I beg to move "Estimate of the Amount required in the Year ending 31st March, 1923, to pay the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Home Affairs—Fifteen Thousand Nine Hundred Pounds." This Vote is for the Ministry of Home Affairs. Now this particular Ministry has only been set up since the beginning of the year and it has been extended since it was originally formed. It is not yet possible to say exactly what the establishment will be like when we reach stable conditions. The establishment is still to some extent fluid and things in the Office as regards the Staff are not yet quite clear. They have taken in Officials from other Departments; they took one from the Local Government Board when I was in it, and they took two others from the Finance Ministry, so it would be manifestly impossible to set out the exact numbers to be required in this Department at the moment. I think it will be admitted that the estimate is a comparatively moderate one, and I move its adoption accordingly.
ESTIMATES. - MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS.
May I take this opportunity of making a complaint which I in common with many members of the Dáil have felt. I find the Ministry of Home Affairs is the only Department that will give members satisfactory replies to the complaints sent into them. Every other Department from top to bottom will not give you a reply within a period of fourteen or fifteen days after you make the complaint. Now, I think that is not fair to members, especially members in central places, such as myself, where we get letters in dozens daily, and yet find the Department concerned will not send a reply to our complaint for a period of fifteen or sixteen days. I think that is a matter that the heads of Departments should take notice of. I suggest it is easy to get things done properly by sending notices round asking those in charge to acknowledge letters within forty-eight hours, and to pay attention to them. The only place I could get any satisfaction was in the Ministry of Home Affairs.
I do not know whether we are to consider that the Minister for Home Affairs is responsible for the conditions of the prisons, or whether it is under this Vote that the question of the sanitary conditions, the overcrowding, etc., and the general administration of the jails ought to be discussed. I would like to know whether the jails come in under the administration of the Minister for Home Affairs.
Yes, that is quite true; but I think it is right to say that the Minister for Home Affairs has been invaded in these prisons by people who ought not to be there. There are military prisoners there, and their coming there was quite unforseen. No doubt the places are overcrowded, but we are taking steps to relieve the overcrowding. We have taken over other institutions to relieve the overcrowding and to provide for these people, but still they come.
And still they go.
Yes, but under all the circumstances we are providing for them much better than they would provide for us in similar circumstances.
It is all very well to be humorous, but there is a serious side to this question, and it is to that that I want to draw attention. The Minister cannot be allowed to hide behind the fact that he is invaded, and relieve himself of responsibility unless things are done against his intention and desire. The intention of the President is to show that the military authorities have taken control from him. But it is with his consent, and he is still responsible for the condition of these prisoners. I am only in a position to speak of alleged defects from statements made and laid before me as to the condition of the prisons and to the allegation of overcrowding. Of course, it is very lamentable, and it might be laughable if it only lasted for a day or two. But if it is true that cells built for the occupation of one prisoner are occupied by four or five prisoners for any length of time it is not worthy of the administration. It is not enough to be satisfied that some buildings have been taken over. Some steps ought to be taken very rapidly to ameliorate the conditions. Punishment is one thing, but this particular kind of punishment ought to be avoided, and I am speaking in this matter not because of any particular sympathy with the sufferers, but out of regard for the good name of the Government, and for the people responsible for the administration. I may say in that respect that whenever we take up a question of this kind—I am speaking for myself—I am not thinking particularly out of sympathy for the sufferer or the prisoner; I am thinking of the good name of the administration and the Government to which we give support. Statements have been made—I have not got them with me now —but they have been put forward with a certain amount of authority, and are substantiated in the case of Limerick of a rather horrible state of overcrowding and insanitation. We are warned by various people about the possibility of a smallpox outbreak. If these jails are maintained in an insanitary condition, a smallpox outbreak would have a very serious effect not only amongst the occupants, but eventually amongst the general public. I would like some assurance that steps have been taken, and are being taken, even with the overcrowded state of the prisons, to ensure that every danger to the physical life of the prisoners is minimised to the last degree. We hear a lot about the dirt and filth and the general insanitary conditions of the prisons. It has been said that the responsibility for keeping themselves clean has been thrown upon the prisoners. I do not know the circumstances. We have been kept in the dark from the Government side and are only informed of matters that come out in the way of anti-Government propaganda. That is not satisfactory. I think we ought to be put in possession of the main facts and particulars of the sanitary condition of those prisoners, because the whole city in the case of Dublin and Limerick is dependent upon the health of one spot in the city. We cannot isolate a prison and say that nothing that happens in the prison is going to affect the public life. If infectious disease breaks out there, it is likely to contaminate the whole city and damage it, and for the good name of the Ministry we should have some assurance that every possible step is taken by responsible departments to ensure that the sanitary state of these jails is kept as near perfection as possible.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
Deputy Johnson started his address by saying that I should not be allowed to hide behind the fact that the military have taken over these prisons. He assumes that it was with my consent and that therefore the responsibility was mine. Now, without going very deeply into the logic or soundness of the argument, let me say that I have no desire to shirk any responsibility, whether individual or collective. The burden of the complaint with regard to prisons was that there was congestion and there is congestion, deplorable, no doubt, but I submit inevitable under the circumstances. There are approximately, I suppose, 7,000 prisoners or very close on it. We could not have foreseen that so many people would be imprisoned. If we were to take it on the estimate of how many people through the country opposed the British Government so actively as in any way to warrant imprisonment, we could not arrive at a figure anywhere like 7,000 prisoners. There are men in arms against the Government who were not in arms against the British Government, and who never would have been in arms if the British were still here for many a long decade. We are doing our best to relieve the congestion and it will be found that energetic steps are being taken to lessen it. We deplore it. If they had succeeded in burning Maryborough prison there would have been more congestion. As to cleanliness, it is hard to maintain sanitary conditions when prisoners use lavatories in a way that lavatories were never intended to be used; when they put down the lavatories articles to stop drains, perhaps carelessly but more likely with a view to providing material for such complaints, as we see in print and have seen written up on walls throughout the city. I have made careful enquiries into the complaints that have reached me from Cork through Deputy Day. I have also made enquiries about Limerick and got the answer, the same in each case, that portion of the men were peaceful, orderly and doing their best to keep their cells clean, but against that there was a section of the men absolutely determined to obstruct and generally to make things as uncomfortable for themselves and others as possible, and those men were putting things down lavatories and so on. I am sorry to have to discuss details of this kind here, but it is necessary, and, as Deputy Johnson said, a very practical matter. I am no more fond of smallpox than Deputy Johnson is. I doubt whether a vaccination of 30 years ago would render one immune if it were to break out through the city, but we are doing our best and we will do our best within human limits to provide against congestion and insanitary conditions. If the men are absolutely determined to proceed in that way and to do all that is possible to render prisons uninhabitable and insanitary it is beyond human power to prevent them. Without going into the question of Departmental responsibility, I readily undertake that any complaint forwarded to me, either of bad conditions or ill-treatment, will be very thoroughly investigated. I do not want to discuss this thing in any spirit of flippancy or in any hardhearted spirit. There are many in jails in the country simply because they followed the lead of men to whom they gave habitual allegiance, and they take it for granted these men were right. The man who started off on the words "There is a Constitutional way of settling these differences, in God's name let us not depart from it" has a very grave responsibility in the whole matter.
Motion made and question put: "That the Dáil in Committee, having considered the Estimates for Ministry of Home Affairs in 1922-23 and having passed a Vote on Account of £8,500 for the period to the 6th December, 1922, recommend that the full Estimate of £15,900 for the Financial Year, 1922-23, be adopted in due course by the Oireachtas."
Agreed.