I take it that the whole question raised here by the Tánaiste this evening was: What are the charges and who is going to stand behind them? He was trying to get an answer to that question the whole time. I take it that the Deputies here who made the charges will be prepared to be the accusers and that the tribunal, when set up, will, as on a previous occasion, arrange for the rest. We are anxious that the Deputies who made the insinuations will come forward and be the accusers and will bring forward the people who, they say, have the information.
It is suggested that these inquiries can be lightly undertaken. The fact is that, as the Opposition knows, the making of charges of this sort leaves no course open to the Government but to have an inquiry, and even if the Government thinks the charges are completely unfounded, is convinced that they are unfounded, we nevertheless have to set up these inquiries and have to go to all the expense involved, dragging in people from outside who may have no desire whatever to be involved and who may have no connection with it. All this thing must be done, unless there is some sense of responsibility.
Taking the two cases made up to the present, the President, first, is charged. I ask any Deputy if he thinks for one moment that the charge is true. Next, I am charged, because there is a charge against me. What would be the sense of speaking about the giving of a watch to my son, unless it was suggested that my son, getting the watch, was going to influence me, or that he or I was going to influence the Minister for Industry and Commerce, because I take it it was he who was to be influenced in this matter? I knew nothing whatever about it and my son knew nothing about it. I was just in the same position as I would be in if Deputy Flanagan came in here and said that somebody was going to give a diamond ring or a pearl necklace to my wife. Is there to be any decency whatever in public life?
The next suggestion made was that the Minister for Justice somehow connived at all this, that he was aware of these people and what they were doing, as if the Minister could know everything happening in the country, know every deal and transaction that was taking place. Deputy Flanagan says that Sachael was a friend of his and that this man Maximoe was sheltered in the house of a friend of the Minister. Is there any Deputy in the House who believes that for a moment? Yet, we are going to have a judicial inquiry to find out if that is true.
Then we have the charges against the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He has indicated to-night what the position was as far as he was concerned. Is it suggested by the Deputy who pointed his finger at every one of us and who said that the only trouble was that we were all crooks, but that we had not been found out, that the Minister for Industry and Commerce was influenced by these people, or that he knew that one or other of them was a crook, or that the people who were dealing with the matter in any way were crooks? So far as I understand, the people who were dealing with them in the first place were the secretary of the company which has the distillery for sale, and the company's solicitors, and the only thing about which the Minister was concerned was that the distillery should be carried on as an Irish business concern and that if there was to be an export business in connection with it, it would be of a limited amount. It is suggested that the amount was increased. Let that be inquired into.