Against the Tide (20 page)

I entered the department convinced that the civil service would set out to control its Minister. To some extent this was true, and for sound reasons. There was at that time a distinct difference
between the education level of the permanent civil servant and the average working politician. The civil service head of a government department must have proved himself as a literate and skilled
administrator. Since there was little or no industrial outlet, the only significant opportunity for the average citizen in the ’forties who wished to be an influential administrator was the
civil service. Admission by examination was competitive. Progress thereafter was dependent on merit. Yet there was at least one of our Cabinet colleagues who could only read English with
difficulty. Consider the dangers faced by the civil servant head of a government department whose political superior might have literacy problems. Add to this the fact that there was at least one
junior minister who, because of his carefree attitude to government contracts, had his access to outside telephone conversations curtailed.

The civil service dealt with such a minister by giving him a ‘free run’ where his constituency was concerned. ‘Priority’ was given for the minister’s local
political needs, in the hope that thereby his activities could be curtailed.

I did not understand, as I later came to, the importance of the practice whereby the minister ideally should discuss all matters of serious consequence with his departmental secretary, or his
deputy. I resented and feared the possibility of being ‘managed’ and took an early precaution to ensure that my will was to be the final authority. A senior member of my staff had been
heard on the telephone advising the Department of Finance that they should ignore a proposal put to them from my department, saying, ‘It is one of the minister’s hare-brained
schemes.’ On hearing of this, I called for my departmental secretary and told him what had been said. Giving him the name of the civil servant, I instructed Mr Kennedy that the individual
must cease working in my department. He was transferred immediately to another department. This replacement of a senior civil servant made it clear to everyone that, right or not, I knew my own
mind, and I was in complete charge of the department from there on.

The public could not do more for its politicians. Every branch of expert specialist knowledge in administration is made available to their chosen minister, if he or she is prepared and competent
to use it. Those three years working in the Department of Health, among civil servants led by Mr Kennedy and Mr Murray were the most educative, satisfying, and memorable years of my working life. I
came to understand how unjust are charges commonly heard about the civil service, accused of using red tape, delay, prevarication, or making reactionary penny-pinching decisions. Definitive
decisions may be taken only in accordance with the law as passed by the people’s elected representatives acting with the authority of the Oireachtas and government. The fact is, and I
certainly showed it in my own department, as did Lemass, that if it is made clear that all decisions must be made in accordance with clear policy directives set out by the political head of the
department, an efficient departmental machine can accomplish much. Within these clear limits, I encouraged the civil servants to use their own judgement and make their own decisions. I told them
that I would stand over their decisions, but only in the context of my departmental policies and not otherwise. It is the elected representative who must be the final authority. It is the elected
representative whose right it is, on behalf of the public, to make the decisions, even bad ones and wrong ones. All politicians are responsible and, more important, are answerable to the electorate
for our decisions. We benefit in repeated re-election. Equally we should be made to pay for the consequences of unjust or incorrect decisions made by us in office. The regrettable fact is that,
either through political incompetence or inadequacies, at times there are ministers in charge of government departments who are temperamentally or educationally unfitted for office.

I believed that a minister must maintain close and continual contact with his department’s work as it progressed, and for this reason I instituted a practice, which I understand had not
hitherto been used, to establish that contact at weekly intervals would be made between myself and my senior civil servants. I instructed my department secretary to mobilise all the professional
and technical department heads to prepare a detailed schedule, listing clearly the important component decisions involved from initiation to completion in the implementation of hospital, sanatoria,
and clinic building projects — the sketch plans, the outline drawings, the working drawings, the electrical and plumbing quantities, and suchlike matters. It was arranged that a large
wall-chart be erected in my office. On this chart was a colourful representation of the position in regard to every stage of every hospital, sanatorium or clinic in our vast nation-wide building
project. I could tell at a glance the exact position in relation to every project within the scope of our departmental building programme. Visiting deputies or councillors could also be kept
informed about the progress of their own special project.

Further, I instructed my personal secretary that each Monday forenoon be kept free of engagements so that, together with the staff involved, I should examine the precise state each week of our
building programme. This procedure was carried through each week, all relevant staff being present to provide in detail and in person explanations for delays, failure to make decisions, or reasons
for wrong decisions made on current projects. These delays in progress had to be defended or justified by my staff, from week to week. As their minister, I too was subjected to that same
discipline. This procedure had the further advantage that as minister I came to know and have direct access to each one of my staff, which gave me a chance to assess their capabilities and work
capacities. In turn, the civil service staff had the advantage of getting to know me and my ideas. Such continuous contact between us, I believe, led to the creation of an understanding rapport of
mutual trust and efficiency.

The civil service staff at the Department of Health slowly appeared to gain in self-confidence and efficiency, enjoying a clear vision of their role and their future function. Above all, we had
financial resources at our disposal. Indeed our department assumed such a powerful dynamic that we were to find ourselves in trouble with other government departments. During the Korean War in the
1950s, in anticipation of shortages, departments were advised to stock up with essential goods. Shortly after this advice was given Dan Morrissey, Minister for Industry and Commerce, who was
woefully unfitted for such a complex department of state, complained bitterly of the fact that when his departmental officials had gone to Britain to lay claim to our national building needs, they
were told that Ireland had already received its quota. It transpired that civil servants in the Department of Health had already moved in before any other department and had a lien on all available
stocks for the nation’s enormous hospital and housing building programme.

Our programme had immediate results. By July 1950, 2,000 beds had been provided for TB patients, bringing the total up to 5,500. The tuberculosis death rate dropped dramatically from 123 per
100,000 in 1947 to 73 per 100,000 in 1951.

F
OR THE first time in Ireland, Cabinet ministers were having to work within a coalition of differing political viewpoints. There
was much hostility between the individual Fine Gael ministers, though it dissolved when faced with outside opposition in the Cabinet. James Dillon, who was notoriously wordy and could run
everyone’s department except his own, appeared to delight in tormenting the hapless Dan Morrissey over his clear inability to cope with any of the complex problems of the Department of
Industry and Commerce. Morrissey did not appear to understand his briefs, and was rarely able to explain them fully to us; I have seen him in tears after a ruthless interrogation, mixed with
ridicule, by Dillon. Quite justifiably, Dillon demonstrated Morrissey’s incompetence; the insensitive methods used, however, were not justified. The replacement of the clear-minded Lemass,
who for so long had run this department, by the blundering and inept Morrissey must have been a shocking experience for the civil servants.

Dick Mulcahy, Minister for Education and one time leader of Fine Gael, who had selflessly yielded his right to become Taoiseach to John Costello, was also treated with a mixture of levity and
contempt by his party colleagues. This was not completely surprising because like Morrissey, Mulcahy appeared unable to articulate his simplest ideas or clarify to us his departmental needs. Unlike
Morrissey, however, and unhappily for most of us, in Cabinet Mulcahy showed complete aplomb. He had an unlimited capacity to verbalise, as distinct from articulate, his needs. He spoke through the
voluminous, resonating sound chamber made by his parrot’s beak-shaped nose. Words tumbled out, soft, shapeless, indistinct. He did not trouble to assemble a sequence of ideas. There was no
sense, no intelligible form to his sentences; he did not bother with paragraphs, full stops or commas. Deeply and impenetrably buried in the centre of all this tormented English was whatever
happened to be the simple needs of his department. With the non-writing end of his pencil, Mulcahy drew a succession of strange and elaborate hieroglyphics in the air in front of him. These airy
movements of a deeply frustrated man were punctuated by incisive stabbing jabs at the air, with the pencil. No doubt he intended to emphasise for us points he wished to make, but was unable to
articulate. The invariable effect of the intervention by Mulcahy was to transform the Cabinet into a collection of openly chattering individuals, or small private cabals, completely ignoring him.
They joined one another in noisy discussions, sometimes even across the Cabinet table. The more polite would appear to recall some problem for which their personal attention was urgently needed in
their department. Apologising to the Taoiseach, and muttering importantly to themselves, they would slink slowly out of the room and away. Quite rapidly, the Cabinet would disintegrate temporarily.
Even the ever-attentive and polite mind of Costello would seem to wander. I felt so shamed by the ill-mannered behaviour of his colleagues and their obvious disinclination to try to decipher what
Mulcahy was trying to say that, out of embarrassed pity, I recall attempting hopelessly to hold an interested conversation with him.

Early on I was confronted with the cavalier indifference to ‘merit’ of my Cabinet colleagues when deciding qualifications for appointments. Seán MacEoin had submitted a list
of candidates with their qualifications for a post in his jurisdiction in Co Clare. I noted that the man appointed had graduated from his national school at twelve or thirteen years of age; he had
no visible qualification, other than his friendship with MacEoin or his probable membership of Fine Gael. I protested that this was a political appointment and ‘Fine Gael jobbery’
because of the demonstrably superior qualifications of each of the other candidates. My colleagues were shocked by my ‘immoderate’ language. Unperturbed, MacEoin smilingly replied,
‘That’s not a bad way to make an appointment Noël!’ I continued to protest that despite the principle of collective Cabinet responsibility, I would not justify this Fine Gael
‘fix’. Either they must cease to advertise posts as being vacant, or have the courage to make blatantly political appointments and take the consequences. Otherwise, I suggested, we
should establish a proper appointment system. The latter proposal was finally agreed.

During Cabinet meetings I was initially overawed, as the youngest Cabinet minister surrounded by a number of men who had helped to make our history. I was treated with patience and courtesy all
through my period of office until the very end, during the mother and child crisis, but I was rarely listened to over-seriously. My departmental work appeared to me to be all-important; I begrudged
the time I spent away from it, even to attend Cabinet meetings. I had become completely single-minded about the use of my time. At all costs, it must be used to the optimum effect in winning my
objective of a better health service. I soon formed the conclusion that the important decisions which we debated in Cabinet had already been determined elsewhere. Quite reasonably, Seán
MacBride was accepted by my colleagues as the senior spokesman of the two of us. In my opinion it hardly mattered whether I attended meetings or not. MacBride did not discuss Cabinet business in
any detail with me, prior to Cabinet meetings, nor did he ask for my opinions. My sense of not being needed became strong. It was his custom simply to tell me the position which he intended to take
up, and, understandably, I supported him. In the end, the rest of the Cabinet came to treat both of us with equal indifference; when they finally got MacBride’s ‘measure’ they
ceased to care much about the opinions of either of us.

The Minister for Health was held to be apolitical in the narrow sense of that word. In the early days and right up until the latter end of 1950, Seán MacBride would appoint me to deputise
for him. As acting Minister for External Affairs, I received a number of notable statesmen, of whom one was Pandit Nehru, on a visit to Dublin following negotiations in London. India had been
liberated relatively bloodlessly by Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and their comrades, a tribute to the courageous use of peaceful means. I asked Nehru, conscious of our own civil war on much the same
issue, if he would not find himself in trouble on his return to India for remaining within the British Commonwealth. Unlike our political leaders, Nehru recognised the virtues of an association of
co-equal sovereign nations with common objectives. He expected his colleagues to share his own mature outlook.