Before we take up consideration of the amendments tabled to this Bill, I wish to say that I consider amendments Nos. 1 and 7 out of order and they may not be moved. These amendments deal with matters outside the scope of the Bill. The Senators have been notified accordingly.
City and County Management (Amendment) Bill, 1954—Report and Fifth Stages.
Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 not moved.
I move amendment No. 4:—
In page 16, between lines 30 and 31, to insert the following paragraph:—
(c) a chief engineering officer.
I moved this amendment originally on the Committee Stage, as Senators will remember. As the hour was getting late and I thought it might be fruitful to have some time for consideration, both for ourselves and for the Minister and his advisers, I withdrew the amendment acting on a hint dropped by Senator Professor Hayes that I might reintroduce it on the Report Stage.
As Senators will remember, the purpose of this amendment is to add to sub-section (10) of Section 17 the name of the county engineer to those already appearing in the sub-section as being capable of becoming approved officers within the meaning of the Act. So far, there are three or perhaps one might say four categories of people who may become appoved officers—(a) the county secretary; (b) the town clerk, and (c) any officer approved of by the Minister. The fourth possible one would be a health officer. The point that seems to me to be not justified in this setting out of those who may become approved officers is that if the county manager wishes to make the county secretary an approved officer within the meaning of this section he can do so without the permission of the Minister whereas if he wants to make his chief engineering officer an approved officer under this Act and under this section he must go and ask the Minister. Going and asking the Minister means referring the matter to the Department of Local Government. The Department of Local Government is like most Departments which have a lot of work to do. I do not think it is any more dilatory than others and in some respects it is probably more expeditious. Nevertheless, I think it would be fair to say that when one seeks for a metaphor to express speed of action or alacrity one does not normally find oneself saying that the action took place as swiftly as if it had been referred to the Department of Local Government. That being the case, this apparatus, as it were, this necessity implied by the terms of the Act, as it is found at present, means that if a county manager in his wisdom wishes to delegate some of his functions to an extremely important technical officer, the chief county engineering officer, he has not the power under this Act to do so unless he refers the whole matter back to the Department of Local Government. It was for that reason, among others, that it seemed to me that the hope was legitimate that the Minister might consider accepting this amendment and allowing the name of the chief engineering officer to stand side by side with that of the clerical officers, the town clerk and the county secretary.
There is another point, however, and the Minister made it in reply to me on the Committee Stage. He said he did not want to give any arbitrary ruling as between the professions: he did not want any trouble. He did not want to mention one profession and perhaps be told by a representative of another profession that that other profession had been forgotten. He mentioned many others—the county solicitor and I think he also mentioned the county architect. Very frequently, the county architect is also, I understand, the chief engineering officer. However, I would suggest that there is a difference between the activity and the work of the chief engineering officer, in practice, and the work in general of such an officer as the county solicitor. The difference is that the county solicitor is usually acting in a purely advisory capacity, whereas the chief engineering officer combines the advisory capacity with the necessity of carrying out an executive function implementing works on the site. That seems to me to be quite an important distinction. It also seems to me to warrant ensuring that the chief engineering officer— this highly important technical officer —shall have the possibility of having certain functions delegated to him by the county manager when the county manager sees fit—I would remind Senators that this is a permissive not a mandatory clause—without having to go through all the rigmarole of referring the whole question back to the Minister and to the Department.
I understand—and I think representations in that regard have been made both to the Minister and to his predecessors—that it would be considered by the engineers themselves to be extremely valuable if the chief engineering officer were to have access to the various committees not merely as an observer—not merely as an adviser and an assessor to be consulted if necessary—but with the right to intervene and speak and sponsor his own work before the committee. In a letter which was sent to the Minister by the County Surveyors' Association summing up various earlier representations that had been made to the Department since March, 1954, it is stated that:—
"in the interests of the council and their chief engineering officer, my association"
—that is, the County Surveyors' Association—
"felt that both the administration and performance of the duties of county engineering could be considerably improved by affording control of this very important function to the chief technical officer."
The letter later continues:—
"The council should further be directly instructed on any technical matters by the chief officer so that the council would understand what they were doing, and the chief technical officer would be satisfied that they were fully aware of the matters to which they were voting moneys."
That seems fundamental to me. It is essential that the county council should know exactly what is intended by the chief engineer, and the best way of their knowing that is for them to hear the chief engineer himself. I am not suggesting at all any ill-intention on the part of any clerical officer who might have the duty of interpreting the wishes, desires and plans of the chief engineering officer to a committee or to the council. I am simply suggesting that, in practice, more clarity and efficiency will be ensured if the officer is allowed, as of right, to be there and to speak for himself.
It is not my intention to say very much more at this juncture, but I would ask the Minister to reconsider the matter—to ask himself whether his reluctance to add the name, very simply to this list, of the chief engineering officer, is entirely justified, in view of the fact that the whole section is permissive and not mandatory, and in view of the fact that the chief engineering officer will not, in fact, have power delegated to him unless the county manager so desires.
Why not, therefore, add the name of the chief engineering officer to those of the county secretary and the town clerk? What positive advantage is there to be gained in thus insisting that, in his case, the whole matter in every instance of a proposal for delegating such power will have to go back to the Department and the Minister?
I am sorry that the very able case presented by Senator Sheehy Skeffington has not completely impressed me as a member of a local authority. I can see why the Senator insists on this particular amendment so strongly, but I cannot see what advantage it would be to the county engineer to have managerial functions delegated to him, if the manager thought fit to do so. I am expressing this view as one with experience as a member of a local authority. As we all know, the county engineer invariably attends every meeting of the county council. He is consulted on every matter and usually expresses his opinion fairly and freely on every matter connected with his Department. It, therefore, seems to me that he would not gain anything by having managerial functions conferred on him.
I can see some good reason for confining this delegation to particular types of persons, to the secretary of the county council and to the town clerk of an urban authority, by reason of the fact that they perform functions somewhat similar to those of the manager inasmuch as they are executive officers in their own way to an elected body. Therefore, they are in a position, possibly, to discharge a wide range of functions. They are not far removed from each other as against the very specialist functions of the county engineer.
For these reasons I wish to say that, while I sympathise with the views put forward by Senator Sheehy Skeffington, I do not entirely agree with him, although I must say that I could not see any very great objection to conferring this power on the county engineer. On the other hand, I do not see any reason for this since the county engineer has ample scope at the present time to put forward his recommendations directly, and in the strongest possible way, to the local authority for which he acts. As I have said, he not only attends the county council meetings as adviser to the manager, but I think that in actual practice he is also adviser to the county council and is freely and directly consulted on all matters that affect his particular branch of the administration.
I sympathise a lot with the motives which have inspired the Senator to move this amendment, but I think that he is really under a misapprehension as to the powers which will be conferred by the section as it stands. Now, under the section as it stands, only the executive functions of the manager may be delegated and not reserved functions. Executive functions are confined by law to the doing by signed order of anything which a council had previously to do by resolution. The object of the section is to enable the manager to be relieved of routine duties so that he can devote more time to the more important and onerous duties of his office. The county secretary and the town clerk are the officers who normally carry out these duties. It must not be forgotten that the manager cannot automatically delegate functions to these officers.
The Senator, in his opening remarks, said that the county secretary may become an approved officer without the sanction of the Minister as regards the functions to be performed by him, and he went further and said that that was not so with regard to the county engineer. I presume he was referring to sub-section (3) of the section. What the Senator said is not so. The county manager cannot delegate any executive function even to the county secretary or the town clerk without the prior sanction of the Minister. It must be obtained, and if he wishes to delegate functions to the county engineer he may do so, provided he obtains the sanction of the Minister.
The section will not affect in any way the right of the county engineer to have access to the council or to explain to it any technical point that he wishes. He still will have that right, and if certain engineering functions should be delegated by the county manager, he has the power to do so with the sanction of the Minister.
The Senator referred to implementing works on the site in the case of a contract. That is not an executive function, and that power could not be delegated. I think that the Senator's amendment is based on a misapprehension of the functions which the Minister will approve of the manager delegating. He could not possibly approve of a function which is not an executive function.
The section, as it stands, will not place the county engineer or any other technical officer in an embarrassing position. I would like to assure the Senator and the House that the original purpose of the section when I inserted it in the Bill was this: I found that county managers were spending a considerable period of their time signing what I may call minor and routine orders, such, for example, as the temporary employment, in some cases, of a charwoman. These routine minor orders required the signature of the manager to execute them. I want to delegate those powers to some minor official, such as a town clerk or a county secretary, so that the county manager may have much more time to perform his major executive functions. I think it would be ridiculous to ask that the county engineer should have such minor powers as those delegated to him. I am not opposed to the county manager delegating certain engineering functions, provided they are executive, to the county engineer. I have provided for that in the section. The manager may, with the approval of the Minister, delegate such functions as are performable by him to an approved officer, and he is defined as the county secretary, or the town clerk, and in the case of a health function an officer approved by the Minister for Health.
I am not thinking of the county medical officer of health. It may be a home assistance officer. Even though the matter is entirely outside of my jurisdiction, I cannot imagine the county manager, with the approval of the Minister for Health, delegating certain powers to the county medical officer of health because the intention in the section is merely to cover minor powers. That being so, I can imagine my delegating them to home assistance officers or some such other minor official of the local authority. As I said at the outset, I am not trying to belittle, in any way, the status of county engineers or other such executive officers, legal officers or medical officers. I am merely trying to take this onerous burden from county managers, the burden of minor executive functions, and hand them over to town clerks. I appreciate very much what the Senator has said, but I think it would be unfair to specially write into the section county engineers and coupled with that, officers approved by the Minister. I would ask the House to accept that.
I should like, first of all, before coming to what the Minister has said, to say something about what Senator Cogan has said. He asked what advantage would it be —he said he did not quite see the point —to the chief county engineer to be included in this list of potential "approved officers." He said that the engineer already appears before the county council and before its committees. But I suggest, and I think this is one of the main points, that for a technical officer merely to appear before a committee, and to have the right to be questioned, is not enough. I have had experience, as many here have, of being on committees where technical advisers were present without the right to speak unless they were questioned. Sometimes it becomes possible for a member of such committees to realise that the technical officer would welcome a question in order to express his opinion. This seems to me to place the technical officer at a disadvantage: if he is not given the right to be there as sponsoring a particular measure, as being, in fact, in control.
Senator Cogan suggested that these engineers would gain nothing by having the possibility of becoming "approved officers", and of having their names included. I beg your leave, Sir, to quote again from this letter sent by the County Surveyors' Association to the Minister. The secretary states, among other things:—
"My association further felt that independence in control of all direct labour works would ensure further efficiency and economy to the council. These points were set out clearly in a letter addressed to your Department on the 27th March, 1954, when the previous Government were in power. On the 8th September, 1954, a reminder was sent to the new Taoiseach whose private secretary stated that our letter and the previous memo had been referred to the Minister for Local Government for attention."
Finally, further down, the letter reads:—
"The association then instructed me to draft an amendment to the Bill, which was sent to you on the 28th April last."
The last point is:—
"I am to state that the association are unanimously in favour of Dr. Sheehy Skeffington's amendment as it provides some measure of statutory instrument by which control may be delegated to the county engineer in his Department, notwithstanding the restrictive form of the present proposal."
I feel that turns on what Senator Cogan says. He said that he does not see any advantage accruing to the engineer by the amendment. It appears that the engineers are not in agreement with him on that point.
The Minister makes the point that only certain functions can be delegated under the section. I think we are all aware of that, but it would be better than nothing. When I mentioned the implementation of works on the site, I was thinking of the responsibility of this technical officer which is very great, and upon which depends the expenditure of a large amount of money. The Minister has said that he has no desire, in any way, to lower his status. I suggest he has an easy way here of raising the status and the prestige of the technical officer by simply putting him in line with, not ahead of or above, the clerical officers, the administrative officers, the office workers, the town clerk, and the county secretary. Since this whole section is simply permissive, as I said before, it seems to me it would be a laudable example of the removal of red tape, if the Minister were to include the chief engineering officer side by side with the town clerk and the county secretary in this section.
Amendment put.
The Seanad divided: Tá 10; Níl 18.
Tá
- Crowley, Patrick.
- Dowdall, Jane.
- McHugh, Roger J.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Ruane, Thomas.
- Sheehy Skeffington, Owen L.
- Smith, Matthew.
- Stanford, William B.
- Teehan, Patrick J.
- Walsh, Louis.
Níl
- Burke, Denis.
- Butler, John.
- Carton, Victor.
- Cox, Arthur.
- Crosbie, James.
- Douglas, John Harold.
- Fearon, William R.
- Guinness, Henry E.
- Hayes, Michael.
- L'Estrange, Gerald.
- McCrea, James J.
- McGuire, Edward A.
- Meighan, John J.
- Murphy, Dominick F.
- O'Sullivan, John L.
- Ruane, Seán T.
- Sheridan, John D.
- Tunney, James.
Tellers:—Tá: Senators Sheehy Skeffington and Walsh; Níl: Senators L'Estrange and McCrea.
Amendment declared lost.
I move amendment No. 5:—
In page 17, between lines 51 and 52, to insert a new section as follows:—
Each council of a county and each corporation of a county borough shall appoint from amongst its members a committee to be known as the scholarships committee and sole responsibility is hereby assigned to such committee for carrying out all the functions conferred on the local authority by the Local Authorities (Education Scholarships) Act, 1944.
In moving the amendment I shall be as brief as possible. I should like to assure the Minister and the Seanad that the object at the root of this amendment is to give more time to county councils to carry on the business for which they are elected. As Senators know, county councils are a cross section of the country. The majority on the councils, in fact all the members, are fully competent to deal with matters connected with roads and institutions, but there are certain matters such as education, where a select few take more than an ordinary interest in that particular service. It is with a view to having the work of such a body not impeded by having their reports submitted for an inquest to a subsequent meeting of the county council that I am proposing this amendment. By adopting it, county councils would have more time to carry on their work, and the beneficial schemes which have certainly made it possible for many a poor man's child to enjoy a secondary and university education would be helped on.
I should like to state that the original idea of providing what was considered in County Mayo as a stepping stone from the national school to the university was the formation of a scholarships committee. That was done by what was referred to as the Sinn Féin county council in 1918 when four county councillors, four teachers, and four or five managers constituted a scholarships committee. This provided a scheme of scholarships which, after much amendment by what I refer to as a system of trial and error, was eventually accepted as the foundation of the scholarship scheme for every county in the Republic.
This scholarships committee meets only once or twice a year, goes into its work very carefully, and its report is submitted to a subsequent meeting of the county council. It has happened from time to time that a county council has fundamentally altered that scheme, and held up its operation because the suggested alteration had to be submitted to the Minister for sanction. If this amendment is accepted I believe that it will prevent such an occurrence happening in the future and will make for a better administration of the scholarships scheme.
Teachers in the universities are naturally interested in an amendment of this kind. I would like to support it for two reasons—first, on its own merits and, secondly, because I hope it may lead to what I consider would be a desirable improvement in the relations between the county councils and the universities. Senators are no doubt aware that there are a good many of the local authorities which do not sanction scholarships to Trinity College, Dublin. There are fewer of these, I think, than say, ten years ago. There seems to be a general tendency in all local authorities to move towards allowing their scholarships to go to Trinity College, but there are still a good many who do not allow any scholars from their areas to receive the local scholarships to Trinity College. There is an ironical aspect——
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I am afraid, Senator, that line of argument is completely out of order on this amendment.
With due respect, Sir, I am giving my reason for supporting the amendment. It is a very important reason to me and to the constituency I represent. I must say that I shall feel very considerably aggrieved if I am not permitted to do so. But, of course, I bow to the Chair's ruling.
Might I suggest that if the amendment gives rise to a debate as wide as the debate which Senator Stanford desires to begin, it would carry us very far—back to the Universities Act of 1908, for example?
I propose in two minutes to outline my reason, a very important reason to me and to my constituents, for supporting the amendment.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The point at issue is the appointment of a committee to deal with scholarships.
My hope is that such a committee will lead to the desirable improvement that these scholarships should be in every case available to Trinity College, Dublin.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Senator will have to avail of some other occasion to develop that matter.
If the Chair so rules.
Would it not seem reasonable that if we are to approve the setting up of such committees we might be in order in considering for what purpose, and for what kind of work, they might be set up?
If I may possibly give a further reason for my belief that this might be deemed in order: the Seanad does not meet very often and there are not many occasions for raising a point like this. Here we have a precise reference to the setting up of a committee to deal with scholarships from the local authorities. I submit that my remarks are certainly relevant. I do not think anyone could possibly rule that they are irrelevant. It seems to me to be a matter of expediency, that there is some fear that it may raise a controversial debate. I do not think we should be over-cautious in a matter of that kind. I would add, if I may, that a good many citizens of this country feel that this is an injustice which should be remedied at the earliest possible opportunity——
That is a discussion of the matter.
——and this is an opportunity of doing so, if these committees are set up.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The fact that the Seanad does not meet oftener is no reason why a matter of this kind should be allowed to come in in a disorderly fashion.
There is no disorderliness on my part at all, Sir. I am simply, as I know Standing Orders allow me to do, making it clear why I have raised the point. I am the last person to abuse the privileges of this House. I have always tried to defend them. If you rule that I am out of order, I will certainly accept it. I am simply, if you like, apologising for the point I am raising. It did seem to be an admirable and clear opportunity for raising a matter quite contingent to the proposal. It may be a surprise to Senator Ruane and Senator Hayes that I have raised the matter. But that surely would be irrelevant to your decision.
May I make a point of order in explanation of what I have said? Nothing surprises me any longer—that is number one. Number two—I did not say that I do not like controversy and I do not think it is a suitable point of order to say that if this matter is raised it will be a matter of controversy. The point I made, supporting you, Sir, was that if the question which Senator Stanford wanted to raise was raised, it was a very wide question and not that it was a very controversial question—a question far wider than the one which Senator Ruane purports to raise in putting down the amendment. That is my point and it has nothing to do with controversy.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The line adopted by Senator Stanford is clearly out of order on this amendment.
On a point of order, may I say that I have noticed in the debate this afternoon, and in some recent debates, a tendency in this House to imply that we must get through the business as fast as possible? There has been a good deal of criticism of Seanad Eireann in the public Press and elsewhere and it will not help the prestige of this House if the impression is given that, if some wide-reaching debate is liable to develop, it must be stopped at all costs. I believe it would be better for this House and for the country in general if we faced those wide-reaching issues which we are constantly trying to avoid in this House.
As Leader of the House, may I be allowed to say that I have never made a point of order here simply to prevent wide debates being started? A House of Parliament must obey certain rules of order. They are based on common sense and not solely upon a desire to do the business in the quickest possible time. Senator Stanford knows himself that he can raise almost any matter by way of motion, but the idea that a word in an amendment should suggest to you that you can have a wide debate is certainly not in accordance with common sense. Senator Stanford is not being ruled out on any technical ground; he is being ruled out simply because the amendment on the paper does not, of itself, allow a debate on the subject he wants to debate, a subject which nobody objects to debating at the appropriate time.
I wonder could I put the view that perhaps there is a misunderstanding here, and that Senator Hayes is under the impression that what Senator Stanford was going to discuss was in fact far wider than simply the question of, for instance, what matters such scholarship committees might be set up to deal with? I did not understand him to intend to engage in a lengthy debate but simply to say that this is the kind of question that could be more fairly dealt with, had we statutory committees of this kind.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The point is that Senator Stanford is not relevant in following the line he attempted to follow. Does the Senator wish to continue?
It seems to me that such a committee might perform very useful purposes—for example, that to which I have already referred—and in the hope that it will perform useful services of that kind and of other kinds, I gladly support Senator Ruane's amendment. I also support it on its general merits. The universities naturally are particularly interested in the allocation of these scholarships and in learning in general, and I welcome the amendment and hope that the Minister will see his way to accept it.
First of all, this amendment is absolutely unnecessary. Under Section 58 of the Local Government Act of 1925, any county council can, with the sanction of the Minister, delegate its functions to a committee. There is nothing to prevent any county council, which wishes to, setting up such a committee as has been suggested, subject to the sanction of the Minister, which in all cases is readily given I understand. It has been the practice in the case of one county council—Laois County Council—to delegate their functions under the Irish Universities Act of 1908 which deals with university scholarships and under the Local Authorities (Education) (Scholarships) Act, 1944, to a scholarships committee. These two Acts have been delegated by Laois County Council to a committee, with the sanction of the Minister, and Mayo County Council or any other county council may also do so, if they wish. I do not see, however, why we should compel them to delegate their powers to a committee. We will leave it to the discretion of the local authority itself, and if a county council wishes to appoint a committee, it may do so under this Act of 1925. I am sure the Senator will agree that we should not compel any local authority to do something they do not want to do. Full powers are there to set up such a committee as Senator Stanford, Senator Sheehy Skeffington and the mover of this amendment suggested.
I would like to introduce a radical change for a county council that at present does not exist. New councils will be elected in all counties in the next few weeks. If I happen to be a member of the new council in Mayo and if when this committee is being set up I ask the council to give it autonomy, to give it a right to function without any interference, and if that suggestion is carried by the council by a majority and it is submitted to the Minister, I expect he will give it sympathetic hearing.
By all means.
I am quite satisfied.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 6:—
In page 17, between lines 51 and 52, to insert a new section as follows:—
The powers, duties and functions conferred on local authorities under the following Acts and Orders are hereby vested in the case of each county in the county committee of agriculture who shall in future be solely responsible for the carrying out of such powers, duties and functions:—Diseases of Animals Acts, Seeds and Fertilisers Supply Acts, Wild Birds Protection Act, 1930; Sheep Dipping Order, 1948; Control of Dogs Orders.
These Acts and Orders were legislative Orders sent on to county councils before agricultural committees were set up. Now that you have or will have agricultural committees functioning as subsidiary bodies of the county councils, I hold that those committees are the proper committees to deal with these Orders and I am putting forward this amendment to provide for that.
I would like to support this amendment. Everything possible should be done to enlarge and extend the powers of the county committees of agriculture. At the present time an attempt is being made to put them under a cloud. Under the guise of a so-called parish plan, an attempt is being made to take the agricultural instructors from under those committees and put them under the direct control of the Department of Agriculture. In view of that attempt, something should be done to give recognition to these important bodies.
In a purely agricultural country, it is important that there should be in every county a democratically constituted body with important executive and administrative functions in relation to agriculture. These committees are democratically constituted. They are appointed by the council immediately after election and they include in most cases a large proportion of the members of the council or additional members selected by such a newly-appointed county council, that has been elected by the people of the county. Therefore, they are sufficiently representative to be recognised as capable of discharging important agricultural functions.
This amendment seeks to give these committees some additional powers in matters with which they are specially qualified to deal. Most counties—there are exceptions, of course—try to ensure that members of the county committees are either farmers or farm workers, or people closely associated with agriculture. There is strong criticism if a council departs from that rule. Therefore, as these committees are composed of agriculturists in the true sense of the word, these particular Acts should be under their administration.
In regard to the Diseases of Animals Acts, these diseases are dealt with very extensively by the county committees and their officials. In regard to the Seeds and Fertilisers Supply Acts, it would be very useful if the county agricultural instructors could have a say in their administration. We are now approaching a time when those instructors will have only a small compact area to administer. They will be in close touch with the farmers individually and personally, they will know their economic circumstances and their needs in seeds and fertiliser. and they will be able to make recommendations accordingly. Therefore, the county committee would be the proper body to deal with the administration of those particular Acts.
In regard to sheep dipping, it is directly a matter that concerns these county committees. Particularly in a sheep raising county, the committee deals with all matters pertaining to that industry. In the same way, most committees have passed resolutions dealing with the control of dogs at night where they are destructive to the sheep. That committee is the proper body to deal with that matter and it should not be referred to the county council.
As far as the Wild Birds Protection Act is concerned, I suppose the committee would be qualified to deal with it also, although I would say that there are many committees and many farmers who would like to see a Wild Birds Extermination Act to cover the really destructive type. I suppose even in agricultural districts it is necessary to protect certain types of wild birds.
All these matters are relevant to the ordinary business of a county committee and I think it would be a useful thing to transfer these functions to them, particularly with a view to adding to the prestige of those committees, which are being put under a cloud to some extent at present, as I have said, by an attempt to take away from them their present agricultural instructors and take away certain functions which they already have. Therefore, I would ask the Minister to accept this amendment.
Senator Cogan has referred to the Wild Birds Protection Act. It occurs to me—let Senators not fear, I am not going to discuss the protection of wild birds—that it would not be right to give the administration of such an Act to such a committee, as other people besides farmers are interested in matters of this kind. We have scientists and sportsmen——
They do not have to feed them.
In some cases, maybe they do. That shows the impression behind this amendment, that the farmers alone are the best people to administer the powers under an Act of this kind. I would be a little uneasy about giving them that power. I think in this case the county council would probably be the more impartial and the preferable body to deal with.
I have a considerable amount of sympathy with the mover of this amendment. With great respect, I cannot see how, under a County Management Bill, we can transfer the functions of the Attorney-General to prosecute under the Wild Birds Protection Act. With regard, however, to the other Acts which are mentioned in the amendment and which are administered by local authorities, there is no necessity for the amending Acts. As I said on the last amendment, any local authority which so wishes may delegate its functions to a committee—an agricultural committee if you wish to call them that.
Under Section 58 of the Local Government Act of 1925, they have full powers to delegate their functions under these particular Acts to any committee they wish under the section. Again, if they wish, there is power under Section 60 of the Local Government Act of 1955, which we passed last month—that is, in so far as Acts which are administered by local authorities are concerned.
I do not think it is right that we should compel local authorities to delegate their powers to committees. However, any local authorities who so wish may avail themselves of the sections of the Local Government Act, 1925, and the Local Government Act, 1955, to delegate their functions to a committee—with the exception of the Wild Birds Protection Act, 1930, which is administered by the Department of Justice through the Attorney-General. I am afraid that, no matter how much we desire it here, we cannot accept the amendment.
In view of the Minister's statement, I am quite satisfied to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass".
I think that one of the most interesting things that have been explained to us here is the power to delegate to the various local authorities many of the functions which we understood in the past were the functions of the county managers and in many cases were the functions of the county councils which they were not able to delegate to subsidiary bodies.
An amendment in my name appeared on the Order Paper to-day. I understood that, in those cases, the Minister could delegate many of the functions which are ordinarily performed by the county manager to the town clerk of a borough council. At this point I should like to ask the Minister if he would make an experiment by seeing to it that a great deal of these powers are delegated. He always has the safeguard that, if they are in any way abused, he can revoke their delegation. I believe that, where competent town clerks are operating with borough councils, it would be a development, and a pilot development, in local affairs. I would like to recommend it to the Minister and the finance committees.
With regard to what Senator Burke has said, under this Bill we are giving the county manager power to delegate functions. I sincerely hope he will avail of that power to delegate to town clerks some of the executive functions which he now performs himself.
I hope this will not be the last Bill amending county management. I hope that, as the years go by, we may possibly amend the County Management Acts. If we find this power of delegation working out sufficiently well, it may be possible at some future date— having the benefit of this experiment— to introduce amending legislation to meet the suggestion of Senator Burke and have powers given to the town clerks and other such dignitaries which they have not got at the moment.
Question put and agreed to.