The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments
History
The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government
The new Parliament should certainly provide a Public Accounts’ Committee;
and a Comptroller and Auditor-General, as under the Exchequer and Audit
Act of 1866; and I suggest for consideration, that the Departments should
be competent to challenge, before the Public Accounts’ Committee, any
over-interference on the part of the Treasury in administrative details.
While I should be glad to see in Ireland the most effective check upon
wasteful expenditure, I deprecate the exercise of a meticulous
interference in administrative details.
The secretariat arrangements to be made in connection with the Department
of Law and Justice, will depend on the extent of “temporary reservation”
to be effected. If there is to be the larger reservation, during the
transition period which I have suggested above, nothing need now be done.
Matters will continue, during that period, on their present footing. If
there is to be only partial reservation, the portion of the existing
office staff in Dublin Castle which deals with the unreserved sections can
be detached for employment under the Minister, who in this case would
doubtless also hold another portfolio. When the Department is brought
fully under Irish control, there will be found in Dublin Castle gentlemen
specially competent to give effect to the policy of the Legislature in
this Department of Irish Government.
But, whether the Judicial Department is brought sooner or later under
Irish control, an early opportunity should be taken of reviewing the
entire judicial organization with the view of pruning away redundancies
and placing it on a more economical basis. Few will be found to deny that
the existing staff of County Court Judges and legal officials of various
grades is excessive; and no one, with knowledge, will maintain that a
Supreme Court of 14 Judges, costing with their subordinate officers
£181,209 a year, is not too costly for a country with a population of 4-¼
millions. In the House of Commons Return (Cd. 210 of July, 1911), the
number of civil servants of all grades in the Supreme and Appellate Courts
of England (with their 39 judges) is shown as 461, while in the Supreme
and Appellate Courts of Ireland (with their 14 judges) it is shown as 257!
The administration of Education is at present distributed between three
Boards and the Irish Government and the circumstances call for drastic
reorganization. The Boards of National and Intermediate Education should
be abolished, and a Department of Education created under the control of a
Minister responsible to the Irish Legislature. Such a Minister would find
ready to his hand an official staff (working under the direction of a very
competent “Commissioner of Education”) which will not at the outset
require any large increase.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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