The row in the Dail this week over appointments made by the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, followed a time honoured pattern. Fianna Fail and Progressive Democrat deputies displayed a determination and intensity of purpose in pursuing the issue that neglected the fundamental questions they should have raised; the Minister danced most unconvincingly on a pinhead in endeavouring to define what was advertising and what was not, and the Government, secure in its majority, remains firmly in office.
Two questions are involved. The first is whether Mr De Rossa misled the House by saying that, following normal practice, posts in a newly formed policy unit set up to advise him were not advertised when they were, in fact, drawn to the attention of members of Democratic Left in a party publication. It would, of course, have assisted Mr De Rossa's credibility, had he included this exception in his reply when the matter was first raised in the Dail. His party followers - readers of Forum magazine - were apprised that jobs were in the offing.
Fianna Fail deputies have seized on the omission as the basis of their attack on him and, inevitably - whatever the dictionaries may say - he has had the appearance of being on the defensive. But in spite of the sound and fury of Fianna Fail and the PDs, a much more important matter of principle should have exercised their forensic powers. Mr De Rossa, in his replies, has laid much stress on practice as it has developed in the last 25 years. On the same day that he announced that his ministerial staff numbered 17, with a further 13 in the office of his Minister of State, Mr Bernard Durkan, the Minister for Tourism and Trade, Mr Kenny, was reporting to the Dail that he had II members of staff in his own office and there were eight more in the office of his Minister of State. Most of these are established civil servants, and if the numbers have grown since the early 1970s, this has presumably reflected the growth in ministerial responsibilities.
No exception can be taken to this development, and it behoves neither the Opposition nor the Government to attempt to use it for political purposes. The advent of the current Coalition, however, has seen ominous new areas of expansion in the personal power bases of Ministers. Because of the ambitious work programme which the Labour Party determined upon in taking up office and because of the disparity of the parties forming both this Coalition and its predecessor, the concept of Programme Managers became reality.
In itself this need be no bad thing either, but it has given rise, in the way some Ministers have chosen to fill the posts, to allegations of croneyism. What Mr De Rossa has done, however, has taken the process a stage further. At public expense he has set up a unit to review Government proposals in the light of Democratic Left policy. This is party business rather than State business. It is not easy to see how he would reply if asked what previous party leaders in a Coalition have done to keep themselves informed. Or why the public should pick up the tab for something that benefits one party. (The proposal to subsidise political par ties generally is open to the same objection.) This is what Fianna Fail's target ought to have been. But it is not cynical to see their failure to do so in the precedent which they will cheerfully follow when they are next in office.