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Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 16 Jul 1924

Vol. 3 No. 14

FINANCE BILL, 1924—REPORT STAGE.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

If no Senator wishes to discuss any portion of this Bill on Report, or to move any amendments, I shall take the Report Stage as passed.

Might I ask if it would be possible to have this Bill dealt with to-day? I think the 21 days run out on Friday, and if the Dáil got an opportunity of considering the recommendations that have been passed before then, it would be desirable.

AN CATHAOIRLEACH

I think there was one recommendation passed. I think that is a reasonable suggestion.

I move the suspension of the Standing Orders in order to enable this Bill to be passed.

I second.

Question put and agreed to.

In connection with this Bill I intended to suggest that some method of going over the accounts and the Estimates, which would be better than the present one, should be established. I do not know whether this is the proper time to say it, but I should like to have a Joint Finance Committee of both Houses, if possible. I am not sure that the Government would approve of that, and if it cannot be, there ought to be a Committee of the Seanad, at least, to go over the Estimates and accounts. I brought before the President last week a case in which, as it appears to me—he may have some explanation of it—there has been a mistake in the Estimates of £2,900,000. That is a very large sum. It is a very considerable portion of our income, and it is stated, deliberately stated, that £2,900,000 was not in the accounts at all last year. Although it was not, it is put into the accounts of this year as having been paid last year, and it is put into the accounts again as not being payable this year, and then in the third column in which the expenditures for last year and for this year are compared, it is claimed that £2,900,000 less is going to be paid this year than last year on account of these land annuities. Possibly, that is so. Nobody would be more pleased than I if the President would tell us that it is so, but I am afraid from the inquiries I have made, that it is nothing of the sort. Here is a claim put down, if I am right, that the Estimates have been reduced by £2,900,000, which is a pure fiction.

It seems to me a very extraordinary thing that an estimate of that sort should be made up by the finance officials, passed by the Ministry, and not noticed by the Dáil, and that here in the Seanad a person who knows nothing at all about finance or accounts gets up to call attention to this which is palpable and is a most extraordinary thing. I do not know whether there is a Finance Committee of the Dáil, but certainly if you had a Committee of the Seanad that would be seen at once, because there are people much more capable than I am of understanding accounts and they would call attention to such a matter as this. I am not at all asserting that the Minister made a false claim of having reduced the Estimates by £2,900,000. Probably he did not notice it. It is not a case of omission, but it is a deliberate statement that that amount has been saved. That is the astonishing thing. I would like to ask the President to consider the question of these annuities very seriously. It is a very large sum of money paid by the Irish tenant purchasers. It came to pass at a time when there was one Parliament for England and Ireland, and Ireland was entitled to her share. It is not an English business.

When the Bill of 1920 came up in the English Parliament, as I understand—I may have been misinformed— the whole of these annuities were handed over to the Parliaments of Northern and Southern Ireland. At present the Northern Government is enjoying their share, but the Free State, on account of having refused the 1920 Act, did not apparently claim the annuities which, under that Act, would have been paid to us, and they proceed now to hand them over in bulk year after year to the Government of Great Britain. We are penalised by this 1920 Act, and whatever anybody may say, whether we like it or do not like it, we are penalised by the division of the country, and if we are penalised by the division of the country in that way we ought, on the other hand, to claim whatever little advantages might have been got out of it. If the English Government choose to force on us a thing we objected to, we, on the other hand, should say we claim that money. Not only can we claim it, but we actually collected it here and handed it over to them—a nice generous gift. It would be rather a splendid thing if the Minister for Finance had £3,000,000 in his pockets. How nicely he could balance his accounts. How nicely he could rebuild the Four Courts. How nicely he could set up the whole country if he had that, and we have nothing to do but just to keep these annuities until the country is re-united. Then some other arrangement might be made. But meanwhile it seems to me a very right and just thing that we should keep this money, and I would ask the President to consider the matter carefully.

There is one matter arising out of Senator Colonel Moore's remarks about which I would like to ask the President. It is whether he can see his way to associate this House with the work of the Public Accounts Committee. Of course we realise perfectly well that the Dáil is responsible for expenditure, but we have a certain status under the Constitution in connection with Finance by virtue of the power to recommend, and possibly some members of this House would be of service to the Government if they were allowed to sit, even perhaps without voting power, on the Public Accounts Committee, which is a very valuable Committee. It is rather dull work, but it is exceedingly important, and it is the one real opportunity of getting to the root of questions of public administration.

I understood that this question of the £2,900,000 referred to by Senator Colonel Moore would come under review when the Estimates would be under consideration. I understood the last day that Senator Colonel Moore was under the impression that we had lost this £2,900,000. We have not lost that sum, nor have we, according to what I heard from him to-day, entered into possession of it. Our responsibility in connection with these annuities is that of an agent. The British Government have issued securities to the extent of, I think, £130,000,000, and this £2,900,000 is the amount of the Land Commission annuities, that is, the interest and principal on that amount, which would clear it at the end of a certain date. I understand under the 1920 Act there was a provision which handed over this £2,900,000 to what was called the Parliament of Southern Ireland, but it was not a free gift to this extent—that you did not enter into the possession of this money without entailing a corresponding liability. My recollection of that liability was that it was somewhere about £10,000,000, so that it was a rather expensive gift.

Ten million a vear?

Yes. The contribution under the Act of 1920 from all Ireland was £18,000,000; £8,000,000 from what is called the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and £10,000,000 from what was called the Parliament of Southern Ireland. I should say it was rather a good bargain for the British Government to make if they were going to hand over three millions and get eighteen millions. The Land Act of last year made certain provisions for the £2,900,000, or the annuities payable by the tenants, and it is owing to the provisions in that Act that this particular sum has altered its place in the Estimate. I think I will be able to satisfy Senator Colonel Moore when we are discussing the Estimates as to that. With regard to the point raised by Senator Sir John Keane, it is more a matter for the Minister for Finance, and I would not be able to answer it right off. I do not know that it would be in the power of the Executive Council, even if they desired to do it, to assent to Senator Sir John Keane's suggestion. My impression is, it would not.

Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration and do now pass"—put and agreed.
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