asked the Minister for Education if his Department have stamped insurance cards for the 14 people employed by his Department as archaeological assistants on the Wood Quay site up to 10 January 1979.

I would refer the Deputy to my reply to Question No. 29 today. In the circumstances therein indicated, the question of stamping insurance cards did not arise.

Is it not extraordinary that a Department of State should employ people, pay them basically out of petty cash and refuse to stamp insurance cards for them in this day and age? Is the Minister attempting to set a headline for the private sector in the way he has treated these 14 people?

Before the Deputy gets into a lather of indignation I should like to tell him that Mr. Wallace, the site director at Wood Quay, stated recently that when the excavation at Wood Quay was resumed in December 1977 the professional assistants were offered a choice of payment of salary, less deductions for insurance and tax, or payment of expenses. All the assistants except one, Mr. Healy, opted for the expenses basis. Mr. Healy requested that he be paid on the same basis as the labourers, and he has been paid on that basis, and tax and insurance have been deducted in his case. Does the Deputy want to force people to do something they do not want to do?

Is it not the case that the Department should not have made such an offer, in contravention of established employment procedures, to people whom they propose to employ?

I would consider it wrong if it were a case of ordinary employment. These are archaeological assistants; they made their choice and I think they should be free to do that.

Do the Department offer this extraordinary choice to anybody else among the hundreds of people employed by them?

I do not think so, and the Deputy would not expect that it would be done. As the Deputy knows very well, we are talking about temporary employees.

The whole country would be getting away with it if the Minister's lead were followed.

(Cavan-Monaghan): Did the Minister say that the expenses paid to some of these people amount to £60 each per week? If that is so, would the Minister give us an idea of how the £60 is arrived at?

It is arrived at on the basis of expenses for officers of the Department generally. They include out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the director and an agreed number of professional assistants.

(Cavan-Monaghan): Can the Minister give us a breakdown of the £60? I am asking this because it appears that they have been allowed to elect as between a weekly payment and weekly expenses and that they elected to accept expenses. If that were applied right across the private sector it would mean that the social welfare fund would be at a very considerable loss.

I do not think any wise worker would choose in that way, but these are professional archaeological assistants who are, I assume, still studying. They chose the expenses because it suited them.

What about Mr. Healy?

I should be allowed to complete my answer. The rate of allowance payable to the assistants is calculated by reference to class B subsistence allowances payable to civil servants.

(Cavan-Monaghan): Is it not a fact that all these people live in Dublin and that this £60 a week expenses is but another name for a salary but that it is free of income tax and the social welfare stamp?

Does the Deputy think that these people, who are mainly students, should have been forced to accept terms when they made a choice? They had an entitlement in accordance with a generally agreed scheme of allowances, class B rate subsistence allowance payable to civil servants. They had an opition to choose that and they chose it. Is the Deputy trying to pretend that they were not entitled to make that choice?

(Cavan-Monaghan): Is it not a fact that no workman in the country is entitled to treat salary or wages as expenses and thereby get out of income tax and the social welfare stamp?

I agree that no workman has that right. I am stating that these archaeological assistants are in a special category. They happened to be doing work which related to their studies. They chose to be paid the civil service allowance in accordance with class B and I think they were entitled to make that choice.

Does the Minister not agree that this is an elaborate charade to ensure that the Department would not have responsibility to those unfortunate people when they decided to lay them off.

I will not allow further argument on this local matter.

(Cavan-Monaghan): It is not argument. It is a question of calling “salary”“expenses”.

33.