Section 8 says: "All expenses incurred by the Minister in the execution of this Act and not otherwise provided for by this Act shall be defrayed out of moneys to be provided by the Oireachtas." Again, I would ask the Minister to direct his attention to a point that was raised by me on Section 4 last night, and which the Leas-Cheann Comhairle thought was not exactly proper to be raised on that section. I think the present section gives the Minister a chance perhaps of dealing at greater length with the point that I raised. I again point out that the Minister informed us that in November, 1922, or about that time, there was a residue in the United States from those bonds of 2,377,434 dollars, and that there was paid out to subscribers in America, subsequent to the American court decision, an amount totalling 2,188,379 dollars, so that the expenses in connection with the lawsuit in the United States cost not only 189,065 dollars, but an amount of money accruable as interest on the original sum for a number of years after December, 1922. The main amendment, which was defeated yesterday, again I say puts the Minister into the position that, as custodian of the interests of the taxpayers in this country, he will be approached by the head of his political Party with claims for the payment to him, by virtue of assignment under power of attorney, of considerable sums of money naturally and normally returnable to the subscribers in the United States. I asked the Minister if he was going to meet those claims in full, considering that the person who will be making application to him for those moneys has deliberately squandered, by actions of his in the United States, not only 189,065 dollars, but at least an equivalent amount accruable in interest on the original sum.
A claim was made in the Press yesterday by persons having the same standing that the head of the Fianna Fáil Party had when he challenged the right of the Executive Council of this State to secure the residue of moneys in America, in order that the full amount might be repaid to the subscribers there. Persons exist to-day with the very same claim and are making the very same claim as was then made, that is, that those moneys properly belong to them. The Minister and the President, in the statement of their case in this Dáil here during the last two days, have emphasised the duty that rested on the Executive Council of the Free State to repay at the earliest possible moment, and in full, the loans subscribed in America. I submit to the Minister that it would be flagrant neglect of his duties as custodian of the taxpayers' interests here if, when he receives the claims from the President by virtue of the Power of Attorney that he holds from some of those subscribers, he pays the amount in full, and does not secure that the terms of this Bill will be so amended that he will have power to deduct from the claims so made the amount of moneys that have been lost to the State here by reason of the unauthorised and illegitimate actions of the present President, when in 1927 he entered the American courts to dispute there a claim and a right which he now realises was a claim and a right that should not have been disputed.
