Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 May 1938

I would like very briefly to support the motion standing in the names of Deputies Costello and Doyle. I think it is rather remarkable that at this stage of our history, when the Government is deciding for everybody how to manage their business, when the Government is deciding in every occupation, in every business, and in every trade what the relations between employer and employee should be, that the Minister for Finance will refuse what is, apparently, on the face of it, an innocuous motion of this nature. The State is being put into the position that they will never do what they advise other people to do. The Minister for Finance in this case will not do what ought to be done.

If the State is one of the biggest employers in the country—and, indeed, it is the very biggest employer—it should give good example to other employers. We have various reactions to this motion. One of the most amusing reactions was the statement made in this House by one of the Fianna Fáil Deputies, when he said that the proper arbitration board would be a board composed of old age pensioners, small farmers, labourers and people of that kind. I quite realise that that statement was made with one eye on the gallery and another eye on the Press. I quite realise that the Deputy felt that the small farmer, the labourer and the old age pensioner down the country would say to themselves: "We have one champion, anyway, to talk to these fellows in the offices." One can realise what was at the back of that statement of the Fianna Fáil Deputy. He made that statement with his tongue in his cheek. What he meant was that when the Fianna Fáil Deputy failed to secure a pension for the old age pension applicant, or failed to secure a privilege for some one else, the excuse would be "do not blame the Government; do not blame the Fianna Fáil Party; do not blame the local Fianna Fáil T.D.s; put the blame on the officials." And people in the country, when fed on that kind of thing, would believe that civil servants are not entitled to any consideration of the nature envisaged by this motion. But I feel that any fair-minded person will realise that if the Government is to take upon itself the right of deciding the relationship between employer and employee; if it realises that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce is going to act as negotiator, and get itself patted on the back for deciding disputes between the employer and the employee, then the least the present Government might be expected to do is to give a good example to the other employers in the country. The Minister in this House stated that he had a Bill prepared, and as usual he held up in his hands, as he always does, a white paper. In righteous indignation with the civil servants who refused to consider what they had been offered, he flourished that paper before the House. It was obvious that the Government were prepared to give the civil servants one kind of arbitration. That was so long as the machinery was in their own hands, and under the thumb of the Minister. But the Government was not prepared to establish any arbitration machinery that one could feel was fair and equitable for deciding the grievances of civil servants. Without any knowledge of Civil Service conditions beyond what I have learned in this House, I quite fail to see why civil servants should be refused the right which practically every other employee in the country is given. When a dispute takes place anywhere between employers and employees the Government send down their own officials. The officials of the Department of Industry and Commerce sit for hours as arbitrators on a dispute——

I know they do not, but they go down there and use Government machinery to settle these disputes. Now the Government is denying the civil servants what they want to give to every other employee who has a grievance about his conditions of employment. At least, the Government should give to the civil servants some machinery for ventilating their grievances. I do not believe there is any person in the country, whether he be a small farmer, labourer or old age pensioner—even the man whose pension was refused, the man that the Fianna Fáil Deputy would like to put on an arbitration board of this nature—who would seriously refuse the right that civil servants ask under this motion. Though the Minister may quibble about the use of the word "arbitration" he cannot equitably deny the civil servants' right to arbitration—the right asked in this motion for machinery whereby conditions of employment and other matters in dispute between the Government and the civil servants would be settled by agreement between representatives of the Government and representatives of the Civil Service. I support this motion. I do not believe for a moment when the Minister was so indignant about the terms of a Bill which he was offering the Civil Service, that that Bill was anything beyond a bluff calculated to mislead the ordinary person into the belief that the Minister had introduced a Bill setting up arbitration. That Bill was only a clever cloak which sounded like arbitration but which would actually leave everything in the control of the Minister. I believe everybody is satisfied that the civil servants should have some machinery set up for them so as to give them a chance of ventilating their grievances and to secure that their fate will not be left entirely to the control of the Minister. For that reason I ask the House to support this motion.

Mr. Norton rose.

That little trick did not work. On the last occasion on which this motion was discussed we had a speech of two hours' duration from the Minister for Finance. I do not imagine that any speech has yet been delivered in this House which contained more sanctimonious humbug than the speech then delivered by the Minister. He spent a considerable amount of time lecturing the House on the meaning of arbitration. To show the extent of his knowledge on that subject he quoted for us "Redman's Law of Arbitration.""Redman's Law of Arbitration" is being quoted by the Minister against civil servants in 1938. I wonder did the Minister know of the existence of Redman's Law of Compensation when in 1932 he went to the Town Hall in Rathmines and, in the hope of getting Civil Service votes, promised civil servants arbitration. That was a promise he apparently has now no intention of keeping. The Minister told us that the International Labour Office at Geneva had produced a report on the subject of conciliation and arbitration. He quoted long passages from that report, all purporting to show that the general view was one of opposition to what he described as compulsory arbitration. He forgot to draw this difference between the report and conditions here. He forgot to tell us that the International Labour Office's report on arbitration was dealing with the outlook of industrial trade unionism towards compulsory arbitration. Trade unions have rightly rejected compulsory arbitration, because they are free to exercise their natural right to withdraw their labour. Here the Minister for Finance implements the Treason Act which was passed by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. In 1926 he denounced that Act as coercion. But he is implementing the Treason Act to-day. One section of that Act proscribes, or attempts to proscribe, the rights of civil servants to withdraw their labour in the same way as industrial workers can withdraw theirs. The report of the International Labour Office on the attitude of the trade union movement throughout the world to the question of compulsory arbitration has nothing whatever to do with the attempt to establish an arbitration board here. The Minister knows that perfectly well.

Only incurable obtuseness on his part would have induced him to quote a report which was so irrelevant to the subject-matter of our discussion; but I thought the crowning achievement of the Minister on the last occasion was his lengthy quotation from a document issued by the then President Cosgrave to Civil Service staff organisations in 1924. With all the artificial profundity of which he is capable, the Minister held up the document and quoted from it as if it came from the book of truth and revelation. There is one thing that Deputy Cosgrave, when he was in office, apparently did, and that was that he established precedents which the Minister for Finance now slavishly follows. We are told that because Deputy Cosgrave said certain things in 1924 to Civil Service organisations, that was the reason why the present Minister for Finance could not do anything different in 1938. That represents the speed with which the Government are progressing! They are now just where the Cosgrave Government were in 1924.

This whole question of arbitration ought to be taken in a much more serious manner than that so far displayed by the Minister for Finance. It is beyond all doubt that in 1932 the present Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance went to the Town Hall, in Rathmines, and there, in definite, specific language, promised that, if elected to office, they would establish an arbitration board for the Civil Service to deal with matters in dispute between the Service and the Executive. And, as if that promise was not sufficient to civil servants in that election, we had a manifesto issued a few days later, over the signature of the Taoiseach, in which he said: "We are prepared to establish an arbitration board to deal with the grievances of the Civil Service."

In that election a questionnaire was submitted to candidates by the Civil Service organisations, and the questionnaire was in these terms: "Are you prepared, if elected, to press for the setting up of machinery which will provide for the settlement of matters in dispute between the Minister for Finance and the Civil Service by an impartial tribunal, subject to the overriding authority of the Oireachtas?" Among the people who glibly said "yes" to that was Deputy Briscoe.

In any case, he limited himself to a monosyllabic reply. The Minister for Finance, of course, could not do that, because he went on to say not only "Yes", but that the Fianna Fáil Party had already indicated "that it is prepared to investigate the grievances, particularly in the lower ranks of the Civil Service, and to provide, for the purpose of settling disputes, an impartial tribunal". That was the Minister for Finance in 1932, sympathy with everybody, prepared to sign everything.

I hope so, and I hope that you will make a better fist of it than the Minister. What do we find now? Six years after that promise was made the Government which was prepared to establish an impartial arbitration tribunal, and the Minister who said "Yes" to a question as to whether he was prepared to support the establishment of an arbitration tribunal to decide on matters, subject to the overriding authority of the Oireachtas, now comes to the Civil Service and submits to them what he describes as a draft scheme of arbitration. What does the Government's offer to the Civil Service amount to? They are told by the Government that a chairman will be appointed in agreement between the staff side and the Government or, in default of agreement, by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, himself a member of the Government.

We are told in the same scheme that the Minister for Finance is to have a permanent veto over a wide category of cases. We are told in the same scheme that even in those cases over which the Minister does not claim a veto, that nobody can go to arbitration unless the Minister agrees. And as if all these restrictions are not sufficient, the Minister goes on to say that he is going to proscribe the right of the Civil Service organisations to be represented before the arbitration tribunal by representatives of their own choice. And as if that additional safeguard was not sufficient, the Minister again claims the right to be able to reject, if he dislikes the findings in any report made to him by the arbitration tribunal. He wants a big say in the appointment of the chairman, a permanent veto over a large category of cases——

The Minister ought to take his jokes somewhere else and write poems about them. He wants a permanent veto, and you can only get to the tribunal by the permission of the Minister. There is to be restriction of choice by the Minister as to the representatives of the staff who will appear before the board, and, finally, a veto by the Minister over the awards of the board. That is the method of implementing the solemn promise which was made in 1932 in exchange for votes for the present Minister for Finance. In case anybody could even then complain about that procedure, the Minister in his scheme says that the award of the tribunal is not to be published. It is to be treated as a confidential document. That is the remarkable scheme.

Let us analyse for a few moments the type of restrictions the Minister is imposing. In so far as his permanent veto is concerned, he prevents any matter dealing with discipline, conduct, regulations, promotions, superannuation, recruitment, grading, organisation of work, cost of living bonus or its application to basic wages and salaries from ever being dealt with by any arbitration tribunal, and he is indicating that he intends, if necessary, to impose further restrictions. The Minister goes on to add in his draft scheme that this list of matters which can never be arbitrated upon must not be regarded as exhaustive. Other cases may be brought before the board, but you can only bring a case before the arbitration board if the Minister grants permission. Of course, clearly the Minister will not grant permission to bring a case to the arbitration tribunal if he thinks he is likely to lose his case there. There could be no other purpose in the Minister insisting on his right to be consulted and to agree before a case can be brought before the tribunal. The Minister wants to prevent any case going to the tribunal which he thinks he is likely to lose there.

Then we have the other restrictions. The Minister wants to insist that only serving civil servants can appear before the arbitration tribunal. Any civil servant who appears there and says anything about the Minister for Finance or about the system that is being operated by the Minister, or anything about the Department of Finance, will be brought to heel very quickly by the Minister and by the officials of the Department of Finance. I regard that restriction by the Minister as a most contemptible tyranny, and the mind that stands over it, I say, is the mind of a tyrant and a despot.

If you take the position in Great Britain, in America, in Australia, in New Zealand, in South Africa, you will find that in all these countries where there is, at least, as good a brand of democracy as we have here, Civil Service organisations are entitled to be represented in any negotiations with the respective Governments of these countries by representatives of their own choice, and, in fact, every day in the week they do represent the organisations of which they are officials. Yet, here in this country, the Minister for Finance could not see his way, of course, to line up with that kind of democratic thought or outlook. In all the countries where democratic government still survives there has been a frank and open recognition by the Government of these countries of the rights of Civil Service organisations to be represented by persons of their own choice. The Minister for Finance here is probably the one person in a democratic country who can stand up and trample on that principle which is freely recognised throughout the world, except in those portions of the world where democracy is being suppressed and where trade union liberty no longer exists.

Is it any wonder that a scheme, which gives the Minister a permanent veto over a wide category of cases, an omnibus veto over others, a restriction on the right of the staffs to be represented by persons of their own choice, and a final veto over the findings, has been contemptuously rejected by the Civil Service organisations? Nobody with any intelligence or with any self-respect would attempt to negotiate with the Minister on this scheme, which is a thoroughly disreputable scheme from beginning to end, and if it is not the product of the Minister's own mind, it is the product of the minds of people in whose pocket the Minister is. That is the scheme which is now being offered to the civil servants, and it is a very different scheme from what the civil servants were told in 1932.

I think the rules of order apply to the Minister for Finance just as much as to every other Deputy in the House. I do not think there was anything personal in the remark made by Deputy Norton to the Minister for Finance. It was made to him, as in his office, and it is purely a political charge, as far as I understand it.

The words "in the pocket of a person" have a definite connotation. That phrase has a definite colloquial meaning, at any rate, and that is that the person concerned is in receipt of some illegal subvention or another. I have never heard the term applied in any case unless corruption were meant or alleged.

I am afraid, Sir, that I must say again that, whatever meaning the Chair may attach to the words, the ordinary colloquial meaning is that the person referred to is corrupt, and that is what the people outside this House will understand. The charge, of course, is being levelled against me by Deputy Norton in his usual way.

The Chair has no standard to measure it by, except the measure of ordinary conversation. The Chair has no particular brand of examination or particular brand of conversation to measure it by, except that of ordinary conversation. I cannot put on the phrase the construction that the Minister puts on it.

The Minister's objection clearly is that, apparently, I am not entitled to say that the Minister has been converted. At one time he used to be a republican, but the appointment of the king in 1936 suffocated the republicanism, and the activities of the Department of Finance have suffocated the radicalism of the Minister. He cannot help people observing that conversion and that change, and nothing crystallises the change more clearly than the glib promises of the Minister, in 1932, and the complete reluctance of the Minister, in 1938, to honour the promises that he made in 1932, in the hope that by making them he would get more votes in the 1932 Election. Against this spurious scheme of arbitration which the Minister is offering to the Civil Service, the service is asking for a scheme which has some of the well known attributes of arbitration, as popularly and industrially known. In opposition to the offer made by the Minister they have asked that a scheme of arbitration should contain certain essential features which are commonly associated with an arbitration tribunal.

Is their scheme an unreasonable one? Is there any claim made by the Civil Service organisations which is not recognised as an inherent feature of arbitration wherever arbitration is resorted to as a means of settling disputes? The staff's claim is that the chairman of the board should be appointed by agreement between the Government and the staff organisations; that each party should be free to select its representatives on the board and its advocates before the board; that each party should have the right to bring before the board any claim within a previously agreed category, without veto by the other party, the board alone having the power to decide whether a particular claim falls within the agreed category; that the Government should give effect to the award of the board, subject to the overriding authority of Parliament; and in the event of a dispute as to the meaning of an award, the board to determine its own findings. That is the claim which is being made by the staff organisations. Not once in the course of his speech did the Minister, or any member of his Party, attempt to show that that claim was in any way an unreasonable one, or that it embodied any unique feature of arbitration. Wherever arbitration boards function, they function on the basis of principles of that kind, and these are generally recognised to be essential features of a genuine scheme of arbitration. The Minister has been asked, and the Department has been asked, to negotiate with a view to establishing an arbitration board based on principles of that kind.

The Minister is not prepared to negotiate with the Civil Service organisations. Instead, he wants to compel them, by his unreasonable and stubborn attitude in his official position, to accept a scheme of arbitration which has none of the recognised features of arbitration. We had talk from the Minister on a previous occasion about the constitutional difficulties which prevented his accepting a scheme of arbitration which provided for the acceptance of the award of the arbitration tribunal, subject to the overriding authority of the Oireachtas. With all the airs of an eminent lawyer, the Minister told us orally, and in correspondence, that certain constitutional difficulties prevented the acceptance of a scheme which made Parliament master over the awards of the arbitration tribunal, but, as Deputy Costello pointed out in his opening speech, there has not been a single lawyer produced by the Minister to show that there is any constitutional difficulty either within the new Constitution or the old Constitution to prevent the Minister accepting a principle of that kind. Not a single lawyer's opinion has been produced to support the Minister's contention, and the Minister knows perfectly well that he could not get a lawyer, whose opinion was worth anything, to subscribe to that foolish statement which has been made in an attempt to resist the reasonable claim of the Civil Service organisations.

Where is the difficulty? Where is the constitutional difficulty which prevents the Minister accepting a scheme of the kind I have outlined? The normal procedure would be that a case would be referred to the board. It would be argued before the board by the staff representatives on the one side, and by the Minister's representatives on the other side. A decision would be given by an independent chairman in the appointment of whom the Minister would have a considerable voice. The award would go to the Minister. The Minister would consider the award and submit it to the Executive Council. If the award necessitated the introduction of a supplementary estimate or some special type of financial provision to meet it, then the Minister would come before the Dáil with a proposal for expenditure of that kind, but he, all the time, had the safeguard that he was a Minister by virtue of the fact that he held a majority in the House, and if the award was extravagant, a preposterous award, completely against the run of the evidence and the merits of the claim, the Minister had all the safeguards that he could require either under the new Constitution or the old Constitution.

Talk about a constitutional difficulty in this matter is humbugging talk. The Minister knows that it is insincere. He knows that the case that he has made in that connection would not hold water, and that of all the lawyers gravitating about the Government Party not a single one of them has been found to stand over the futile opinion expressed by the Minister for Finance on this matter.

The Minister will not have negotiations. Now, on this matter the Minister and his Party did not always think the same about negotiations. One time, when the Minister was looking for votes and his Party was looking for office, negotiation was the kind of thing which the Minister was always prepared to support. In 1930 the Minister's Party was prepared to support negotiation when it only meant a matter of amending the worthless machinery described as the Civil Service Representative Council. In 1930 the Civil Service organisations waited on the Fianna Fáil Party and asked them to support a proposal to send an all-Party deputation to the then Minister for Finance to endeavour to avoid the operation of certain cuts in the cost-of-living bonus being made operative, and to secure an amendment in the constitution of the Civil Service Representative Council. After putting the case before the Fianna Fáil Party organisation of that period, a reply was received from that organisation saying:—

"We have to inform you that the Fianna Fáil Party committee has considered the request made by the deputation from the Cost-of-Living Bonus Joint Committee, which met the undersigned on the 6th inst., and has agreed to appoint Mr. Seán Lemass with another member of this Party to join the deputation to the Minister for Finance for the purpose of advocating: (1) that the constitution of the Civil Service Representative Council be revised, in consultation with Civil Service organisations, in a manner that will be acceptable to all parties concerned."

I can appreciate that joke from the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Finance, as a member of the Fianna Fáil Party in 1930, presumably believed in that Party's policy then and accepted the Party decisions then. The Party then was prepared to press for a revised Civil Service Representative Council "in consultation with Civil Service organisations in a manner that will be acceptable to all parties concerned", but speaking in this House last month of the same Civil Service Representative Council the Minister, after telling us the manner in which it was constituted, said:

"I would like those Deputies who are interested in this question, and who have said that they are only anxious that the Civil Service of the State should have some method of adjusting its differences, to ask themselves: what more representative machinery could have been devised for the discussion of Civil Service problems?"

In 1930 the Minister wanted the constitution of that body revised, but in 1938 he wants to know what more representative machinery could be established to deal with the grievances of the Civil Service. The only thing that has happened in the meantime is that this Representative Council has got more disreputable than it ever was, and that the Minister has got into office. In 1930, at all events, the Party believed in negotiation and was willing to join in an all-Party deputation to the Minister for Finance in order to avoid reductions in the cost-of-living bonus and to amend the Civil Service Representative Council machinery. They are not prepared now to support that type of negotiation although, in 1930, when it was a matter of getting votes, the Minister's Party had no hesitation whatever in recommending that negotiation should be instituted on a matter of this kind. The striking thing that emerges from this debate is that, between 1932 and 1938, the Minister has somersaulted completely on the promise made by his Party to establish a genuine scheme of arbitration. It cannot be denied that that promise was made to the Civil Service. Six years after it was made, the Minister refuses to honour the promise and, instead, offers the Civil Service a type of machinery which has none of the essential features of arbitration and which would not be accepted by any organisation which had any pretensions to self-respect. This motion calls upon the Government to enter into negotiations with the Civil Service organisations with a view to establishing a genuine scheme of arbitration — a scheme of arbitration such as was promised to the Service in 1932 whereby legitimate differences between the Government, on the one hand, and Civil Service organisations, on the other, could be dealt with through a type of machinery which is now generally recognised as more calculated to settle these differences than the worthless Representative Council machinery for which the present Minister stands. Is there any reason why the Government, which promised arbitration in 1932, should not accept a motion which asks it, six years afterwards, to honour the promise which was then freely made? There can be only one explanation for the change of front—that the Minister made the promise in 1932 in an insincere way and that he had no intention whatever of keeping it. Having got into office, he tries, with the aid of rather a unique type of commission of inquiry, to find any reason, no matter how slender, for rejecting the scheme of arbitration so specifically promised by himself. Deputy Costello has ascribed another reason for the change of front. He says that this attitude of the Minister is the work of the bureaucrats of the Department of Finance who have been able to convert the Minister to their view.

They had a very inconvenient article in their pocket when they had the Minister. I certainly should not like to be the official who owned the pocket in which the Minister was. I think Deputy Costello is right in ascribing the change on the part of the Minister to the type of rigid control which is exercised over him by the Department of Finance. There may be some difference in the political complexion of the present Minister and the last Minister, though there are signs that that difference is rapidly receding. However, it is supposed to be there and the present Minister would probably claim that it is still there. There is, however, one thing common to this Minister and the last Minister—that the Department of Finance have effectively prevented both of them from establishing a genuine scheme of arbitration. The present Minister, as Deputy Costello said, is as firmly riveted in the vice of that official mind as his predecessor was. This whole question of the establishment of arbitration for the Civil Service is of very important concern to over 20,000 civil servants. The Minister's Treason Act attempts to prevent them from withdrawing their labour. Consequently they are prepared, for the moment at all events, to rely on the method of making written or oral representations to the Minister. Entrenched with all the authority of his position, the Minister has refused to listen with reason and understanding to the representations made, with the result that the Civil Service organisations have found that method of representing grievances decidedly unsatisfactory. They have asked that an arbitration tribunal should be established so that these disputes between the Government of the day and the Civil Service organisations be resolved by impartial consideration of the claims and of the case against the claims and a decision given on the merits. Is there any good reason why a Minister for Finance concerned with the welfare of Irish civil servants should refuse to establish arbitration machinery which would enable grievances to be resolved in that manner? If the Minister feels that he has a good case why should he hesitate to put his case before a tribunal impartially constituted and capable of pronouncing judgment on the merits? The only reason any fair-minded person can ascribe for the Minister's refusal to do that is that he knows that, under the present machinery, he can unreasonably and stubbornly refuse to meet representations made in a reasonable way, and he dare not go before an arbitration tribunal, where the merits of the case would be considered in an atmosphere far removed from that rigidity and stubbornness which are so characteristic of the attitude of the Department of Finance to Civil Service representations.

A contented Civil Service is a national asset. It is desirable that the Civil Service should feel, when it makes a case for improved conditions or for avoiding the worsening of conditions, that it can rely on the merits of the case, and that that consideration will determine in the long run the extent to which the grievances will be met, or the worsening of conditions avoided. Nobody would pretend to-day that, however strongly fortified the Civil Service organisation was, a just case based on reason and equity would be met by reason and equity on the other side. The Department of Finance has never met claims in that way, and probably never will, until there is a complete change in the mentality of the people responsible for the structure and maintenance of that Department. Twenty-three thousand civil servants are entitled to expect from this Parliament much more favourable consideration of their case than has so far been accorded by the present Minister. If the Government and the Minister were genuinely concerned for promoting the welfare and efficiency of the Civil Service, they would not hesitate to accept a motion of this kind and enter into negotiations with the Civil Service organisations with a view to evolving a mutually-acceptable scheme of arbitration. The present Minister does not want an acceptable scheme of arbitration. He wants to be the finance Napoleon of 1938, sitting——

I do not know whether it is fair to the pocket to put the Minister into it—capable of sitting in the Department of Finance and, from there, issuing decisions and edicts which are in no way related to the merits of the case presented to him. If the Minister were concerned with the welfare of the Civil Service, he would not take his responsibilities in that manner. He ought to say that he would make a genuine effort to establish an arbitration tribunal, particularly in view of the fact that it was he who, in 1932, definitely promised to establish such a tribunal. The scheme which the Minister has offered to the Service has been rejected by all the organisations, and there is no likelihood that any of them will accept it at any future date, notwithstanding the effort of the Minister to weave words around the scheme calculated to mislead them. It has been rejected, and will never be accepted by any of the staff organisations, and the Minister, therefore, is solely responsible for continuing the present deadlock in respect of arbitration.

I have some knowledge of the Civil Service, spreading back over close on 20 years, and I can say that I never knew a time when there was more discontent in the Civil Service than there is to-day. The bulk of that discontent has been brought about by the stubborn, reactionary attitude of the Department of Finance, aided and abetted by the Minister's refusal to listen with reason and understanding to the claim of the Civil Service for a genuine scheme of arbitration. Nobody will suggest that the present Minister for Finance will attain to great heights of statesmanship, but the Government have a responsibility over and above the Minister for Finance, and if statesmanship were to actuate them in this matter, and if they were desirous of promoting the welfare of the Civil Service, they would accept this motion and make a genuine effort to establish a scheme of arbitration such as was promised by the Minister in 1932, and such as would help to remove, in 1938, and in subsequent years, a good deal of the discontent which has been created by the Minister's unreasonable and truculent attitude.

Mr. Briscoe rose.

I shall be as brief as possible. Deputy Norton read out from some document information he had got to the effect that I had signed a document indicating that at one time I stated that I was in agreement as to arbitration between the Civil Service and the Government. I always felt that way, and I feel that way now, but I certainly think that Deputy Norton has made a very bad case. Equally, I want to say that I find it very strange that this motion should come from the chief Opposition, who were for ten years a Government and who held a view against this arbitration when they were in office. I do not think that Deputy O'Sullivan will dispute that fact. It is only now that they have been converted to arbitration, and it amazes me to see the swopping of interests between Labour and Fine Gael.

Deputy Norton and, I presume, his Party, want everything both ways. Members of the Labour Party say that I want arbitration in industrial disputes. Quite true, I do, and I want Labour to say that they will agree to such arbitration. Why they do not want arbitration in industrial disputes is clearly indicated by Deputy Norton. He says: "In industry, we can withdraw our labour; we can have strikes," but, as he said at the beginning of his speech, the civil servants were not free. I should like to refer Deputy Norton to this statement of his and, perhaps, when he reads it to-morrow, he will see how he wants to have it both ways. He says there are 20,000 civil servants seething with discontent, who, for the present, are prepared to continue making written representations, and he implied, if he did not actually say, that if, at the end of writing, they got no satisfaction, we might be faced—if Deputy Norton could possibly organise it, and I doubt if he could—with the withdrawal of the entire Civil Service from their service to the State, and we might have a position in which the State would be at a standstill. So Deputy Norton wants it both ways. He wants the right to withdraw the Civil Service if they do not get the type of arbitration board which takes from the Minister who is responsible to this Dáil, and from the Government, any power or right after a decision is come to by it. He wants to have it all his way. I understand that this Government is in favour of arbitration in respect of the Civil Service and that the Civil Service should have an arbitration board, but it should be an arbitration board which will be satisfactory to all parties and not, as Deputy Norton wants to have it, a board which will have the right to issue a decision which cannot be upset by this Dáil.

I say that that is what the Deputy wants now. I say that the Deputy and those supporting him want the right of selecting and vetoing who shall be on this board of arbitration, what shall and shall not come before it, and that the judgment of this board shall be so final that not even this Dáil or any law court can upset it. The Deputy can read his speech and he will see that that is the type of arbitration he wants.

Deputy O'Sullivan objects to high taxation and to increases in taxation, but yet he wants a motion passed, and an arbitration board set up as a result of the passing of that motion, which will permit increases of salaries to be given by a body outside the control of the House and without any responsibility to the taxpayer.

I am not passing the buck. I will say this, that if the Labour Party are prepared to have the same idea as regards labour and its employers outside the Government service, I am prepared to vote for this motion, but I am not prepared to differentiate between the two classes. I am not prepared to say that the civil servants should have special rights as regards their terms of employment, and that the ordinary industrial workers outside should not. I do not understand the trades unions at all when they say——

I want the Deputy, when he replies, to explain what Deputy Cosgrave said, when he was President of the Executive Council, on the 17th July, 1924. I think Deputy Cosgrave knows the extract to which I refer. Here it is:—

"The Ministry are not prepared to give any bodies, other than bodies of a consultative and advisory character, the power of decision being in all cases reserved to the Minister. It is true that the Whitley bodies can only arrive at decisions by agreement and the official representatives on the bodies can always prevent a decision by refusing to agree. But it is not right that Ministers should divest themselves of their powers and responsibilities by leaving it to such bodies to say what salaries will be payable in the Civil Service or not. What the staff should have, and what the Ministry is prepared to give, is every facility for making known its views on matters affecting the Civil Service, for considering governmental proposals affecting the Civil Service, and giving their views on such proposals before the Government finally confirms a proposal into a decision."

An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.

The debate referred to is 17th July, 1924, but this extract is repeated in the official debates of 8th April, 1938, column 1840. Deputy Cosgrave, who was then President, laid emphasis on the fact that no Government or Minister could allow the regulation of Civil Service salaries to be outside the control of the Ministry and the Government, because, after all, they are responsible for the taxation in order to pay those things. Deputy Norton wants to have that right in the hands of a body over which nobody would have any control afterwards. I agree with the principle of arbitration. I agreed with it in 1930 and in 1932, and I still agree with it, but when I say "arbitration" I mean arbitration. I do not mean the type of arbitration that Deputy Norton is now speaking about—a pistol at the head of the Ministry: "If you do not give us this type of arbitration we are going to call out our 20,000 civil servants on strike." That is the type of arbitration Deputy Norton wants to see in this country. I am sure—at least, I hope—that Deputy Costello does not agree with that. I agree that a means should be found whereby grievances can be discussed and adjusted, but I also say that even in private disputes if one side or the other cannot carry out an award, one side or the other goes under or goes out.

In this particular case the Government cannot go out in that way. They have got to carry on, and the taxpayer has to foot the bill afterwards. Deputy Norton made a speech which I consider very much beside the point. I cannot deal with all the notes I made here. I will take an opportunity of doing so on some other occasion, because Deputy Norton will probably introduce a motion of this kind at a later date, worded slightly differently. I should like to know from Deputy Costello what has brought about the change in the opinions that were held by the Ministers of the Party opposite when they were over here? I should like to know how far they agree with the Labour Party in this matter, and if they are prepared to deny that arbitration generally in all disputes, including industrial disputes, would be a welcome thing in this country, and that we should all do our best to find a way of setting up some court of arbitration to deal with all disputes, but not as the Labour Party want it— to apply only to the Civil Service and not to ordinary industrial disputes.

If the Deputy who has last spoken had taken the trouble to read some of the speeches which I have made in this House on the subject of Civil Service arbitration he would have found the answer to every single one of the questions he has put here to-night. Within the last 12 months I spoke on a motion by Deputy Norton, not calling upon the Government to set up machinery for arbitration, but calling upon the Government to arrange for a meeting to discuss the matter between representatives of the Civil Service organisations and the Minister for Finance. I thought at that time that that was refused. The Minister for Finance did not even speak on Deputy Norton's motion at that time. In the speech that I made in support of Deputy Norton's motion at that time, if Deputy Briscoe is interested, he will find the answer to every single one of the questions he has put here to-night. Time does not permit of my going into each one of them. I was wondering why it was that Deputy Briscoe was put up to make the observations that he did. It became perfectly apparent why he was put up.

Deputy Briscoe challenged the Labour Party as to whether or not they would state here in the House that they are in favour of industrial arbitration, and said that if they were, he would vote for this motion. That struck me as a very peculiar sort of bargain to make if the Deputy has, as he professes to have, any interest in the justice or merits of this motion before the House. If Deputy Briscoe is, as apparently he pretends to be, in favour of the principle of arbitration in industrial disputes, why not vote for this motion, and give a lead to the settlement of industrial disputes by arbitration or on the principles of arbitration?

Why not give a lead, if the Deputy is so anxious to do it? Here is a chance to give a lead in the case of the Government—which is supposed to be a model employer—dealing with its own servants. If the Government or Deputy Briscoe or his Party wants to see set up in this country, as many of us would like to see, some sort of machinery for the settlement of industrial disputes, why not give a lead here in the case of the model employer and its State servants? Here you have got an ideal opportunity, if there is any sincerity whatever in the remarks made by Deputy Briscoe, of showing the real virtue of the principles of which the Deputy alleges he is in favour. He should vote for this motion if there is any sincerity in what he said. If the Deputy will take a look at some of the remarks I made before, he will see that I put forward this motion and advocated similar motions for that very reason—that they did give a lead. The Deputy now has his chance. Let him walk into the Division Lobby with us, or be branded as having made an insincere speech for purely political purposes, and for the purpose of getting the Minister for Finance out of some of the difficulties he got himself into in the speech he made in response to this motion and the speakers who supported it.

I have not time to go through the irrelevancies, the irregularities, the fallacies, and the defamatory innuendoes in the Minister's speech. The Minister appeared in this House some weeks ago in sackcloth and ashes and made public confession of his sins, and asked those whom he may have offended by certain things he said in the past about them to accept his apology. I will accept that statement of his as covering some of the things that he said about me and Deputy Lavery in the course of his observations. The Minister, in the course of his speech, adopted a very favourite weapon that he has, a weapon which he uses in a fashion showing that he is willing to wound and yet afraid to strike.

He put on the records of this House —and it is merely because it ought not to remain as part of the records of this House unchallenged that I refer to it —a statement which is capable of bearing an innuendo. He had not the courage to make the charge fairly and squarely, because he knew it would be untrue and I could challenge it. But I am not going to let it pass. He made a statement in the course of his speech, as reported at column 1818 of the Official Report of the 8th April this year, which can bear one interpretation only, and that is, that when I was Attorney-General I gave some advice or opinion to the Government, whose chief legal adviser I then was, different from the legal opinion I offered in the course of the debate on this motion and on Deputy Norton's motion. The innuendoes contained in the Minister's statement are grossly untrue.

If the Minister will look in the records of his own Department, or in the records of the Attorney-General's Department, he will see there a memorandum prepared by me at great length in which I critically examined the financial clauses of the old Constitution, disclosed their weaknesses, and made certain recommendations. These statements are entirely in conformity with every opinion I then held, with every opinion I hold now, and I say here categorically that I never gave an opinion to the last Government—and I have Deputy Cosgrave's authority to say this—that was in any way at variance with any of the utterances I made in the course of the debate on the motion.

I gathered from the statement of the Minister here a couple of weeks ago that he was penitent and contrite for his sins, that he impliedly admitted he was in the habit of making defamatory statements about political opponents, statements that he knew were wounding and hurtful and harmful, and he offered full apology. He may have had contrition, but, apparently, from what he said to-night, he lacked one essential of true contrition—a firm purpose of amendment. He is going on with his old game again, if we are to draw any conclusions from his attitude. But there are more serious matters than my own personal position involved in this matter. My reputation can take care of itself. It is not a thing to be damaged by any of the things the Minister for Finance said about me. The Minister was challenged by me and Deputy Lavery to produce any legal opinion contrary to the legal opinions we produced on the constitutionality of the proposals that we made on behalf of the civil servants. He has not produced a single opinion to contradict either Deputy Lavery's opinion or mine.

I deduced from his statement, when speaking here on this motion on Wednesday, 6th April of this year, that he sought for these opinions and had failed to get them. I do not know what his observation means when he says, as reported at column 1621 of the Official Report of that debate:—

"The more I have endeavoured to get to the root of this arbitration question, the more I despair of getting any definite light or leading from lawyers."

I gathered from that that he sought further opinions from lawyers contradicting the opinions which Deputy Lavery and I had given.

He has not produced any opinion to contradict any of the opinions we have given here on the constitutionality of these proposals. Furthermore, I criticised the Brennan Commission on the arguments that they produced, and I am going to deal with the Minister's observations about my comments on them in a moment. I criticised that report, based as it was on the alleged unconstitutionality of the arbitration proposals. I dissected and analysed their statements and arguments, and showed the fallacies in them, and showed that they really had no real appreciation of the constitutional position. There is not a single phrase from start to finish in the Minister's speech that he has any authority for, or that he now stands over or tries to stand over the proposition that setting up an arbitration board of this kind would be contrary to the provisions of either the old or new Constitution. That is definitely and finally abandoned in the Minister's speech. That was the basis of the argument of the Brennan Commission's interim report. That was why I criticised the findings and the arguments in that report. When I criticised that report in this House I had not the faintest idea of who the members of that commission were, and I was not interested in who they were. What I was interested in was their arguments, their opinions, and the reasons for their opinions. Any person's opinion is only worth the value of the reasons he offers for his opinion. I criticised these opinions, and the reasons and the arguments put forward by the Brennan Commission, and not a single one of the arguments I advanced, or the opinions I gave, constitutionally or otherwise, cutting the ground from under every single line of the arguments in that report has been answered in the speech of the Minister for Finance.

What does he do? He alleges that I made a personal attack on the members of the Commission. That was a foul method of trying to deal with the reasoned argument I made. I repeat every single word of the argument I made last April 12 months. I criticised that Brennan Commission, and I stand over every word I said, and I repeat it here, and would go through it again if I had time. I made no attack on the personnel of that Commission. I did not even know who they were, and did not care. But, what I was interested in was their reasons and opinions. I took their opinions and reasons and I argued from their reasons and showed their reasons to be fallacies and their conclusions untenable, and, therefore, unsound. Not a single one of the arguments I put forward at that time was subsequently answered in the speech of the Minister. Is there any greater justification for the criticisms I have levelled at the Brennan Commission report than the Minister's own speech and the omissions from that speech? That is my justification for the speech I made, the criticisms I made then, and which I repeat here now with emphasis and with still greater conviction.

Deputy Briscoe, and even the Minister, in the course of his speech, endeavoured to create the atmosphere that the civil servants, in making demands that they were making for an arbitration board, were asking for something beyond what the British civil servants have got from their Government and which they enjoy at the present time. I made it clear last April 12 months, and in the opening statement on this motion, that the claims and demands of the Irish civil servants could be met by some concession similar to that granted to British civil servants. Give us the same type of arbitration for our civil servants as British civil servants have under the British Treasury and we shall be perfectly content.

We recognised, as can be verified from the two speeches I made, that it is the duty of the Minister to guard the taxpayers' money and to prevent increased taxation. Above all, it is the duty, not alone of the Minister, but of every Deputy in this House, no matter to what Party he belongs, to preserve the paramount right of the Dáil over finance and to keep the control of the purse. It is not the Minister who has the control of the purse or who has imposed upon him the statutory duty of safeguarding the public purse. It is the people's representatives, in the people's Parliament, who have that duty and that right. That is the constitutional right that the Minister wants to take from them. He wants to take that right from the people's control and put it in control of the Minister for Finance and, through the Minister for Finance, under the control of permanent civil servants.

Civil servants in seeking this arbitration machinery have consistently stated that their claims are subject to that paramount right of control of the Dáil. They have made it clear on every occasion. I made it clear, speaking in favour of this motion and on every occasion on which I have advocated their claims. I said that if there was anything wrong in the arbitration machinery suggested by the civil servants, if there was anything wrong in putting their proposals into operation, then there must be something constitutionally wrong with the British scheme and there was something wrong in the operation of that machinery in England. But, as we know, the arbitration machinery in England has been operated for many years to the great satisfaction of the Civil Service there, of the Ministry in England, and the British taxpayer.

There is no use in Deputy Briscoe getting up here in the last few minutes, asking us are we going to increase taxation. The Deputy and his Party have increased taxation to the extent of nearly £750,000 during the time they have been in office, by the recruitment of civil servants rendered necessary by the policy which they were operating. It ill becomes Deputy Briscoe or Deputy Corry to taunt this Party about increased taxation. It was because of the conservative finance of the last Government and their safeguarding of public finances during the ten years they were responsible for the government of this country, that the present Government could for the last six years, pursue an uninterrupted rake's progress in dissipating the resources built up by Deputy Cosgrave and his Ministers when they were in control. It is because of the sound financial condition of the nation's finances when Deputy Cosgrave left office that we can now emerge successfully as a solvent State from that orgy of spending to negotiate with the British Government. It ill becomes the Minister for Finance, or any of his back-benchers, to cast charges of that against Deputy Cosgrave anybody else on this side of the House.

Deputy Briscoe asked me if I could reconcile my attitude with the attitude of Deputy Cosgrave. If Deputy Briscoe will read the speech which I made last April 12 months, he will see the answer there. I have not the time, nor the desire, to repeat it now but I anticipated then what the Minister would say. The Minister had shown no desire then to get on his legs to answer any of the arguments or to take part in the debate at all, and I had to anticipate some of the arguments which would be advanced if he did speak. I anticipated that he would have a rap at the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. The Minister forgot, in speaking, to have that rap at the Cumann na nGaedheal Government and he put up Deputy Briscoe to have that rap to-night. The answer is there, given by me on the 28th April, 1937. We had, during that period of ten years when Deputy Cosgrave was President of the Executive Council, to stand up to a campaign of vilification and slander the like of which was never known in the history of any democratic State, a campaign led by the Minister himself with the support of Deputies like Deputy Briscoe and Deputy Corry. It is a pity that Deputy Corry is now deprived of the opportunity of filling a rôle that well becomes him, the rôle of a sort of Walt Disney hobgoblin, dancing round the cross-roads with his placard showing the salaries of the judges from the Chief Justice down—the same salaries, by the way, which are still being paid, but only to a greater number of judges—the salaries that are paid to Ministers, which are again at the same figure as when Deputy Cosgrave was in office— salaries all of which are voted by Deputy Briscoe and Deputy Corry. I do not want, however, to go into these matters.

In my opening statement I said that I put this motion down immediately after the last general election, so that this thing could be taken out of party politics, once and for all. I want to get no votes, as has been alleged, out of this motion. We want to get no party advantage from this motion. If there is to be any question of party advantage or party disadvantage from voting on this motion, can you imagine the farmers who are members of this Party gaining any party advantage from voting for, or supporting, a motion of this kind? But they have the courage to do it. The Minister had not that courage although he must have been persuaded by the speeches made in this debate of the justice of this claim. It is because they are convinced of its justice, of its correctness and rectitude, but, above all things, because of the fact that in supporting a motion of this kind they believe they are doing something for the best interests of the general community, that members of this Party will vote for the motion.