Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1970 > Committee of Public Accounts > Interim and Final Report - Appropriation Accounts 1967 - 1968

MIONTUAIRISC NA FINNEACHTA

(Minutes of Evidence)

Déardaoin 12 Márta 1970

Thursday 12th March 1970

The Committee met at 11 a.m.

DEPUTY P. HOGAN in the chair.

DEATH OF MEMBER.

693. Chairman.—I formally propose a vote of sympathy with the relatives of the late Deputy P. J. Lenihan. It is sad to think that this day week we had the assistance of his pleasant personality here.

Members stood in their places.

694. Chairman.—I must be in the Dáil at 11.30 in order to move that the committee’s interim report be laid before the House. I suggest that a member be appointed to act as chairman in my absence.

Deputy Briscoe.—I propose that Deputy P. Barry take the Chair until the Chairman’s return.

Question put and agreed to. Deputy Barry took the Chair accordingly.

Mr. E. F. Suttle (An tÁrd Reachtaire Cuntas agus Ciste) called and examined.

VOTE 48—HEALTH.

Mr. P. S. Ó Muireadhaigh called and examined.

695. Acting Chairman.—We deal first with Paragraph 92 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General which reads:

“Subhead G.—Grants to Health Authorities

92. As stated in paragraph 87 of the previous report the supplementary grants payable to health authorities for the year 1967-68 were increased so as to provide an average recoupment of 55.3 per cent. of net health expenditure. The supplementary grants were again increased in the year under review and the effect was to provide an average overall recoupment for 1968-69 of about 55.7 per cent. of net health expenditure.”

696. Have you anything to add, Mr. Suttle?

Mr. Suttle.—I have nothing to add to the information in the paragraph. The committee have been supplied with a statement of expenditure under the various headings.*

697. Acting Chairman.—Paragraphs 93 and 94 of the Report read:

“Subhead K.—Hospitals Trust Fund (Grant-in-Aid)

Subhead K.1.—Hospitals Trust Fund —Voluntary Hospitals Deficits (Grant-in-Aid)

93. For a number of years grants have been paid to supplement the finances available to the Hospitals Trust Fund for building purposes, the amount of the grant in the current year being £1 million (Subhead K.).

94. Because the balance in the Hospitals Trust Fund was insufficient to defray the deficits of the voluntary hospitals up to 31 March 1969 provision of £1,080,000 was made by supplementary estimate (Subhead K.1) to supplement the finances available to the Fund.”

698. Have you anything to add, Mr. Suttle?

Mr. Suttle.—I will deal with the two paragraphs together. Members have been supplied with copies of the Hospital Trust Fund cash account and supporting schedules for the year to 31st December, 1968.* On the receipts side of the account, income from sweepstakes amounted to £2.477 million and interest on investments, et cetera, to £177,000. Grants to meet deficits of voluntary hospitals amounted to £4.042 million and miscellaneous grants for maintenance to £221,000. Voted moneys towards meeting these grants amounted to £1 million. Capital grants to voluntary and other hospitals amounted to £1.947 million. The shortfall in the Trust Funds account was made good by the sale of investments which realised £2.603 million. It will be noted that grants to meet voluntary hospitals’ deficits rose from £2.870 million in 1967 to £4.042 million in 1968.

699. Acting Chairman.—We shall now deal with the figures supplied to us in respect of the Hospitals Trust Fund.* Is this money voted?

Mr. Ó Muireadhaigh.—Only to the extent of £1 million. The Sweepstakes produced £2.477 million and sale of investments produced £2,603 million.

700. What balance has the Trust Fund?

—Only small balances from time to time, something like £200,000, but there are no longer invested funds. There was, for the first time, a fourth sweepstake in the year 1969, on the St. Stephen’s Day race.

701. Deputy Briscoe.—Would that increase the amount of money?

—The aggregate from the sweepstakes for the year 1969 was increased, a net addition of £600,000.

702. Acting Chairman.—Will this extra sweep be run again this year?

—There will be four sweeps again this year but the deficit will be much bigger.

703. Grants to hospitals are given on a separate sheet. Would the Accounting Officer please comment on Schedule 11A (1)?

—This refers to a sum of £3,518 which represents the clearing up of the final account in connection with the James Connolly Memorial Hospital. All the major payments in respect of this hospital and the other two regional sanatoria were made years ago.

704. Deputy Briscoe.—Are the grants referred to in Schedule 11A 2 payable for construction work or extensions?

—This schedule concerns capital grants to local authority hospitals. There is another schedule, following this, of capital grants to voluntary institutions.

705. Acting Chairman.—On what basis are they paid?

—It varies. Some grants paid to local authorities for work done have been less than 50 per cent. Grants can be in the region of 50, 60 or 75 per cent or, in the case of a regional institution, 100 per cent.

706. Deputy Briscoe.—These are capital grants?

—Yes, for construction or reconstruction work.

707. On Schedule 11A 3, does the grant of £52,254 refer to the new Coombe Hospital?

—It constitutes the portion of the cost of the building of the new Coombe Hospital paid in the year. The total cost is approximately £1 million and Hospitals Trust, assisted by the Exchequer, paid virtually the entire cost.

708. Acting Chairman.—Are St. Vincent’s Hospital, Cabra, and Elm Park the same?

—No, St. Vincent’s, Cabra is a home for the mentally handicapped. Elm Park is the new big hospital being built on the Merrion Road and which is costing £2½ million.

709. Is this grant of £425,000 the total they have received?

—It is the total in this year.

710. What was the total to date?

—The aggregate cost is more than £2½ million and they will receive 100 per cent grant. They have already drawn most of the grant.

711. Deputy Briscoe.—How about private homes for the old aged? Do they come under voluntary hospitals?

—For the most part the local authorities make the grants under section 65 of the Health Act, 1953 which enables them to pay any group of people to do something they could do themselves. They may be recouped half the loan charges on the amount they contribute if it is a county home scheme and they borrow for it. If the grant is treated as ordinary revenue expenditure of the local authority, it attracts Health Grant.

712. Acting Chairman.—What happens to the St. Vincent’s building in St. Stephen’s Green?

—That reverts to the Irish Sisters of Charity and they are free to use it as they wish, otherwise than as a participating hospital.

713. They have received grants during the years?

—Yes.

714. And they have no obligation to pay back any of that money?

—No. Of course, the Irish Sisters of Charity provided without recoupment the valuable site of the new St. Vincent’s Hospital at Elm Park.

715. So that they provided the site and the State provided the money?

—Yes.

716. Is the hospital in operation? —It accommodates only a limited number of patients at present but it is hoped to have it in full operation by November of this year.

717. How many beds are in that?

—455.

General hospital beds?

—Yes.

718. Deputy FitzGerald.—When did the main construction work finish?

—The main construction work finished about a year ago but various other things had to be done before it could be operational. For instance the kitchens were not completed until shortly before the token opening.

719. It does seem quite a long time—two years—from the completion of the main construction work until next November when it is expected to be more or less fully operational. Is there any reason why it should be so long with so much capital locked up in it?

—It does take quite a while to get a large hospital operational from the time the main building work is completed.

720. It appears that a year elapsed between completion of the main work and the completion of the kitchen. The starting of the process of moving in was delayed for the best part of a year on that account. Is there any reason why there should be such delay due to one bottleneck?

—I mentioned the kitchen by way of illustration. The X-ray equipment also was not fully installed and the theatres were not completed.

721. Why was this? Did the plan envisage such a very long period to have capital lying up? When was it meant to be furnished and fully operational?

—It was meant to be operational as soon as possible after the building was finished.

722. When were the buildings meant to be finished? I should be surprised if the original plan envisaged that a year would elapse between the completion of the main construction work and the kitchens being finished and that the year would be allowed to pass before the hospital would be operational. If the plan was not followed what were the reasons?

—The Nurses Home for the Hospital is not yet completed.

723. Is it essential to have it completed before the operation of the hospital?

—For the full operation, yes.

724. Why was it not planned to be completed at the same time or was it so planned and——

Acting Chairman.—I think that would be more appropriate for the Dáil.

Deputy FitzGerald.—Perhaps so, but my concern is that money on which interest is being paid should be tied up, and if there is any failure——

725. Acting Chairman.—Is there any question of staff problem?

—They have to build up their staff.

726. The new hospital is about three times the size of the existing one?

—Approximately twice.

727. And they would transfer patients and staff?

—Yes. They have to recruit additional staff.

728. Have they been doing that?

—They have been, but they cannot take in additional nurses until they have accommodation for them.

729. Is the Deputy satisfied?

Deputy FitzGerald.—I am not satisfied but I am prepared to raise it elsewhere, if you so rule.

730. Deputy Briscoe.—Surely money allocated for the building of such hospitals is not lying idle but is paid out as each section of the work is completed and surely money held over is invested somewhere until required to pay the contractor?

731. Acting Chairman.—I think some of this—a quarter of a million pounds—has been paid already?

—Money is paid out on the certificate of the architect or engineer in accordance with the amount of work done. There is not a sum of money set aside in the initial stages and paid over to somebody where it is lying idle.

732. Deputy Tunney.—I had a complaint some time ago in connection with the administration staff that people from outside were employed as secretary, assistant secretary or accountant. The point was made that people were available here.

Deputy FitzGerald.—From outside Ireland?

Deputy Tunney.—Yes.

Mr. Ó Muireadhaigh.—A certain benefactor of the Irish Sisters of Charity who is paying the expenses involved engaged a firm of outside consultants——

733. Deputy Tunney.—It is not State money?

—No, it is being paid privately by a friend of the Irish Sisters of Charity.

The Chairman, Deputy P. Hogan, resumed the Chair.

734. Deputy P. Barry.—Will the equipment in the present hospital not be used in the new hospital?

—Anything that can be used will be transferred but medical equipment goes out of date very rapidly. For instance if the hospital at Stephen’s Green did not transfer to Elm Park a good deal of the equipment already in Stephen’s Green would have had to be replaced in any case because it had become outdated.

735. Deputy FitzGerald.—What will happen to the St. Stephen’s Green building when it is evacuated?

—The Department has no function in that. It reverts to the Order who are the owners.

736. Even though the State is paying for the new building?

—The Order provided the old hospital from their own resources and portion of the agreement was that they should retain the premises.

737. Deputy Briscoe.—But, in return, they have given the land free for the erection of the new hospital?

—Yes.

738. Deputy P. Barry.—They did get grants over the years for the old hospital?

—Yes, merely to maintain the fabric of the building and to buy equipment.

739. Would you have any idea how much these grants amounted to?

—No, not without notice. I should disabuse the Committee, perhaps, of any idea that the Irish Sisters of Charity or any hospital authority make a profit out of it.

740. Deputy FitzGerald.—I don’t think anybody on the Committee had that illusion. I am just interested in the principle— does the same principle apply to other cases? For instance, while the accounting officer is perhaps not the person to ask, when the University transfers to Belfield will it be able to retain Earlsfort Terrace?

—I do not know anything about that.

Deputy FitzGerald.—I trust universities would have equal rights with religious orders.

741. Deputy P. Barry.—For instance when Cork Regional Hospital is built, will the voluntary hospitals cease to function? Will they revert to the Boards of Management of these hospitals?

—They will continue to be the property of the present owners: North Cork Infirmary, South Cork Infirmary, the Mercy Hospital and the Victoria Hospital. No decision has been taken yet that any of those hospitals will cease to exist.

742. I am glad of that but it seems likely they will change their functions?

—Change functions, yes.

743. Deputy FitzGerald.—May I ask one more question about the Hospitals Trust Board accounts? We have here the current accounts but we have no capital account or balance sheet. I see that £2.6 million of shares were sold but can we have any information on what are the remaining investments?

Deputy P. Barry.—That has been already answered. There is nothing left.

744. Deputy FitzGerald.—Sorry. Then we have no balance sheet because we have no assets?

Mr. Suttle.—There is a balance sheet. This is just an abstract of the accounts, not the full accounts as submitted to the Department.

745. Deputy FitzGerald.—Do we get a balance sheet?

Mr. Ó Muireadhaigh.—It is not presented. There is no provision in the Public Hospitals Act for the presentation of the accounts of the Fund to the Oireachtas. They are being given to the Committee as a courtesy.

746. It would be discourteous to ask for a balance sheet, obviously. Is it the position that there are no assets left?

—There are small balances from time to time. There is never more than a couple of hundred thousand pounds at any one time.

747. Was this £2.6 million the last of the investments?

—Yes.

Chairman.—The subheads of the Vote itself will be found on page 160.

748. Deputy FitzGerald.—Subhead F. relates to expenses in connection with advisory and consultative bodies. It does not cover payments for consultants but payments in respect of continuing advisory and consultative bodies: is that right?

—The total of £11,302 is made up of £1,088 which was the cost of the National Health Council; £1,802 for what is generally described as the FitzGerald Committee, that is, the General Hospital Services Consultative Council; £120 for Comhairle na Nimheanna which is the Poisons Council; £8,116 for the Committee of Dental Caries and Fluorides which is doing an investigation of the effect of fluorides on teeth; £176 the cost of the Food Hygiene Advisory Council.

Chairman.—This is itemised in the Book of Estimates.

749. Deputy Briscoe.—May I refer, please, to subhead D—Expenses in connection with international congresses, etc.? There was recently a big mental health conference. Would this refer to that conference, or what congress was this?

—The lion’s share of this expenditure is our contribution to the budget of the World Health Organisation, £33,714 in this particular year, and a further £2,200 approximately in respect of the cost of attending meetings of the World Health Organisation and various regional committees of that body. There is a subscription of £42 to the International Union against Venereal Diseases and a further £1,714 which represents the expenses of various people attending international congresses. I can give a list of the congresses if the committee so desire.

750. Is our contribution to the World Health Organisation in line with the percentages of other countries?

—A percentage of 0.14 of the total budget is paid by this country. It is based on the United Nations scale.

751. Deputy FitzGerald.—I wonder if the heading of this particular item is not a little misleading? I passed it over in the belief that it meant what is said—“Expenses in connection with International Congresses, etc.” The “etc” I took to be conferences, seminars, etc. Apparently it includes our subscription to the World Health Organisation, which is a different matter?

—That is made quite clear in Part III of the Estimate on page 184.

752. Deputy FitzGerald.—I appreciate that. From the point of view of headings, it might be clarified. You could probably deduce this from the footnote on page 161 of the Appropriation Accounts. It might be better if it said “Expenses in connection with membership of the World Health Organisation, international congresses, etc.” It is a small point.

Chairman.—A change of terminology.

—We can look at that in connection with future Estimates. We shall not be able to do anything in connection with the coming year.

Deputy Briscoe.—I would agree that the World Health Organisation should be listed separately.

—The list in Part III of the Estimate, made clear what the matter was all about.

Deputy Briscoe.—It is difficult for us on this committee to keep an eye on two or three books at the same time.

753. Chairman.—On subhead G.—grants to health authorities—what is the reason for the low percentage of health cards in County Dublin, envisaged by the Table supplied to us?*

—The demand is not there.

754. Deputy FitzGerald.—I wonder if you give the same reason for the figure for Dublin city?

—Yes.

755. Could you define the word “demand”? I can certainly not confirm that there is not a demand. There is a vast unsatisfied demand because of what seems to be great stringency in the manner of the administration of the scheme. Are the same criteria applied throughout the country?

—It is a matter for the local administration concerned to fix its standard. In general, the Dublin standard is slightly more generous than the standard in the rest of the country but the levels of remuneration in Dublin are somewhat higher than in the rest of the country. This problem will be solved as soon as the Health Act, recently passed, is implemented. Statutory minimum standards will be laid down in regulations—regulations which will have to be put before the Oireachtas and can only be brought into operation when a resolution is passed by both Houses.

756. At the moment the same criteria are not applied? I find it hard to believe that the differences in percentages are due solely to remuneration. While the remuneration in Dublin is higher, the proportion of aged people living with relatives or on their own, old age pensioners living on their own, is higher than elsewhere. One would expect this figure to be higher in Dublin than in other areas, rather than lower. Is that not so?

—A person in receipt of a non-contributory pension, old age or widows, is ordinarily regarded as being entitled to a medical card.

757. Even if he lives with relatives?

—Yes.

758. But if the pension is contributory or if he has an income from other sources, no matter with whom he lives——?

—If there is a non-contributory pension there has been an investigation and that dispenses with the necessity for a further investigation, on the grounds that another agency has already investigated means.

759. It is when the means are investigated and the earnings of other members of the household are taken into account that the thing appears to become particularly stringent in Dublin by comparison with elsewhere?

—Under the Health Act, 1970, and the new regulations made under it, the means of the person and his or her spouse will be reckoned. The means of other relatives will not be reckoned.

760. Deputy Briscoe.—Will this be controlled by statutory regulation?

—By regulations which will come before the Dáil and Seanad in draft form and will require a resolution from both Houses before they can be made.

761. Chairman.—It will be more uniform?

—It would be desirable to get uniformity.

762. Deputy FitzGerald.—I am concerned with the figures before us and the lack of uniformity displayed in them. Is it possible for us to get some explanation of the divergence as between areas? We have been told by the health authority that it is because of the higher remuneration applicable in the Dublin area that the percentage is lower.

Chairman.—The cards are issued by the county manager and there is no appeal to the Minister or to anybody. The appeal lies to the manager.

763. Deputy FitzGerald.—Is it possible to have details of the criteria for each local authority area?

Chairman.—They can be got from the manager. The managers have laid down standards for their own guidance and anybody who comes within those standards is ordinarily entitled to a medical card without question, but anybody outside that standard can get a medical card if special circumstances exist.

764. Deputy FitzGerald.—If we could get the guidance rules, or whatever they are called, and if we could be told how the different local authorities apply them?

—It has never been given, even in the House.

765. Why not?

Chairman.—It is not given even to county councils. The attitude is that they treat each case individually.

766. Deputy FitzGerald.—Are we not entitled to know what criteria are applied and whether the explanation given for the divergencies will stand up to scrutiny?

Deputy P. Barry.—The County Managers Association among themselves made a very rough set of rules which they try to apply throughout the country. These are minimum, and if there is somebody above that limit in respect of whom special circumstances exist, he would be given a medical card. Normally, the standard in Dublin is that an upper income limit of £11 per husband and wife is adhered to. If they are below that standard they automatically get a medical card. The managers association will not disclose these matters to anybody. I have looked it up.

767. Deputy FitzGerald.—You have told us that the managers will not give the information but that you were still able to look it up. It would be more satisfactory if we could look behind those figures?

—The Minister has no function to override the decision of the local authority in this matter, as of now.

768. But does this preclude us from asking what criteria are applied by the different local authorities which yield such divergent results?

769. Deputy Tunney.—Generally speaking, the figure mentioned here for Dublin is a correct one but I think it would be very difficult to say what exactly applies in individual cases. If there is any complaint I would have about the administration of this in Dublin it is that it should be more localised, for areas like Finglas, for instance. At the moment, invariably a person making inquiries finds himself obliged to go to headquarters in James’s Street. I should prefer if at local level there were more people with power to adjudicate on appeals?

—I understand the system in Dublin is that the granting of a medical card is automatic if the person comes within a certain standard laid down for the local assistance officer.

770. Deputy FitzGerld.—To my mind, the standard is so stringent that few come within it and the bulk of those who qualify do so on a discretionary basis. What puzzles me, therefore, is how are we to do it by regulation? We have been told that we cannot compare standards. How, then, could you regulate it on a national basis?

Chairman.—Under the previous Health Act the Minister gave over the authority to the local bodies. He cut himself clear of it altogether.

Deputy FitzGerald.—We have been told that under the present administration there is no uniformity from the point of view of comparisons—that it has to be left to the discretion of the people concerned. Then we have been told that there will be regulation laying down standards.

Deputy Tunney.—I thought the Deputy was looking for standardisation.

Deputy FitzGerald.—I am.

771. Deputy Tunney.—We are concerned about those who do not come within the regulations. Somebody who qualifies on paper for a medical card because of his means might not have a history of illness but because he has a medical card he feels obliged to make regular visits to the dispensary, while a person whose general health history may be bad may be just above the limit and may not qualify. That is the thing about it I would be most concerned about?

—I think most Deputies will be aware that, where there is a history of ill-health, managers do not adhere to any scale but will be more liberal in the issuing of cards. The Chairman mentioned that the Health Acts lay down certain matters. What the Health Acts say about eligibility for general medical services is a repeat of what was in the old Public Assistance Acts. A person was entitled to free services if he was incapable by his own industry or by other lawful means to provide them for himself and his dependants.

772. Deputy FitzGerald.—It is not just Roscommon but the rest of the country. Even if one takes the cities of Waterford and Limerick, which are cities with similar income distributions but not quite as high as Dublin, the figure is twice that of Dublin. It is not a question of how many high incomes there are but of how many low incomes there are. Certainly, the number of old people living on their own is higher in Dublin than elsewhere.

Deputy Tunney.—Generally speaking, people living on their own have not much difficulty in obtaining medical cards.

773. Deputy FitzGerald.—Therefore, since there are more of them, one could expect the bill to be higher and not lower. I am puzzled by this regulation to introduce uniformity when it is clear that there is a problem requiring some element of discretion?

—The regulations will provide that anybody who comes within a certain income limit will be automatically entitled to a card but there must always be the escape clause to cover special circumstances, for instance, a lot of illness.

774. I have the clear impression that the discretionary element is administered much more unreasonably in Dublin than elsewhere. I have not yet succeeded in any case in which I raised the matter to get a health card, even where there appeared to be extreme hardship. How will it be possible to ensure uniformity of administration of a discretionary element throughout the country?

—It is never possible to do this in any circumstances by laying down regulations because of the multitude of circumstances that can arise which should affect the issue.

775. I appreciate that. What proportion of discretionary element is covered at the moment?

—We have no information on that because we have no official information in the Department as to the scales applied. However, if 90 per cent of the cases that arise can be discovered by a scale, the discretionary element is not all that important.

776. Under the new scale it will be necessary to ensure that there will be uniformity of discretion throughout the country?

—That would not be possible.

777. Surely it is your function to do so since it will be a national scheme? There must be some inspectorial assistance to guard against discrimination against any one section of the people?

—In relation to hardship, the decision is subjective.

778. It may be subjective, but surely it is something that is at least amenable to inspection? The same applies to many aspects of our administration. If there is nobody to deal with this aspect of the matter in Dublin, it will be difficult for anyone to come under the scheme as a result of the new arrangements?

—If I might so suggest, that is a matter for discussion in the Dáil when the regulations are before the House.

779. Deputy Tunney.—Just one small point. Last year I discovered that officers working in areas like Finglas are required to carry out their inspections while travelling on foot, by bicycle or by private transport. In cases where the inspectors use their own cars they have to cover the expense out of their own pockets. Perhaps the authorities and the Department might agree that they should be entitled to the use of the car since this would lead to the more efficient running of the scheme?

—If the officers concerned are House Assistance Officers, the Minister for Social Welfare is the responsible Minister and the Minister for Health has no functions.

780. I should like to mention the case of a man who has been paying health fund contributions all his life. This man recently found himself a patient in the Mater Hospital where he was detained for a fortnight. At the end of that period he was told that nothing else could be done for him and he was sent home. Should that man, who had contributed for so many years to the National Health Fund, have been sent home because of demand for beds in that hospital, particularly when there was nobody to look after him at home? In fact, he died the following week.

—Let me say, firstly, that it is a popular misconception that the contributions made to Social Welfare relate to health treatment. They relate only to an income maintenance service but not to treatment. As to the unfortunate person to whom the Deputy referred, when the Mater Hospital decided that there was nothing more they could do for him, they could, if he was still in need of hospital care, have arranged to have him sent to another hospital which catered for people in his condition.

781. I thought that his contributions to national health would have entitled him to hospital treatment?

—No.

782. Chairman.—Do these contributions entitle a person to dental benefits?

—This is what is called an additional benefit but the dental proportion is very small. The dental services provided under the Social Welfare scheme are only a carryover from the old system whereby if there was a surplus on National Health Insurance Funds in any year, that surplus was applied to provide limited health benefits but there has not been a surplus for many years.

783. Deputy P. Barry.—Does that mean there is no dental treatment in respect of social welfare contributions?

—There is a continuation of the dental treatment service that was in operation before the old national health insurance system was wound up in 1949 or thereabouts and replaced by the new Social Welfare system. The dental service was continued although the finances in the fund did not justify it. It was intended that it should be taken over by the Department of Health and merged in a new scheme which would apply to uninsured as well as to insured persons and to their dependants. As it happened, the Department of Health has not as yet been able to provide the sort of dental treatment that we would wish, even for those in the lower income group people.

784. Chairman.—So they discontinued the health side?

—For a period the Department of Social Welfare cotinued to make a contribution of 6s a day towards the hospital expenses of insured persons when they were hospitalised but that was discontinued when insured persons and their dependants became automatically entitled to hospital treatment under the Health Act of 1953.

785. Deputy Tunney.—Even if the social welfare contributions paid by the man to whom I referred did not contain an element for the cost of hospital services, he should not have been discharged from the Mater Hospital and sent home while he was still ill when there was nobody to look after him. I think the position in Dublin at the moment is that there is a scarcity of beds and it is very difficult to get any elderly person into any hospital?

—The Dublin Health Authority provides services for people like that in their own institutions particularly in St. Kevin’s Hospital.

786. Deputy P. Barry.—On subhead I. —Voluntary Agencies—who are these voluntary agencies?

—There are two types, one which engages in the boarding out of children and the other which maintains illegitimate children and unmarried mothers in institutions. There are two boarding out agencies which between them got £3,500, the Catholic Protection and Rescue Society and the Nursery, Rescue and Protestant Children’s Aid Society.

787. These agencies merely arrange matters there is no maintenance? That sum does not include the amount paid to the houses in which the children are boarded out?

—What we pay from the subhead is 50 per cent of their approved expenditure in respect of children under five. The Society finds a foster home for a child which is under its care and it pays the foster mother for looking after the child and out of this subhead is paid 50 per cent of the expenses in which the society is involved in keeping the child in the foster home.

788. The foster mother gets an allowance also from the State?

—No. If the child is boarded out by one of these societies the health authorities do not come into it at all but health authorities themselves run schemes for boarding out of children and they pay the foster mother without the intervention of a society and their expenditure on this service ranks for recoupment from the health grant under subhead G.

789. And these are purely agencies?

—They are agencies which provide services comparable to the service which the local authorities provide.

790. These are two long-standing services?

—This is a very long standing arrangement.

791. And very old societies?

—They are. They were doing a particular job at one time in special circumstances. Whether there is as great a need for that now in the changed circumstances is another matter.

792. The amount spent is going up so I suppose there must be more now?

—No, the cost is going up because the payments made to the foster mothers are greater than previously. The other groups to which we make payments out of this subhead provide homes for unmarried mothers and illegitimate children and, again as in the case of boarding out agencies, we pay 50 per cent of the approved cost of running those institutions. There are other homes for unmarried mothers and children, four up to recently, but the user of one, in County Tipperary, is being changed and it will in future cater for mentally-handicapped children. Mothers and children in those institutions are paid for by local authorities on a capitation basis and the local authority expenditure is recouped in the normal way. It was just the case that those institutions which receive direct subventions from the Vote were never brought within the scope of the normal method of dealing with that group.

793. And the tendency is for the two groups, the unmarried mothers and the boarded out children to go back under the local authorities?

—Exactly. Boarding out has declined very considerably since the Adoption Act. When the children at present boarded out attain the age of 16, the numbers will reduce very considerably.

794. Deputy FitzGerald.—Are facilities for unmarried mothers adequate?

—We have had no complaint.

795. The illegitimacy rate has risen very sharply in recent years?

—That is offset by the fact that previously an unmarried mother going into one of those special homes, unless she was prepared to take the child out with her, was required to spend a year in the home or two years in certain cases.

796. Deputy P. Barry.—Is that still not the case?

—No. In most cases now the children are adopted at the age of three to five weeks and the mother leaves the home.

797. But where the child is not adopted I think the mother is still required to spend a year?

—I do not think it is a year. I think the committee which run the homes are now happy to let the mother go after a much more reasonable period and leave the child behind.

798. Deputy Briscoe.—But you are satisfied the present facilities are adequate?

—I think the fact that the Order which ran those three special homes were prepared to release one of them from this service and make it available for the mentally handicapped proves that the facilities are adequate.

799. Deputy FitzGerald.—On subhead O.— Training Scheme for Health Inspectors–do you have any other training schemes?

—The Department, through An Bord Altranais, supervises the training of nurses, the board being the statutory body, but this is the only one which is undertaken directly by the Department. It was designed to fill a gap. No other body provided this service.

800. What about training of hospital administrators? Is it suggested this should be undertaken? Is there not a gap there?

—There is a scheme operated by the Dublin Vocational Education Committee under which people engaged in hospital administration can do a course and get a certificate at the end of it.

801. Do you regard this as adequate? Is it suggested that you should organise a training scheme yourselves?

—It depends on what is meant by hospital administration. There are various levels of it. There is no formal scheme of training for people for the higher branches of hospital administration in this country? It is a matter we are working on at the moment.

802. Deputy P. Barry.—Would the Department be in favour of a scheme like that?

—We would. We are very keen that senior people in hospitals, not necessarily doctors, should have training in administration, but the manner in which it can best be arranged is something that has to be worked out.

803. Deputy Briscoe.—On the Explanations in relation to subhead P.—Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies—it is stated that there are unavoidable delays due to technical factors in the completion of a number of schemes. What kind of technical factors, chiefly?

—We naturally tackled the biggest water supplies first in order to get the maximum coverage. Then we went after the smaller schemes where there could be special factors —for instance, two sources of supply. It is often difficult to arrange fluoridation in such cases. They are mainly engineering problems.

804. Chairman.—Do members of the committee wish to make any comments on the documents before them? The first deals with the costs of lay administration of the health services as a percentage of total net health expenditure, 1968-1969.*

805. Deputy FitzGerald.—It does show a rather wide variation?

—The actual differences may not be so great. Take the first one, Carlow—3.6— against say——

—Wicklow, next door? I happened on a bad one to start with.

806. When there are variations like this, do you look into the reasons for them so as to establish that they are good reasons?

Chairman.—Carlow, North Tipperary and Dublin seem to be expensive ones.

Deputy FitzGerald.—South Tipperary is not very high.

807. Deputy P. Barry.—Has it anything to do with the county manager?

Mr. Suttle.—I think I could say that the Department of Local Government audits the accounts of all these authorities. In the last few years they have attempted to go into the question of the cost of administration on the same basis as I work, namely, extending the scope from purely mechanical accounting to cost of administration. They have raised a number of points—not on the health side but on other aspects of local authority administration—on the basis of this type of figure, as a percentage. Possibly they have not gone into the health side yet but they have gone into other aspects of local administration.

Mr. Ó Muireadhaigh.—The recoupment through the health grant in respect of lay staff is only in respect of people who are whole-time employed on health work. You could have a situation in one county in which, for instance, a clerical officer is engaged wholetime on health work as distinct from various aspects of the local authority’s operations. His salary would rank for recoupment from the Health Grant. On the other hand, in an adjoining county, you could have two clerical officers, each employed half-time on health work and no part of the cost of their services would be included in the cost of administration. That would be a factor in it. This is another of the matters which will finish when there are separate health authorities when, instead of having 27 health authorities throughout the country, we shall have only 8 or 9 regional boards.

808. Deputy FitzGerald.—How will it disappear?

—At present, there is a county council staff and the county council has many functions: it is a road authority, a housing authority, a sanitary authority, a health authority. It depends on the way in which they assign their staff to the different functions. If they are assigned full-time we will accept responsibility for recoupment towards the salary. If they are assigned part-time we will not accept responsibility.

809—So the difference in percentages could be accounted for here, maybe, by different practices in different counties?

—It could.

810. —The heading is a bit misleading. It says “Cost of Lay Administration . . . .”: it does not say “Recoupment”?

—We include only cost of staff engaged full time on health services. Total expenditure on health services in Carlow was £467,000; in Wicklow, £844,000. The cost of lay administration at 3.7 per cent in Carlow and 1.7 per cent in Wicklow would be roughly the same in the two cases.

811. It does not quite follow. Take Leitrim. It has the same order of costs as Carlow but has a 2.0 per cent figure. Because a county has small costs, do I take it that the administration is a large overhead? The fact that the figure is higher does not necessarily mean that there is anything to object to. The county with the higher figure may put more effort into administration, which might yield more economy. We are wondering at the extent to which you look into the reasons for the discrepancies and establish that there are good and valid reasons for them?

—So much service is marginally provided by other staffs—county secretaries, county accountants, etc., where there is no recoupment, that the fact there would be a relatively small health staff employed in a local authority area is not a matter of great concern for us.

812. We would be better off without the table, then—

—It was first supplied, at the request of the committee, some years ago.

Maybe the committee was attempting to establish the full cost, not just of full-time personnel. It does not tell us very much?

—We have never attempted that. It did not affect the health grant.

813. Chairman.—We come now to the statement on Health Authorities’ Minor Receipts.*

Deputy FitzGerald.—Minor recipts of £4 million.

—They are minor in relation to the major receipt which is the health grant.

814. Chairman.—There is an item in reference to payments for staff accommodation. This has come down?

—This is due to the fact that there is a lesser number living in. The committee raised this on a previous occasion and expressed the view that when increases in salaries are given there should be an increase in staff contributions for board and lodging provided. This is something which has been resisted by the unions representing mainly the nursing and domestic staffs, those principally involved in this matter. We have had various discussions with managers about it and there has been a disinclination to do anything about raising the contributions. It was brought before the Labour Court some years ago, but because the Managers’ Association could not show proper costings the Court threw out the suggestion of the managers that there should be an increase. We wrote to the managers in September, 1969, and suggested to them that they should increase the deduction for rations from £100 to £126 a year, 10s. a week. It was last increased in 1964 and we felt that 10s. a week was not an unreasonable increase after an interval of six years during which there had been several rounds of wage and salary increases. At present, psychiatric nurses pay £41 annually for their apartments and other nurses pay £52. We suggest that in each of these cases the deduction for apartments should be increased to £65.

815. We come now to the item of payments by patients towards the cost of institutional services.* Is there any yardstick by which you measure the capacity to pay as between the different counties?

—There is a standard. I will take it in two elements. The Committee will remember that I sent them a note last year on the manner in which the long-stay old age pensioners are treated. The second element comprises the contributions, at a rate not exceeding 10s. per day, for middle income group people in hospitals. We find that in general for short stays in institutions of people who are midway up in the division between the medical card people who get services free and the upper income limit of the middle income group, local authorities rarely try to recover more than about 2/6 or 5/- a day. It is exceptional for local authorities to look for 10/-.

816. Deputy P. Barry.—What about specialists’ fees and drugs?

—The arrangement we have is that anybody who goes into a public ward in a hospital as a local authority patient may not be charged any fee other than what the council will pay for him.

817. If a person is signed into a hospital and the person who receives him tells him that for 10s. a day he can have a private or a semi-private ward, that person may later find himself charged specialist and drug charges?

—There is no protection against such charges if he goes into a private or semi-private ward.

818. Chairman—By the time they had the services paid for, the bill could be hefty?

—Quite a number of hospitals are punctilious in telling patients that if they go into a private or semi-private ward they will get no better medical or nursing treatment but that they will be liable for all kinds of charges.

819. Deputy P. Barry.—Some of them are not told at all. There is one particular case I have in mind?

—I think I know it.

820. Chairman.—We have also a table showing Expenditure on Medicines† which shows more or less the same trend.

821. Deputy P. Barry.—Is there no way of controlling the amount for drugs and medicines? Health authorities become frightened of the figures?

—It is intended that when choice of doctor replaces the dispensary service there will be a choice of chemist, in other words that instead of getting the medicine in the dispensary the patient can go to the retail chemist of his choice. In order to pay the retail chemists’, the prescriptions will be priced and put through a computer. We expect to get information from the computer which will indicate the prescribing habits of practitioners so that where we find prima facie a doctor prescribing in an extravagant way we will be able to ask him to justify his prescribing.

Deputy P. Barry.—The information will not be of any great value unless you can compare it with what he is prescribing in a private capacity.

822. Deputy FitzGerald.—Will this computer system also be used to fix the different prices charged by chemists for prescriptions?

—The chemist will not put a price on the prescription. He will send in the prescription and there will be a central pricing bureau which will charge the approved price for that commodity together with whatever element of dispensing fee or container post is agreed.

823. Deputy Tunney.—Is it possible at any stage to give any indication of the amount of drugs or medicines on hand that have become unfashionable?

—We could never hope for that.

824. There are probably some products on the market that do not have all the qualities which they claim to have?

—Perhaps the chairman will be aware that in a county where a manager attempted to rationalise the supply of drugs he was lambasted in a certain medical journal within the past fortnight. We have not yet completed our investigations in that matter but I would be surprised if there is any justification for it.

825. Deputy FitzGerald.—With regard to the table of the net health expenditure by health authorities,* I wish to raise the question as to whether the variations in the increases in cost are examined. I notice that the increases vary between 8 per cent in Carlow and 7 per cent in Tipperary South Riding while, for example, in Mayo the figure is 21 per cent. That is a 3 to 1 variation in the increase in costs in the different counties for the same year. Some of this may be due to time lags and payments of salary increases but it seems to me that it raises the question as to why a cost increase in one area is three times greater than in others. Perhaps this is something that should be considered?

—It is considered very carefully and in any instance in which there appears to be something odd the attention of the Local Government auditor is called to it. There can be many valid reasons for such variations. For instance, sometimes there is a dispute between one health authority and another or there may be a dispute between a health authority and an outside agency extending over a long period as to what a charge should be so that when the dispute is settled considerable arrears of expenditure are paid in a particular year. A case in point is that Louth County Council were in dispute with Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, about the charge for pathological tests carried out there for the council. In the year under review arrears of £12,000 were paid. Waterford Health Authority in an earlier year overcharged another health authority which sent patients to it for treatment. This was corrected in the year under review and had the opposite effect.

826. This is something that is watched all the time?

—Yes.

827. Chairman.—In respect of Tipperary North Riding and South Riding regarding institutional services the figure for North Riding is £266,000 and for South Riding it is £354,000. On the basis of population that would seem to be a little disproportionate?

—Yes. I will have that looked into.

828. It has increased from 1966-67?

—The percentage increase in North Tipperary was 15.2 and, in South Tipperary it was 14.4. It seems to be something that applied in previous years also because the percentage increase is approximately the same in both North and South Tipperary. In 1967-68, the figure for North Tipperary was £231,000 and for South Tipperary it was £310,000.

829. In 1966-67 the proportion was 3 against 4 but here it is 2 against 3?

—I am afraid I could not give the explanation for that, but I shall have it looked up and send a note to the committee.*

Chairman.—It would appear that the discrepancy is increasing. We can now turn to Vote 49 on page 163.

VOTE 49—CENTRAL MENTAL HOSPITAL.

Mr. P. S. Ó Muireadhaigh further examined.

830. Deputy P. Barry.—Where is the Central Mental Hospital?

Mr. Ó Muireadhaigh.—At Dundrum, County Dublin. It used to be the Criminal Lunatic Asylum. We changed the name about seven years ago. The Health Act, 1970 provides for the transfer of the hospital to one of the new regional health authorities which will operate it in future.

831. Deputy Briscoe.—I understand that a new body has been set up by the hospitals to provide for uniforms and so on for the various hospitals?

—No, the body which I think the Deputy has in mind was set up by the Minister, originally to provide a central sterile supply service for hospitals. That has been expanded now and at the moment they are building a large new laundry which it is hoped will do laundry for all the Dublin and peripheral hospitals. It must be well-known to the committee that hospital laundries have not been economically operated. If you operate a laundry with a trained staff on commercial lines you get far better return for money than if you have a series of small, inefficiently-run laundries.

832. It is proposed eventually to extend this so that hospitals can do bulk buying? At the moment there is bulk buying of drugs through the Dublin Health Authority?

—To have combined purchasing?

Yes, a combined purchasing system through that body?

—This is not intended, at present at any rate. Any further extension of the activities of the body would probably be along the present lines—the provision centrally of services which could be provided more economically than they could be provided in small units in individual institutions. In course of time this might extend into such fields as pre-preparation of meals.

833. How are uniforms for the staff provided or do the staff buy their own uniforms?

—In the Central Mental Hospital the uniforms are supplied through the Department of Posts and Telegraphs

834. Deputy P. Barry.—On subhead E— Farm and Garden—the expenditure was £38 more than granted—what does this subhead cover?

—This is the expenditure in the year on the farm and garden for manure, seeds, bulbs, plants, implements, petrol and oil for tractors and motor mowers and repairs. In the year under review the figure included a net £800 for a new tractor to replace the existing one which was seventeen years old.

835. Is there any income from it?

—Practically all the vegetables and fruit used in the institution are produced in the farm and garden. The exception is potatoes. They produce sufficient potatoes for only six months of the year. In appropriations in aid, subhead F, there is a credit of £974 for the value of farm produce used in the hospital and a small amount, for sales of hay and of a small surplus of vegetables sold in the Dublin market when there is a glut in the institution.

836. What is the number of staff and patients?

—The staff is very large in relation to the number of patients—83 staff and an average of 115 patients. The number of patients at the moment is 140.

837. They are not eating a lot?

—It costs an average of £84 a year to feed a patient. The dietary scale is good. If the committee wish it, I can supply a copy.

No. I was not taking into account the produce of the institution itself. It is not an excessive sum.

Chairman.—Thank you very much, Mr. Ó Muireadhaigh.

The witness withdrew.

Chairman.—I propose that we suspend the sitting at this point and resume at 3 p.m. to deal with the Vote for Transport and Power.

Question put, and agreed to.

The sitting was accordingly suspended at 1.30 p.m.

The Committee resumed at 3 p.m.

VOTE 41—TRANSPORT AND POWER.

Mr. D. Ó Riordáin called and examined.

838. Chairman.—Paragraph 70 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads as follows:

“Vote 41.—Transport and Power

Subhead C.—Equipment, Stores and Maintenance

70. The flight checking of navigational aids at State airports is carried out by aircraft hired periodically by the Department from the Federal Aviation Agency. I noticed that it was proposed in 1964 and again in 1965 that as an alternative an aircraft, suitably equipped, should be purchased at a cost of £100,000 to be operated by the Army Air Corps for the purpose of carrying out the flight checks and to be available also for training radar operators. These proposals were turned down, but in January, 1967 sanction was obtained to purchase an aircraft equipped for the training of radar operators at an estimated cost of £60,000. This figure included £20,000 for the aircraft, which was of 1961 manufacture and was lying in the maker’s factory, £11,000 to bring life expired components up to date and approximately £30,000 for instrumentation and a spare power unit. A later proposal to instal full flight checking radionic equipment was approved in July, 1967 thereby increasing the estimate to £82,000.

Before the work on the aircraft was completed, the contractors went into liquidation; the most suitable tender received for the completion of the work amounted to £36,000 bringing the estimate of cost to £100,000. This was further increased in October, 1968 to £140,000 to include a flight checking unit on the ground at Air Corps headquarters, then regarded as essential if the aircraft is to be effectively used for the flight checking of navigational aids. Some £56,000 has already been paid out on the project.

Operating costs were estimated at £10,000 per annum apart from major overhauls. Savings in the region of £16,000 per annum were expected out of £22,750 per annum paid for aircraft hireage. I have requested the observations of the Accounting Officer on the economy of purchasing an aircraft for this work. I have also asked to be informed if the need for a flight checking unit on the ground was taken into account in coming to the decision in July, 1967 to instal full flight checking radionic equipment in the aircraft.”

839. Have you anything to add, Mr. Suttle?

Mr. Suttle.—This is about the purchase of an aircraft for checking the instrumentation for landing purposes at the airport. The Accounting Officer considers that the realistic way to assess the relative cost of purchasing or hiring an aircraft for this work is on the basis of annual charges, and he has furnished me with figures prepared on that basis. These show that the annual cost of operating a full flight checking service, whilst still retaining the use of Federal Aviation Agency facilities for the more sophisticated aspects of the work, does not differ materially from the cost of full utilisation of the agency to meet all flight checking requirements. The assessed annual costs are of an order of £50,000 in each case. In 1968 and 1969 the amounts paid for hire were £22,000 and £31,000 respectively but the service fell short of requirements due to postponements and to delays in obtaining the aircraft. Also, it is expected that a more expensive type of aircraft will be used in future. The Accounting Officer states that there are other factors that outweigh costs. These include the possible non-availability of Federal Aviation Agency aircraft when urgently required and the obligation to maintain navigational facilities to full International Civil Aviation Organisation standards at all times. As regards the flight checking unit on the ground, the Accounting Officer states that it was known in 1967 that this would be essential but it was not then possible to assess its cost and size. I have drawn attention to this matter because it seemed to me that the planning had gone forward in a somewhat haphazard manner and that the estimates on which the original decision was taken were incomplete. The whole project has now been re-examined, following a request in April, 1969, from the Department of Finance. I understand it is proposed that it be carried out in two stages the first of which will enable the aircraft to be used for training air traffic staff and a limited testing of navigational aids. The cost of the first stage is estimated at £30,000 which will bring the total outlay to £87,000. The second stage, to make the aircraft suitable for full flight checking, would, it is estimated, cost a further £58,000 to complete. Another point which has occurred to me is whether this aircraft and its equipment, now some years old, will not be obsolete by the time that current developments at State airports to meet the requirements of larger and faster aircraft have been completed.

840. Deputy Briscoe.—There is an awful lot there to digest.

Mr. Suttle.—It is not a very simple matter to deal with.

Deputy FitzGerald.—Is this a supplementary note?

Mr. Suttle.—It is supplementary to what I have printed in the Report. It was only brought up to date and given to me yesterday.

841. Deputy FitzGerald.—It is a little difficult to take in.

Mr. Suttle.—The Accounting Officer states now that the cost of fully checking navigational flight equipment would be £50,000 a year, using the services of the Civil Aviation Agency in Frankfurt, the total cost of providing our own aircraft and equipment—taking the interest on the capital cost plus the cost of servicing, maintenance, and so on—would work out at much the same figure, i.e. £50,000. In other words, even though these figures have been growing from year to year, it is still an economic proposition in the view of the Accounting Officer to get our own aircraft.

842. Deputy FitzGerald.—How is it economic if the running costs are the same and you have to find the capital as well?

Mr. Suttle.—In using the Agency—in other words, hiring the craft when required —it frequently happens that it is not available and the check that should be carried out is not carried out at the time it is required. I was speaking to the Accounting Officer this morning and he told me that, in one particular case, a check due at the end of three months was extended to six months. That means that the navigational aids at the airport were possibly not at the standard specified for the three months period. There is a question of the Federal Aviation Agency not being in a position to supply the service immediately as required. Most countries in Europe now have provided their own service. Up to some time ago, the FAA carried out a service for a number of European countries but, working on the same basis as we are, they found the service so provided was not satisfactory and they have now provided their own. England decided to do this only in the last few years. I inquired if there was any possibility of our using England’s aircraft but he tells me the English are too busy themselves.

843. Deputy Keating.—You mentioned the FAA of Frankfurt. Does this mean they are a Federal German Agency?

Mr. Suttle.—No. They are American, based in Frankfurt.

844. Deputy P. Barry.—Is there any such thing as a forward booking?

Mr. Suttle.—No. You cannot forward book for sudden emergency. It is all right in fine weather but if you get into a lot of dirty weather you possibly would have to close down the airport because it would be regarded as not up to full safety standard. My great difficulty was whether sufficient consideration was given to this at the very beginning. The aircraft now in question was built in 1961, so at this state it is ten years old.

845. Deputy Keating.—Does that mean it may be considered obsolete?

Mr. Suttle.—It was never flown and the Department considered at the time it was economically possible to buy this as, shall we say, a second-hand aircraft, and to fit it up as required. It was a question of, like an old house, whether it would be better to knock it down altogether and build a new one or to repair the existing one.

846. Deputy FitzGerald.—When you talk about it being possibly obsolete do you mean it is not big enough to do the increased amount of work required, that it is not fast enough to fly at the speeds required to carry out the necessary checks?

Mr. Suttle.—An aircraft can go out of date within itself. The aircraft was never in the air and it was a matter of spending £30,000 to bring its equipment up to date to pass safety standards.

847. Deputy FitzGerald.—That is a different point. That would be part of the equipment cost. It might have been cheaper to buy a new aircraft than to try to do it on the cheap. Now that we have bought the aircraft is it considered less than good? Is it considered inadequate because of lack of the right instrumentation or because of its inadequate speed?

Mr. Suttle.—That is a technical question I could not answer. The aircraft would be up to present day standards for this type of work but in five years it might not be good enough.

848. Chairman.—Perhaps the Accounting Officer would like to say something?

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—We have the advice of our own technical people on this, and, of course, of the Air Corps. This plane will be operated by the Air Corps who already have other Dove aircraft. We do not accept that it is obsolete for the work we need it for. Spares will be acquired with it. This is a very complicated story and it is very bad luck on our technical people that things should have gone wrong because this proposal was an attempt to achieve economy. They learned about this 1961 aircraft still lying in the manufacturers’ premises which was available at £20,000 including the life expired spares. Then instrumentation was acquired cheaply from an aircraft which had crashed. The proposition was to marry the two purchases and have an up to date check aircraft at a cost of £80,000, but the firm doing the job went bankrupt.

849. Deputy Briscoe.—What was it originally?

—In 1965 there was a proposal to buy a new Dove fully equipped at a cost of £100,000 but this was rejected.

850. Who were those people?

—Air Couriers Limited, London. It is now likely to go up from £82,000 to £100,000 and the fitting at a later stage of the more sophisticated type of equipment we have in store, might bring the final cost to around £140,000. The cheapest new aircraft, without any equipment costs about £160,000 to buy and it costs a great deal to fit it out.

851. Deputy FitzGerald.—What type would that be?

—A type equivalent to the Dove. Prices for aircraft range from £160,000 to £440,000. The smallest new aircraft that we can fit costs about £160,000 without any special fittings.

852. Would it be slower or faster than the Dove?

—It would be a later and different type of aircraft.

853. Would it be significantly different as regards speed?

—That would be a question that would affect the Air Corps as to whether they could operate it with existing pilots or whether they would have to train men to fly it. I would imagine they would prefer to have the same type of aircraft. For our particular job of checking I do not think it would make much difference as long as it was properly equipped because for the very short distances we would not need large aircraft.

854. Is speed a factor at all?

—No.

855. You can check equipment used by high-speed aircraft with an aircraft which does not fly at the same speed?

—It would have nothing to do with the speed. The radio aids are subject to regular checking and also there is the fact that they are delicate instruments. We get reports from pilots. If, for instance, our radio people receive a report to the effect that the Instrument Landing System is not working accurately we must notify users that this is out of order until such time as any necessary adjustments are made. Aircraft would then avoid the airport in weather conditions that would require the ILS.

856. With regard to the extra £40,000 for the second stage, can you tell us when that stage will be completed and how much you can do without that?

—With all the trouble we were having and the difficulty we had in persuading the Department of Finance on this, the technical people said “All right: let us get some of the job finished and get the aircraft delivered and then we can examine further the fitting of the additional equipment.”

857. You mention some of the work but can you tell us who does the rest of the work?

—Up to the present we have been able to get the FAA. During the past two years they were quite irregular which is why the bill was lower. They are quite regular at present but their prices are increasing. The FAA deal with the U.S. army airfields all over Europe, the Middle East and Africa and they may not do this work for us indefinitely. They are really obliging us.

858. My point is that if we do not spend this £40,000 initially but postpone the spending of it we then have to spend money during that interval on hiring the FAA aircraft if it is available. What amount of money would we have to spend in order to hire them to do the kind of work we would be unable to do after completion of the first stage and before completion of the second stage?

—I have not the figures for that at the moment because the proposal is still being examined and has not yet reached the Department of Finance. I am just bringing the story up to date.

859. Deputy Keating.—Can the Accounting Officer give us any idea of the timescale involved in this? When was the initial bankruptcy of the firm that was doing the fitting and equipping?

—About November, 1968.

860. Deputy FitzGerald.—That was two years after we bought the aircraft. What was happening all that time? Sanction was obtained in January, 1967. How did it come about that the aircraft was still lying in someone’s hangar two years later?

—It was purchased in May. In August, 1967, it was flown to Air Couriers who undertook to do the job and the delay initially was due to design and technical problems. They promised to have the Dove ready for handing over in December of 1968 but they went into liquidation on the 29th November, 1968.

861. Deputy Briscoe.—Did we pay them any money in advance?

—I think a sum of about £5,000 in all was paid to them.

862. Deputy FitzGerald.—How was there a delay of four months between the time of getting approval to buy and actually buying and how could it have taken 16 months to do the job?

—Three months were spent in getting tenders from people to do the job.

863. The paragraph states: “. . . . in January, 1967 sanction was obtained to purchase an aircraft equipped for the training of radar operators at an estimated cost of £60,000. This figure included £20,000 for the aircraft, which was of 1961 manufacture and was lying in the makers factory . . . .”. Why was the aircraft not bought until May?

—The purchase was completed in May, 1967.

864. Why did it take four months?

—You don’t buy an aircraft just as you buy something off the shelf. It has to be inspected and so on. Further, it must be certified by the registration board. Frankly, I cannot say how the time was spent but I would not say it was unduly long.

Deputy FitzGerald.—From my own experience I know of a team going out to Indo-China to buy an aircraft and coming back with it in a week’s time.

Deputy P. Barry.—This was a particular type of aircraft which had to be checked for its suitability to take the equipment for which it was intended.

Deputy FitzGerald.—That was done before the sanction was obtained.

865. Deputy Keating.—My understanding of the report we got was that the aircraft was known to exist in the manufacturer’s factory but that it was only when its suitability was known that approval was obtained from the Department of Finance. If that is the case it seems rather long. Had the approval been obtained before the shopping was done it might not have taken quite so long?

—This particular aircraft would have had to be examined very carefully. It is a very complicated business. I was not involved in it personally but I would be very slow to admit that there was any undue delay between the months of January and May.

866. Deputy FitzGerald.—It depends on the pace at which these things are done but if this were a private firm or State company I cannot conceive it taking half that time?

—We could look into the matter but, as I say, I would be slow to accept that there was a delay that could have been avoided.

867. What happened between the months of May and August?

—One cannot begin to look for people to do the adaptations until the plane has been purchased.

868. Why not have arrangements made so that the plane could go for adaptation immediately on its being purchased?

—I presume it was not purchased until May and that a decision on its adaptation was not taken until the time of purchase. We got authority from the Department of Finance to purchase this Dove aircraft subject to its being found to be satisfactory and then there was probably some difficulty in relation to getting people to inspect it.

869. But could not provisional arrangements have been made during that period to have a place ready to which the plane could be sent immediately on purchase?

—I cannot say but one does not ask people to submit tenders on a provisional basis.

870. Deputy Briscoe.—Would it be possible to have a breakdown of the £56,000 that has been spent on this project to date and may we take it that a sum of £20,000 was for the aircraft itself?

—Yes. £26,000 has been spent on equipment and on overhaul by Air Couriers, it cost £500 to get the wings off and we had to pay to have it transported. We spent £10,000 on a spare power plant.

871. The £26,000 is the only write off or have we anything to show for that?

—No, I do not think it is a write-off; this includes equipment and part of the work done by Air Couriers. More will have to be done. We estimate that further equipping and overhaul to bring it to the stage where it will be capable of being flown for training the Air Traffic Control people on radar and doing the less sophisticated checks, would cost another £44,000.

872. Did we get our money’s worth for the £26,000? Did they do all the work they were paid to do? When they went into bankruptcydid some of our investment go up the spout with them?

—I should not like to answer this. I am not quite clear as to what extent some of this expenditure may have been nugatory because of the circumstances.

873. I should like to know if we paid in advance for work which was not done?

—I do not imagine that happened but it may be that, because they did not finish the job, the work they had done now goes for nothing. I could check up on this and let you know.

874. Deputy FitzGerald.—I think, Mr. Chairman, there are many questions the Committee would like to have answered.

Chairman.—Perhaps we should ask for a report and consider it on Report Stage.

Deputy FitzGerald.—I think that somebody should tell us what has been happening since the bankruptcy. It is 16 months since that happened.

—I am afraid my technical officers are sorry they did not keep their ideas on economy to themselves and indent for a new aircraft.

Mr. Suttle.—Actually the second tender for reconditioning the aircraft was only obtained in February, 1969. That brings it a bit more up to date. Once Air Couriers fell down on the job they had to look for somebody else.

875. Deputy FitzGerald.—What has happened since then? That is thirteen months ago?

Mr. Suttle.—To a certain extent the work was held up by the Department of Finance when they discovered they had to produce this ground station. Originally the Department sought an aircraft with all the equipment and at a much later stage, when much of the difficulty over the liquidation of the company carrying out the work arose, it was then discovered that there was another £40,000—I think—required to provide a ground station to check the equipment on the aircraft which is like a flying laboratory and the equipment in it has to be accurate. In order to check that the equipment in the aircraft was correct, they had to have a ground station at Baldonnel.

876. Surely this was realised at the beginning?

Mr. Suttle.—It was not realised or certainly it was not brought to the notice of Finance at the beginning that this would happen. They got a bit of a shock when they discovered that this was an additional £40,000 which they had not realised at the beginning of the scheme.

877. What we would need to know there is whether this was not realised by the Department of Transport and Power when they submitted the scheme to Finance or did they realise it and not tell Finance?

Mr. Suttle.—No. But there was a hold-up because at that stage Finance threw up their hands and said: “Stop everything and let us know what exactly is the position. What are we landing ourselves into? Are we going to get anything out of this and what is it going to cost us?”

Deputy FitzGerald.—That is a matter that could be looked into in a week or two, but what happened then in the 13 months? Did anything happen?

878. Deputy Keating.—Has a way out been found now?

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—We have some tenders which we are considering.

879. Deputy FitzGerald.—At what stage? We were told you got a tender in February, 1969?

—The most recent tender was a couple of months ago. We still did not get Finance sanction to go ahead with the February tender.

880. If you got a tender in 1969 why were there more tenders received a couple of months ago? Were the old tenders deemed to be lapsed?

—You see Air Couriers had the aircraft nearly 18 months and we had to start from scratch again. It is not easy to get people to do this kind of work and it is difficult to get satisfactory tenders. In fact, we got only three tenders, of which I think only one is acceptable. Only one of the firms is prepared to do the kind of work required.

881. Was that in February, 1969?

—I am referring to the recent tenders in December, 1969.

882. We have already been told we got a tender in February, 1969, and I am wondering why we did not proceed with that and why we got more tenders since? I can understand things being held up for a week or two when Finance discovered they had not been told the whole position.

Mr. Suttle.—There was more delay in recent months than that because when Finance stopped things in April, 1969, it was only in September, 1969, that the Department was able to come back with a complete reassessment of the whole position.

883. Deputy FitzGerald.—I must say the pace of events is amazing.

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—We had to go back to the tenderers. It meant going back to the original tenderers and checking with them before we could seek the tenders we are now considering. If you get a full report on this I think it will run into a volume.

884. Deputy FitzGerald.—It is very disturbing to find that this is the pace at which things are done and the loss of money through failure of Departments to carry on business at the normal pace. The contract falls through in November, 1968. It takes three months to get things started again; it takes two months for Finance to find out this difficulty; it takes five months after that for a report to be submitted to enable them to take a decision and six months after that we are not any farther on. And all that is preceded by four months taken to decide to buy the plane and sixteen months of the plane being with Air Couriers. It seems extraordinary.

885. Deputy Keating.—I think we are uncovering a real difficulty here which is concerned with the speed of decision-making in two separate Departments. If this is a real difficulty it will be one arising in many other Departments. Personally, I should like to see this matter examined. One does not lightly ask people to do a large amount of investigation but, quite apart from the money involved here, there seems to be a lack of cohesion between Departments. There are occasions when obviously things should happen very rapidly. I should be interested to hear whether other Deputies think we should go into this further. Personally I should like to have it examined.

Mr. Suttle.—That position is realised particularly in regard to Mr. O’Riordan’s Department in that from the point of view of aviation, there is a standing committee of representatives of his own Department and representatives of the Department of Finance so that immediate decisions can be given where necessary. When they were considering this question the Department of Finance representatives said: “This is going beyond our province. We cannot cope with this. You will have to put the whole thing up completely to the Department.” That was the gap between April and September.

886. Deputy FitzGerald.—We appreciate that there is a Committee there to enable immediate decisions to be taken, but if it is to be used to stop decisions being taken perhaps you would be better off without it?

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—The speed was not particularly urgent in this case. It was a long term job. We had the FAA arrangement. I do not imagine there was any improper delay, but on the other hand, nobody, least of all the Department of Finance, would have regarded this as a matter requiring urgent decisions.

887. Deputy FitzGerald.—That is precisely the point. The whole trouble in dealing with the Department of Finance here is that it was not regarded as a matter of urgency. The purchase took four months to put through and other things took so long. There is not the normal pace of business in the working of the Department; if there was, this situation would not have arisen. This is the point I am making, that the pace of decision-making in the public service is not related at all to modern standards. This is an interesting case-study of the position and I think we should have a chronological report on this almost in chart form setting out where each delay occurred and the reason for it and who took how long to make what decision. I should like it to show just where each delay occurred; who took how long to make what decision; how many delays there were that held up the matter for the three-year period.

Chairman.—You want a report setting out in chronological order particulars as to the delays?

Deputy FitzGerald.—Yes—who had to wait for whom, before something could be done.

—I will arrange to supply a report.*

888. Chairman.—Paragraph 71 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads as follows:

“Subhead D.2.—Córas Iompair Éireann Redundancy Compensation

71. Section 15 of the Transport Act, 1958, authorises the payment of grants from voted moneys to Córas Iompair Éireann to meet the cost of compensation paid to employees, including those of the former Great Northern Railway Board, whose services were dispensed with or conditions worsened in the period from 16 July 1958 to 31 March 1964. Including £348,435 charged to this subhead, grants issued amounted to £3,882,998 at 31 March 1969. Grants are supported by auditors’ certificates of the amounts expended on compensation.”

Mr. Suttle.—This paragraph gives all the information I have on this question. There is nothing further to add to it.

889. Chairman.—Paragraph 72 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads as follows:

Tourism

Subhead F.1.—Grants under Section 2 of the Tourist Traffic Act, 1961 (Grants-in-Aid)

Subhead F.2.—Resort Development (Grant-in-Aid)

Subhead F.3—Development of Holiday Accommodation (Grant-in-Aid)

Subhead F.4.—Development of Supplementary Holiday Accommodation in Western Counties (Grant-in-Aid)

72. Grants issued to Bord Fáilte Éireann to 31 March 1969 are shown in the following statements:—

890. Have you anything to add, Mr. Suttle?

Mr. Suttle.—Again, this paragraph is for information. The accounts of Bord Fáilte were audited by me.

891. Chairman.—This question of Bord Fáilte holding large balances on current account was raised by the last Committee. That has now been resolved?

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—We settled that to the satisfaction of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

892. Chairman.—Bord Fáilte do not publish a list of the grants they issue in the same way as do An Foras Tionscal?

—This is really a policy matter. The Minister answered a question in the Dáil in relation to this subject quite recently. I think he said he was asking Bord Fáilte to publish as much more information as they could, with due regard for confidentiality.

Deputy FitzGerald.—That is not an actual quotation.

—Roughly, it is what he said.

Deputy E. Collins.—I asked the question. He said there would be no name-giving from Bord Fáilte in relation to grants.

Deputy FitzGerald.—My recollection is to the contrary.

—They would publish the names of larger undertakings.

Deputy FitzGerald.—Down to £5,000— and it was agreed by the Minister, tentatively, anyway.

Deputy Keating.—I have to indicate my endorsement of the Devlin suggestion about excessive secrecy. Our work is, in part, vitiated if the figures, down to a reasonable amount, are not published. It is very difficult for us to function in a valid way at all, in circumstances such as these. Surely, if everything is completely correct and proper, there should be no objection? Refusal is bound to lead to the thought that there would be revelations in publications that would be embarrassing. We have had too much secrecy. It is embarrassing.

Deputy FitzGerald.—In fairness, it must be said that the Minister has shown some signs of——

893. Chairman.—We can pass from that. It is largely a question of policy. Paragraphs 73 to 75 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General read as follows:

“Shannon Free Airport Development Company, Limited

Administration and General Expenses (Grant-in-Aid) (Subhead K.1)

Grants to Industrialists (Grants-in-Aid) (Subhead K.2)

Housing Subsidies (Subhead K.3)

Housing Grants (Subhead K.4)

73. The functions of the Minister for Transport and Power under the Shannon Free Airport Development Company, Limited, Acts, 1959 to 1968, except those related to tourism and aviation, were transferred to the Minister for Industry and Commerce with effect from 22 October 1968.

74. Grants to the company for its general purposes, including grants to industrialists, are limited to £6,000,000. Including £300,000 and £400,000 charged to subheads K.1 and K.2, respectively, of this vote and £23,000 charged to subhead X of the vote for Industry and Commerce the total of such grants amounted at 31 March 1969 to £3,578,500.

75. £59,757 was paid to the company to subsidise the letting of houses at reduced rents and £68,725 as grants for new houses, equivalent to the grants normally payable under the Housing Acts.”

894. Deputy FitzGerald.—I take it that the divided responsibility of the company to two Ministers has not given rise to any difficulties, Mr. Ó Ríordáin?

—Not so far. The different functions are fairly precisely drawn—tourism and the promotion of the airport on our side and the industrial aspect on the other side.

895. Deputy Keating.—On the Vote itself, subhead C refers to Equipment, Stores and Maintenance. Expenditure is half the amount granted in this case. Was there any particular reason for that? With an item such as equipment, stores and maintenance, it seems a forward projection should be, perhaps not exactly on line, but of the order of plus or minus 10 per cent?

—We had savings on the Meteorological Service. There were no payments for a radar link at Cork and another at Dublin Airport, due to delay in the finalising of decisions and in getting delivery. There was a saving of £40,000 against the estimates. The only other major item is the Dove where there was a saving of £14,000.

896. Deputy Tunney.—Subhead D.1 refers to the grant to Córas Iompair Éireann. Would that include the cost of purchasing certain equipment, buses, and so on?

—The £2 million here is a fixed grant. Under the new Bill, it is £2,650,000.

897. Deputy FitzGerald.—Subhead E. refers to Grants for Harbours. The divergence is very great. The explanation suggests an extraordinary erraticness in the relationship between plans and performance. The note on page 126 in relation to the subhead states that work involving grant expenditure did not proceed at four harbours and that expenditure at two other harbours was less than expected. It further states that these savings were partly offset by unanticipated payments in connection with work carried out at two harbours. One feels that nothing worked out according to plan at any harbour?

—A grant may be approved or it may be expected that a grant will be approved. with regard to estimates given by harbour commissioners to the Minister, they are not always able to live up to them. Drogheda is an example. Some ten years ago, a grant of £175,000 was approved for Drogheda. When their first attempt at the scheme did not work out, they had consultants in and models made, but they are not yet in a position to come to us with a final scheme.

898. Does it go into the Estimate every year?

—We have to make some assumptions about what harbour commissioners may be doing. Some years we hit it, but this must have been a bad one. The estimates are based on the figures we can get from the commissioners themselves, and to tell the truth we write them down more often than not. This time we did not do it enough.

899. Deputy Briscoe.—In subhead F.2.— Resort Development (Grant-in-Aid)—I see a grant of £400,000 a year is allowed for resort development. How much does the total request amount to in any one year?

—We do not have requests. Bord Fáilte administer the fund. This resort development item is for major resort developments that have been designated as such, like County Donegal and the Shannon. Schemes are negotiated with the local authorities and other interests over a period. The minor resort improvements are paid for by Bord Fáilte out of their own general grant. Bord Fáilte come to us with an estimate of what they expect they will require for major resorts and there is the usual struggle in the light of our resources. A fair amount of information on this expenditure is published in Bord Fáilte’s annual report.

900. I was thinking in terms of what the estimated expenditure on resort development would be in the next five years?

—The Fund voted by the Dáil is £3.25 million. The annual amount, of course, will be affected by the rate at which local authorities and others are able to process schemes and Bord Fáilte to agree to them and, of course, the extent to which money may be available.

901. In relation to subhead F.4.—Development of Supplementary Holiday Accommodation in Western Counties (Grant-in-Aid)—is the amount not expended carried over to the following year or is it lost because they were not able to use it in the year under review? They spent only £20,000 out of the grant of £100,000?

—It is surrendered, but it will be repeated in the next year.

In other words, they will be allowed £180,000 in the next year?

—No.

Mr. Suttle.—The money is voted but they get only the money that is immediately needed by them.

902. Deputy Briscoe.—Are they free to take it under any other head?

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—No. This must be surrendered if not spent on the appropriate work.

903. Deputy Tunney.—Subhead S. deals with renting of land near the airports?

—We may need some small parcels of land for small enclosures near the airport and we rent them from farmers.

904. We anticipated we would need £2,500 in the year with which we are concerned but we spent just a little more than £600?

Where the rent is small, lump sums may be paid instead.

905. Deputy FitzGerald.—On subhead T. —Investment Grants for Ships—the note says that the money was voted but could not be paid out without legislation. Is it not sufficient that the money be voted?

Deputy Keating.—Could we know a little more about how the circumstances arose that the legislation was not enacted? Is it the fault of the Dáil that the thing is held-up?

—This was a rather complicated Bill. We put a provision in the Estimate in the expectation that we would have the legislation through, but it was not ready in time.

906. Deputy FitzGerald.—The legislation was not ready in time or the Dáil did not get through it in time?

—The Government decided to initiate a scheme of investment grants for ships. This was announced and we expected to have legislation through sometime in that year and we accordingly made provision for it.

907. When did the legislation reach the Dáil?

—December, 1968.

908. And it did not get through the Dáil in the following three months?

—It did not.

909. You cannot be blamed for that. We must look elsewhere?

—It would not have caused loss to anybody because the legislation has retrospective effect.

910. Deputy FitzGerald.—Regarding the explanation on subhead A.—Salaries, Wages and Allowances—I notice that in the note referred to it says that receipts and expenditure at the Airports in March were formerly brought to account in the following financial year. Does this mean that the year ended in February although it actually ended in March and the March revenue was ignored?

—It was more simple than that. When we handed over to Aer Rianta we gave them a clean start from the 1st April and paid all the wages and salaries up to 31st March. Normally that month’s salaries and wages would have fallen into the following month so that we paid for 13 months in that financial year. It was in order to have everything paid up to the 31st March.

911. Is that normal practice in all State bodies?

—Salaries are brought into account in the following month.

912. So that the State draw a cheque on its bank account on the 29th, 30th or 31st of the month but it is not accounted for until the following month?

—Quite frankly I am not conversant with the details of the account but this is what happened.

913. Was it peculiar to the airport that this imprest system was brought into effect?

Mr. Suttle.—This is a matter of convenience. If there had been no change we would have paid 52 weeks salaries and wages in the normal way but in a case such as this there is a delay in checking and accounting. Some years ago we tried to hurry up the production of accounts saying that if there is a delay in one month it could be brought forward into the following year and between one year and the next it would make no difference.

914. Deputy FitzGerald.—So that this is not normal practice but applies in cases of outstations like this?

Mr. Suttle.—That is so. Normally, the March salaries in a Government Department are charged in that year in the month of March.

915. Deputy Briscoe.—Under No. 1 of Appropriations in Aid—Fees under the Air Navigation and Transport Acts, 1936 to 1965—are these landing fees?

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—No, they would come under airport receipts. The main items here are for Certificates of Registration for aircraft, for medical and flying tests and other minor matters of that kind.

916. Under No. 3 of the Appropriations in Aid—Passenger service charge at airports—I note that the cost of collection of the passenger service charge amounted to £34,184. Is this airport tax?

—This is made up of the 10s paid in addition to the ticket.

917. How many people were involved in the collection of these fees because it seems a very large amount?

—The air companies have never wanted to co-operate at all. They claim the charge is inconvenient and unpopular. This fee was agreed after a lot of bargaining with them but looked at as a commission it is not very large, about 7½ per cent.

918. I understand that in other countries this service charge is now included in the price of the ticket?

—We have been negotiating with the airlines for some time but they do not wish to have such an arrangement. We would have to have a similar arrangement with all airlines. However, we are still negotiating and hoping for some agreement.

919. I would have thought that from the passenger’s point of view it would be more convenient to have the charge included in the price of the ticket?

—Yes, but of course the price of the ticket would have to be increased.

920. Deputy FitzGerald.—From the point of view of Aer Lingus the particular charge is a capital one more against their short hauls than their long hauls?

—Most terminal charges hit Aer Lingus very hard because of the number of short haul services provided.

921. Deputy Briscoe.—What is the reason for the variance in the estimated and realised amount?

—I cannot tell you offhand but I expect that the main reason was increased costs.

Mr. Suttle.—The air companies have been fighting for some time as to the basis on which a charge can be calculated and probably this is the result of an agreement so that the airports are getting back more than what was originally intended by the Department to give them.

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—It is a calculated cost of collection but not a percentage charge.

922. Deputy Briscoe.—Can the Accountting Officer tell us what is Shanwick, referred to at item 10 of the Appropriations in Aid?

—Shanwick is the joint Shannon Prestwick air traffic control area covering Ireland and the east Atlantic. Within that area we have the main communication facilities and aircraft passing into the area report by radio to Shannon for which a charge is made.

923. Deputy FitzGerald.—With regard to items 7—Landing Fees etc., and 9—Sales and Catering Service year ended 31st January, 1968, and receipts for hostel accommodation—the amounts realised were very much greater than estimated because of an unexpected increase in traffic. I wonder whether the wording of the notes is not arguable. Because it is not said that the surplus receipts from landing fees was due to traffic that was not anticipated but that it was greater than could have been anticipated. It seems to me it could have been anticipated but, in fact, was not. Is it the appropriate wording in a document of this kind? Coming to the main point on that, what, in fact, was the basis of the estimate? What was the figure for the previous year when these estimates were made of £720,000 and £90,000? Was it assumed there would be a decline?

—The increase in traffic was much greater than anyone expected.

Mr. Suttle.—Actually, the figure estimated for 1967-8 was £630,000 and there was an increase to £720,000 for 1968-9.

924. Deputy FitzGerald.—The same rate of landing fee?

Mr. Suttle.—Landing fees vary accord to the size of the aircraft.

925. Deputy FitzGerald.—I mean the scale? It was not changed?

Mr. Ó Riordáin.—No. The landing fee. change was brought in on the 1st April of last year, a 20 per cent increase. There had been no increase for ten years before that.

926. Then the variances here are solely due to increased traffic. That means traffic must have increased by 75 per cent in one year?

—There is another 13 months there. It is the obverse of what we were talking about a while ago.

927. I think it was estimated that traffic was going to decrease?

Mr. Suttle.—No, that estimate was made in December before the year was finished.

928. Deputy FitzGerald.—But the great bulk of the traffic would have been before December. It must have been known that 70 or 80 per cent of the traffic would have travelled by then? It is estimated that traffic would decline and instead it increased by about 50 per cent. Why was a decline expected?

Mr. Suttle.—I would not say a decline was expected. The Deputy’s point is that the receipts in 1967-8 were very much higher than were estimated for 1968-9.

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—My note here says we estimated £720,000 on the best information we had and that the traffic turned out to be far greater than anyone expected.

929. Deputy FitzGerald.—But what I am asking is why did you expect traffic to decline?

Mr. Suttle.—On the basis of actual receipts in the previous year of £756,000?

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—We would not have known at the time this estimate was made what the receipts for the current year would be; there would be another four months to go.

930. Deputy FitzGerald.—But in the month of December you must have known that the figure was going to be around £750,000 or £760,000 since 80 per cent of the year’s traffic had been handled then and at that point you would know the trend of the traffic?

—No, because in December the latest figure you could have or hope to have would be for November, and you would have December, January, February and March to come.

931. Very little traffic?

—I do not know whether there was a sudden surge in traffic in early spring but this was the figure the people on the job estimated to the best of their ability. They turned out to be wrong but I do not think there were any special circumstances that I know of that caused them to put in a particularly low estimate. This was their genuine appreciation of the position when they made the estimate.

932. Then one needs to know—as was implied earlier—whether they simply added on to the previous year’s estimate without checking on what the traffic had actually been because any check on traffic would show that it had risen sharply and revenue was bound to be approaching the estimate with only four months to go?

—No, that is not how these estimates are done. They are done in a slightly more sophisticated way. The Shannon Airport manager would provide the estimates in the first place, draft estimates, and bring them up to date. We keep month to month records and I would say that at that stage the monthly figure we had, indicated that estimate would be the figure for the following year.

933. That is a matter of fact which we can establish?

—There may have been special circumstances. The possibility of extra training operations may have come in in the early months of that year. All I can say is that, generally speaking, we do not do too badly on the estimating. There would certainly be no question of putting down a figure without checking results to date.

934. It is puzzling, unless there was an extraordinary amount of training in the early months of the year. Perhaps we can get more facts on that aspect of it. Could we have information on the monthly receipts for the year 1967-8 as compared with 1966-7 and see how it was doing at that point? If, in fact, you assume a decline in traffic when it is known that there is likely to be a big increase, there is a danger of facilities not being provided to cope with the increase. It is quite important for efficient functioning of the airport. Even the direction of the estimate is wrong.

Mr. Suttle.—It would be very unlikely that the question of inadequate facilities would arise because these are built up away ahead of the realisation of the traffic. For example, for some considerable time the Department has been working on providing facilities for the jumbo jets.

935. Deputy FitzGerald.—I think you are thinking of physical facilities. Staffing provision is decided the winter beforehand. Even in regard to physical facilities I find every time I am at Shannon that they are always doing a hasty job of some kind.

Mr. Ó Ríordáin.—It is true that realisation nearly always exceeded estimates. Whether we have been too pessimistic I do not know.

936. Deputy Keating.—I think this is fairly serious. One can understand an error of 50 per cent once or twice but one would like to see a scatter of error above and below. Surely what has happened here indicates that there is something wrong with the estimating?

—The discrepancy is relatively minor and varies but from 1966 on the realisation tended to exceed the estimate but not by anything like 50 per cent.

937. Chairman.—You want a note on this Deputy FitzGerald?

Deputy FitzGerald.—Yes, just briefly, monthly revenue figures for the two years.*

—There is a tendency to err on the side of prudence in estimating.

Chairman.—We want the monthly receipts for the two years to see whether there was ground for anticipating a decrease in landings.

938. Deputy Briscoe.—Many of the landing fees are also based on the training flights—each time a plane takes off and lands.

—We do a bargain rate for training. If there is a lot of training, we have a contract.

Deputy FitzGerald.—If there was an unexpected amount of training in the last quarter of that financial year, it is a possible explanation.

939. Deputy P. Barry.—What about the ferry traffic?

—The ferry traffic seems to have affected Dublin and Cork Airports.

940. Would the air crash have had an effect?

—That might have had an effect on both Dublin and Cork.

941. In fact the ferry did not start until 12 months ago?

—Persons who might otherwise come to Cork by air might come by Rosslare.

942. Would I be right in blaming the crash?

—It is very difficult to say. It made a very big impression in Cork, being a relatively small place.

943. There was hardly anybody in the County Cork who did not know somebody connected with that crash?

—Yes, probably.

Deputy FitzGerald.—General experience of air accidents is that their effect on traffic is short-lived.

Deputy P. Barry.—In some airports.

Deputy FitzGerald.—That is the general experience. It may be different in Cork.

Deputy P. Barry.—If the crash is from a small airport.

Deputy FitzGerald.—Take the Aer Lingus crash in 1952. Its effect on traffic was short-lived. It affected Dublin rather than Cork.

944. Deputy Briscoe.—Since the income from the training of pilots by foreign airlines on new aircraft is increasing now, might I suggest that this might be shown separately in future? Would you have the figures given separately there as to what the income was from training alone?

—Yes. We have the figures here. In 1967-68, training operations provided £142,000. In 1968-69, training operations provided £257,000. Therefore, they were practically double for that year.

945. Deputy Keating.—Is there an estimated figure for this year, Mr. Ó Ríordáin?

—I have not got it by me.

Deputy Keating.—We can ask that question in the Dáil.

946. Deputy Briscoe.—In future accounts, would it be possible to show figures for training fees, Mr. Ó Ríordáin?

—It is not provided for at the moment. I do not know what the procedure is for extending the descriptions.

Mr. Suttle.—That would be a matter for agreement with the Department of Finance.

—Yes, we can look at it. There is just the possibility of difficulty if there is any confidentiality—if there was only one training company.

947. Deputy Briscoe.—There are a number of them?

—There may be some difficulty there. I could not see any difficulty from the point of view of the Department.

948. Deputy P. Barry.—Will the Department seek to increase the amount they get for training?

—Yes. The increased training has received a mixed welcome in Cork. I am reminded that when Aer Rianta take over, a different situation will arise. These figures will in future appear in Aer Rianta’s accounts and we may have no receipt from Aer Rianta. We shall get in touch with them and tell them of your interest in having these figures shown separately.

949. Deputy FitzGerald.—On extra remuneration, take the limits in respect of extra remuneration for extra attendance and night duties allowances. The limits are very wide. £1,206 is a lot to be paid to an individual for extra attendance on night duty. It suggests that somebody else should be employed to do that kind of work?

—The bigger figures are in the cases of our radio-technician people. During that year, we had nine vacancies for radio officers. We are now trying to get a new roster to reduce the amount of overtime. It is very onerous on these men even though they are volunteers. We have the problem of finding radio operators and, even more important, radio technicians—the people who, when these instruments are out of order, have to repair and adjust them.

950. It is undesirable that such people should have to do such enormous amounts of overtime, is it not?

—It is very difficult to get technical officers, in particular.

951. Why?

—It is difficult to get radio officers and then to train them to the technician standard.

952. Why is it difficult to get them?

—They are scarce. You cannot get architects.

953 Why? It is worth tracing it back to source in a case like this, is it not?

—Television competition. They are the same kinds of people. This applies across a wide spectrum of professional people— architects and engineers——

954. There is an unsatisfactory wide range of jobs where we have scarcely full employment. Is there something wrong with recruitment, pay, training, openings? If there is persistent shortage over a wide range of technical personnel, surely it indicates an unsatisfactory and undesirable situation? Are these people mainly at Ballygireen?

—The operators are mainly there but the technical people looking after the equipment would mainly all be at the airports more or less in proportion to the equipment there requiring maintenance and servicing. I would say that Deputy FitzGerald’s question goes outside my Department and the Civil Service.

955. Deputy FitzGerald.—It goes outside it, but it is also inside it. What are the entrance qualifications? At which level are they recruited?

—We recruit some of them but a number are our own radio operators. They take the City and Guilds certificate.

956. Promoting your own employees does not increase the labour volume. When recruiting the various people, what qualifications do you look for?

—I could not give you the technical specification offhand but I believe they are the same as the technicians of RTE and the Post Office.

957. They have to have qualifications of some character before they are recruited. It is an unfairly detailed question. It is, however, of some importance because we can be coming across these bottlenecks all over the place. It seems an extraordinary situation that when we are exporting 10,000 plus, we cannot fill these posts?

—The shortage is of highly skilled people. They are not the people who are emigrating.

958. Is it that the public service is not paying enough to get them, or that the training facilities do not exist, or that there is an absence of scholarship? Is it something the State should step in and remedy?

—It is difficult to say. There is a tremendous demand for qualified people of all kinds, even in the category of executive officers in the Civil Service. In the recent past, if you wanted to recruit 50 people you might have to call 300. The shortage of qualified men runs right across the spectrum.

959. Is there not something seriously wrong—the salaries, the recruitment methods, the training? It certainly is not that we are short of people in the country?

—I do not know enough about it to speculate much further. In our Department we find it applies not only to this type of technician but to engineers and architects also.

Chairman.—This has been a problem of every Accounting Officer.

960. Deputy Keating.—I should like to get some information about the prospect of forward planning in the Department of Transport and Power specifically, but this problem has been encountered by us on every Vote. We are told nothing can be done about it because it is not possible to recruit people. In the long term, it is necessary to make plans and submissions about the training and the recruitment of necessary staff. I should like a note about the plans and submissions of this Department to provide a sufficiency of these people because it is an anomaly and we should have high unemployment and emigration when there are posts that cannot be filled.

961. Deputy FitzGerald.—The note could take the form of indicating in respect of skills at present in short supply what is your estimated requirement and what steps you are taking to ensure that the flow of people will be there in the next five years to fill those requirements.

—There are problems of recruitment, particularly in regard to engineers and architects required by a number of Departments and this is primarily a responsibility of the Department of Finance.

962. The first thing would be your requirements during the next five years and then, in respect of those peculiar to your Department, what steps you will take to insure the posts will be filled.

Chairman.—Would the Department of Labour not be of some help to you in that respect?

—I shall have to have a look at it.*

963. Deputy Briscoe.—Under the heading State Airports, I wish to get back to the question of training programmes at Shannon. Are the facilities at Shannon adequate to allow for the training of jumbo jet crews? I am quite sure there will be requests from European airlines for the training of their crews over here?

—We will have facilities for the reception of jumbo jet aircraft ready in good time. We would not require very much more than we have at the moment for the training of jumbo jet aircrews—there might, possibly, be need to widen some taxiways. In other words, if we were offered a good deal for the training of jumbo jet crews, there would not be any difficulty about it. The main problem there will be in dealing with passengers—the physical arrangements for embarking and disembarking them, getting them through customs, having so many of them at the one time. This is where the main expenditure on preparation for the jumbo jets will come in. We can do with the same runways—there are extra wheels on the jumbo jet and the weight is distributed accordingly—but we must provide greater parking space.

964. I envisaged that the future prosperity of Shannon might depend largely on the availability at the airport of facilities for the training of crews. This is a lucrative business for airports nowadays, and those in Portugal and Spain are availing of it. I think the position should be examined with a view to setting up possibly the largest training centre in the world at Shannon. Aircraft will get bigger and bigger?

—At the moment the provision of facilities for the training of crews is regarded as of secondary importance. It would have to be restricted to off season periods. You could not indulge in a training programme in the middle of a busy period—it would be dangerous. It would take up the entire facilities of the airport. It is all right during 12-hour periods without much ordinary traffic. It is not, of course, as remunerative as normal traffic. The airlines looking for these facilities are aware that the facilities are being made available during off-peak periods when we would not be doing any other business anyway.

965. Hoteliers would be assured of more off-season business from the crews?

—This type of traffic is relatively small compared with the through-put of passengers.

966. However, if there is room in that field, we should be looking at it?

—We have been looking at it and we will have another look in the light of the way the Deputy has put it.

967. Deputy Tunney.—I am afraid Dublin Airport has disimproved from the architectural and aesthetic viewpoints in the past few years. I refer particularly to the advertisements?

—This problem is usually settled with the architects.

Deputy Tunney.—The foyer at Collinstown has disimproved considerably in the last couple of years.

968. Deputy P. Barry.—May we ask questions about Bord Fáilte?

Mr. Suttle.—The question of considering the accounts of such bodies as Bord Fáilte was raised four or five years ago, and the committee then suggested that the matter be referred to the Dáil. Since then it has been considered by the Government and has been discussed from time to time and no decision has been taken on it so that it is still an open question. Until such time, therefore, as the Dáil give a decision, it would not be right to ask questions.

969. Deputy FitzGerald.—On what point are the Dáil being asked for a decision?

Mr. Suttle.—As to whether the accounts of State-sponsored bodies who receive annual grants from voted moneys should be submitted to the committee for consideration.

970. Deputy FitzGerald.—Is it whether they should be required to submit them or whether we are entitled to ask them to do so?

Mr. Suttle.—Whether they should be submitted to the committee.

971. Deputy FitzGerald.—Is there any reason why we should not ask them to submit their accounts?

Mr. Suttle.—The committee have asked for various accounts from time to time but have not asked for the accounts of such bodies as Bord Fáilte, CIE or the ESB. The question was considered by the committee and the decision taken was to ask for a ruling.

972. Deputy FitzGerald.—As far as I know, what was referred to the Dáil was whether they should be required to submit their accounts but my point is that nothing prevents us from inviting any of these bodies to submit their accounts.

Mr. Suttle.—There is very little opportunity for getting accounts if an organisation is not required to furnish them. It was as a matter of courtesy that the accounts of Hospitals’ Trust were provided this morning and this has been so in the cases of various other accounts submitted on the same basis from time to time. With regard to accounts which have been the subject of discussion in the Dáil and on which Ministers have taken decisions, the Accounting Officer is in an awkward position if a Minister has refused to give information because the Accounting Officer cannot then say that he will give the information.

973. Deputy FitzGerald.—Are we talking about the submission of accounts to the committee or asking questions about the accounts?

Mr. Suttle.—The implication inferred some years ago was that the committee should be in a position to ask questions in the ordinary way.

Chairman.—It was suggested in our report that the accounts of semi-State bodies should be subject to the same public accountability as Departmental accounts.

974. Deputy FitzGerald.—I was thinking of the interim stage. What is the position in regard to this recommendation of ours? Has it been discussed by the Dáil?

Mr. Suttle.—The procedure with regard to a report of the Committee of Public Accounts is that the report is sent to the Department of Finance where it is considered by the Minister for Finance who replies to questions raised by the committee but on this particular question the Minister has said year after year that the matter is still under consideration.

975. Deputy FitzGerald.—Do we report to the Dáil?

Mr. Suttle.—The report is to the Dáil.

976. Deputy FitzGerald.—Are the reports discussed by the Dáil?

Mr. Suttle.—The Dáil have not yet debated any report of the Committee of Public Accounts apart from the one concerning the question of the presentation of files.

Deputy FitzGerald.—I cannot understand the reason for submitting reports that will never be debated. We ought ensure that they are debated every year.

Mr. Suttle.—As far as British procedure is concerned they are discussed regularly in the House of Commons.

The Witness withdrew.

The Committee adjourned at 4.50 p.m.

*See Appendix 19.

*See Appendix 18.

*See Appendix 20.

*See Appendix 21.

*See Appendix 22.

*See Appendix 23.

†See Appendix 24.

*See Appendix 18.

*See Appendix 25.

*See Appendix 26.

*See Appendix 27.

*See Appendix 28.