I move the following recommendation:—
Section 4, sub-section (1). To delete the sub-section and to substitute therefor a new sub-section as follows:—
(1) Any person who claims to be a subscriber to the External Loans (or either of them) or the executor or administrator of a deceased subscriber may at any time before, but not after, the 31st day of August, 1934, apply in writing in the prescribed form and manner for redemption of the amount of the External Loans claimed to be due to such person, but no assignee or person claiming to act under a power of attorney shall be entitled to claim or to be paid any sum or security under this Act.
I think Senators have been gratified by the mood of accommodation and the inclination to listen to reason which the Minister has exhibited in connection with the matter which we have just disposed of. I hope the same mood will animate the Minister in considering this recommendation. It was only by an oversight that I did not table this recommendation on the Committee Stage when, possibly, it might be more appropriately considered. It is, however, better late than never, and I hope the Minister will not resist its acceptance. It is a recommendation based upon the ideas embodied in the concluding remarks I made on the Second Stage of the Bill, that it is important that the Executive and the Legislature of this State shall be above suspicion in matters such as those with which the Bill deals. Certain questions have been raised as to the propriety of the procedure that is proposed in this Bill for the repayment of certain moneys. It has been suggested that behind this Bill is the desire or the wish of the Executive Council to utilise their power to manoeuvre State funds from the State Exchequer into the coffers of a Party organ. I think, sir, that no matter to what Party one belongs—and I certainly am not raising this from a Party point of view—once that suggestion is made everything possible should be done to secure that there will be no basis upon which such a charge can be established. If this Bill passes without some such recommendation as this, I am afraid there will be in the public mind a misgiving that such procedure as I have suggested is undesirable has been indulged in. I do not want to block the operation of this Bill in regard to its effectiveness in paying back money to the subscribers who, the Minister for Finance stated in the Dáil, are in dire need of the funds. I want to facilitate that procedure. I want to facilitate the repayment of these moneys, if the Minister feels that this is the time and that the State can afford these payments. It is difficult I know to accept his assurance that this is the best time to indulge in such expenditure in view of certain other circumstances he has disclosed to the Oireachtas. He, however, assures us that this is the time and that we can afford it. If that is so I want to put no impediment in the way of these moneys being paid as soon as possible to the people who subscribed the money.
I am also interested in this recommendation to secure that there will be no impediment in the Bill which will prevent the transmission of these moneys to the people who are justly entitled to them. If I might just allude to the suggestion that has been made that one of the driving forces behind the Bill is that certain funds shall go into the coffers of a certain Party organ, I say I am reluctant to believe that is so, but I cannot acquit the Executive Council of being above the ordinary frailties of human nature and of being politicians who were politicians before they became statesmen. I do not know if they have yet reached that high altitude in the evolution of human beings as to be above such failings, but viewing this matter from the lowest and basest consideration, that they really do want the Bill through in order to enrich the depleted exchequer of their Party organ, there is nothing in the recommendation that will prevent that, assuming that the people who made these transfers to the President of the Executive Council are still prepared to retransfer their moneys. If the Minister wants to secure these moneys without giving these people an opportunity of saying whether they will transfer them to the coffers or the resources of that organ, then it is clear proof to me that he does not want to give these people a chance of reconsidering how they will dispose of the money.
There is nothing in the recommendation that, as far as I can see, should be resisted or that gives the Minister any grounds for resisting it. There is every reason, I think, for its acceptance in order to eliminate from the atmosphere that has been engendered by the discussion on the Bill the suspicion that people in Executive authority are using that Executive authority for Party purposes in a direction which is most undesirable—I mean the direction of finance—I have not put forward the recommendation as a Party matter. I have sole responsibility for it. I have put it forward with the desire of assisting the Minister, if possible, in securing that this Bill, when it becomes an Act, shall leave the Oireachtas free from any taint whatever of the suspicious aspect that has been thrown around it during its passage through the Oireachtas. I hope the Minister will meet this recommendation in the spirit in which I am trying to put it forward, that is, a non-Party spirit, and with the desire to make this Bill one that this Oireachtas can stand over without any shade of regret.
Mr. Comyn rose.