I move amendment No. 1:
In page 2, between lines 25 and 26 to insert the following new section:
(1) The Minister shall keep a register in two parts containing particulars of licences to be registered in Part A of the Register and in Part B of the Register. The Minister shall not enter particulars of any firm or company to be licensed for registration in Part A which he is not satisfied complies or continues to comply with the requirements of subsections (3) and (4).
(2) The Minister may, without the applicant being obliged to publish notice of his intention so to do, under section 3 hereof issue a licence in a form prescribed by the Minister and subject to such conditions as the Minister may specify in pursuance to the form prescribed by the Minister and accompanied by the prescribed fee. Any such licensee licensed under this section shall be registered in Part A of the Register.
(3) Part A shall contain particulars of any firm or company of industrial or management consultants or any firm of accountants which:—
(i) merely incidentally to other services which it provides for clients also provides the service of advising them on, or assisting them in, the selection of managerial, professional or senior administrative staff, and
(ii) does not accept any fee or payment from applicants or candidates for employment but is paid exclusively by the client interested in recruiting such managerial, professional or senior executive or administrative staff.
(4) The Minister may prescribe the standards of accommodation in respect of premises for use for the business of an employment agency and the standards of suitability and fitness which he considers requisite in respect of an applicant for a licence for a business to be registered under Part A of this Act.
(5) The Minister shall forthwith remove from Part A of the Register any firm or company which he is satisfied has ceased to comply with the requirements of subsections (1), (2), (3) or (4) of this section.
(6) All other licences to be registered under this Act shall be registered under Part B of this Act.
(7) The provisions of sections 4 and 5 shall apply to licences registered under Part A of the Act mutatis mutandis.
This matter has been referred to in the Seanad on the Second Reading by myself and others and on the Committee Stage by Senators Quinlan and O'Higgins. I should like to refer again to what I said on the Second Reading debate on the weakness of the Bill as drafted. I must say I was very disappointed to find that an asterisk did not appear opposite a much better drafted amendment than the one I have put down which would deal with this point. The Government, the Minister and his advisers did not see fit to recognise the amendment I put down which was designed to provide for the very real problems which arise with regard to the Bill as drafted and which the Minister defended in his Committee Stage speech when dealing with an amendment moved by Senator O'Higgins and supported by Senator Quinlan. The Minister then said he could not take the particular amendment proposed on Committee Stage—perhaps I should read that amendment now— because it would provide loopholes whereby this legislation could be overcome. The amendment moved by Senator O'Higgins was to add to subsection (1) a new paragraph the necessity for which had been developed in the course of the Second Reading debate. Perhaps I should remind the House that the arguments I subscribed to and expressed then were agreed to by Members on both sides of the House. In relation to a matter of this kind I think the idea of "sides" to the House is almost irrelevant. We are all concerned to get good legislation dealing with a problem. There are perhaps some ugly fish to be caught but we are anxious that we should have legislation that would not catch in the net fish that are valuable to the community.
Senator O'Higgins moved the following amendment to section 6:
To add to subsection (1)
which deals with the non-applicability of the Act, that it should not deal with——
the following new paragraph:
Any firm or company of industrial or management consultants or any firm of accountants which:—
(i) merely incidentally to other services which it provides for clients also provides the service of advising them on, or assisting them in, the selection of managerial, professional or senior executive or senior administrative staff, and
(ii) does not accept any fee or payment from applicants or candidates for employment but is paid exclusively by the client interested in recruiting such managerial, professional or senior executive or administrative staff.
We were having a debate in which everyone's mind was being alerted to the subject under discussion. It is no use assuming that since I spoke on the Second Stage on the 3rd March everyone has been brooding on my words. I had better repeat what I said with regard to the problem caused by this Bill, recognising as I did the problem which led to the introduction of this Bill. The reference is Volume 69, No. 11, column 1026 of the Official Report for 3rd March, 1971:
There are a number of very distinguished, very expert and professional firms engaged here in consultancy business. In addition to those who are industrial or management consultants, there are a number of the larger firms of accountants who give great service to their country and great service to their clients —and through giving good service to their clients give good service to the economy—who have management selection divisions and all of whom will now require to look for exemption, or if not, be subject to the provisions with regard to inspection contained in this Bill.
The most important thing I want to say about this Bill is this. It cannot come as a surprise for me to present the proposition to this House that Dublin is not London.
Then I went on and spoke about the importance of the information being given to people engaged in this business being kept confidential and of people who have to deal with these firms knowing that it will be, so far as it is humanly possible, kept confidential. The Bill, as proposed, gives the right to inspect files with regard to the people. It is all very well to say that of course everything will be kept confidential, that everybody who is in public office here, whatever that office may be, is a thoroughly reliable person. This is absolute nonsense and it is totally unacceptable to me that legislation should be framed on that basis.
In any debate I do not like to refer to declining standards without having all the information regarding the matter. That decline does not end in the Government or in a Government that has ceased to be and has been replaced by another. Example is given and example is taken. I am sorry if I find it necessary to say that rights ought not to be given by legislation to anybody to get confidential information that it is not absolutely necessary in the State's interest should be available. It is quite clear that for the security of the State nobody has any right, including Members of this House, to the preservation of confidence with regard to their activities. I regard the security of the State as prime and as predominating over every right which I have. I would assume that its administration is guided by a proper regard for the necessary principles which should govern a well-ordered society.
But we are not talking about the security of the State now. We are talking about the Legislature, who are taking power to discover things about other people which may cause grave embarrassment if discovered. We are in the position that we have to rely upon the confidentiality of the people who discover this information, and there is to be no protection against the use made of this confidential information.
First of all, this is a long extension of a principle, that has been increasingly applied by the advisers to the Ministers, of taking the easy way out. It is much too easy for them to say "Get the right to get all the information, then we will have no trouble". This is a great departure from the principles of European civilisation, a most dangerous departure. If this Government were replaced by another— may I say much worse than it, as it could be and I am serious in saying this—then this confidential information could be used as we of my generation will remember that certain rights under the exchange control codes of Germany were used to blackguard the religious orders in Germany under the Nazi rule. Little technical rights which they found they had on the statutes were applied to disgrace and dishonour and reduce the reputation of the Church to which I belong in Germany at that time. It is very dangerous to enact legislation which gives unnecessary powers and civil servants should be rebuked when they advise their Minister to do this.
We are dealing here with the problem of the distribution of skill. In relation to this, and I am repeating what I said in other words on Second Reading in relation to top management in this country, it is very important that the right people should be facilitated in getting into the right jobs. Whether any Members of this House have a predisposition to socialism or a fondness for the practices of capitalism, both sides to this question—as I would have hoped, both sides of this House —agree that it is the organisation of human labour and human skill that is going to determine the progress of this country and this organisation is going to depend upon getting the right people into the jobs of managing those who are at work. The socialists have one approach; the revolutionary socialists have a similar approach. On this matter I do not think there is a division. The decisions are taken on top. Under the system which we still practise and which at least we should think about before we abolish it, the market economy decides that the skills are to be discovered by the rewards to be offered and through the free operation of agencies of the kind that are going to be brought under control by this Bill.
The Minister is not a very giving Minister from what I have seen in relation to amendments proposed to this Bill, though he is giving enough in relation to other pressure which will come up for discussion later today here and in which I hope not to be participating. It is important that the right people be put into the right jobs and the right people will be less likely to be put into the right jobs if the controls proposed to be imposed by this Bill are, in fact, imposed. It will mean that people will not put their present employment at risk because they will not offer themselves through agencies from which information can be obtained and can be made available to their present employers.
People are shrewd enough. I know perfectly well that the employee who is found by his employer to be looking for other employment is, in most cases, the last employee to be advanced in his firm, unless the position is that his application brings to the notice of the employer that he is damn fortunate to have him, and that he must be advanced quickly or else he will lose him. However, this is very unlikely.
As I understand the operation of these bodies—and I do not like using this kind of language normally, but if I have to use it I will—I thought that the Minister was not very considerate in his approach. He tried to deal with this matter as if it were a class matter, as if there was to be one rule for the bosses, one rule for the managers and another rule for the other people. This is grossly to misunderstand it and I do not think that the Minister misunderstands the position. On Committee Stage—unfortunately I was not able to be present, but I read the debate— when he talked about class distinction, it was being singularly unfair to the proposers of the amendment. He said: "There will be class distinction in the ugliest interpretation of the phrase". Let us look at it: it is reported at volume 69, No. 15, column 1411:
There will be class distinction, in the ugliest interpretation of that phrase, if we say: "Top management, you are exempted from being licensed under this legislation because you are important people."...
Are they not important people? Is it not important for the economy that the important people—the people with the skills—be got into the positions that in Soviet Russia they would be got into and under the Irish democratic system the Minister is got into? Is he not an important person and has he not got important privileges and does he not enjoy respect?
That does not deal with the amendment which Senator O'Higgins moved. The Minister said he was well aware of many industrial and management agencies which are doing very good work. Frankly, I am forced to regard that as soft soap. He did undertake to have regard to the debate that ensued. He went on to say that he did not agree with Senator Quinlan's statement. The Minister is reported at column 1413 as saying:
I do not agree that they are all that more important than the girls in the typing pool...
This is to say the people who are to be in control of the whole organisation are not all that more important than the girls in the typing pool. I should like to know where would the girls in the typing pool of Rolls Royce be today if the right managers had been managing Rolls Royce? And where would the girls in the typing pools in Moscow be if there did not happen to be, as there are, good managers of the labour that is available. We all give our labour and there is nothing particularly wrong in referring to ourselves under this description.
The Minister made a point of which I took particular note when I made a rough draft of this document. It took me only ten minutes and it does not really please me. I understood that the debate was being taken last week and if I had realised that it would be taken today I would have prepared something better——