We shall be interested to hear what explanation the Attorney-General will give of the admission and pressing on the court of evidence which he knows to be illegal evidence. I do not say that all his counsel do it. I want to be careful. A great number of counsel instructed by the Attorney-General prosecute perfectly fairly. I want to make that clear. I am not charging all his counsel by any means, but I am charging the counsel who put in evidence what they know not to be evidence. I know that there are counsel whom the Attorney-General briefs who are men of high honour and who would not dream of putting statements such as that in evidence, but there are others who do put them in evidence and the Attorney-General is responsible. The guilt is his and if, as is undoubtedly the case now, people in this country do not regard a conviction by the Military Tribunal as showing either the guilt or innocence of a man, but simply brush it aside, it is due to the fact that the Attorney-General has not watched over the decisions of that Military Tribunal as he should have and has not carefully seen that no innocent person was ever convicted, and certainly that no person who in law ought not to have been convicted was convicted. I know the blame may not be all his. I give him that credit. The Military Tribunal would be a much better court if the Executive Council had done its duty, but I cannot deal with that question now. I do not really care very much how far you apportion the blame as between the Executive Council and the Attorney-General, but the fact remains that the Attorney-General, by his method of prosecuting, has brought that court at the present moment into such disrepute that a conviction by it or an acquittal by it—such few cases of acquittal as there are— does not in the public mind establish the guilt or the innocence of the person charged or does not even tend to establish the guilt or the innocence of the person charged.
I have dealt as shortly and as concisely as it lay in my power with some, the chief as I think, of the Attorney-General's sins of omission, but I am going now to deal with the Attorney-General's great sin of omission. I am going now to deal with the thing which has put a stain upon the reputation of the Attorney-General that nothing on earth can ever wipe out. I am going to deal with the non-prosecution of members of the Civic Guard, of Colonel Broy's new recruits, who shot down a number of men and murdered one, in Marsh's Yard, in Cork. When I dealt with that matter last, the Attorney-General made two excuses. He said that there was no precedent for an Attorney-General putting upon their trial guards or police who had been guilty of shooting citizens of this country. He said that there was absolutely no difference between military and police in the matter of shooting.
As far as the difference between military and policy goes, if he reads the Fetherstone Colliery case, which is the leading case on the subject, and Lord Burns' decision and report, they are looked upon as being the best summary of the law on that matter which could be got. If he comes to a case nearer home and considers the report on the shooting at Bachelor's Walk in 1914, he will find that the British Government, when citizens of Dublin were shot down, thought it worth while to enquire into the matter. But in 1934 when citizens are shot down in Cork the Government and the Attorney-General do not consider any prosecution necessary. In both these cases it was laid down clearly that military may shoot where the police cannot, because the soldier has one weapon and one weapon only. He has got his rifle and nothing else, but the police have got their batons and until they have used their batons and shown that the use of their batons is insufficient, they are not justified in firing.
Indeed, in the Bachelor's Walk Inquiry, the Commissioners held as a fact that if the troops who fired on the crowd in Bachelor's Walk had been accompanied by the Dublin Metropolitan Police, firing need not and would not have taken place. Yet the Attorney-General made the case that there was absolutely no precedent for the Attorney-General prosecuting police who had been guilty of firing upon a crowd. Granted there was not, is the Attorney-General going to stand over this position, that the police are wantonly to fire on a crowd, that they are to be the judges as to when they can shoot down citizens of the State, and, if they so shoot down citizens of the State, then the Attorney-General is to put forward, as he has already put forward, a doctrine which, in my humble judgment, is a contemptible doctrine? But the Attorney-General is quite wrong in his opinion. In the case of the Borrisokane riots, Chief Baron Joy, who was then Attorney-General, did put two members of the then police force on trial. What is more, in order that there might be no question at all, such was his opinion of the value of human life, so different was his opinion from that of his successor, the present Attorney-General, that not only did he put the police who fired on their trial, but he sent up to the Grand Jury a bill against Captain Dodd, the magistrate who read the Riot Act.
It is true the Grand Jury flung out the Bill against Captain Dodd but the Attorney-General did what he could— he cloaked nothing—to see that there would be a full investigation and the men were put upon their trial by the then Attorney-General, the Chief Baron Joy, in a case not half as strong as the Cork case. In that case the Riot Act had been read. In that case every opportunity had been given to the people to clear away. It was a case not one-tenth as strong as this particular case, but the then Attorney-General Joy considered it part of his duty, and rightly considered it part of his duty, to put the police on trial. Our new Attorney-General on the new principle that the life of a wretched Cork boy is not worth considering, says, in effect: "What if the Guards did shoot him?" That did not matter; I suppose the Attorney-General thinks that a Cork boy more or less does not matter. In consequence the men who fired at him, who coolly and deliberately shot down his comrades and himself and who murdered him—I shall call it murder until it is shown to the contrary—go scot-free. Not only does the Attorney-General promote them, but he permlts them to go scot-free.
I have dealt with this case of the Marsh's Yard shooting in this House before, but since I referred to it previously a pronouncement has been made by the highest authority in County Cork in matters appertaining to justice and religion. A pronouncement has been made by Dr. Cohalan, the Bishop of Cork. I shall just quote a few words from it here. At Glanmire Parish Church, which was the parish church of Michael Patrick Lynch, when giving confirmation there, Dr. Cohalan referred to the shooting of this boy, and what he says is this:
"There was one grave violation of justice by public authority in relation to a boy of the parish since my last visit for confirmation. I avail myself of this visit to the parish to express and convey my sympathy to the father and mother of the young man, Michael Patrick Lynch, who was killed in Marsh's Yard, Cork, and to say that some reparation should be made by the Government."
There is a clear and important statement by a man whose duty it is, when occurrences of this nature take place, to say what are the views and teachings of the Church. He expressed them in very quiet, dignified language. "There was one grave violation of justice by public authority." He is responsible, as far as one man can be, for the upholding of Christianity and the law of the Church in the diocese which he rules. The Attorney-General is responsible for the maintenance of civil law in this country. The one speaking on behalf of the Church says deliberately that there has been a violation of the eternal principles of justice—a grave violation of justice by the public authority. The Attorney-General says there has been no breach of the law at all. The Fianna Fáil Party have a very nice problem to face to-night. They will have to vote one way or the other. They will have to approve the Attorney-General and disapprove the moral law or they will have to approve the moral law and disapprove the Attorney-General.