Hayes, MichaelThursday, 14 August 1941 |
Seanad Éireann Debate
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This does that.
It seems to me that the Minister, as Senator Campbell has said, is quite justified in having power himself through his officers to inspect the register of any trade union. I presume that, for the pur...
I do not want to delay on this comparatively small point, but if the Minister thinks that this Bill will enable the Department of Industry and Commerce to wash its hands of trade unions and trade unio...
The truth is that although civil servants get a certain amount of abuse from time to time, the Department of Industry and Commerce, ever since its inception here and, I think, another Department befor...
On sub-section (3), may I call attention to the fact that if a union is mulcted and has to pay a judgment debt out of the deposit it only gets 14 days to make up the amount required which seems to me ...
It might be possible, but why should it be confined to barristers?
It is hard to believe that the Minister is really in earnest. He has just argued about an amendment suggesting that a legal degree or qualification is a disqualification for the chairman of this tribu...
No one argued that because a man or a woman was a barrister or a solicitor that would disqualify him or her from the chairmanship of the tribunal. Nobody made such an entirely ridiculous and foolish ...
Yes, except their own trade union. There is no stronger trade union in this country than the barristers' trade union. The idea of getting a person entirely dissociated from trade unionism because he...
Let me put the argument more clearly. Surely the Minister can get people in touch with life who need not be barristers.
Let me give a few examples. Take the Ministers for Industry and Commerce. I remember one, two, three of them; I think the Minister is the fourth. Only one of them was a barrister, and he was not a ...
He was an excellent Minister to my mind—the best of them all obviously. Let us take the first of them—no names, no pack drill. You could not get a better chairman of this tribunal than the first Min...
The Senator has not grasped the point. There is nothing in this to keep the Minister from appointing a barrister or a solicitor. The Minister can appoint a barrister if he likes. What I object to is...
That is the constitutional position. If the Minister had the opinion of 17 barristers of ten years' standing they could not controvert that. Our position is that we are here for the purpose of stati...
What Senator Quirke said confirms my objection to the Bill. The Minister's mind is bent on looking first for a barrister and if he cannot find a barrister then someone else. That is what I want to get...
The Taoiseach has the nomination of a number of people to this House—11 people—and he has made more than 11 nominations but has not appointed a practising barrister or solicitor at all. Think of the ...
Does the Minister realise that there would be considerable difficulty in getting a person of standing in any profession or in any walk of life to take up a post of this kind with no security of tenure...
If it is going to be a part-time, it is a different question.
I know that. Senator Douglas is not pressing the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Section 21, as amended, agreed to. SECTION 22. Question proposed: “That Section 22 stand part of the Bill.”
This section and this business depends upon the nomination of of panels—does it not?
Supposing they do not make nominations?
Would the Minister say, for the purpose of enabling us to discuss this amendment, what the position will be when a union is given a determination that it is the sole body that can organise workers in ...
Could ever be formed?
What I have a difficulty in understanding is this: The Minister mentioned the woodworkers. The position is not quite as the Minister represented it. He went into analogies and comparisons. These are...
The Minister spoke of their propagating peculiar ideas. No peculiar ideas attach to this particular union. I have no special brief for them but, owing to personal circumstances, I happen to have kno...
Then, what steps can they take to prevent its being renewed? If a determination of this character were given to the National Union of Railwaymen or the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers, could an Iri...
If that be so, then it would appear to me that no union should ever get a sole determination— either English or Irish. I am not trying to score a point off the Minister. When I commenced to consider ...
I think it was suggested but I accept the Minister's statement. When the Minister says that control is not entirely here, what does he mean? So far as I understand, control is entirely here. The m...
Yes. Several men lost their jobs. They never would have lost their jobs if they had been dealing with these big amalgamated unions.
I do not think it was the N.U.R. The situation is not quite as the Minister described it, although I understand his reluctance to give a sole organising licence to a union which has not got its headq...
They certainly think they have.
Hear, hear! Quite sound.
Is that what he meant?
Maybe he meant that you would be bringing the advantages of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union over to Great Britain.
Senator Foran was not here to listen to Senator Mrs. Concannon, but I think Senator Foran is by no means as simple as Senator Mrs. Concannon would make him out to be. I have an open mind about this a...
I think it is.
Is fíor. Tá eolas agam-sa ar an gceist seo agus tá an Seanadóir Cú Uladh tréis a rá na thuigeann sé dada mar gheall ar an scéal.
The Minister himself was a crank long enough before he recovered. There are still plenty of cranks. We do not all turn when father says turn—that is the difficulty. Senator Foran, of course, is nat...
I am glad nobody denies it. As to all this talk of Senator Cú Uladh about England interfering in our affairs, we should not use our national freedom, as so many small States have used their national...
We hope not, generally.
They are not.
What Senator Magennis has just said convinces me that this question of foreign unions is worth a debate. If we could have had a Second Reading debate on a Bill dealing with this matter only, Senator ...
There is provision here for a ballot. Is the tribunal bound by the ballot when it takes it?
When I read this first sub-section I found some difficulty in understanding among whom the ballot was to be taken. Is it to be taken among members of a union or among workmen, whether union or non-un...
It would be very difficult to arrange for a ballot among non-union workmen.
It beats me.
Can the national teachers apply for a determination to have the sole right?
Surely the case for the Minister, the case for what is in the Bill, is that the national teachers are paid out of public funds. Is that not the case?
The nature of their vocation?
Because of the nature of their vocation?
Because they are paid out of public funds and they deal with the Minister—partly civil servants.
Perhaps the Minister will now indicate what is the effect of giving a determination to be the sole organising body to a particular union?
My difficulty is this. The tribunal in 1942, let us say, considers the position of two unions. It finds union A has a membership of 10,000 and union B 800 and it gives the sole organising determinati...
Therefore by 1945 I do not see how union B could possibly reverse the position and get a licence to organise the same as union A.
Nor do I see how a new union of any kind could be formed in the interval unless in circumstances and with conditions which apparently no body of seceders could fulfil.
Yes, because they are so well off. I am not pleading for secessions from unions or for mushroom unions—I am against that.
Is it conceivable at the end of five years that any union could be in a position to alter facts as they find them then?
Mind you, I did.
May I go back for a moment to the other amendment? I wanted to get that information from the Minister, because it appeared to me, and the Minister has now confirmed it, that where there is a big unio...
They would be enormously increased. The position, therefore, is that while the big unions may survive by dividing up the workers between them, where there is a big union and a small union and the big...
With regard to the two amendments to this section, in the name of Senator Douglas, the Senator made his arrangements on the basis of a late meeting and then had to change his arrangements at the last ...
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