As the House is aware, the salary of the Comptroller and Auditor-General is a statutory salary payable out of the Central Fund and, therefore, any change in that salary can only be made by statute. The purpose of this Bill is to apply to the Comptroller and Auditor-General the benefits of the McKenna and King arbitration awards and to make that application retroactive to the 1st April last.
Comptroller and Auditor-General (Amendment) Bill, 1952—Second and Subsequent Stages.
Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".
I think this Bill is very sound. The Comptroller and Auditor-General is a very important officer of State and he is expected to control the expenditure of a figure which is now over £100,000,000, so that his salary should be a substantial one. The salary which is in the Bill is a smaller salary than that of the secretary of the Department of Finance, but it is to be remarked, incidentally, that it is greater than the salary of a Minister. But that, perhaps, is a different question. However, the Comptroller and Auditor-General's salary is fixed by special Act of the Oireachtas and for that reason it cannot be changed by administrative action but in this particular way. I see no objection to it.
My voice might be a rather lone one in this Assembly, but, as far as I am concerned, I do not want to let this occasion pass without pointing out that I as one member of this Seanad, object to such a substantial increase on such a substantial salary. It is all very fine to say that the Comptroller and Auditor-General has a very important job and that his task of going minutely into the details of the expenditure of a sum of over £100,000,000 which is being expended in this country is one which demands a good class of individual and a man who must be paid a reasonable and satisfactory salary for giving that particular service. After all, I think the time has come when we must realise that this is not a country where gigantic salaries can be handed out to officials. We know we cannot have all salaries on anything like an equal scale but we must admit that an increase of over £500 per annum in the salary of a single individual is a little too much to ask the taxpayers of this country to stomach all in one mouthful.
It may be pointed out that it is an insignificant sum and that other civil servants whose work is not nearly as important have also got increases, but I would ask anybody in this Seanad to look at it in a common-sense way. Just think of £500 of an increase being given to one single individual no matter what work he carries out. It is entirely too much in my estimation and I want to point out that I am dissenting from agreement to the payment of this salary.
It is rather regrettable that Senator Commons should have adopted the attitude which he has towards this Bill—I do not know whether he speaks for his Party or not—because it indicates inconsistency between Senator Commons and his colleagues in the Clann na Talmhan Party which I think has not hitherto been manifested by him. The Senator will recall that it was the late Coalition Government that accepted the principle of arbitration in relation to the Civil Service and that indicated that it would be part of its policy if returned to power after the General Election of 1951 to apply that award all round. Indeed, my predecessor in office went further, because he restored what were described as the super-cuts to the higher civil servants.
I do not quarrel with that decision. I want to say I think it was a wise one. Having regard to the responsibilities that administrative officers in general carry, I think the salaries are no more than commensurate with the responsibilities and indeed many people might hold they are insufficient. But the point is this. In this Bill we are making some type of belated endeavour to remedy an injustice which has been done to one of the officials who holds what might be described as a key position under our Constitution. If it were not for the fact that his salary is fixed by statute and charged on the Central Fund this officer would automatically have become entitled in the first instance to the restoration of the super-cut and then to the application of the King award and thirdly to the application of the McKenna award.
We are in effect doing in this Bill something which ought to have been done in three stages and which should have been done in fact as far back as May, 1951, in regard to the first step; and June, 1951 in regard to the second step; and April of this year in regard to the third step. So that in coming here with this Bill one could say that it does not in fact give to this distinguished and important public official in their entirely the benefits he would have enjoyed if it had not been that the Oireachtas wished to place him in a special position of independence in relation to the administration of the day.
That is why, of course, as I have said, his salary is fixed by statute and charged on the Central Fund. If he had been an ordinary departmental officer, these benefits would have been conceded to him and, as I think happened in the case of a Deputy in the other House who belongs to the Senator's Party, the Minister would have been criticised, as I was criticised, for not going further than I did in my Budget statement and make the McKenna award retroactive to November, 1952.
The Minister must admit that the tune was changed in the Dáil at a later stage.
Question put and agreed to.
Agreed to take the remaining stages now.
Bill passed through Committee and reported without recommendation, received for final consideration and ordered to be returned to the Dáil.