Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 6 Jul 1966

Vol. 61 No. 16

Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill, 1966: Second Stage (Resumed) and Subsequent Stages.

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".

Professor Quinlan

In my brief opening remarks before the adjournment last evening I showed that there are three main facets of the work outlined by the Taoiseach in connection with the new Ministry of Labour. While a manpower policy is appropriate to a Department of State I proposed to him that the control of semi-State bodies—this terrible mess we have got into with such bodies— should be the responsibility of an Oireachtas sub-committee under the new Ministry of Labour. It is only there that we can begin to get away from the anarchy and leap-frogging that have been created.

I suggested in connection with the research arm that if the Government wish to make this a success—and without it I do not think the Ministry of Labour can be a success—it is vital that they enlist the support of individuals within the university system who are capable of making a contribution. There may also be individuals in the Economic Research Institute, or somewhere else, who may have a contribution to make. This will have to be administratively free of State influence so that it will be accepted alike by the State, by the workers and by management.

Mr. Murphy

What is stopping you?

Professor Quinlan

That is a very good question and it is highly relevant. It is purely a lack of funds. The individuals concerned—and I named them on the last occasion—are fully occupied doing not a 40-hour week but at least a 70-hour week with their existing commitments. I suggested to the Taoiseach that if we made funds available to them they would be able to employ additional assistants within their own departments, and these assistants could relieve them of some of their present responsibilities. Their ability and their know-how could be harnessed to directing studies on particular facets of industrial relations which are most urgently in need of exploration. If you have a good man doing a full-time job and if you relieve him of part of that job, if there is something else which is more vital to be done you can avail of his talents to direct other studies as well.

Arising out of the suggestions in regard to semi-State bodies and the responsibility of the new Minister, the Government could do a good deal to improve the climate if they allowed the trade unions concerned and some of the professional organisations to nominate certain members on the boards of these bodies. Then you would begin to get a feeling of partnership in the work and nothing would contribute so much to that feeling of partnership as the knowledge among those bodies that their representatives were sitting on the board.

I do not wish to go into detail about the working out of these suggestions, particularly on the manpower policy, but I have been disturbed by some recent remarks, one by the Taoiseach in the Dáil, to the effect that one of the functions of the new Minister would be the retraining of workers leaving agriculture. I have tried in this House many times to show that agriculture is suffering from a chronic shortage of workers. Statistics show that the numbers on the land are going down by 10,000 a year. That figure does not relate to workers needing retraining because, unfortunately, 7,000 are leaving in their coffins and they do not need retraining. The new Minister for Labour should be made aware of this essential fact on the question of a manpower policy in this State.

The fact is that we have fewer workers per 1,000 acres of arable land than any of our competitor countries, including Denmark, Holland and France. If we take the effective numbers on the land here, we have less than half the figure per 1,000 acres. Consequently, I appeal to the Taoiseach and the Government to take full cognisance of this and see that the new Minister also does. Instead of thinking about retraining workers leaving the land we should be deliberately orientating workers in order to maintain the present numbers on the land and, if possible, to increase those numbers. It is not possible that industry can provide, as required in the Second Programme, 10,000 to 15,000 new jobs per annum and at the same time take up the lamentable drop in the numbers employed on the land. Industry has to maintain enough jobs to look after itself. Let us have confidence in our agricultural potential, confidence in the need in the world to feed the hungry by agricultural produce. Let us base our manpower policy on the prospect that the numbers on the land can drop further only at our national peril.

I come now to the question of the personnel who will man this new Department, a rather special type of Department in so far as it will have intimate connections with all other Departments and will impinge on them as much as the Department of Finance impinges on them today. Therefore, there is need to look for a broadly trained and highly adaptable staff for this new body. The time has come to break away from the classical 19th century type of administrator who did not require any professional training whatever, if we are to prosper as a 20th century State. Among our engineering graduates we have a rich source to tap for leadership in this new Department. Compared with England and other European countries, we have a hidebound class distinction system of administration. To us an administrator is a man who never qualified in professional subjects; his education stopped at leaving certificate standard. The possession of a bachelorship of science or of engineering is regarded as anathema.

The Taoiseach should go far and wide, outside the confines of the Civil Service, to pick some of the leaders of this new Department. In bodies such as the ESB, Bord na Móna and the Irish Sugar Company there are many highly competent professional people capable, with a little extra training, of being developed into first class administrators, the type needed in a modern, scientific complex, a complex which will have to deal so much with figures. In this respect, I suggest to the Taoiseach that we are in great peril here at present for lack of econometricians. Everybody says there is a great lack of them. I agree there is a great lack but, unfortunately, it is worse than a lack because we are totally unbalanced. We are chronically short of the type of modern economist called an econometrician— highly skilled in mathematics and statistics who knows the type of subject he is dealing with, We have plenty of the other type but we need to balance up as soon as possible. When you have a mature economist, you cannot give him at that stage the necessary grasp of mathematics and statistics necessary to turn him into an econometrician. If you take a man who has been trained as a scientist you can easily get him to do economics. You can pick up economics. You cannot pick up mathematical reasoning.

An Cathaoirleach

The Chair suggests that the Senator is going very wide of the Bill.

Professor Quinlan

I am showing what is one of the greatest difficulties in trying to staff this new Department. Above all, the men concerned should be picked from a wide spectrum so that we will have a real cross-fertilisation of ideas among them. The time has come to break with established practice both in the tradition of the appointment of Minister and of senior civil servants. That has been the subject of some comment in those debates. My feeling is that we do not have enough Ministers. I feel there should always be a spare Minister or two around, just as there should be spare officials in the Departments. I mean by that that we should adopt the system that is essential in the scientific world, in the university world and, indeed, in the Civil Service world of the more advanced countries which we often talk about. Those people should be given time to think. Ministers should be given time to think. A Minister should be given six months to study abroad, completely relieved of the responsibilities of his Department for that period. That would be an excellent idea.

I would also love to see senior civil servants, perhaps some of the officials attached to this new Department, given such leave of absence and time to think as a matter of course. It is only thus that you can ensure freshness of thought and generate the new ideas that are so necessary today. You cannot get those in a crowded labour week where you are just living from one routine job to the next. I appeal to the Taoiseach to introduce something along those lines in this new Ministry and, of course, extend this to the Civil Service as a whole.

The Taoiseach should also explore in the structure of this new Department the possibility of temporary staff. It should be quite possible to invite someone from industry, a trade union official or university lecturer to work in such a Department for a year or maybe two years. That is routine practice. He need not necessarily be from this country. In fact, it would be better if the system were extended wide so that you could bring in experts from similar small countries in Europe who have met many of the problems we are grappling with today. I refer particularly to Holland, Belgium, Denmark and so on. You could bring those people in for a year or so. If you bring them in, do not muzzle them. Those people have the ability to speak their minds and they should be able to do so without any fear from the Government or anybody else. It is only with such a rejuvenation of our society in initiative, freshness and originality that you can keep abreast of what is needed in this constantly changing scientific world.

I would ask the Taoiseach not to overplay this new creation, the National Industrial Economic Council, in the structure of this new Department. He should recognise it as a body capable of giving advice but he should also recognise it as a body very closely designed to Dublin and its interests. He should recognise, too, that other opinions are very necessary in the formulation of policies. The Taoiseach should recognise the fact that this particular body seems to very doctrinaire in a certain sense in its recent reports.

I said on the Finance Bill, and I think I can restate it here, that in regard to this new Ministry of Labour a lead should be given by having a committee from this House. Let us have a Seanad committee to assist the new Minister in the problems he is likely to encounter in this Department. It would be a very healthy step forward if such a committee was set up. Such a committee would be taken as a matter of course in any of the small European democracies to which we look so much but we shy away from such here. A committee drawn from this House would make a very significant contribution because, by and large, all of us here represent walks of life different from those who are advisers, traditionally, within a Department.

We belong to many different walks of life and we have different points of view. Let the Government and the Taoiseach make use of this House in such matters and give us the opportunity to contribute to the national development and not be just a mere talking Chamber. Let us play specialised roles, beginning with this one. This is an excellent place to begin and I appeal to the Taoiseach to show his confidence in the Seanad and the contribution that democracy can make to the solution of our problems by setting up such a committee to help the new Minister for Labour.

I do not think I can close without making an appeal to the Taoiseach as I did on the Finance Bill. When looking for a Minister do not start playing merry-go-rounds with Ministers. Above all, please do not shift the present Minister for Education from his position where he is fulfilling one of the most important posts in the Government.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

It seems to me that this Bill raises two rather different issues. First of all, there is the general issue of industrial relations which will be the responsibility of this new Department. Secondly, there is the issue of the structure and the format of the Government. In the field of industrial relations, talk achieves something. We are great in this country for talking about things and not doing anything but this is an area in which a good deal of talk should precede any action.

We have to help reform public opinion and discussions on both sides reasonably and sensibly. This can only be done if there are proper and intelligent discussions as there have been in this debate. One of the matters raised already has been that of labour relations in State bodies. It has always struck me as odd that labour relations in those State bodies have been so unsatisfactory. I had this feeling when I worked for 12 years as a member of the staff of one of those State bodies, not that, indeed, that particular company, Aer Lingus, had labour relations which were particularly poor. On the contrary, they were, by the standards of State bodies, good and remained so. Nevertheless, I was always struck by the extent to which there did not exist between the bulk of the employees of the companies and the management as complete a sense of participation and working together in the national interest as one might expect.

Paradoxically, it was the most senior officials of the companies, the super managers and super officials whose instincts would have, on the whole, been conservative, who would not be particularly enamoured by national or State enterprise in the ideological sense and who felt most strongly the sense of service to the community in working for the country. That sense of service did not seem to go down the ranks as far as one can see. Without good leadership, as they have always had in the matter of industrial relationship, it never seemed possible to get this sense of participation among the whole staff and particularly among the manual workers as one would hope for. There are several reasons for this possibly. The sheer size of some of those companies must make direct human contact between management and workers difficult. There are factors which have gone to create a situation in which some of these companies have been to a greater extent than they should be leaders in the field of wage and salary increases and conditions of service without, however, receiving any return, and a corresponding degree of co-operation and enthusiastic support from the staff.

The effect is that these companies, by the standards of most private firms, have generous terms of service and wages and salaries at a level which are above the normal in the private sector, and conditions of service, holidays and other fringe benefits of that kind are also beyond what is the average in the private sector although not necessarily, of course, beyond that of the better private firms. Yet, despite this, there has not existed, as I said, the kind of industrial relations in these organisations that one would have hoped for in the circumstances. There is the problem that these companies are inclined to run ahead of the market in some of these respects. That is a good thing in some ways in that somebody has to give a lead. But at times the extent to which they run ahead, the extent to which individual companies have got out of line with the rest, has been disturbing.

I can recall about 12 years ago when I was making a claim for increased pay for myself and my colleagues in a particular group in a company how struck I was by the fact that, when I examined the structure of another State body, which was identical, similar officials in the other group had salaries of from £400, £600, and £800 higher than Aer Lingus. It struck me at that time that there was an extraordinary lack of co-ordination here. Naturally, in putting in our claim we emphasised this and said it was most unfair that we were left behind. We were able to prove that our position was identical with the officials in the other company and why should we be paid less. Why should this situation exist where you have not got ownership by the State? You have a situation of diverse pressurisation turning towards universal leap-frogging and many of our difficulties have come from this source. The lack of co-ordination and a uniform system of arbitration have also been problems.

We have had recently the Quinn Tribunal report which we should not go into in great detail here. This report is a first step towards uniformity. It is a report with defects, defects with logical conclusions drawn, and defects from which certain attitudes were obtained, and this is a start towards unification of arbitration procedures and for some uniformity of conditions of service in those bodies and to an avoidance of leap-frogging. But, it is unfortunate that a number of criticisms have been made and can be made on this report. They are of considerable validity and have made this first step a faltering one although we must continue in this direction if we are to avoid a chaotic condition in regard to pay and conditions of service in those bodies.

In the more general issue of an incomes policy it was disturbing to hear the Taoiseach's views recently in respect of an incomes policy and at this late stage when one would have thought there was a fairly generous acceptance of an incomes policy. If I remember rightly he used the words —an incomes policy whatever that means, or whatever that may mean. The suggestion that an incomes policy is something which is just a vague idea people talk about and is not something that could be a reality, that it is concrete and specific and is something which people use as an excuse for not doing something they should is disturbing.

It is true that an incomes policy can cover a wide range of matters connected with the control and development of increases in wages and salaries and other incomes. In this country we have the advantage of a serious study of an incomes policy and of the principles of an incomes policy by the NIEC which issued an agreed statement of the principles for an incomes policy. These principles provided a basis for action and the report puts it to the Government to rest on these principles, to work from these principles to continue a more definite agreed system of developing an incomes policy in an arbitrary manner. That report was published last November. The Taoiseach had previously expressed scepticism of a more marked character concerning an incomes policy. It is disturbing that when this report was published, despite the fact that it was accepted by the Government, that he should still cast doubts on the realities of the possibilities of an incomes policy.

I think it is a great tribute to employers and workers that they should succeed on these principles. It involved considerable effort on both sides to commit themselves to the principles written into that report. On both sides the people who signed it were running some distance ahead of information behind them and they took risks in so doing. It has been the characteristic of this body, about which Senator Quinlan expressed some scepticism, that it has brought out the sense of responsibility that exists among people which is not always shown because of the tensions that arise in different groups.

The NIEC has shown that when they are brought together to work constructively towards a common aim, instead of destructively, they are capable of showing a high degree of responsibility and give a leadership which we should all welcome. One aspect of this report, which I think is important, and which is in danger of being lost, is the very pointed remarks on the agricultural side. There is a danger that we will continue to treat the development of agricultural incomes and other incomes as two separate exercises to be carried out independently although the sum total of the decisions taken can impose an intolerable burden on the community which cannot be carried.

The NIEC recognise the need for co-ordination of an incomes policy in the agricultural and non-agricultural fields and they recommend that the decision would require to be taken at the same time as—and be recognised as an integral part of—decisions concerning non-agricultural money incomes.

That is a specific recommendation, a sensible one. There is a notable lack of interest in it and a lack of interest on the Government's part in implementing it. We are still at the stage when those two sides of our incomes policy are taken separately and not co-ordinated. The failure to co-ordinate in 1964 led to this more unsatisfactory condition, when the wages earned by agricultural workers were largely eroded and a large cause of that was an exceptional rise in agricultural prices which transferred overnight almost one-half of the benefits of those wage losses to the agricultural sector. Now there are many in this House——

An Cathaoirleach

The Chair suggests that these matters were fully discussed in the last few days.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

I felt that in dealing with the Ministry of Labour the question of an incomes policy must be the prime consideration and that this Ministry would be concerned with this more than with anything else. Therefore, the principles of an incomes policy must be the first consideration in this debate. To be told they are irrelevant is, therefore, a little startling. I shall not proceed much further along that line if it disturbs you, a Chathaoirleach.

The reason I mentioned this—without developing it further in detail— is that this Ministry must have responsibility of some kind in this area. If we are going to have non-agricultural incomes dealt with by a Ministry of Labour and agricultural incomes dealt with by the Ministry of Agriculture with no co-ordination between them, the decisions of the two Departments not part of an integrated decisionmaking mechanism, we could face very serious difficulties in this field. The NIEC which recommended the establishment of this Department of Labour —and which indeed were ahead of Government opinion in that, because their recommendation was not accepted at the time—have gone to great trouble to emphasise that these decisions should be taken together, which can clearly only mean that fundamentally the Department of Labour would work in co-operation with the Department of Agriculture. But, unfortunately, in this country we have two different Governments. We have, in effect, a Department of Agriculture which continue to consider themselves to be almost a Government of their own, and the rest of the Government, so that when we come to simple economic planning the planning of the whole structure would clearly be the responsibility of the Department of Finance but agriculture is exempted from that and has its own planning mechanism.

If we are to have this in the incomes sphere then—as was pointed out by the NIEC—there will be great difficulty arising from it. It is entirely relevant that this question of control of incomes policy for the whole economy and not merely for the non-agricultural sector should be the responsibility of this Department. It is, therefore, particularly alarming to hear, as was said in the Dáil, if I understood it correctly, that the Agricultural Wages Board will be outside the scope of this Department. I cannot understand the logic of that decision and I think that this continued effort to divide our country into two parts, separately governed and with no co-ordination between them—agriculture and the rest—is a great mistake. We must begin to look at the whole economy and stop thinking of two separate and largely opposed areas of activities. The lack of co-ordination throughout the whole of the structure of Government is a matter which is disturbing and one which should certainly concern us when a Ministry is being established from which agricultural incomes are being excluded, apparently, at the outset, in order to again separate this, as if it were a pariah, from the rest of the economy.

The NIEC, in dealing with an incomes policy, laid stress on three principles and I think the third of these is one which is in danger of getting lost in the consideration of the other two. The third principle, which is referred to at page 48 of the report is:

...it will be more difficult to prevent total money income from rising at an excessive rate if there does not exist general consensus on what constitutes reasonable differences between wages and earnings in different occupations, between wages and salaries, and between wages and salaries and other kinds of income.

It is this lack of consensus on differentials which is giving rise to most of our problems, and not so much the problem of working out what overall global increases in income are possible for the community in any given year. This lack of consensus on differentials is alarming and something in respect of which the Government have not given a lead. One could say that the Government have been shying away from this. It is always embarrassing for a Government to have to suggest that some group in the community should not do as well as some other group but if we are going to allow a situation to develop in which different groups each claim a bigger share of the total cake and the Government do nothing about it, we are opening up a situation which could be a very dangerous one indeed. The Government should have some social policy in this regard. There should be some social philosophy upon which they should work. The Government should, I feel—the Taoiseach may or may not agree—accept a principle that differentials between people at different levels of income have to be narrowed and that this principle must be generally accepted by all groups in the community, not something from which people could opt out or exempt themselves; rather something which all have to accept. A lead is required here.

We have at the moment many groups in the community seeking to catch up on others, an understandable desire, especially when most of those groups are trying to live on wages at a level which does not provide the minimum for a decent standard of living. But we have more groups which are equally determined to maintain their existing differentials and get as far ahead of the rest of the community as possible. We shall not succeed in the principles of an incomes policy or in avoiding industrial anarchy unless there is developed some kind of consensus amongst those groups as to how this should be dealt with.

These differentials will have to be narrowed and the people who are better off must accept, not a lowering of their standards of living—nobody would suggest that—but their standard of living will have to rise less fast than those not so well off and the gap between them narrowed. It is up to the Government to give a lead in that respect in forming public opinion in such a way that people will not feel that they must have their 39 differentials vis-a-vis the rest of the community restored and kept in the privileged position they were seeking to share at that time. They know public opinion will not accept that and that can only arise if the Government give a lead in this matter.

This question of a consensus, of course, extends to many other areas of industrial relations also. A consensus does not mean that all must agree; it means, I think, that the actions which people take are forced by public opinion to be in line with an evolving development of public opinion. If public opinion is developed in a certain direction people will feel a moral pressure upon them to fall broadly into line with that. Direction of public opinion in large industrial relations is clear. It is towards more orderly industrial relations, away from unnecessary strikes, through provocation of management or indiscipline of labour, and public opinion on this issue is strong. If in a country like Britain, where three-quarters of the population belongs to the working class group, if this is so strong there that the Government are bringing in a Prices and Incomes Bill, then we can be sure that in this country also, where less than half the population falls within this group, these pressures are certainly going to be at least as strong. It is important that trade unions and management should realise this and also realise that the failure to end the unnecessary disruptions which occur at the moment is something which will inevitably bring about Government action of some kind, because public opinion will demand it. It is unwise of any group in the community to ignore this pressure of public opinion and to ignore the development of consensus favouring a more orderly system of industrial relations than that which we have now.

At the same time, it would be most unwise of any Government to interfere to any significant degree with the existing arrangements for negotiations between employers and workers. The aim must be to create a climate of opinion in which these arrangements work better rather than to enforce them by legislation as was so unhappily necessary in the special instance of the ESB, which I hope will not occur in future on any occasion. The structure of collective bargaining must be maintained and worked in a disciplined manner and the onus is on unions and management. Though the Taoiseach used these words speculatively in relation to future occasions, the fact that these words could be spoken by the Leader of a Government not as a matter of immediate policy but even as something that would have to be considered in the future, is a warning which those concerned with industrial relations should ponder in their own interest if they are to maintain the harmony which is so vital to them and to the community—the warning that they will have to consider how to improve the existing arrangements to minimise some of the difficulties being created by the failure to agree on solutions to problems that arise between themselves.

On the employers' side there is a need to create improved negotiating methods to which the Department of Labour should give consideration as well. This arises from the fact that while union officials engaged in negotiations are full-time professionals who concentrate on this work of negotiating, employers negotiating are, by and large, not officials but employers without similar professional skills, who do their best in the small amount of time they have to do it, in the odd moments available to them, on matters and in a field with which they are not very familiar, where they feel frustrated by being drawn away from their principal task of running their own business efficiently to deal with this matter. That frustration often issues in emotional outbursts and emotional reactions which you do not get in the same way from the professionals on the other side in such negotiations. There is a certain imbalance in our negotiating system in the case of employers, who are not negotiating in the same professional way as the trade unions, and you do not get good results in negotiations if the two sides are unbalanced. The trouble is that if the other side is not negotiating to full efficiency you tend to get an agreement which will lead to a breakdown or other trouble. Some of the difficulties which arose out of the ninth round agreement arose out of the failure of some on the employers' side to draft a clear and specific agreement upon which that round would be based. The difficulties of interpretation of the agreement which arose were the result of the fact that it was not efficiently negotiated. Better negotiating machinery on both sides, but particularly on the employers' side, would avoid these difficulties in the future.

On the general question of industrial relations legislation we can only await the Government's proposals, which, no doubt, will come before us soon. Some of them we know something of already, but the full picture is not yet clear. When the proposals are published in detail we will have to consider them constructively and debate them constructively. They will require to be very carefully thought out. Obviously, a lot of thought has been given by the Government to them, because this is a sensitive area and the Government will not lightly propose foolish solutions to the problem. It will be something which will require very carefully debate, but it is important that in this first serious review which we have had for several decades of our industrial relations machinery we should arrive at, as far as possible, agreed solutions. Both sides will find it extremely difficult formally to agree to some of the conclusions, because they will be under pressure from their own members, but at least we must ensure that arrangements are reached which even if they do not have in every detail formal agreement from both sides are in practice broadly acceptable to them and will be worked by both sides. Otherwise there is no point in this exercise.

I believe that the Government have tried to produce something along these lines, but it is only by full and careful debate in this House that we will ensure that what we will get is something that will be workable and will mark an improvement on the present arrangements. We have had this difficulty over our industrial relations, but we should not underestimate the progress which we have made in recent years in this field. As I have mentioned, the extent to which this has produced bodies such as the National Industrial Productivity Committee, the Committee on Industrial Organisation and the National Industrial Economic Committee, upon which the employers' and workers' representatives have been able to work together and to get unanimous agreement on a very wide range of problems, with disagreement recorded in only one instance, is remarkable, but the only emphasis is placed on disagreement. All the headlines quoted that, and not the agreed reports of the NIEC and the CIO when they are striving to carve up the cake which they have been working so hard and constructively together to increase and extend. It is unfortunate that we have not had the same progress in industrial relations, but that should not prevent us from seeing what has been achieved when both sides work together.

Reference has been made to one responsibility of this Department as being some form of social research. Senator Quinlan spoke at some length on this, and I see his point that it would be unsatisfactory if a Government Department should carry out research of this kind, the results of which might not command unanimous support, might not be accepted as being impartial, and moreover, that they have no experience of engaging in research of this kind. The evidence we have suggests that when they undertake research of this nature it is to a limited extent, they are pretty ill-informed on the subject and do not really understand what the research is about. This is a reflection of the fact that we have not in the public services the sociologists, the economists and the statisticians required for this kind of work, and that we have failed to develop the existing professional side of the service along these lines and to give authority to those of them that we have. Nevertheless it is right that this Department should have a function and power to ensure that social research should be carried out, not by the Department directly but, as Senator Quinlan said, by people such as the universities economic research institute.

One great step forward in social research has been the commissioning in the last year by the Department of Industry and Commerce on behalf of the National Productivity Economic Council of a very detailed and advanced research project into the nature of unemployment and employment problems generally in a particular Irish town, Drogheda. The Department have no special competence themselves in the matter, but they sponsored those social research people in University College, Dublin which is the only place where a social research course exists at present. They sponsored the work to be done by this group, and thereby they have both helped to develop social research here and look like obtaining from this extremely valuable data on the whole employment-unemployment relationship, about which we know so little and in regard to which the published statistics by Government Departments are so extremely uninformative. I would be very concerned that this new Department of Labour should continue on this line from commissioning research projects of this kind, not, as Senator Quinlan said, by the Department themselves but carried out by people outside.

The second aspect of this debate is in relation to the structure of the Government itself, because this proposal to change the structure of the Government by the establishment of a Department of Labour provides us with an opportunity of considering both the proposal itself and its implications for the Government and the running of government as a whole. As I have said already, the proposal to establish the Department of Labour is one which represents a change of view by the Government. The Taoiseach in opening the debate explained this change by saying that it arose out of the failure of the ICTU and the FUE in regard to the tenth round. This was not a very convincing explanation, because on about half the occasions since the wage round negotiations started in 1947 those bodies have failed to agree, and on no previous occasion did the Government suggest that they would have to establish a Department of Labour. This is a bit of a smoke-screen, but whatever the reason for the change of front we must welcome it. When the idea was put forward originally by the NPC and endorsed by the NIEC it was not accepted by the Government.

The Taoiseach gave as a reason for the establishment of the new Department—though he may have given other reasons too—that there was only one more place left in the Government under the Constitution and that this should be kept for a Ministry of European Affairs. There was, therefore, no room for a Ministry of Labour. I hope I am quoting him correctly, but I think that it was in relation to the Ministry of Labour that it was said. I should like to know how the situation has changed in this respect. I am sure the Taoiseach in setting up this Department does not intend to suggest we do not need a Minister for European Affairs. What he has in mind presumably—apart from the possibility of changing the Constitution about which he has made some tentative moves recently—is that other Departments can be amalgamated to make room for a Department of European Affairs when the creation of such a Department appears appropriate. I may say I think it is overdue.

In the debate in the Dáil I seem to detect resentment to any reduction in the number of Government Departments or any amalgamation of the Departments. There seems to be a clear implication that the Government have decided to establish a Department of European Affairs as well as a Department of Labour. The Minister for Health, speaking some time ago—I think it was in 1956; he was not then Minister for Health but he was a prominent member of the Taoiseach's Party—suggested that the Department of Defence and the Department of Justice could be amalgamated. There would be no great difficulty about that. A suggestion was also made in the Dáil that the Department of Health and the Department of Social Welfare could be amalgamated. That suggestion seems feasible although I can see a case for keeping the Department of Health separate for the time being until the contemplated reforms are put through.

We also have a Department of Transport and Power and a Department of Posts and Telegraphs. If the Department of Posts and Telegraphs were handed over to one or more State bodies it would be run more efficiently. Departments are not adapted to run commercial enterprises successfully. If that were done those two Departments could be merged into one, a communications Department. There is ample room for amalgamation without even suggesting the abolition of the Department of Lands. I have never understood why it is that we have a Department of Lands when we have the Land Commission with which they cannot interfere.

There is ample room for tightening up the Government if and when the Taoiseach decides to establish a Department of European Affairs, in view of the growing likelihood of British entry into the EEC and the dissatisfaction in this country which is evident everywhere including the Irish Press at the failure of the Government to take the necessary steps to protect our position in regard to entry into the European Community if and when the British application goes through.

The Taoiseach was rather scathing in the Dáil on the relationship between population figures and Government figures in other countries. He must have misunderstood the point that was raised because it is a valid point. The fact is that most small countries in Europe which have bigger populations than we have, have Governments under 15 in number. I say that now without the record but I think it is right. Most of those countries although their populations may be five, six or ten times ours have Governments numbering some 12 to 14. Even the much larger countries with much more complexity in administration do not have very large Governments. Therefore, our complement of 15 Ministers is prima facie a little high. One cannot be rigid about this. There may be a good deal to be said for having a large number of Ministers and for having as many people as possible gaining experience in that sphere, but prima facie the evidence would suggest that we are running on the high side as regards the number of our Ministers. No one would relate Ministers per head of the population or anything of that kind.

More serious than that question, which is not very vital, is the general need for some reorganisation of the Government and for a higher standard of administration by Ministers. I have the impression—perhaps it is that far off hills are green—that members of the first and second Governments of this country—and I am not expressing a partisan political view; I say both the first and the second Governments— were men of great personality and character who came into office knowing what they wanted to do, ran their Departments, and told the civil servants what to do and how to do it. I have the impression that members of subsequent Governments have not been of the same calibre. We have ample evidence of that in this House when we see Ministers weakly trying to defend what they have been led up the garden path to do by civil servants. I have the impression that Ministers are not to the same degree on top of the job as the Ministers in the first two Governments were, and that they are to a very large degree at the mercy of their civil servants. I think that only a minority of Ministers—and I accept that such a minority exists—are really on top of their jobs, and in a position to say what they want, and who will not be pushed around by civil servants and make that quite clear.

It is evident, and anyone who follows public affairs closely will agree, that only a minority of Ministers can do that, and that the majority do not show any signs of imposing their own personalities or views, or indeed the thought-out policy of their Party such as it may be, on their Departments. There are reasons for this, and reasons they may be but not excuses.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

You cannot compare 1932 with the present situation.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

The situation was a graver one. Perhaps it is nostalgia; I do not know.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

Time has marched on.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

Time has marched on but it has not marched on to our benefit in that respect. It would appear that a very large proportion of the policies put forward by this Government, and probably by the Governments which preceded them from either Party, emerged from civil servants and from recommendations by Commissions. They did not seem to emerge from policies thought out by political Parties. The Government have become a channel, and their policy seems to have emerged from some kind of consensus of the Civil Service mechanism or from Commissions. One reason for this is that Governments have been taking office without a clear and specific policy. That was not true of the first Fianna Fáil administration. They had a specific policy and one which they had thought out for themselves. When the Fianna Fáil Government were elected in 1957 we had to wait for two years for their policy in the form of the First Programme for Economic Expansion.

It may also be that Ministers are involved in far too many detailed decisions. When a Minister has too many detailed matters to deal with he cannot possibly apply his mind adequately to the formulation of policy. That is true of the Department of Local Government where the Minister has to make so many planning decisions that he has no time to think out policy. That seems to me to be a mistake. With respect to the Taoiseach it may also be true that this Government are too long in power. When Governments are in power for more than eight years they seem to lose momentum. This was true of the first Government and they seemed to lose their grip on the situation after a while. I think, perhaps, this Government have also reached that point, as the Tory Government in Britain did before the end of their 13 years.

When a Government are in office for a long time they have no opportunity of rethinking policy in Opposition and of looking at problems afresh. Ministers have their jobs to do and they cannot sit down together in policy committees to work out policies because of their preoccupation with administration. They must have a period of refreshment in Opposition. Otherwise they become sterile, and this has happened to some degree. This does not mean that Parties in Opposition always do that job. In the past Parties have failed to do so. A lead is now being given by Fine Gael in this respect which I am sure will be followed by Fianna Fáil when they are in Opposition. I think the lead given is one which will have healthy competitive repercussions and that in Opposition in future, political Parties will give more time to thinking out policies afresh.

In this small country we have not got as many first-class people available in politics or elsewhere as in larger countries. This is a deficiency we suffer from and in its background it is remarkable, considering the small range we have to draw from compared with 20 times more in Britain, France and other countries, what a high standard we achieve in all spheres of life, including politics, but obviously we cannot have as many, first-class people.

This is something that makes one suggest it is a mistake to have a large Government, that a more compact Government of which all the Ministers would be of reasonably high calibre, would be far more satisfactory than one in which you have over-extended the resources of personnel by having a large Government for a small country. I think also that one of the drawbacks from which we suffer is that the remuneration of Ministers is not such as to attract anybody and it is sufficiently low to discourage many people from participation in Government. That must be a problem from which the Taoiseach, the present Government and other Governments have suffered.

I do not think this is true of Dáil and Seanad membership where the remuneration is not inappropriate for the time and the responsibilities involved. However, the remuneration of Ministers must operate as a severe disincentive to people to take on ministerial responsibilities. It is absurd that when the Taoiseach appoints a member of his Party as a Parliamentary Secretary—there are quite a number of them—the Parliamentary Secretary gets less than what he is getting already. He gets £1,300 and this involves the discouraging feature that his responsibilities and his time preclude him from the possibility of making much more outside. I think this is ludicrous. The Taoiseach cannot expect to get Parliamentary Secretaries of high calibre on that basis. It excludes anybody who is capable of earning outside the Dáil more than the £1,300 they will obtain. Therefore, their incomes are sharply cut and their wives suffer as well.

The Parliamentary Secretary must accept with his £1,300 a year a car and two drivers each of whom is paid almost as much as himself. With the £1 a week increase they will get, the Parliamentary Secretary's drivers would be getting each about £200 less than the Parliamentary Secretary. Between the two of them they are costing almost twice as much. The State car is costing, according to a reply to a Parliamentary Question, £3,800 a year. Therefore, the Parliamentary Secretary's car and his two drivers are costing more than £5,700 a year and he touches only £1,300 in cash, making sure that anybody capable is discouraged from becoming Parliamentary Secretary.

We have gone mad on perks but our economy on remuneration discourages anybody with ability from becoming Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries. It is ludicrous the way Parliamentary Secretaries are treated. State cars with two drivers were introduced in 1927 for good reasons. They should now be dropped except for the Taoiseach and Tánaiste and a pool of cars provided for Ministers going on long journeys. We could thus save a lot of money and pay Ministers decent salaries which would ensure getting Ministers of a higher calibre than we have been able to get.

A certain pattern has been created of working and living by Ministers which tends to cut them off from contact with the general public. I know the Taoiseach does not believe this, that he thinks his Ministers are in touch with public opinion. They are not, for a number of reasons. Ministers have three main sources of contact with the public at the moment. Representations are made to them by individuals and groups, but in this way Ministers get only the views of particular vested interests, rather formally and not in a way through which the Minister can discuss the matters in a give-and-take manner. In other words, he is not able to test public feeling, public opinion.

Secondly, a Minister has the opportunity of meeting people at public functions to which he is invited and where he is asked to make a speech. His contact with public opinion on such occasions is very limited. He will not be given the thought-out views on public affairs that would be desirable knowledge. He does not get honest reactions. People with a definite axe to grind will say what they think, without inhibition, but others will be cautious and the Minister gets only a partial impression.

Thirdly, the Minister has access to public opinion at meetings of his political Party but this is a narrow and rather confined channel because political Parties have set political interests unlike the generality of opinion one gets from the man in the street. In other words, the Minister is not involved in a genuine dialogue. He is not engaged in an exercise that will give him an opportunity of testing out ideas. In Britain it is not uncommon for Ministers to preside over councils and commissions. The British equivalent of NIEC is presided over by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not recall having heard of a similar situation here.

Our society is one in which Ministers can easily involve themselves in these affairs instead of simply getting reports from civil servants on what has been happening. By being present themselves, arguing the toss themselves with people who have definite views and are able to explain them, Ministers would keep closely abreast of public opinion. As it is, Ministers are not in touch with public opinion. They are insulated against it. The present Minister for Health, for instance, presided over meetings with the Building Advisory Council which he established, and I suggest that the Taoiseach should encourage all his Ministers to involve themselves in such activities.

Ministers often attend functions to speak but they rarely attend functions to listen. I think this is a pity. We all benefit by hearing a Minister speak but the Minister, in turn, because he does not attend functions to listen, does not benefit by the views of other people. It is a pity Ministers do not turn up at meetings privately to listen —meetings where matters of public interest are being discussed. I recall speaking at a meeting in Limerick and the present Minister for Health attended privately to listen. I am sorry to keep coming back to him but he is the only example I can recall of a Minister sitting in the back and listening. He may have learned something from the discussion after my few remarks. It is a pity that other Ministers are not more inclined to listen instead of all the time speaking, useful though that exercise is to us. I would be the last to denigrate the importance of Ministers' speaking because a lot of good has been done by the drip, drip, drip—meaning no disrespect—of Ministers speaking on national productivity. At great cost to themselves, Ministers made great efforts on that subject though they may have been indiscriminate at times.

As I have said, it is a pity Ministers do not turn up to functions to listen and not to be asked to speak. They would learn a lot. Because they move around in these State cars, completely inappropriate to our simple way of living, they do not even have the advantage of hearing what is said in buses. They are cut off to quite an extraordinary degree from the way of life of ordinary people. This is a great pity. I have heard the view expressed by civil servants that Ministers are out of touch in this way and the State car is attributed as one of the reasons that they are cut off.

It is a pity that Ministers do not seek or get advice from outside the Civil Service, as well as from within it. In other countries Ministers have access to advice from expert groups outside the public service which they may have established personally or which may have been organised by their political Party. I may say it has been the experience of Fine Gael that whenever one seeks the assistance of non-Party people in the formation of policies, unless they are Members of other Parties, one finds they are always willing to help. Ministers would find if they had advice from all groups of people that the advice given would be reasonable. That has been the experience of Fine Gael. I am aware of one particular Minister who has established such a group but this is rather an exception. It is a pity that Ministers do not seek a wider range of advice in this way from people who are experts in various fields.

There is a very considerable volume of expertise in this country outside as well as inside the Civil Service. I know a lot of it is inside the Civil Service. I have the greatest respect for those people whose advice is always so well backed up by facts and figures and which is so reliable, as far as it goes. You can always rely on what they are telling you is correct. However, those people tend to be rather conventional in their approach and rather adverse to new ideas. It is only if Ministers draw on other sources of expertise, particularly university people, that they will govern in an enlightened and progressive manner. They should certainly draw from those outside sources as well as from the Civil Service.

Finally, there is another problem of Government, which has been mentioned previously, and that is co-ordination of policies. I know the Taoiseach has replied on this before and said that co-ordination of policies is a matter for the Taoiseach and the Government. You cannot run any body, much less a country, by saying that the only co-ordination is at the top. I liken the Government to a chairman and board of directors without any chief executive or any board of managers. If there is any disagreement between the Departments they must go to the top for a decision. This does not work satisfactorily. Of course, if one goes to the top one gets a decision but then the top is inclined to get clogged with decisions. Many decisions simply are not taken because when there is a clash both sides prefer to let the matter drop rather than raise it at Cabinet level. This absence of co-ordination within the public sphere is the cause of serious deficiencies. This matter was referred to in the NIEC report which suggested the need for strengthening the power of the Department of Finance.

This is very necessary as regards the Second Programme. First of all, Departments do not have a clue as to what it is about. I know most people who have any contact with economic programmes are convinced of this. The absence of an understanding of what is an economic programme is the cause of our lack of progress. It is certainly desirable that, as the NIEC recommended, and as has been announced since, the power of the Department of Finance to co-ordinate policy should be strengthened particularly. They must in all their actions be governed and guided and they must, when reporting progress, specifically say what they wish to do in this respect. There are many Departments carrying on policies regardless of the fact that they are contrary to the basic philosophies of the Second Programme. They are not aware of this. They are just carrying on a policy of inefficiency. State bodies are particularly bad in this respect despite the fact that it has been hammered home in announcements that we must strengthen our economy and that if anybody is carrying on inefficiently we will go by the board.

Government Departments, instead of pressing this policy, are busy protecting those boards from criticism all the time. They do not seem to understand the idea of a low cost efficient type of operation. This arises from a lack of co-ordination. I do not blame the Taoiseach for this. His co-ordinating of the Government is as effective as such co-ordination can be at that level. Absence of any co-ordination lower down is the cause of serious inefficiency.

I should like to endorse what has already been said—that greater use should be made of committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas. I know the view has been expressed that it would be undesirable to have Members in Opposition in direct contact with civil servants and people in State bodies. This argument is very unconvincing. I cannot see what harm this could do. There would be great advantage in having an effective control of the policies of those bodies. It would bring Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas actively into the public service supervising those bodies. It would raise the standard of debate and information in the Houses of the Oireachtas.

Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas would be capable of playing a most useful role if they were allowed to keep an eye on the organisation of the Civil Service and State bodies. They would need some expert assistance and advice in this matter. That is normal in other countries. I believe they could do this job very efficiently with the expert advice they would get. The standard of relations in State bodies is not always high and it tends to deal with matters which would not concern the Houses of the Oireachtas but the standard of debate in the Houses of the Oireachtas could be raised if committees were formed of both Houses to deal with those public bodies. At the present time the policy issues of those bodies never appear.

I do not think that any State body in its annual report has ever referred to issued policies. They are certainly never referred to in their annual reports. They get away with that because there is no occasion for Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas to question them on policies. Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas have no opportunity to question them on policies. All they can be questioned on is if a bus stop is changed or some such matter.

A committee system would give all the information which we should have about those public bodies. This would act as a check on those bodies and it would raise the standard of debate in the Houses of the Oireachtas. I press on the Taoiseach to look into this matter and not put it on the long finger. As far as I know in 1947 there was some talk about something like this. There have been questions about this under successive Taoisigh since then. It has always been said that the matter is under active consideration. It started in 1947 and went on from Government to Government and it is still going on today. I think 19 years is enough to decide a matter of this kind and I ask the Taoiseach to stop procrastinating and to help the Houses of the Oireachtas more effectively and help the public system to be more advanced.

Mr. G. Boland

It is easy to see that Senator FitzGerald was never a Member of the Dáil. If he had been a Member of the Dáil he would know very well that there is not a single aspect of people's daily lives that a Deputy of any Party is not familiar with. He is just a theorist. He is a very good lecturer all right but to say we are not in touch with the people and how any Senator of any Party could say such a thing is beyond me. I was a Deputy for years and I would certainly say there was no aspect of people's lives with which I was not familiar. I actually made a marriage arrangement. Every Deputy knows this and that is the difference between a practical Deputy and a theorist.

I do not speak here very often. I was a Minister for a number of years and to say that we are out of touch is beyond me. How could we be out of touch? If you represent a country constituency you know all about agriculture. You must know it. You know all about the people and the land. There is scarcely anything you do not know about. If you are a city man you know all about the city problems.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

There may be some slight misunderstanding. I suggested that Ministers were out of touch, not Deputies.

Mr. G. Boland

I cannot understand how any Senator can say that we are out of touch or how a Minister, who has to be a Member of the Dáil, is out of touch. I could understand the Senator if he had been involved in public affairs. A man who has been a Member of the Dáil could not avoid knowing every problem of the people he represents. Let the Senator put that in his pipe and smoke it.

Mr. Brosnahan

In view of the large programme of work before the House, and also I know the Taoiseach is busy trying to wind up affairs in the Dáil, I shall confine myself to what I consider an important aspect of the work of a Department of Labour. I think it might satisfy Senator Boland's suggestion, that practical suggestions might be made. I refer to the provision of adequate advice and guidance for school leavers. Here we have a key aspect of the provision of efficient, satisfied personnel to help the economy. I do not speak from theory. I speak from practical experience of teaching school leavers in the 12 to 14 age groups over a long number of years. It is my firm belief that entry into employment in this country has been entirely fortuitous and haphazard in the past. It depended upon chance. There was a drift into employment in which children had little interest and out of which they moved quickly and ultimately emigrated. I believe there has been a considerable acceleration of emigration because of lack of guidance for children entering employment.

In the Ministry of Labour in Great Britain, and in Northern Ireland also, there is provision for parents of school leavers and there are pamphlets with details of every type of occupation within the State. The educational qualifications are set out, the duration of training and apprenticeship are set down, the rates of remuneration, the prospects, and so on. In addition to that, there is available also a system of aptitude testing so that a child has a reasonably good chance of moving into an area of employment suitable to his aptitude and ability. He is not directed in a doctrinaire manner into, shall I say, sheet metal work, or a girl is not told she will be a good stenographer, and so on, but there is an indication of a range of employment suited to various ranges of ability and, by and large, a parent can form a good forecast of how the child will develop in that employment. At the moment here jobs are often got by pure chance. The father knows somebody and he asks this somebody if he has a vacancy and the good friend gives the vacancy to the child. The child has not been tested as to his ability for this occupation or this post or as to his interest in this post.

I consider that this has been one of the root problems leading to dissatisfaction in employment. Many people are in places of employment in which they are not at all satisfied, in which they are not satisfied as individuals, and out of which they are trying to move at the earliest possible moment. This has led to an atmosphere of instability in the field of labour and to dissatisfaction and a great amount of emigration.

I would appeal to the Taoiseach to use his good offices to ensure that the Department of Labour will provide adequate advice to a school leaver and his parents about the various forms of occupation or employment available within the State. Here also there might be, as Senator FitzGerald has suggested, co-operation between the Department of Education and the Department of Labour because there must be an axis of close liaison between these two Departments. The Department of Education ensure that people who pass under their aegis are adequately trained and ready for employment. The Minister for Labour should take an interest in and see what is available and how that material which is available is best directed and put into areas of employment in which the material will be most satisfied and will best help the economy. I would appeal to the Taoiseach to have a close look at this aspect of the new Ministry. I wish the new Department all the very best and I certainly, personally here as a Senator, welcome the establishment of this new Ministry.

Professor Stanford

We have had a very full and instructive debate on this Bill, and especially I congratulate Senator Garret FitzGerald and Senator Quinlan on their contributions. I think what Senator Quinlan said about the need for the Ministers to have time to think creatively and to have leisure to think creatively is of profound importance.

I had hoped to be able to congratulate Senator Garret FitzGerald on a particular point. When he said "finally" I thought he had come to the end of his contribution. It reminded me of the story about one of the differences between a curate and a bishop: when a curate says "in conclusion" he generally concludes, but when a bishops says "lastly" he often lasts. In fact, Senator Garret FitzGerald said "finally" three times.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

I do not hold the record.

Professor Stanford

Economically I was further instructed, but stylistically I was pained.

I turn now to more serious matters. This Bill is designed to meet our present economic conditions. These I shall not call heart-breaking but I shall call them heart-rending for every public spirited citizen of our country. Ten years or so ago by a minor economic miracle a gloomy and melancholy period of economic recession was changed into one of comparative prosperity. Now, once more we are faced with the risk of a decline. How is that? Mainly, I think, and I speak broadly, because of the failure of morale amongst employees and employers, and specifically, I think, because the employees felt, rightly or wrongly, that they have not had a full and fair share of the national prosperity. I do not propose to develop that theme but in my opinion those are the roots of the matter. This condition of our country at the moment must be particularly disappointing to the Taoiseach who has honoured us by his presence on this debate. It must be especially disappointing to him because it must be clear to every unbiased Irish man and woman that he has concentrated all his energies and abilities on the economic prosperity of our country, a prosperity based on efficiency, on the total enlistment of our national abilities, regardless of ancient historic prejudices. He and his Ministers have looked coolly and calmly at all the major sources of revenue and development in this country. They have asked one question "Are these sources genuinely efficient, productive and progressive" and, when they have decided that such sources of revenue and development are efficient, productive and progressive, they have shown their willingness to encourage and help them.

Amongst those sources of revenue and especially development, I count our universities and I believe the Government have decided that all our Irish universities, including the one to which I have the honour of belonging, are genuinely making an effort towards the national prosperity and efficiency. Certainly in Trinity College, our concern is to justify that confidence.

To turn to this new Minister for Labour, whose appointment I think we all, without exception, in this House welcome. How far will he succeed? How far can he succeed? Clearly, only time will tell. But may I, with the utmost brevity—because we are all conscious of not wanting to detain the Taoiseach more than we can possibly avoid—express two personal convictions? As a layman in these matters—I am not a skilled economist, but I talk to people and I speculate about the national condition —this is, perhaps naively, what I personally believe. First, I am sure we will never have industrial stability in this country until the lower income workers—and I use that phrase deliberately as I try to avoid the terms "workers" and "employers" because in fact we know that most employers work a great deal harder than most "workers" if we really face realities; and when the worker realises the fact that his employer is perhaps working a 12 hour day while he himself works an eight hour day, we will get nearer to economic success; until, I say, the lower income workers have a definite share in the profits and the losses of every profit-making concern. I emphasise in the losses as well in the profits. I know it will be extraordinarily difficult to evolve a system by which this can be done, but humanly and psychologically, it is the only way we will get the best and most loyal service out of the "workers".

My second conviction is on the other side of the picture; that is until the inequities and the iniquities of the closed shop and the restrictive trade practice are checked, we will not have industrial wellbeing in this country. It is utterly deplorable, it is utterly demoralising, for an honest, hardworking worker that his intelligence and his industry should be prevented from developing to the full under the pre-text—and it is only a pretext—that if he works specially hard or specially well his fellow worker will suffer, he will put someone out of employment, he is harming the solidarity of the worker. This really is insidious hypocrisy if one looks into it and I believe it must be faced very firmly by the coming Minister for Labour.

I am well aware that to propose these suggestions will sound naive stated just like this. I am well aware that one could spend another three hours developing their complexities and subtleties. I do not propose to do so at this stage in the debate but, broadly speaking, I do believe that the success of this new Minister will mainly depend upon his ability to establish those two principles; first, that workers and employers alike should share in the annual profits and, secondly, that the more intelligent and industrious worker should be free to use his powers to the full.

That is all I shall say, except this —it is clear from the debate that the whole House supports the Taoiseach and the Government in this effort to restore our earlier prosperity. I emphatically join in that support. Some of us have expressed strong reservations but, in principle, he has our total support and I am glad to join in it. I personally have full confidence that the present Government will succeed, if any Government can succeed, in these efforts.

The Taoiseach

Senator O'Quigley, who opened the debate upon the Second Reading of this Bill, said that Fine Gael Senators had proposed the establishment of a Minister for Labour in a debate here in March last. I was not aware of this but the idea of having here in this country a Ministry of Labour has been gestating for some time. I should like to say, however, that if the employer-labour conference had produced the results hoped for, or even if the negotiations for a new national agreement this year had given us a real prospect of industrial peace for a time, I think it is likely we would have avoided making this change for the present, leaving the Minister for Industry and Commerce to deal with Government policy in this area. The decision to set up a new Department of Labour came with the recognition that the situation was deteriorating instead of improving and that Government intervention and leadership were necessary if a better situation was to be brought about. I should say, apropos some remarks of Senator FitzGerald that the decision appeared to be in conflict with views previously expressed by me, that the Government were, as usual, more concerned to be right than consistent.

By and large, Senator O'Quigley's speech was not directly related to the Bill, nor, indeed, were some others delivered during the debate. There will be proposals for legislation for the amendment of the Industrial Relations Act and the Trade Union Acts, I hope, before the Seanad in the autumn. Senators can, in the meantime, develop their ideas about some of the matters mentioned—the Civil Service arbitration arrangements, the labour relations of our State boards, the composition and operation of the Labour Court, all of which will be relevant to these measures. I do not intend to comment upon these matters generally at this time. The Minister for Labour will be preparing this new legislation and will, no doubt, consider the suggestions and ideas which were expressed by Senators.

Senator Murphy, who followed Senator O'Quigley, made some critical comments on the attitudes of some employers and some trade union leaders and on the situation generally, recognising, however, that he was oversimplifying the position to some degree even if only for purposes of emphasis or clarity. In this area of industrial relations, as we all appreciate, conservatism is very deeply entrenched on one side as much as the other, old attitudes change slowly and old prejudices die hard. I hope that the new Minister for Labour will be able to get new ideas circulating and to promote a general interest in the working out of a better system and in an atmosphere of co-operation.

One innovation which I would agree would be desirable was suggested by Senator Murphy. That would be the establishment or development in each of our important public undertakings of some institution, either internal to that undertaking or under the auspices of the Labour Court, whose judgment would be accepted as fair and as final not only by the management but also by the trade unions. Senator Murphy referred to the fact that institutions of this kind existed at one time in CIE but were brought to an end. I think it is true to say that the undermining of the authority and the status of those CIE institutions began when it seemed that they were regarded as final and binding only on the management. Indeed, in the history of trade unionism in Ireland there are many instances of shortsighted disruption because of some temporary situation of arrangements of that kind which were designed for and, indeed, were capable of being used for the real advantage of trade union members.

A number of Senators, including Senator Murphy, inquired as to the intentions of the Government regarding the staffing of the new Department of Labour. The staff will, of course, be based upon experienced civil servants, particularly those who have had previous experience in respect of labour matters, but I think it will be necessary to attract, and I hope we will succeed in attracting, into the service of the Department some people from outside the Civil Service with specialist qualifications.

Senator O'Kennedy in the course of an excellent speech referred to Swedish practice and traditions in this matter. The history of the Swedish trade union movement is different to ours, and their practice in industrial relations is based essentially upon the idea of the negotiated contract legally enforceable. It is notable, however, that the legislation which operates in Sweden which provides for the legal enforcement of contracts entered into by the trade unions on these trade unions and their members was negotiated originally by a Conservative Government and was bitterly opposed at the time by the Socialist Party in Opposition, but it has been maintained unchanged by a succession of Socialist Governments in that country for 35 years. I am not going to draw the lesson we might learn here from that Swedish experience, but I think that our Irish trade union leaders would be well advised to study carefully the Swedish experience in this regard.

Senator Quinlan argued that this new Department, if I understood him rightly, should have no function of research, which is work for the universities. I think that there is involved here a question of interpretation of the word "research". In mathematics no doubt it is possible to pursue research to final and absolute truth. In industrial relations there is no such a thing as absolute truth and certainly nothing like finality. Basic research in industrial psychology is no doubt helpful, but the Department of Labour will be concerned with the more pragmatic topic of research in the direction of the right development of ideas that will work in Ireland, and if they do not work, will find out why they did not and what can be done to replace and improve them.

I should not like to attempt to follow all the points raised by Senator Quinlan in his speech nor, indeed, those in the speech of Senator FitzGerald who followed, but there are one or two points on which it would be no harm to comment. Senator Quinlan was arguing that in respect of State boards the trade unions representing their staffs should have the power of direct nomination of members of the board. The Government have established the practice of nominating as directors of State boards men who got their experience in the trade union movement but certainly not as direct representatives of the workers employed by the board of which they are members. May I say that those trade union members of our boards are very useful members indeed, and this I think is a preferable system. It permits of a board of balanced qualities, capable of working harmoniously in the interest of the whole undertaking instead of transferring disputes relating to staff matters from the office of the personnel manager to the board. I think that Senator Quinlan was tending to overlook the fact that these State boards exist primarily to serve the interests of the public and not the exclusive interests of their staffs.

Senator FitzGerald asked why have industrial relations in State boards proved to be so difficult. It is only recently that they have proved to be difficult, excluding the one case of CIE where special problems always existed. I do not think that those difficulties that have arisen in respect of industrial relations in State boards are due to any personal defects in top managements. On the contrary, we have always been concerned wherever it lay within our power that there would be available to top management of those undertakings men with the special personal qualities and the experience which would enable them to manage their industrial relations well. Neither can it be due in any sense to the traditional conflict which is deemed to exist between the interests of workers and private profit, because those State boards are not concerned with private profit, nor is it due to the failure of State boards to pay wages and salaries which are as good as those paid by private firms. Indeed they have in many cases caused problems for private firms by elevating their standard of remuneration, and certainly in the case of the ESB they have in respect of many categories of their staff been paying higher wages than are paid to corresponding grades employed in the electricity undertaking of Great Britain.

The explanation, therefore, for the existence of industrial relations problems in those State boards must be due to something in the nature of the boards or the work that they undertake. Probably there is a feeling that political pressures can be organised in support of wage claims that would not apply in the case of private firms, and this may have something to do with it. Workers seem to resent the application by State boards to their claims for higher wages or better conditions of the same commercial considerations that they would expect to be put forward in the case of private firms. State companies are, of course, providing in many cases essentially public service on a monopoly basis and are, therefore, particularly vulnerable to trade union pressure. This is also a factor in relation to the general situation. Indeed, in the case of CIE it brought the Government at one point of time up against the need to consider the desirability in the public interest of dismantling or reducing the monopoly it exercised. Whatever our thoughts on the situation or whatever the remedies for it may be there is a situation in respect of those State organisations to which the Government and the trade unions must give very careful thought to find means that will ensure harmonious relations with their staffs and at the same time will prevent the development of those companies from being frustrated.

A question was raised by some Senator regarding the Agricultural Wages Board and the decision of the Government that for the time being at least the responsibility for the administration of the Act and of the Agricultural Wages Board should remain with the Minister for Agriculture. The problem of maintaining an adequate labour force in agriculture and the question of the ability of farmers to pay wages that will attract workers back into agriculture in sufficicent numbers are part and parcel of agricultural policy, and raise issues very different from those that are encountered in the industrial sector. That is the reason for the decision that for the time being at least the responsibility for the Agricultural Wages Board should remain with the Minister for Agriculture.

Senator FitzGerald expressed some very interesting views on the organisation of Government on which I do not feel called upon to comment. His dedication to his Party line, right or wrong, pays better tribute to his loyalty than to his understanding of the problems involved. It may be that Ministers are out of touch with public opinion. One or other of us is, and whether it is the Government is a matter for argument.

Senator FitzGerald also expressed some extraordinary views on the relations of Ministers to their civil servants. I can understand his Party having an interest in suggesting that civil servants are the real rulers of the country. That would give the public some assurance that a change of Government would not change anything else, and that they could even tolerate a bad Government for a while without undue risk. It is only natural that an Opposition Party which have been unable to command sufficient public support to look like a creditable alternative Government have always to fall back upon the final and most futile argument that the Government which have been doing the work of the country need a rest, and that it would be good for the country to give them a short period out of office in which to revive and recuperate.

I want to point out that the present Government are essentially a new Government, the members of which are bringing to their work personal qualifications, fresh minds, industry, experience and, indeed, professional training at least as good as those of any of the other Governments in which I served, or, indeed, the country is ever likely to have. It is, of course, the duty of the Taoiseach to keep the Government fresh by replacing members if required, or changing their responsibilities. I for one believe even in the principle of change for the sake of change. This is a far better way of dealing with the problems that can arise than to put in and put up with a bad Government for a time, while the permanent Government are recuperating.

May I say in reply to suggestions of Senator FitzGerald and Senator Quinlan that I would be completely opposed to the conception of Government by committees? I think that would be the worst possible system of Government. If Fine Gael ever become the Government, they can try it. So far as we are concerned we will not. I believe this would prove to be completely catastrophic. It would destroy initiative and make the effective application of policy impossible. It would serve no useful purpose whatever. Nor do I regard it as a primary function of the Government to raise the debating standard of the Opposition Parties.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

Did it have a catastrophic effect in the United Kingdom where these committees have been in operation for years?

The Taoiseach

Some views have been expressed there as to the efficacy of those State bodies. However, we are concerned with our own problems here. Senator Brosnahan referred to the need for a system of vocational guidance for school goers and school leavers. The Senator is no doubt aware that the Minister for Education has announced plans in that regard, and I also dealt with it briefly in a statement on Government aims which I made some weeks ago.

Mr. Brosnahan

I was more concerned with the provision by the Ministry of Labour of advice and information for school leavers than vocational guidance proper.

The Taoiseach

I certainly think it is more appropriate that this information should be conveyed to school leavers through the Department of Education, but, of course, it is necessary that the Minister should get information from other Departments regarding employment prospects, the skills that would be required, the remuneration that might be expected, and the information that young people would need to have in making up their minds regarding the careers they were going to follow.

I want to make just one remark in regard to the speech made by Senator Stanford. He referred to the country facing the risk of decline. It is undoubtedly true that at this time we have problems of industrial and social relations of a rather special kind. We always will have some problems of that character. Nothing has happened yet which represents more than a period of temporary difficulty from which we can expect eventually to emerge, perhaps wiser for the experience——

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

I hope so.

The Taoiseach

——but certainly without permanent damage to our national development prospects. This is not the occasion on which to give the data by which the national progress can be measured, but although we have fallen back slightly within the past couple of years—at least the rate of progress has declined in these few years —it is still going on, and still going on at a far more significant rate—and it is likely to continue to go on—than existed before the Second Programme for Economic Expansion came into operation.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining Stages today.

Bill put through Committee.

Section 1 agreed to.

SECTION 2.

Question proposed: "That section 2 stand part of the Bill".

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

This section contains a rather peculiar phraseology which originated in the Constitution. It gives the Title of the Bill in Irish and then says in English that it is something else. I have never understood the reason for this. Surely the correct procedure would be to say when we are writing this Bill in English—and all our Bills are written in English first— that a Department of State to be styled and known as the Department of Labour shall stand established, and then in the Irish version to refer to An Roinn Saothair. The Constitution says "Éire is ainm don Stát". That has caused a great deal of trouble abroad because we still have not succeeded in convincing people that the name of this country is not Éire. They still use the word "Éire" as an abnoxious form of address. They use it as a form of address to get at us in some way. I can never understand why the Constitution does not say in English: "The name of the State is Ireland", and in Irish: "Éire is ainm don Stát". I think the Taoiseach himself has complained at times about this. We are referred to as "Éire" or the Irish Republic instead of the name of the State. It is our own fault. I suggest that we change this section so that it refers to the Department of Labour in English, and to An Roinn Saothair in our first national language.

The Taoiseach

I am not going to get into an argument about the Constitution. This Department will be An Roinn Saothair. That will be its name and it will have only one name.

Mr. Sheldon

Is it not rather foolish to put words "in English" in brackets?

The Taoiseach

Aer Lingus is the name of our international airline. People talk about Irish International Airlines but Aer Lingus is its name.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

I shall not embarrass the Taoiseach by asking him what is the name of the State.

Question put and agreed to.

Section 3 agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.