the Congested Districts Board. I have been approached by a number of people employed in the Land Commission Department, some of them having a service up to 16 years. They are temporarily employed, and have not the status of staff officers or permanent employees. It appears to me ridiculous that you should keep men in your employment for 15 or 16 years, and then tell them they are not permanent. I should like some provision to be made to look after the interests of those employees.
There are some officials in the Land Commission who are temporary employees, just as there are in the Department of Agriculture and every other service. Such officials in the Land Commission are in the same position. Their position is no worse or no better than that of the temporary employees of any other Department of the State. I am not clear whether the Senator suggests there should be some provision inserted in the Bill with regard to this. There are officials in the Land Commission and Congested Districts Board who are temporarily employed, but the same applies to other Departments also.
It seems to me hardly fair to men and women who happen to be in the service of the State for 16 years to be still classed as temporary employees. I think if they give 16 years' service they should be entitled to be classed as permanent employees, and put on the Pensions List.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
That would be a matter of general application to the whole services. As I understand it, in this Department there are temporary officials just as there are in every other Department of the State. Your objection is not to this particular class, but because there are to be found in the service of the State, men with long service who have not got established.
My point is that their interests should be safeguarded in any change that may be made.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
Their interests will be safeguarded. Your objection is not based on this particular case, so much as on the general principle.
The position of a man is not safeguarded if after having given 16 years' service he can be dismissed with a week's notice.
AN CATHAOIRLEACH
I think that would be the position if this Bill was never introduced.
The difficulty the Senator has in mind, in wishing to effect this change, would exist if this Bill had never come forward, and there had been no change. Men on temporary service have no rights whatever. I do not see how we can call on the State to give them rights they would not have had. If we did we would land ourselves in endless difficulties. There is no more thorny question than that of temporary employment in public departments, and if the Senator looks at it from every point of view, he will probably find that he would be doing more injury to that particular class by ending the employment rather than leaving them as they are now. The men know their risks well, and take their employment. At the end of many years there is a hardship. Everybody knows that.
But if you say they must become permanent at a certain time I believe you will be inflicting an injury on that class. I do not think that the whole question of temporary employment in the Civil Service ought to be raised at this time on such an issue, because if we carried it we would undoubtedly be coming into conflict with the whole principle upon which these changes and these Bills must have been based, and raising a question which ought to be fought out in another way altogether, where somebody, who knows every interest of the people of whom the Senator is speaking, could speak with authority. I do not think any of us here could now speak with sufficient authority to know whether we would be doing them a benefit or the reverse, and I do not think any of us would have the right to try to force the Government to make a change in this measure at this time.
If I may say so, that is the real point. The question which the Senator raised is of much wider application. In addition, the officials he referred to are paid, probably, something more than if the tenures had been permanent. They were employed on surveying work which it was considered would come to an end in five or six years, and the fact that they were only to be employed for five or six years was taken into account. If every public official was to be permanent, perhaps, some other arrangements would have to be come to which would mean less employment.
I am not moving anything. I simply raised the matter, so that the Minister could take a note of the point and that their interests would be safeguarded.
Question put: "That the Bill be now passed."
Agreed.