Vote No. 64—Army.

Minister for Defence (Mr. Aiken)

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim Bhreise ná raghaidh thar £10 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1934, chun costais an Airm, agus Cúltaca an Airm (maraon le Deontaisí áirithe i gCabhair) agus Costaisí fén Acht Bunreachta (Leasú Uimh. 17), 1931.

That a Supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1934, for the cost of the Army, the Army Reserve (including certain Grants-in-Aid) and Expenses under the Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Act, 1931.

When the Government came into office, we put the Constitution (Amendment) Act out of operation, and, at the beginning of this financial year, it was not anticipated that any money would be required for the Army end of the expenses under that Act. It became necessary during the financial year to bring that Act into operation, and we are now asking for this sum of £2,790 for the expenses which the Army has incurred. Practically all of that sum will be met out of saving, and the Dáil is only asked for the sum of £10.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present—

Professor O'Sullivan

I am not surprised at the Minister having no justification for the action that has led to the taking of this particular Vote. We had the very bald piece of history that, when the Estimates were being framed, it was not anticipated that the Government would make use of this particular machinery. I gathered that the Minister might have said something as to what intervened between the framing of the Estimates, when they were originally framed, and the putting of this Act into operation last August. Again and again, we have challenged the Government to give any justification for that particular administrative act on their part in issuing the proclamation under the Constitution (Amendment) Act, No. 17, of 1931. They have always failed to do so, but they have given us here in the Dáil, again and again, extracts from letters for the month of October—several months subsequent to the use of that particular power— as a justification for what they did in the month of August. These letters were not the slightest justification. Even the Attorney-General was not able to twist—nor was the Minister for Justice—the purport of these letters into any suggestion of illegality on the part of the particular body for which this Act was brought into force. The only real attempt at justification made was the dissemination by the President of the Executive Council of a lie. It was an abuse of his position as President of the Executive Council and an abuse of this House when the President deliberately circulated a lie. That was the sole excuse that was given. That was one of the main excuses, at all events, that was given for the calling into force of this particular section.

I shall quote from the Deputy, too. I am not forgetting him. He need not be so vain. That Act, described as a Public Provocation Act, was enacted when the courts of the country had failed to function and juries were afraid and when witnesses were afraid. It was brought in against societies that had made it their avowed object to overturn the elected Government by force of arms. In those circumstances it was described by the present Minister for Justice as a Public Provocation Act. The present Government brought the Act into operation by proclamation in the month of August. There are overwhelming grounds for saying that if the Act was of that kind they have used it for that purpose ever since. Again and again, they have tried to provoke the decent and disciplined young men of this country into breaches of the peace. They are disappointed because they are unable to do so. They, from above, and their allies, from below, have tried that provocation. What the Minister said is true of the Act in their hands, "This is not a Public Safety Act; it is a Public Provocation Act." I do not wish to repeat the threats made by the same Minister of the reactions of this Act when brought into force in justifiable circumstances. I think we can leave those alone. They practically meant that there was only one way to deal with this Act. The Government tried to get the young people of this country into that particular method of dealing with this particular Act, and thank God they failed.

Now, to satisfy the vanity of the Minister, we are going to abolish the courts, we are going to set up a revolutionary tribunal and, by the Public Safety Act, we are going to appoint five persons to act as Deputy Mulcahy's bloodhounds. That is his conception of the court. That is the Fianna Fáil conception of the court, and that Party now stands for bringing that particular Act into force. Only the Minister could not avoid bringing in the bloodhounds. We have got Shelley, and the Minister cannot refrain from referring to the seven bloodhounds, but instead of seven we are only going to have five. Therefore it is quite clear the way the Minister regards this court, and I suggest that by their use of this court since, and the various preliminaries leading up to it, they have tried to fulfil their various promises and conceptions of this Act. We had a similar condemnation throughout the country. Now what did they do? Not when the opponents of the Government were out in revolt against the Government, not when there was a society manned by opponents of the Government, but in time of peace, when they cannot make a single charge except such a one as the President made against Deputy Mulcahy, when they cannot do anything else than bring insults against their political opponents, they bring forward this Act. The first hint we got of that was in the debate on the President's estimate last July. Anyone listening then could know what was coming.

A very different attitude was adopted towards another class of people in this country. To those with the guns the President said: "We cannot get after your guns, but do not parade them in public." That is what it practically amounts to. After all, he said in so many words, "you are my friends. Our difficulties as a Government would be almost insuperable if you paraded your guns in public. We have a number of decent supporters and they would not like it. They expect us at least to keep up the appearances of Government; we cannot get after your guns; but if people march in blue shirts they will be stopped." Anything more partial or destructive of public order, or more calculated to bring the law into contempt, than that discrimination in favour of the law breakers and against the law keepers, anything more injurious to public order than that indication of policy which we got in July last, I cannot imagine.

That was carried out and fulfilled when the President and the Executive Council by Proclamation brought this Act into force in the month of August. That state of affairs has existed since August, when he told the law-breakers that they could keep their guns if they would only keep quiet. He took away guns from those who held them lawfully, while he would not go after the guns which were held by people unlawfully. He favoured the possession of arms to those whom he presumed to be friends of the Government, on the one hand, and took them away, on the other hand, from those who were opposed to the Government. We need not go into details on this matter, but I suggest that the Government, in this particular instance, has gone, not for the first time, for inspiration to a distant country in Europe. I suggest this, that if you make the necessary allowance for the fact that Russia is in the East of Europe and we are in the extreme West this passage that I am about to read is not an inapt description of what is happening in this country, although it was not written in reference to this country. A traveller in Russia writes:—

"It was a daily occurrence while I was in Russia, and will no doubt continue to be a daily occurrence, for gangs of young rag-tag and bobtail Communists to set upon a farmer, rob him of his hay, his cows, his horses, break down his fences and ruin his cottage, after which excesses the Soviet authorities attacked the injured farmer in their turn and banished him."

Essentially, not insisting upon a mere copy of details, that is the attitude of the Government and their friends here in this country. The law-breaker, the violator of the rights of liberty is the innocent party; the perfect lamb in the mind of the Government. The person attacked, and whose rights are interfered with is the provocative party. It is against him that new legislation is required, as if the legislation we are now discussing were not sufficient.

Did they once try, did they once attempt even before the Military Tribunal, to test that issue, to test whether there was, in fact, anything that was wrong or illegal, against the public interest or against the laws of this country in the activities of these bodies? They did not. They carefully avoided that. I presume some members of the Government, if not their legal advisers, must have been familiar with the Constitution (Amendment) Act. Surely anybody would have thought that Section 19, sub-section (1) gave a sufficiently wide scope if they had anything to say against those associations. Why were prosecutions before the Military Tribunal not brought under 19 (1)? There is there a list, (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), of sub-paragraphs, specifying various offences in great detail and various conditions that would make an association an illegal association. Did they proceed under that? Did they try to proceed, when the organisations against which they were blooded up, were guilty of any offences specified in any of these conditions? They did not. What did they do? They estopped the defence and the court from investigating these things—completely estopped them, because they proceeded under Section 19 (2) which practically allowed no discussion as to the merits of the case, which laid it down that the mere expression of opinion by the Executive Council was evidence that could not be rebutted. No requirement, mind you, none whatsoever, to show that there was anything illegal in these bodies against which they were out. All that was necessary was for the Executive Council to say: "We regard this as an illegal body." Any argument on the merits of the case was then estopped.

Having failed in this House or elsewhere to put up the slightest case, having failed, as they were bound to, to show that there was anything illegal in the objects which these associations had put before them, in their methods or in their conduct, having debarred them access, as far as they could, to the ordinary courts, having set up a Military Tribunal, they then prevented the Military Tribunal and the defence from arguing on the merits of the case. That is the policy the House is now asked to approve. What are they engaged on? The punishment of crime? Nothing of the kind. Nothing is further from their thoughts. There is no suggestion of crime, there is no punishment of crime so far as these organisations are concerned. It is not crime they are punishing. They are simply punishing their political opponents, punishing them because those opponents threaten to be successful politically. They are engaged in pretending that that is illegal, that that is against the law, that that is wrong which no decent man in this country believes to be wrong. To take up an attitude of that kind must ultimately bring disrespect for all law.

I would ask anybody to contrast the case put up by the Executive Council for the operation of this particular Act with the case put up by the old Executive Council in 1931. The courts here are fully operating. Nobody can suggest that there would be any interference with witnesses, juries or anybody else, and yet they jump at this Act because they think that by means of it they can down their political opponents. It is a powerful Act. It enabled the late Government to bring peace to the citizens when they were in office in this country. What has the present Government done? They have so operated the Act that terrorism is rife in many parts of the country, that crimes are committed, known to the public and known to the authorities. Even the names of the very people who committed them are known and yet nothing is done. Perhaps nothing can be done because of the terrorism that is allowed to prevail in the country. In one instance I remember a young fellow was assaulted, beaten up, chloroformed, left on the roadside. It was public property, yet nothing could be done because nobody dared to give evidence. That system of terrorism, which they condoned when they were in Opposition, they have now allowed to spread throughout the country. They are taking it for granted, and they are allowing it to be taken for granted, that the supporters of this Party can be beaten up with impunity. They are allowing crime to go unpunished. Possibly they say they cannot get evidence. They cannot get evidence possibly because they have allowed terrorism to become rampant in many districts. Yet I have no doubt that the Fianna Fáil Party and the Labour Party unanimously support that particular policy. They, at least, have no qualm. It does not matter whether terrorism is rife or not. It does not matter whether witnesses are terrified.

When men are brought before the courts now—of course they take good care not to come before them—the witnesses often go back on their testimony. I heard of the case of one young fellow to whom it was put: "If you do not give evidence, you will get two months in jail." His answer was quite simple: "Better two months in jail than a bullet." That is what is happening in the country. That is what the Government is really making no effort to deal with. They could deal with it and deal with it effectively under this Act, but instead they must suppress an organisation of the youth— their political opponents. They must object to the Blueshirts and so on. That is what they prefer to do. They must, having failed in the ordinary way, try other methods. I suggest that it would be a gravely immoral act for the House to pass a Vote in support of a policy of this kind. I want it to be quite clear that when I speak of the breakdown of the administration of law in many parts of the country, and when I speak of the failure of local authorities to bring people to justice for well-known crimes committed in their neighbourhood, I am not criticising these local authorities. I know that the power has broken in their hands, and that power has been broken— whether deliberately or not I need not discuss, but in fact it has been broken —by the deliberate policy of the Government. To vote for an Estimate of this kind is to throw all sense of justice to the winds. It is to vote for the most degraded of all things, a grossly partisan administration of justice, and a gross abuse of the great powers that were entrusted into the hands of the Government of this country. Powers entrusted to save the State are now being used by the members of the Government to down their political opponents, and to bring on this State ruin of the administration of justice, as they have brought ruin to the various other institutions and the flourishing economic life that was handed over to them by their predecessors.

Mr. Dillon

The present situation, to my mind, has in it one element which, I am afraid, has been lost sight of. The people of our country are being demoralised inasmuch as they are being robbed by this Government of all sense of liberty. One of the most treasured rights of a free people in this country has been the right to a fair trial by 12 of their fellow-countrymen. It has been one of the great protections of the individual against the State down through the ages. Now, no Minister on those benches and no Deputy in that Party has ever had the hardihood to suggest that any member of our organisation, from the bottom right up to the top, ever challenged the right of the courts of this country to try them. No member of our organisation ever threatened a witness. No member of our organisation ever threatened a jury. No member of our organisation ever murdered a judge, a juryman or a witness. Nevertheless, this Act is brought into operation, this court is set up, and before it is brought member after member of our organisation for trial. Why? I see no valid reason. I do not question for a single moment that this court is doing its duty according to its best lights, but I say that it is the right of every free citizen in this State to be tried by 12 of his fellow-countrymen on issues of fact. That right is being withheld from us, for no reason whatsoever so far as I can see. I am prepared to say, on behalf of every member of our organisation, that now and always we are prepared to receive the verdict of 12 Irishmen or women sitting on a jury on any charge that may be brought against us by the Executive. In considering this Estimate, one has to remember that the certificate of any Minister of the Executive Council is sufficient to authorise this court to try any misdemeanour or offence, bearing in mind the Bill which the Government has introduced and which has been read a Second Time this morning, creating an offence and providing the penalties. You have this situation: a perfectly respectable fellow who is a member of the Blueshirt organisation is going home at night in Deputy Jordan's county, the County Galway. A blackguard approaches him from behind——

Surely the future is the very thing we have got to discuss?

Mr. Dillon

Well, now, they will never be much more than rumblings. They will never get beyond that stage to the Government's keen regret. It is interesting when we recall the promises and the programme of Fianna Fáil— we heard promises of peace, prosperity and harmony. We have prosperity— we all know that. We are enjoying it. We are suffering it and we are told that we are to be afforded an opportunity of suffering Fianna Fáil prosperity for a little while longer. Now we come to Fianna Fáil peace and harmony. Fianna Fáil peace consists of the most reckless and outrageous coercion ever embarked on in this country by the British or otherwise. Peace! The astonishing part of it is that the instrument of coercion as wielded by the present Government is such that in order to strike at 12 of our men they have to hew their way through 50 of their own. If Fianna Fáil had administered impartial justice in such outrageous cases as I have pointed out in the last 12 months, it is not 50 of their own men they would have to hew their way through in order to get at 12 of ours, but, through 1,000 of their own supporters and friends who would be in Arbour Hill at the present moment if impartial justice had been administered. But is it because they dare not do substantial justice that so very few of those who were committing outrages up and down the country at present, are dealt with? The Government dare not deal with them and they dare not bring them before the Military Tribunal. I have a copy of An Phoblacht here. I want to read something out of that valuable paper. It learns: that “Mr. de Valera will announce an amnesty for all political prisoners if certain conditions are complied with. This I can state is the outcome of Mr. Seán Moylan's threat to resign if political treatment was not accorded to the Republican prisoners in Arbour Hill prison.” Now, is it not a wonder that we have this talk about amnesty? It was all part of the good intentions that are proclaimed from the Front Bench of the Fianna Fáil Party! Is it not a wonder that even-handed justice is not done when An Phoblacht takes heart and courage from the remonstrance of Deputy Seán Moylan? I am sure if the I.R.A. want champions there will be many men there on the Front Benches who will fight for Deputy Seán Moylan in making a remonstrance to the Ogre, the present Minister for Defence, who is trampling on the rights and liberties of the Irish Republican Army to vindicate Irish nationality up and down the country. “They are traitors and they ought to be treated as traitors,” says An Phoblacht, and they add—not with God's help—but “with the help of the masses. We will treat them as traitors before we are done with them! The fight against Fascism,” says An Phoblacht,“cannot be a defensive one. Fascism can only be battered down if the full weight of the working class and small farmers is hurled against it. The small farmers would overwhelm the ranchers, if they were released to take possession of the ranches. Stripped of his ranch the rancher is disarmed. Stripped of their banks the bankers are disarmed. Deprived of their press, the Imperialists would be silenced. Silenced and disarmed, their threat would be gone, but Fianna Fáil dare not take this road; for here are tasks that could only be carried through in the Working Class Revolution.” Bear in mind the President's assurances to us that there is not a breath of Communism in the whole country, not a breath; it is a fraud, it is a scare, and it does not exist, so the President tells us. At the same time the Minister for Defence finds himself in the extraordinary rôle of the Ogre oppressing Deputy Seán Moylan, and at the same time the benevolent Attorney-General tells us that even-handed justice is being handed out, and that every man will get justice, nothing more and nothing less. Yet we know that all over the country intimidation and threats and violence are rife, and that it is only when the facts of the outrages are notorious to everyone that shame forces the Government to make men amenable. When they do make them amenable, in 50 per cent. of the cases the persons indicted refuse to recognise the court and bid defiance to the institutions of this State.

There is one last matter to which I wish to refer in this Estimate, and I am particularly glad that the Minister for Defence is here. Commandant Cronin was arrested on a charge, the futile charge, of belonging to an illegal association, though the Attorney-General knew that the Association in question was perfectly legal in its objects, legal in its activities, and that the law was observed by its members. It was illegal because the Minister proclaimed it under the Public Safety Act. The Attorney-General knew when prosecuting Commandant Cronin for membership of an illegal organisation he had not given him time to withdraw from the Association, if such were his intentions. Commandant Cronin is duly convicted. Prior to his conviction Commandant Cronin is in custody in Arbour Hill under the charge of the Minister for Defence. He is wearing the clothes in which he was arrested. There are no prison regulations, there is no rule of common law, and there is no rule under the criminal law to require him to wear any other clothes but the clothes in which he was arrested. Yet the Minister for Defence orders three of his men to strip the shirt——

Mr. Aiken

The Deputy is speaking in his ignorance.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister is prepared to repudiate the suggestion that he had the blue shirt removed by force from Commandant Cronin?

Mr. Aiken

Not at all, but that notice of an action has been given. The Deputy is proceeding to state that there are no prison regulations in regard to this. I think he should be called to order for stating that.

I suggested to Deputy Dillon that he should not refer to the incident because I was aware that an action was pending. I do not know whether a summons actually has been served. I thought the Deputy might not be aware of that and that he did not advert to the rules of order. That is the reason I objected to the Deputy raising it. If the action goes on it will be discussed in court. That is the point of order.

Mr. G. O'Sullivan

On a point of order. I should like to inform the Attorney-General that I happen to be professionally engaged in this action, and that on going to visit Commandant Cronin in Arbour Hill I had to sign a certain document that I would not use my visit for any purpose other than professional purposes. I got the first information of the assault from Commandant Cronin in my own house on Christmas Day. I must ask you, Sir, to decide whether or not the Deputy is in order in discussing the conduct of officers who are paid under this Vote.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Clearly the conduct of certain officers will arise in the court and will probably be used as evidence one way or another, and, therefore, I cannot allow a case that is going before the court to be prejudiced by an assertion one way or the other here.

I informed the Deputy how far the matter is gone. A communication was addressed to the Chief State Solicitor asking would he accept service on behalf of the Minister for Defence in an action by Commandant Cronin. A discussion took place as to whether in the particular case, in view of the statement accompanying the proceedings, the Chief State Solicitor should or should not receive service of a summons. At the moment I am not aware whether the summons has actually been served upon the Minister, but I understand that it has either been issued or is about to be issued. Certainly I am aware that a letter has been written on behalf of Commandant Cronin indicating that proceedings are about to be taken. In these circumstances I suggest, and I am sure Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney will agree, that it is quite improper that it should be discussed here.

Mr. Dillon

I respectfully submit, Sir, that no documents have been served on the Attorney-General. I am concerned to vindicate the rights and liberties of a citizen in the Dáil. I bow entirely to your ruling, but I respectfully submit that, until documents have been served, a defence entered and proceedings started, I have a right to vindicate the rights and liberties of any citizen of this State here by raising the matter on an Estimate or addressing a question to the responsible Minister.

The Minister will not be allowed to discuss the question of alleged assault.

We will settle that after the trial.

Mr. Aiken

It was always the case.

Mr. Dillon

We are not going to discuss it now. I think I have demonstrated to the House that in every material promise that Fianna Fáil made to this country they have let the country down: that in every material consideration that should have weighed with them when they set up this Act they acted against common sense and every sense of justice—in bringing before this court men who were quite willing to stand their trial before a jury of 12 of their fellow-countrymen. I have never heard from any of them a defence for their action in setting up this machinery to try members of our organisation. I have never heard them seriously maintain that one of their own supporters ought to be brought to justice under this machinery. Mind you, I do not think they do justice if they bring one of their own supporters before the Military Tribunal if that supporter would stand his trial before 12 of his fellow-countrymen without getting Cumann na mBan to write to the jury; and it is only when one of your own supporters refuses to recognise the court or conspires with his or your own friends to intimidate the jury or the judge that, I think, it is right or fair to bring him before the Military Tribunal. That is a very dangerous situation; so dangerous that I do not care to go into it. Powers of that kind, in the hands of a Government, could become a terrible instrument of oppression. The Attorney-General knows that well, and I suggest to him that, as the head of the legal profession in this country, and as someone with some respect for the legal institutions of the country, he ought to think well before depriving law-abiding men and women of the right to trial by jury. He ought to think well before he takes that right away from his fellow-countrymen when there is no good reason for doing so.

Every matter that I desire to touch upon has been touched upon now. It only remains for me to say that the back benchers of Fianna Fáil, who stumped this country with their maudlin hypocrisy about liberty, about freedom, and about their desire to put an end to the horrible coercionist activities of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, might well blush if they had the capacity to blush. I think, however, for their own peace of mind and happiness, they lost that capacity long ago. They would have had strokes of apoplexy if they had not. I wish them long life and deliverance from apoplexy, and if they had the capacity to blush over what they are doing now apoplexy would claim them in nine cases out of ten.

Mr. Aiken

Deputy Dillon said that the Government took steps to incite trouble. I hope Deputy Dillon will not leave the House just yet.

Mr. Dillon

No, I shall stay.

Mr. Aiken

Right! Deputy Dillon did not advance any proof that the Government took steps to incite trouble. The Government has been trying for two years to govern with the least possible measure of force. When we came into office we gave proof of what we said by abolishing the operation of the Constitution (Amendment) Act, and it was only when certain galoots, who went round the country trying to egg on the young men to create disturbance, had succeeded in that object, that we brought in the Constitution (Amendment) Act with the object of restoring peace to the country. If there is one man responsible for the creation of trouble and for the consequent bringing in of that Act again, it is the platform Deputy James Dillon.

A Deputy

He is one of the galoots, I suppose.

Mr. Bennett

What is a galoot, by the way?

Mr. Aiken

There was peace in this country; the men who were divided by the civil war were treating each other with respect when Deputy Dillon came along on the political horizon and said, any time any little friction arose, that he was glad, God forgive him, to see them at it. He went down to a part of the country where passions were pretty bitter during the civil war and where the people had been ground down by the Black and Tans with great violence, and, speaking to the people of that district, he said: "We do not want to fight, but, by jingo, if we do." It took Deputy Dillon a long time to make up his mind when to fight, and, upon my soul, although I hate fighting, when such a man as Deputy Dillon comes around shoving out his chest and saying to people like me: "We do not want to fight, but, by jingo, if we do," I feel like hitting him a slap across the face.

Mr. Dillon

A very typical reaction.

Mr. G. O'Sullivan

Christian charity!

Mr. Aiken

I have appealed on every platform throughout the country for Deputy Dillon to be allowed to rumble along, because I know that his rumblings and his grumblings are doing us more good than anything else that could happen. The worst thing that could happen for the Fianna Fáil Government would be that people like Deputy Dillon should not be allowed to rumble as much as they like.

Those of us who did a little bit of soldiering are accustomed to judge the relative importance of officers by their distance in miles from the front, but only an Einstein could estimate the importance of Deputy General James Dillon, who was 12 years behind the front. There was trouble in this country 12 or 14 years ago. Deputy Dillon was a man of military age on that occasion, and if he had wanted to fight he could have done so then; but it was only when peace was restored here, when the men who did the fighting and who had fought against each other bitterly were becoming comrades again, that we had people like Deputy Dillon coming across trying to create bitterness and disturbance. The men who were responsible for bringing in the Constitution (Amendment) Act were people like Deputy Dillon and others such as he. I hope that, if the Cumann na nGaedheal Party or the United Ireland Party, or whatever they are, can control the elements in their Party like Deputy Dillon this Act will not be necessary and that it can be put on the shelf again. We do not want that Act down, and we will only keep it down for the shortest time possible.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

We have just listened to a short speech from the Minister for Defence, just the type of speech one would expect from the Minister for Defence; a very characteristic speech from the Minister for Defence, full of bad taste and full of bad manners, very typical, indeed, of the Minister for Defence and of his ordinary utterances in this House. We are told at certain times that Fianna Fáil loves everybody in this country, that its heart is overflowing with charity, and then we hear a speech of the nature of the speech which has just been delivered to this House. The Minister for Defence attacked Deputy Dillon because, he said to his supporters that we do not want to fight but if we are attacked we will defend ourselves.

Mr. Aiken

But, by jingo, if we do.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

"By jingo, if we are attacked we will defend ourselves." What is wrong with that? Has not every man in this State the right, when attacked, to defend himself? That is a right given to every man by the natural law, and a right conferred on him by the law of the land. I think that speeches like the speech of Deputy Dillon, to which the Minister for Defence has just made reference, are more calculated to preserve peace than any speech the Minister has ever uttered. Many instances were given here the other night by Deputy Hogan which made perfectly clear to everybody in this House, if there was anybody who did not know it already, that there is far and away greater likelihood of meetings being broken, the peace disturbed, and mob law and mob violence getting the upper hand if those present at a meeting will not exercise their common law right to defend themselves. Many people are willing to attack defenceless men who, they know, will not make even any effort to defend themselves, but a number of those people are not at all so willing to attack men who, they know, will, if attacked, defend themselves. It is the common law right of every individual to defend himself when attacked. Let us come down a little further in the Minister's speech. They hated, we are told, bringing in this Bill. This Bill was brought in for the purpose of attacking an existing association——

An Ceann Comhairle

The matter before the House is an Estimate, not a Bill.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

An Estimate for the enforcing of a particular measure. Surely I am entitled to follow the Minister when he stated the reasons why this Act was put in force and this Tribunal established?

An Ceann Comhairle

Certainly.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I am merely following him now. I say that their object in putting this Act into operation and setting up this Military Tribunal was in order that they might, acting against the law, attack associations which were in themselves perfectly lawful and perfectly legal. It has been put into operation against two associations. Both of these were perfectly lawful, perfectly legal and perfectly legitimate associations. What is an unlawful association? A definition is given in the Constitution (Amendment) Act of 1931. Within no definition clause in that Act did either of these associations come. When the Executive Council declared an association to be unlawful which everybody else knew to be perfectly lawful, they were prostituting their own consciences and were bringing the law into contempt. They cannot make any association unlawful. It is the aims of an association or the acts done by an association that make an association unlawful. No aims of the two associations they banned were unlawful and nothing in the methods adopted by them was against the law. All the Executive Council have power to do is, for the purpose of evidence, to declare and make binding on the Military Tribunal the rule they have made. The Oireachtas gave them that power and it gave them that power because it believed there would always be an Executive which would act fairly and honestly and, given great powers, would use those powers in accordance with the principles of justice. This Executive Council have taken the very opposite step.

They are anxious, the Minister for Defence says, not to use this Act. Why are they using this Act against men who have done nothing which is morally or legally wrong? They are using it against men who have done nothing illegal. They are having men put into prison merely for membership of an association that was, in its own nature, when it existed, entirely lawful. Is not that tyranny? Is not that the very worst exercise of tyranny? One of your Parliamentary Secretaries said in a recent debate, "You gave us the power and you cannot complain how we use it. It was your own fault to confer it upon us." That was the tenor of the Parliamentary Secretary's speech. Surely, if a Government wanted to bring the law into contempt, wanted to bring the whole administration of justice into contempt, it could take no better or surer course than to act in the tyrannical fashion this Government has acted and declare that to be wrong which, in its own nature, is perfectly right, legitimate and lawful. That is the whole object of putting the Military Tribunal into operation again.

There was a time when this measure was urgently needed. There was a time when several murders, arising out of judicial matters, had taken place. Jurymen, witnesses and police officers were murdered. The administration of the jury system had broken down. We fought to preserve the jury system as long as it could be preserved. We hung on to the jury system as long as we could hang on to it. Possibly, we hung on too long to it. But we hung on as long as we possibly could. We brought in a Juries' Protection Act, which the present Administration has allowed to lapse, in order that we might keep to the jury system. We found that the jury system had broken down and we were driven to conclude that it was not fair to the ordinary man in the street to put him into a jury box and give him this terrible alternative, "Do not find according to the evidence, find against your oath or, else, put yourself in danger of assassination." That was a risk we were not entitled to ask the ordinary plain citizen to take. When we found that jurymen were being attacked and shot, we had to abandon the jury system. We abandoned it very reluctantly. We then put this particular measure into operation. We brought back complete and entire peace, and left the country in as peaceful a condition as it was ever in the past.

Now we have the Military Tribunal set up. For what reason? To attack two associations. Has the jury system, so far as these associations are concerned, broken down in any way? Has a man, or woman, a member of either of these associations that were proclaimed, been brought before the courts and acquitted by a jury against the weight of evidence? None. If the Government were acting bona fide they would come here with cases in which that happened, cases in which the League of Youth broke the law and were acquitted. They should produce cases that were brought before the courts and acquitted against the weight of evidence. There have been no cases of any overt crime on the part of those people to bring before juries. Not only has the jury system not broken down in regard to these men and women, but the jury system has simply not been brought into operation against them. The Government there are not dealing with an association of criminals but with an association that keeps itself entirely within the law. They are dealing with an association composed of the most law-abiding people in this State and yet because the Government does not like them politically they wish to convert them into dangerous persons if they could, but they will fail.

The Minister for Defence talked about acts of provocation. I have seen acts of provocation carried out by orders of this Government. I have seen the most terrible provocation I ever saw given in this country. I saw the leader of a great political party, in this State at a public meeting, a man who had done nothing wrong or illegal or against the law—I saw that leader arrested and pulled off a platform. In that large crowd there were several thousands of young men, and these men saw their leader arrested in that fashion, pulled off the platform and hustled through the streets into the police barrack. Could there be a greater incentive to riot than that? There was an enormous crowd of comparatively young men. There was only a handful of Guards, not more than 25 or 30 altogether. If there had been a riot it would have been a terrible riot, but those who had been responsible for that meeting made an appeal to the young men there. They said: "Your association is a lawful association; you are not to break the law; you are there to keep the law." And they kept the law, and that which might have been a terrible riot passed away and nothing happened. I cannot imagine a greater example of self-restraint by any crowd. I feared myself that that crowd would not show restraint. When I saw the magnificent restraint shown by that crowd the high opinion that I had formed of the League of Youth was intensified.

I can give another example. Quite recently I was at a meeting. It was attacked. The young men at that meeting began to retaliate. The police officer appealed to the leader who had received a very violent and cowardly blow and who was in great pain——

The Attorney-General

The League of Youth is not yet proclaimed.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I know the League of Youth has not yet been proclaimed but the Minister for Defence, who spoke a while ago, said that these associations led to disturbance. But the Attorney-General says that that association is not yet proclaimed. At that meeting I saw these young men attacked. The leader called off his men who had been attacked and these men showed the most wonderful self-restraint. Instead of banning associations of that kind you should be delighted that there are associations in this country, at the present moment, showing such a magnificent spirit of self-restraint and such a magnificent spirit in the performance of duty and the discipline they maintain.

I respectfully agree with the propriety of your ruling, seeing how necessary it was, in view of the intemperate language used by certain Deputies then in opposition and who are now Ministers, when that Bill was being discussed in this House. Perhaps I may leave the court at that. I am on the question of partisanship and partiality and the necessity for this Vote. Who has made it necessary? Who has stirred up hatred in this country? Who has made it necessary to reconstitute that court? Who has fanned, in every possible way, the flames of hatred and bitterness? Certainly no person who wears a blue shirt or a blue blouse, but rather the persons who now sit on the Front Benches of the Government Party. It is a pet subject here to talk of unity and good feeling and to forget the civil war; but what about the statements made by the present Minister for Finance? He once declared that the name of Cosgrave would be spat upon in the pages of Irish history. It is because of statements like that that this House is asked to vote this money to-day. At Mallow the same Minister said: "Knaves and traitors, stand aside." We are the knaves and traitors. Was that incitement or was it not? Is it not because of statements like that that you have to bring in this Vote to-day?

The President says: "We cannot make movements popular." We know the story of St. Thomas á Becket: "Who will rid me of this troublesome monk?" The same words, possibly translated into modern English, are being used to-day. Nobody sitting on the Front Bench—I will possibly except one, the Attorney-General—can deny responsibility for the necessity for this Vote by reason of their wild, intemperate language throughout the country. Why is this proclamation necessary? Is it because there is disorder in the land? Who is responsible for the disorder, if there is any? There are two names that are a greater terror to the members of the Government and their Party than is holy water to the devil, and they are the names of O'Duffy and Cronin. These men broke the terror initiated by the Party opposite. There is no use in our going behind the facts as to partisanship. A reputable member of this House, one whose name will go down in history with honour, Deputy Mulcahy, was addressing a meeting in Kilmallock, and associated with him was the former Speaker of this House. Nobody can say a word against either of them as to their national record or otherwise. What happened? I am not going to call them blackguards, or hooligans, or all the things they really are——

Mr. Bennett

Galoots.

Mr. O'Sullivan

——but people came down the street with hurleys and sticks and stones, to break up the meeting.

That is a lie.

Mr. O'Sullivan

I said I am not going to refer to it. There are sufficient other reasons why this Vote should be refused in the House. There is no doubt, and it is agreed by the Government Ministers, that the new legislation which is being enacted is intended for one reason. Neither is there any doubt that the invocation of the powers under the Constitution (Amendment) (No. 17) Act was intended to deal with one set of persons, and one set only. Neither is there any doubt that the disorder and the blackguardism at public meetings are entirely due to people having one certain political opinion in this country, and it is not the opinion of the persons on this side of the House. I was speaking at a meeting lately, and some of the heroes of the ranks of Tuscany retired to a distance of about fifty yards and interrupted the meeting. Their usual litany, of course, is either "Up Dev," or "Up the Republic." I happened to be speaking at the time, and I said: "Yes, amen to the sweet prayer, ‘Up Dev,' because when the people of this country get an opportunity again they will put him so high on the political shelf of this country that he will never get on his feet again to interfere in the economic or national position here." I was walking down the street and somebody threw a piece of rock at me. They were a good distance away, and they were doing this from behind the backs of the Civic Guards. They would not stand out on the road, as I challenged any individual to do. They were able to shy bricks, and rocks and bottles and stones from behind the shelter of the Civic Guards' uniform. The particular brick missed me but hit a fellow beside me. He had his best girl, or very likely his second-best girl, with him. This is an instance of the hate and the bitterness those things cause; she did not cry; she said: "For God's sake, Timmy, did you hit him back?" That is the kind of hate that is being fanned by the Front Benches and the Back Benches of this House. That is the kind of hate that is being taught at every cross-roads throughout the country, and nobody in this House or outside it can say that we have ever uttered one word of bitterness or hate. We have always said: "Listen to them if you want to listen to them. If you do not, go away and do not interrupt their meetings. Do not interfere with them." This country should be a free man's country, and nobody has done as much to make it free as the men whom you are trying to ban, and whom you are trying to get £2,800 to put into Arbour Hill—the men and women in the blue shirts.

The Attorney-General

I do not intend to travel over the ground which has been covered by the Opposition speakers on this Vote. There have, however, been one or two matters referred to with which I am more or less directly concerned. I should like to deal with them and answer some of the charges which have been made by the speakers from the Opposition Benches. The one which affects me most keenly, although in a way it is the most trivial matter, is the charge which the last speaker made against me, that under my instructions counsel appearing at the Military Tribunal have gone out of their way to elicit every discreditable fact with relation to one particular type of prisoner, and carefully avoided doing so with regard to others. I know Deputy O'Sullivan has withdrawn that suggestion since I flatly contradicted it, and apparently he accepts my denial that I personally have ever given such instructions to any counsel appearing on my behalf, but I was more than sorry to hear the charge made. I have followed the reports of those cases in the papers, and with one particular exception it certainly never occurred to me that, during all the time those cases had been going on, any counsel appearing on my behalf has ever done anything but present his case in as fair a manner as possible. In fact, my instructions to the counsel who appeared on my behalf are if anything to be overfair in those cases, having regard to the nature of the Tribunal before which the accused are brought, as well as having regard to the rule which I laid down in all the prosecutions which I undertook, that prisoners must be given the utmost fairness in the way the cases are presented. I think that if Deputy Belton were here in this House he would admit that there was that fairness in one of the very first cases brought before the Tribunal— that was the case in which he himself was charged. At the conclusion of the case, and before the Tribunal considered its verdict, he came across to the counsel who represented me there and said that at any rate he could not say that he had not an absolutely fair trial from us.

I hesitate to believe that Deputy O'Sullivan has any grounds whatever for making the allegation he has made, beyond, perhaps, one incident in one case. I repudiate the charge, and I repudiate it on behalf of the counsel who have appeared at that Tribunal. I chose them very carefully from experienced counsel, and they are counsel on whom I can rely to conduct a case in the way in which I think it should be conducted. If you look through the list, you will see there some of the most experienced practitioners to whom I committed the charge of cases. If there has been any particular case in which a complaint of that kind can be substantiated or details of it given to me, I undertake to this House at once that I will have it investigated, and see to it that no such complaint can be made against me.

I will deal here with Deputy O'Sullivan's other charges, as I have already referred to that charge. He went back into ancient history about Kilmallock. Kilmallock has figured in a couple of the speeches in this debate and in a previous debate in this House. I thought it was so far gone past that it might be allowed to be forgotten. It was never raised in this House before, to my knowledge, and there have been at least two debates on my Estimate in this House since the Kilmallock incident, and, so far as I can recollect, not one single Deputy from Limerick, or elsewhere, ever made the suggestion that the case had not been conducted perfectly fairly by me. To drag it in at this late hour, above everything else, shows the poverty of the material which the Opposition have at their command when they seek to make the charge of partiality that is now being dragged in. Commandant Cronin was charged in connection with that incident. I remember vaguely the details of the case now, and the fact that Deputy Mulcahy gave a description of the incidents has had the effect of refreshing my mind. He made no suggestion as to the manner in which the case had been conducted by me, and it remained for Deputy O'Sullivan to give it as an instance of partiality. In my recollection, the case was to this effect: Apart from the charge of possession of a gun against Commandant Cronin, which was dealt with by the infliction of a penalty of £10, the other charges were concerned with riot, unlawful assembly and the usual charges which arise out of riotous scenes such as occurred on that occasion. Deputy Bennett comes from that area, and he will probably have the details more clearly present to his mind than I——

Mr. Bennett

Deputy Bennett was not involved except as a target.

The Attorney-General

I merely say that the Deputy comes from that area, and may have a clearer and better recollection of the incidents than I.

Mr. Bennett

I will give some of them later.

The Attorney-General

The eventual result of the case was that the local Guard officers in charge of the particular area suggested that, in the interests of the peace of the district, and as a long time had been allowed to elapse by the District Justice in dealing with the case—it was adjourned over a period of months, for which I was in no way responsible—the summonses should be withdrawn. I do not remember, as a matter of fact, whether the suggestion was exactly that the summonses should be withdrawn, but whatever the suggestion was, I concerned myself not in the least with that case, except to do what was conveyed to me by the responsible police authorities in charge, and I think, if I recollect rightly, General O'Duffy was then Chief Commissioner of the Guards. Anything I did in connection with that case, I did on their suggestion. Has there been any trouble in Kilmallock since? Was it not a wise course to adopt, and why should it now be dragged out here to support this charge of partiality in dealing with such a case?

It has also been sought to make a case that in the handling of cases before the Tribunal, there has been some show of partiality. I gave here the other day the figures as to the numbers of people charged before the Tribunal. I said that the gross figure of people charged and dealt with—and I meant by that, the people who were sentenced—was 80. As a matter of fact, my figures should have been slightly larger, as I omitted from that list the persons who had been charged and acquitted. The variation in the figures would bring the number of people who might be said to be identified—I am not saying that they are; they may be repudiated by the Opposition Party—with the Opposition Party, to somewhere in the region of 20 or 21, and the total number somewhere in the region of 100. I may, perhaps, be pardoned if I give details of the cases of those who, I suggest, were connected with the Opposition Party who were brought before the Tribunal and the charges on which they were tried. A great deal of capital is being made by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney and by Deputy Fitzgerald in his paper —he, apparently, is the man who writes these venomous articles in that paper each week—with the suggestion that the Opposition Party are suffering the greatest and most tyrannical coercion that was ever heard of in this country, whereas, when you come to analyse it and to examine the situation, you find that, in all, about 20 people belonging to the Opposition or who are associated with the Opposition, have been brought before this Tribunal. Nine of those were the Waterford farmers who were charged in connection with the "No Rates" campaign in that area.

Mr. Fitzgerald

The alleged.

The Attorney-General

——or should I say, the alleged "No Rates" campaign. The rest are men who, with three exceptions, I think, were all charged with possession of guns or the use of guns in the public street, or with some offence connected with the use of firearms. Charges have been levelled here that there is something happening which is unparalleled in the history of any country, whereas when we come to examine the actual facts of this terrible instrument of coercion which we have brought down and introduced here, we find that, in all, our political opponents have had to suffer the trial of about 20 of their associates or members before this Tribunal. Yet we hear Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney saying: "Why not try them before a jury; why take away their ordinary rights?" and Deputy Dillon waxes eloquent on the same topic. I shall endeavour to suggest some reasons why, in particular cases, trial by jury should not take place. There are the cold facts and when one comes to look at it, one finds that so much interest have we ourselves shown in the maintenance of order generally all over the country, that we have brought before this Tribunal four times as many people who could be said to be associated with our Party or at least, not to be members of the Opposition. I do not want to describe them all as supporters of ours, but in the interests of order in the country, we have brought that number before this terrible Tribunal.

Commandant Cronin was brought before the Tribunal and charged with sedition and membership of an unlawful association. He was acquitted on the charge of sedition and convicted on the charge of membership of an unlawful association. For Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's information, if it is information he wants, the Tribunal is the only forum or court before which a charge of being a member of an unlawful association can be brought and when he suggests that this question of membership of an unlawful association should be investigated in an ordinary court, he has not adverted to the fact that membership of an unlawful association is a particular offence created by the Constitution (Amendment) Act and can only be tried before the Military Tribunal.

Now what happened to Commandant Cronin? He was found guilty. Commandant Cronin was arrested, I think, after the proclamation declaring the Young Ireland Association to be unlawful. That was promulgated on the 8th and he was arrested on the 9th. A great deal of capital was sought to be made out of the fact that at that time some information had been given in the Irish Press that a period would be allowed to elapse during which persons who wish to sever their connection with this unlawful association would be allowed an opportunity to do so. A great deal of capital has been made about it here. The last speaker apparently suggested that there was something heinous about having a man arrested and punished when such a statement appeared, and every speaker on the other side stated that such a course was adopted when the Public Safety Act was originally put into operation by the members of the Opposition.

I will just repeat my words. I said we heard a lot of talk from the Opposition Benches about people who refused to recognise the court and that Commandant Cronin had in this instance refused to recognise as a properly made order an order of this court.

The Attorney-General

I mentioned that. Still it is worthy of note. On the evening in question, when the police got on their tracks they actually happened to come from the U.I.P. rooms. That is worthy of note, particularly when so much capital is made out of the fact that the gentlemen from Kilmallock were convicted the other day of serious offence. Then we had yesterday or the day before two cases of possession of rifles by members of the League of Youth. I do not want to elaborate or draw any more inferences from these facts than they are reasonably capable of bearing, but as to the charge of partiality, of misuse of this Act, and abuse of our powers, there are the cold facts in connection with it: that since the Act came into operation these are the only people I can find upon my list, apart from the nine Waterford farmers that I referred to already, who were brought before this terrible Tribunal. These have all been people who had arms in their possession, with the exception of one or two I have mentioned, who were charged with membership of the Association. As Deputies will know, there have been other people from different areas connected with the Association who had ammunition and, in some cases, arms in their possession, and for reasons which appeared good to me I have had them dealt with by the local courts. Of course, we never hear a word of that from the Opposition—no acceptance of moderation. I always recall to mind when Deputy Geoghegan was on these Benches, the continuous assaults made upon him, the vile abuse heaped upon him, and the questions and questions asked about him. When he left office the organ of the Opposition Party came out regretting his departure, and saying that he was not so bad after all. I do not know whether, when I go out, they will say the same about me. I think it is intolerable to have to stand up time and time again in this House to answer charges of partiality, charges of dealing unfairly with political opponents when, while generalisations are all very well, Deputies could readily get to know the facts. I have to go into these facts. I do not want to have to say that I brought 60 or 80 members associated with my own Party before the Tribunal. I hesitate to do it. I hate to have to get up here and to go into these things at all. I feel that in my position I should hold an even balance between all parties, that I should respect members of the Opposition Party, and treat them as fairly and as squarely as the members of my own Party. As Deputies behind me know, it is difficult for me to carry on without criticism from all sides. In fact, I know that probably the charge will be made that I am partial to the Opposition.

As regards the charge which Deputy Hogan made against me yesterday, of prostituting the law, the Deputy should hesitate before he makes such a charge in this House. If he said that outside he could be made amenable—as he has been made amenable before—for a libellous statement. He instanced a case in County Galway. The incident if I remember rightly happened at a meeting in Kilconnelly. The Deputy forgot, when he mentioned that incident that I brought the people responsible for the trouble before the Military Tribunal and that they have been very severely dealt with. The Deputy mentioned two other incidents in one of which he said shots were fired over a meeting, and the other in which shots were fired at an organiser. I deplore these incidents. I condemn them. If I had evidence before me that any persons could be made amenable I would not have the slightest hesitation about bringing them before the Military Tribunal straight away. I have done so in the case in which a man fired shots over a meeting, where he was actually caught. The Deputy knows well that no matter how intent the police are, they cannot always lay their hands on the people concerned in these cases. I doubt if any reasonable person believes that the police could lay their hands on people who fire with rifles, even at meetings addressed by Deputy Hogan.

I have a list of the cases that were before the Military Tribunal and it makes sad reading. I am very sorry to have to admit that a number of people who have been before the Military Tribunal are supporters—or imagine they are supporters—of our Party. They have been before the Tribunal for offences which I deplore and deprecate. I realise, whatever may be said for the reasons for bringing this Act into force that very often, in order to deal with conditions in certain districts, it is necessary, as Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney said—and I agree with every word the Deputy said—because there are cases which it is quite impossible to expect a jury to deal with, inasmuch as there will be either intimidation of witnesses or intimidation of jurors. I am quite prepared to admit that that has been happening. The charge made here day after day is that we acted in some sinister way. There is not the slightest basis for that. If there is the slightest hint, in any case that comes into my hands, that they are cases to bring before the Military Tribunal I eventually decide to bring them, when it becomes clear that they cannot be fairly tried anywhere else. I am sorry to see such a condition of affairs prevailing, particularly in certain areas.

I may also say that people are beginning to realise that, even our own supporters often have a great deal to put up with—I am not going to condemn our supporters in quite the way that some members of the Opposition do. The President dealt with that side of the question, so I need not go into it. I have not in the slightest degree slackened the law against any of our supporters. I think if a balance had to be struck it would be found that I was more severe with our own supporters than the supporters of the Opposition. I am determined, if evidence comes before me of interruption of public meetings, or of violence at public meetings, or any attempt to interfere with free speech, that it must cease. We have laid it down, no matter how objectionable people may be, and no matter how strongly they may differ with each other, that, as far as the law will allow, it will prevent interference with the right of free speech. I give an undertaking to the House that in any case in which the evidence tells of such interference, or tells of violence or of the handling or production of guns, I will take action, no matter what section is concerned. It is most unreasonable for Deputy Hogan to get up and to level a charge that I prostituted the law. The case he referred to was never before me, as far as I can recollect, in connection with any incident of interference at his meetings, save the one exception at Kilconnelly, where a man's house was attacked, because it was alleged he went to Deputy Hogan's meeting. But the gentlemen who were responsible for that are at present in Arbour Hill. I am endeavouring to act fairly and reasonably and, in so far as in me lies, I am endeavouring to act with moderation.

Deputy Fitzgerald talked of sedition and complained about my objection to certain paragraphs in his newspaper. A quotation was read by Deputy Cosgrave from a speech which I delivered at Mullingar in 1933, in which I said it was felt that it was better free speech should be allowed. In regard to what appears to me to be sedition, I think if there is a charge to be levelled against me it is that I have been far too tolerant. I have paid attention to the development to be seen of seditious libel. I have felt that I should strain the law, as far as I could, to allow comment on the actions of the Government, and even though interpreting the law strictly, frequently whole pages of the organ of the United Ireland Party, and I may also say of An Phoblacht, could be said to be seditious, and I have little doubt that if an application were made to the Military Tribunal they would be suppressed. I have held my hand. I think in only one case was the organ of the Opposition before the Tribunal, and An Phoblacht on two or three occasions. Rightly or wrongly, it is better to let people say wild things, as long as they do not do wild things. In that regard, I have a confession to make, that I may have been too lenient, with the result that when wild words are spoken wild things are done, and that I may possibly have to reproach myself there.

In regard to the administration of this Act, I do not see that we are concerned with the grounds on which it was brought in, and I do not see that I am bound to defend the proclamation or to enter into the objects of any of these associations. Ample grounds were given. All I am concerned with is the administration of the Act. On the facts being examined calmly by independent persons they will see that this weapon has not been used as an instrument of tyranny or coercion, that it has only been used in circumstances where no other instrument was available to carry out its object and to preserve public order. As regards the charge of partiality, if there has been any partiality at all, it has been towards opponents of the Government, not against them.

On my thesis, certainly. If Commandant Cronin gave an undertaking regarding something which he had in mind and if the other person concerned, on his interpretation, said he had acted contrary to what he expected him to do, he could claim he was guilty of bad faith. If Commandant Cronin was brought before the court later and said, "I am satisfied that I have been of good behaviour and have not broken the peace," the court could turn to him and say, "you are exactly in the same position as you were when before us previously. You know that to be in that position in our eyes means either that you have been guilty of a breach of the peace or of bad behaviour. You gave an undertaking that you would not break the peace or be of bad behaviour. You come before us in exactly the same position as before and you have broken your word." Commandant Cronin, as I know him, is a man with infinite concern for his own good name and his own honour, which is built upon very solid foundations.

Some people are very sensitive about affording any opportunity whatever to challenge their truth or honour. He was in a position in which he could put it in the power of people to say that he had, in order to avoid imprisonment, gone before a district justice and given an undertaking, and later had been brought before the court and sentenced by the court for breaking that undertaking. That was the choice he was given. He knew the position he was in. The Attorney-General may belong to some organisation to-day. If he happens to quarrel with the Government, they can proclaim that organisation to-night. The moment they have done that, though the Attorney-General may be in bed when it is done, he is an outlaw; he is breaking the law, and he can be brought before the Tribunal. The Tribunal is bound to find him guilty and impose some sentence on him. That is the position in which Commandant Cronin was. Commandant Cronin preferred, as I should have preferred if I had been in his position, to do three months in jail to putting it into the mouths of the Front Bench opposite or allowing the mobs outside to say that rather than face up to punishment of three months he went crawling before a judge and gave an undertaking which he had broken. I should have done the same, and, probably, the Attorney-General would have done the same. Commandant Cronin is now in jail, having been placed in the position I have described not by his own action but by the action of the Government.

The Attorney-General talks about our making the welkin ring with our complaints about abuse of power when only three men are in jail charged with membership of an unlawful organisation. I think it was Goethe who said that he would rather have formal order created through injustice than lack of complete order and the reign of justice. That seems to be the Attorney-General's view. It seems to me to be an outrageous attitude. One man is doing three months for being in a position in which no action of his mind contained any guilt whatsover. I do not remember the details of the other two cases. The Attorney-General says there are only three men in jail on this charge. But the institution of this Court has been not in the interests of justice but in the interests of injustice. The Attorney-General has pointed out that the majority of these men, presumably associated with our movement, have been in on charges of ownership of guns and things of that kind. I am not going to challenge the Government for applying the law with regard to guns in this country. In some countries the ordinary law provides for everybody having a gun. That is right and just, but it would be unjust if that Government turned round and said that everybody, save some they did not like, should have guns. Then there would be injustice. In this country certain people have been charged with the ownership of guns. The Attorney-General referred yesterday to a case in which a haystack was raided and a rifle found. But the President of the Executive Council got up in this House and said, in my hearing, that, as far as members of the I.R.A. were concerned, he had no intention of going out to seek for guns. The Attorney-General says there is no ground for complaint because they have raided for guns and sentenced men. The members of the. Front Bench opposite were themselves parties to dumping guns that are now owned by the illegal organisations which are trying to promote crime. They are to be exempt. In one country it might be unjust for a Government to prohibit ownership of arms, and in another country it might be quite right to do so. But in any country it is wrong for the Government to make a law whose penal sanctions are applied only to one section of the community and are not applied to another. The Government's action in the whole business of this Tribunal has been an outrage on justice. I, personally, resent strongly that that Tribunal, composed of splendid men, should, through no will of their own, be actually made an instrument of tyranny in this country.

Personally, I should not have any natural desire to have guns all around me, but I do say that it is an injustice and a crime on the part of the Government to say that certain people, whose whole record during ten years has shown that they hold guns for the purpose of terrorising their neighbours, for the purpose of breaking the law and for the purpose of being able to outrage the rights of their neighbours, may own guns. If they did not hold guns, there would be no necessity for other people to hold them. To say that they, who have shown that they intend to use them against their neighbours, can have guns and that other people are not to be allowed to have guns to protect themselves from the attacks of those people is arrogant injustice. The Minister for Justice, yesterday or the day before, when questioned about the firing of volleys over a grave in Mayo or somewhere, said it was quite all right, that the men who had rifles had permits, and that they had also permits to fire over the grave of this man, presumably because he had been associated with a movement to overthrow this State. ExMinisters have been refused licences for guns. Is that because they are thought to be likely to use them against the common weal? But men in Mayo have licences for rifles, and have licences to shoot over the grave of some man, presumably—I am not certain why—because he was associated with a certain movement directed against the people of this country.

The Attorney-General

Dr. Crowley.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I think he was associated with the rebellion of 1922.

The Attorney-General

If the Deputy knew anything about the history of 1918-1919 he would know Dr. Crowley.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I do not remember much about him in the 1922 period but I presume it was his part in the 1922 period which made it necessary to have these permits. These people were, presumably, members of the I.R.A.— an unlawful association, by definition. The I.R.A. is an unlawful association according to the law of this country yet there have only been three men brought up and charged with unlawful assembly under the new jurisdiction. The Government proclaimed the National Guard but before they were able to put their machinery in motion against the National Guard, it was dissolved and abolished and in its place the Young Ireland Association was formed. The Government then came along and declared that the Young Ireland Association was an unlawful body and that membership of it would carry all the penalties that membership of the other association would have carried. The Government did that, and we, being desirous of obeying the law even though it was an unjust law put in operation against peaceable citizens, again readily abolished the Young Ireland Association. But though only a short time elapsed between the Government order and our obedience to that order, they managed to act quickly and, one way or another, and through a certain amount of sharp practice, they managed to get three men punished for being members of this organisation. These men were not guilty of any offence. The association was a perfectly lawful association although banned by the Government, and, as I have stated, when it was banned it was abolished at the earliest possible moment. But there were other associations of which no notice whatever was taken.

When we introduced Constitution (Amendment) (No. 17) Act, in 1931, we took to ourselves great powers. I am not necessarily against coercion. But any Government that takes great powers to be used against the rights of the people must have very complete justification for doing so. We proclaimed that a certain number of organisations in our opinion, as we were bound to do, violated the conditions laid down in Section 19 of that Act, and were against the law. Was there anybody in this country who could question whether that order made by us was in accordance with truth? No one could question the fact that the organisations specifically named by us fulfilled the definition that makes an association an unlawful association. The matter was beyond question. The Bill that we introduced in these circumstances was preeminently a good Bill. It was necessary. Young people in this country, with the trappings and high-sounding phrases of patriotism, the Republic, and the rest of it, were being induced into an organisation whose methods were the methods of crime, and, young people by being connected with these associations could only embark upon a course of crime. That Bill was introduced in the ordinary course as the only effective way of dealing with these organisations.

The Attorney-General referred to Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney speaking about the Harty case, but Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's point was that that man could have very well been brought before an ordinary court and that there was no need for the Military Tribunal to deal with him. Why did we create a military court? Because the ordinary courts were not adequate. Because a criminal organisation decided by murder, and by threats of murder, to create a position in which they gave orders in the name of the sacrosanct Republic that men must call upon God to bear witness to a lie, or else they must face death. A juryman sworn to give a verdict according to the evidence placed before him and calling upon the Eternal Truth to help him to find a verdict must commit perjury under the orders of this association, and find a verdict contrary to the evidence. The result was that there was a position created in this country that jurymen had to choose whether they would commit perjury, and call upon God to bear witness to their lies, or else come out and face the assassin's bullet. Many people have not that courage. It is most unfair to ask ordinary citizens to take the course that may mean assassination for them. We had to find another course and that is why the Military Court was created. So far as that association is concerned its aim was to try to get jurymen to commit perjury. The Attorney-General says that only three men of the Blueshirts had been in prison for membership of an unlawful association. May I ask how many members of the I.R.A. and of the Cumann na mBan have been brought up and prosecuted as members of an unlawful association? It was only a matter of a few days between the time the National Guard and the Young Ireland Association were proclaimed and the abolition of these associations. The moment the Government made an order, the United Ireland Party came to an agreement to dissolve both organisations, and the time between the proclaiming of them by the Government and the abolition of them was the only period that anyone belonging to them could be said to belong to an unlawful association; whereas during the whole period of this Government's life the I.R.A., their members and their organisation have had absolute freedom, and they own their arms to the knowledge of the Government. During the whole period that the Constitution (Amendment) No. 17 Act has been in force by this Government not one man or woman has been charged with membership of the I.R.A. or the Cumann na mBan. A short time ago a member of the I.R.A. was being tried before an ordinary court on a certain charge. Members of the jury received a document from the headquarters of the Cumann na mBan, with an address in Dawson Street, warning these jurymen that it was an act of treason to the Republic, with the arms of the I.R.A. behind it, if they acted according to the evidence, as they were obliged to do by their oath. The President was well aware of that and he spoke of it at a public meeting afterwards.

One of the reasons we had when we were in office for making these organisations unlawful was that they tried to tamper with justice by intimidating ordinary jurymen. These organisations were endeavouring to demoralise jurymen and destroy the jury system. The document that I have mentioned had the address of its organisation at the head of it. The heads of these organisations are known to members of the Government and are their personal friends. The Government know the people who were trying to corrupt justice in that way. They know that in that way, as by all their other methods, both the associations I have mentioned are by definition unlawful associations and that membership of them is liable to penalties in this country. Yet no one has been brought up and charged with membership of the I.R.A. or the Cumann na mBan. No action was taken to punish people who attempted to seduce jurymen from doing their duty and to perjure themselves. But because Commandant Cronin was in a blue shirt a day or two after the Young Ireland Association was proclaimed, he was hauled before the Military Tribunal and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. We have had two and three-quarter hours of passionate indignation from the President, protesting that there was nothing but the purest methods inspiring their administration. Yet, we have in this country, at this moment, a position in which crime is fostered by the Government.

You can belong to the I.R.A. tomorrow. You can organise such acts as the beating to death of young O'Reilly, be a member of the organisation and be responsible for the running of an organisation that does that sort of thing but nothing will happen to you. But if you should belong to an organisation that aims at preserving for the people of this country their ordinary rights, that aims at keeping the reign of law in this country—not under the method the Government proposes to promote the reign of law, through the operation of injustice but through order based upon justice—if you belong to one of these organisations, the Government can make an order in the middle of the night in the room of the Executive Council or in President de Valera's room and you are breaking the law before you get up in the morning. That was the position of Commandant Cronin. When you do that you can be sentenced by the Military Tribunal. That does not apply against the really unlawful associations. That being so, what is the point of the appalling hypocrisy we have displayed from the Government Benches when they are so indignant at the suggestion that there is partial government in this country? The Attorney-General, yesterday I think it was, got up blandly— and that is one of the reasons why people suffer injustice in this country —when somebody was speaking on this side and he said: "How do you justify the actions of the farmers in Waterford this morning or yesterday who were organised by your Party unlawfully to prevent the auction there?" I heard what he said but certain other members on this side did not quite hear him and they asked him to repeat this statement. When he repeated it he did not repeat the business about their being organised by this Party. He got up in this House to accuse our Party of organising opposition to an auction in Waterford and he had no evidence to support his statement—not the slightest. In the usual way when they see anything happening which is inconvenient for them, they automatically decide that we are responsible for it and that we should be punished for it.

I object strongly to the voting of this sum of money, not because I object to the Military Tribunal as some coercive measure, not because I object to anybody being charged before it when they go shooting along the streets or along the roads, or when they go out to terrify people in their houses. I have no objection to that. It is my duty as a citizen to assist the Government in putting down such unlawful practices, and the obvious way of putting them down is to apply penal sanctions and to see that the guilty parties are brought to justice. But what is the position? We had a man charged the other day with the possession of a rifle, a man who possibly, or even probably, might be in a position of danger from the illegal followers of the Government because, as I read the case in the papers, one of the men had been given a rifle in 1923, after Dr. O'Higgins had been murdered. He was given a rifle because he lived near by, and there was reason to anticipate that the murderers might come back to play the same game with him. I think they actually did return, but the mere fact that he was connected with the murdered man is mentioned against him, so that he may be known to the friends of the Government as a traitor and may, therefore, meet a traitor's fate. The people who think that they have a right to mete out a traitor's fate to people who differ with them politically, belong to the organisation which the President says he has no intention of disarming, but if other people have arms under those circumstances, if they are found with arms, they are going to be punished.

This military court is being used, not by its own action, but is being used by the action of the Government, only to punish one side. The Attorney-General says there is impartial administration, because there are so many followers of theirs in jail, and only so many of ours, but everybody knows perfectly well how action against our followers is pushed to the furthest point on a pure technicality, how, having declared the Young Ireland Party on the 8th December an illegal organisation, they arrest Commandant Cronin on the 9th and throw him into jail, on a charge of breaking the law. The Government does that with regard to our Party, but nothing at all with regard to the other Party. The Government can use and is using that court for the purpose of putting into jail people they do not like, who have been guilty of no crime whatsoever, and who have been rendered liable to arrest merely by virtue of an action of the Government. Nobody could say that Commandant Cronin was guilty of an offence against the moral or the civil law of this country by being a member of the Young Ireland Party, up to a certain hour on the 8th of December, at all events. It is clear that it was not possible for him formally to indicate that he had ceased to be a member up to the time he was arrested.

The Government is using this Act against people in whose minds, or in whose actions, there cannot be any guilt whatsoever. It uses it against people for the ownership of guns and other things, but will not use it against members of its own Party in the same way. I, myself, at various meetings, could really have pointed out 60 specific people who were guilty of offences of interfering and molesting people associated with our meetings, but in the whole country they have only got 50 odd of these people in jail. You had two men murdered recently. You had young O'Reilly and young Daly murdered, and a constant series of outrages. It is a regular thing in every day's newspaper to see reports of several cases of outrage for months past, yet only when they could no longer avoid it, were any men brought to justice on that side. On our side Commandant Cronin has been imprisoned for three months against every conception of justice. Even if the Government were right in banning the Blueshirts, they must still admit that they are imposing on Commandant Cronin a sentence which is an outrage against all justice. They come along now to tax the Irish people for a further sum in order to enable them to carry out similar injustices.

I know that the Government, time and again when they talk about majority rule, think that the term "majority rule" means that the Government of this country can do what they like without any regard to justice. They think that the minority have no right to justice whatever. The President indicated that point of view last night when he suggested that Lord Muskerry, having made a certain statement as to the position in this country, merely because he was Lord Muskerry and was not an Aiken, a Ruttledge or a de Valera, or one of the latter-day patriots, had no right to express an opinion in this country. The President talked a lot about how scandalous it was to use religion for politics. The President did not mention that he had taxed the people of Ireland in order to send a broadcast message into America to suggest that his Party was the Party that was maintaining religion and that we, somehow or other, merely by not supporting him were the enemies of the Government in that. Lord Muskerry is possibly one of the old landowners, possibly a Protestant. Possibly his father may have been a Unionist, but are we to understand from President de Valera that, therefore, he has no right to express an opinion on conditions in this country? It is an outrage, I suggest, to say that nobody, except people who, like themselves, repudiated the Executive and the Dáil in 1922, has a right to organise or to express an opinion in this country. The whole administration of what is called the Public Safety Act, the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, has been operated against justice in this country.

One does not expect a very strong sense of fair play from the Government and one could scarcely expect, knowing how extraordinarily hypocritical the Leader of the Government is, how, whenever he is going to do a dirty thing, he always makes a most high-sounding speech, as we noticed last night and again this morning, that the Government would go out of its way in this matter to act justly or fairly. The President's little point of view, so far as Ireland is concerned, is this: you can do what you like as long as you say the right thing. That is his reading of the Irish situation. He says the right thing, but he intends to do as he likes, and he always likes to do anything that is tyrannical and that is an outrage against justice. We are asked to vote here in order to enable the Minister for Defence to carry on this outrage against justice. I would like to hear any member of the Fianna Fáil Party, the Attorney-General or anyone else, undertaking to show to the House that the sentence passed upon Commandant Cronin was a just one. I would like to hear any one of them trying to suggest that the punishment Commandant Cronin is undergoing is otherwise than an outrage against justice and an outrage that cries out to the people to be remedied.

Mr. Aiken

Deputy Fitzgerald has made one of his usual speeches. He tries to make out that we have, in some way, victimised ex-Commandant Cronin because he is in Arbour Hill. Ex-Commandant Cronin is in jail because he would not give an undertaking to keep the peace and be of good behaviour. If he gave that undertaking he would now be a free man. He is in jail of his own volition, simply because he was not willing to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for two years. That is a nice example coming from the General Secretary of an organisation to the rest of its members and it is a nice thing to see the action of that man being approved by people who are supposed to be responsible members of an Opposition here. The Government and the Military Tribunal are entitled to get from citizens who are brought before the Tribunal an undertaking that they are going to keep the peace and be of good behaviour. The men who have talked so much about keeping within the law, and all the rest of it, have shown that what they really want is to get their followers screwed up to breaking the law and using other than peaceful measures against the Government elected by the people. We have shown that we wanted to govern by peaceful means. The Opposition here are determined that we are not going to be allowed to govern by peaceful means.

Any set of people, if they want to have force used against them, can always make those who are in control use force against them. We have had to use force against ex-Commandant Cronin and the others who were brought into Arbour Hill, because we could not allow the people of the country to be defeated in their objects by men who were not prepared to keep the peace and be of good behaviour towards their neighbours. When we were elected we promised the people that no man was going to be interfered with, that there would be no interference with any person or property, unless according to law. Cronin and the others are in jail because they have not kept the law. If he was prepared to keep the peace in the future he would not be in jail now. We know that ex-Commandant Cronin, and others like him, are simply the tools of designing politicians who are endeavouring to get back into power. They have stirred up fellows like Cronin to get into jail and to keep in jail and they have endeavoured to create trouble all over the country in order that this Government may be stopped in its progress of building up. Cronin was fool enough to do it for them and a lot of other young people are fools enough to carry out their work.

We do not want trouble, but we are not going to be driven along those lines without objecting to it. We had to bring in the Constitution (Amendment) Act, although we disliked it, simply because there was no other means at our disposal to stop bloodshed here in Dublin, and to stop this country drifting into chaos. This debate has now been going on for two or three hours. A somewhat similar debate has been going on for the last two and a half days. I now beg to move: "That the Question be now put."

The Dáil divided: Tá, 52; Níl, 29.

Tá

Aiken, Frank.
Bartley, Gerald.
Boland, Gerald.
Bourke, Daniel.
Brady, Brian.
Brady, Seán.
Breathnach, Cormac.
Davin, William.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
Doherty, Hugh.
Flynn, John.
Fogarty, Andrew.
Geoghegan, James.
Gibbons, Seán.
Goulding, John.
Harris, Thomas.
Hayes, Seán.
Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
Keely, Séamus P.
Kelly, James Patrick.
Kelly, Thomas.
Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
Kilroy, Michael.
Kissane, Eamonn.
Lemass, Seán F.
Briscoe, Robert.
Carty, Frank.
Cleary, Mícheál.
Concannon, Helena.
Cooney, Eamonn.
Crowley, Timothy.
Daly, Denis.
Little, Patrick John.
McEllistrim, Thomas.
MacEntee, Seán.
Maguire, Ben.
Maguire, Conor Alexander.
Moore, Séamus.
Moylan, Seán.
O'Briain, Donnchadh.
O'Grady, Seán.
O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
Pearse, Margaret Mary.
Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
Ryan, James.
Ryan, Martin.
Ryan, Robert.
Sheridan, Michael.
Traynor, Oscar.
Walsh, Richard.

Níl

Beckett, James Walter.
Belton, Patrick.
Bennett, George Cecil.
Burke, James Michael.
Byrne, Alfred.
Cosgrave, William T.
Costello, John Aloysius.
Davis, Michael.
Dillon, James M.
Dolan, James Nicholas.
Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
Fagan, Charles.
Fitzgerald, Desmond.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Keating, John.
Lynch, Finian.
McFadden, Michael Og.
McGilligan, Patrick.
McGovern, Patrick.
McMenamin, Daniel.
Morrissey, Daniel.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Nally, Martin.
O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
O'Neill, Eamonn.
O'Sullivan, Gearoid.
O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
Rice, Vincent.
Rowlette, Robert James.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Traynor; Níl: Deputies Bennett and McMenamin.

Motion declared carried.

Main Question put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 52; Níl, 28.

Tá

Aiken, Frank.
Bartley, Gerald.
Blaney, Neal.
Boland, Gerald.
Bourke, Daniel.
Brady, Brian.
Brady, Seán.
Breathnach, Cormac.
Briscoe, Robert.
Carty, Frank.
Concannon, Helena.
Cooney, Eamonn.
Crowley, Timothy.
Daly, Denis.
Davin, William.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
Doherty, Hugh.
Flynn, John.
Fogarty, Andrew.
Geoghegan, James.
Gibbons, Seán.
Goulding, John.
Ryan, James.
Ryan, Martin.
Ryan, Robert.
Harris, Thomas.
Hayes, Seán.
Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
Keely, Séamus P.
Kelly, James Patrick.
Kelly, Thomas.
Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
Kilroy, Michael.
Kissane, Eamonn.
Lemass, Seán F.
Little, Patrick John.
McEllistrim, Thomas.
MacEntee, Seán.
Maguire, Ben.
Maguire, Conor Alexander.
Moore, Séamus.
Moylan, Seán.
O'Briain, Donnchadh.
O'Grady, Seán.
O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
Pearse, Margaret Mary.
Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
Sheridan, Michael.
Traynor, Oscar.
Walsh, Richard.

Níl

Beckett, James Walter.
Belton, Patrick.
Bennett, George Cecil.
Byrne, Alfred.
Cosgrave, William T.
Costello, John Aloysius.
Davis, Michael.
Dillon, James M.
Dolan, James Nicholas.
Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
Fagan, Charles.
Fitzgerald, Desmond.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Keating, John.
Lynch, Finian.
McFadden, Michael Og.
McGilligan, Patrick.
McGovern, Patrick.
McMenamin, Daniel.
Morrissey, Daniel.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Nally, Martin.
O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
O'Neill, Eamonn.
O'Sullivan, Gearoid.
O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
Rice, Vincent.
Rowlette, Robert James.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Traynor; Níl: Deputies Bennett and McMenamin.

Motion declared carried.

Dáil Éireann debate - Friday, 2 Mar 1934

Vote No. 64—Army.

Mr. Crowley

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

The Attorney-General

Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 2 Mar 1934