To ask the Minister for Home Affairs whether the Criminal Injuries (Ireland) Act, 1920, which he has stated "was not in force on the 6th December, 1922, and was never in force in Ireland," has not been repeatedly acted upon and enforced in the Courts of Law in Ireland, and when and by whom has it ever been repealed.
CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. - CRIMINAL INJURIES (IRELAND) ACT, 1920.
also asked the Minister for Home Affairs whether, as he has stated that notwithstanding Article 73 of the Constitution, and the Adaptation of Enactments Act, 1923, a Statute of the British Parliament, though duly enacted before the 6th of December, 1922, and unrepealed on that date, which purported to affect the area now comprised in Saorstát Eireann, "was not in force on that date and was never in force in Ireland," he will publish for the information of those citizens who are bound to obey the law and of the Judges whose duty it is to administer it, a list of those Statutes and portions of Statutes, passed by the British Parliament before the 6th day of December, 1922, and purporting on that date to affect the area now comprised in Saorstát Eireann, which were not in force in that area on or since that date, especially as those who assumed that the Constitution means what it says have been described by the President as plunderers and robbers, and have been exposed to pecuniary loss for observing the laws thereby declared to be in force.
I shall answer these two questions together. I may, perhaps, say first, as a formal answer to the question, that the Criminal Injuries (Ireland) Act, 1920, was undoubtedly an unrepealed British Statute in Ireland on 6th December, 1922.
As regards the suggested list mentioned in the second question, I do not intend to publish any such list.
Having thus answered the questions formally, I may, perhaps, venture to say that the questions seem to be founded upon an erroneous idea of a previous remark of mine in the House. I did say that this Act was never in force in Ireland, but I explained in the following sentences as clearly and as fully as I could that I did not mean what the Deputy's question suggests I meant. I explained that when I said the Act was not in force I did not mean that it has been repealed, but that it had broken down in practice because the people of this country and the elected Government of this country had resisted it strenously and successfully. I think that the Deputy or any other person who does me the honour of reading my remarks on the occasion in question—it was on the 7th of this month—will admit that I made my meaning perfectly explicit. I need only add now that the Deputy's knowledge of law is too well known to me to permit me to suppose that he does not appreciate the distinction I drew or understand that laws can become ineffective by disuse and incurable unpopularity as well as by formal repeal. I need go no further for an example than the well-known instance of the non-enforcement against Catholics in these countries in recent years of unrepealed penal legislation directed against them and their religion.
In negotiations which took place with the British Government the dead letter status of these Criminal Injuries Statutes was well recognised, as evidenced by the fact that arrangements were made for payment of compensation otherwise than as these Statutes provide. Their formal repeal is merely the official acceptance and regularisation of that position.