This raises the question of dealing with Orders, which I think the Committee should consider and understand.
SECTION 7.
(1) The Minister may, with the sanction of the Minister for Finance from time to time by Order regulate and appoint the rates of pay and allowances (including conditions applicable thereto) to be paid to the several ranks and to the several grades of each rank of the officers and men of the Gárda Síochána.
(2) Every Order made under this Section shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is made, and if a resolution is passed by Dáil Eireann within the next subsequent twenty-one days on which Dáil Eireann has sat annulling such Order, such Order shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under such Order, and any recommendation in respect of such Order which shall be made by Seanad Eireann within such twenty-one days shall be duly considered by Dáil Eireann.
A Resolution of the Dáil annuls it without its going any further, and the Seanad can only recommend.
Yes, that is as it stands.
It means applying the same procedure as regards a Money Bill to a regulation arising out of a Bill that is not a Money Bill.
It is dealing with money. I suppose that is why you put it in.
It is dealing with the pay and allowances of the men.
The position, if I understand it aright, is something like this : an ordinary Bill which deals solely with appropriation of money cannot be amended by the Seanad. It may be considered by them, and they may make recommendations to the Dáil. But if the Bill includes anything other than the appropriation of money it can be amended by the Seanad. Such amendments must be considered by the Dáil, and if necessary the Bill can be delayed or held up for the full nine months by the Seanad under the Constitution. Now, apparently, an effort is being made in this Bill to apply a somewhat similar procedure to a Resolution which deals with rates of pay.
An Order.
An Order, rather, an Order of the Executive Council made under this Bill, and I think we ought to be clear that in doing so it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Constitution. The Constitution does not deal with this, and it is entirely a matter of this Bill, and I think it should be taken on its merits. We are considering this as a Bill, and an Order in Council will not be a Bill. Personally I have thought over this thing, and I would be inclined to agree to it if it did not include the words " including conditions applicable thereto." But it seems to me that an Order in Council is virtually legislation by the Executive Council with the consent of the two Houses, and I think the Seanad ought to be very careful before it agrees to a limitation of its powers in the matter of an Order of this kind in the way it is laid before us here. If it is only a money matter, if it is only a matter of pay, then for my part I would be perfectly willing to agree that only the Dáil should deal with it, and that only a Resolution of the Dáil should be sufficient to annul it. I do not think in that case we should come into it at all. But if we do come into it, I think we ought to consider carefully before we reduce our customary powers in the matter of Orders in Council.
Is it an Order in Council ?
It is the equivalent.
It is not an Order of the Executive Council.
It is not. It is an Order of the Minister.
It is the only sort of Order that is issued, is it not ? We have not anything exactly equivalent, except an Order in Council ?
Oh, yes ; there are quite a number of Orders of the Executive Council. I should think the majority of Orders that come before us are Orders of the Executive Council. For instance, in the Adaptation of Enactments Act they are all, I think, Orders of the Executive Council.
What exactly is implied by " including conditions applicable thereto ? "
Hours of duty, and a number of other things like that. Uniform, I suppose, and leave—holidays.
Certain allowances —take lodging allowance, for instance, which differs in city areas from rural areas. Those orders go into some detail in regard to that. Similarly allowance for bicycles and allowances for boots differ for different ranks. There is some difference in the lodging allowance on the basis of population of the town in which the man is stationed.
Would one of the conditions be in connection with a pension, that the person receiving it should live in this country ? Is it contemplated that one of the conditions of the pension would be the domicile of the person in the country he gets the pension from ?
It is something we would be prepared to consider, attaching such a condition.
That would come under Section 8.
We will have a similar thing to deal with under Section 8, and the principle is the same.
Why should the Dáil or the Seanad have anything to do with this in particular ?
It might so happen that the man's family would be domiciled in America, and he would go to America to settle down there. It would be rather a hardship, I think.
It is a thing that needs consideration, these vast numbers of pensioners leaving the country.
Could the Minister tell us what was the position under the previous Act, the temporary Act ; also under the Constabulary Act ; whether the British Minister for Finance, or the Chief Secretary, with the assistance or approval of the British Minister for Finance, did not actually fix the rate of pay himself without any reference to Parliament ? It would be rather an interesting point to know exactly.
I cannot tell you.
You see, a later Section provides for the formation of a kind of —I will not call it a trade union—representative body inside the Force which can deal with questions of pay. I am not sure whether this would not be better out of it altogether.
Sub-section (2) of Section 7 and Sub-section (2) of Section 8 left over for production of the Gárda Síochána (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1923.
Section 9 put and agreed to.