I beg to move the adjournment of the Dáil until to-morrow at 3 o'clock.
MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT. - INTERNEES IN SIX-COUNTY AREA.
I am raising the question of the condition of citizens of the Saorstat who happen to be in terned within the Six Counties. I want to mention a particular case of a citizen —I understand he is a citizen—who has got two or three brothers serving with the National Army. He is a resident of Co. Louth, and some two or three weeks ago he crossed over into Co. Armagh to visit a married sister. He passed the Royal Ulster Constabulary Barracks, was arrested, and has since been interned.
The solicitors who represent him have been informed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary that he is interned under one of the Sections of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Regulations, which are apparently still operative up there. There are numbers of others, not very many, perhaps, who are claiming to be citizens of the Saorstat, and who, happening to find themselves within the Six County area, and within the reach of either the Ulster Specials or the R.U. Constabulary, have been arrested and dumped into the internment ship under Craig's Government. I should like the the Dáil to be informed as to what steps the Ministry can take to interfere on behalf of those citizens. There is a great deal of traffic backwards and forwards between the Six Counties and the Saorstat. So far as I know, nobody from the Six Counties who has crossed into the Saorstat, unless he or she has been actively opposing the Saorstat Government, has been interfered with inside our area. Outside the Saorstat, citizens of ours have been interfered with and interned. The case I mention is that of an employee of a Dublin firm. There are other cases of persons, some of whom, perhaps, are natives of Ulster, but who have been resident, or in business in the Saorstat. For some reason or other, without any charge being made against them, and at a time when there is no activity, so far as any of us knows, being carried on within the Six Counties against the Government there, those people are arrested and interned. A number of those may be released on certain conditions. A certain number of internees have been released on certain conditions. The main conditions are that they will clear out of the Six County area. They can go to the Saorstát, go to England, or anywhere they like, but to secure their release they are informed that their release is only on condition that they clear out of the Six Counties. I should like the Ministry to tell us whether they interfered in any way on behalf of these citizens, or what steps they would advise should be taken on their behalf.
The jurisdiction of the Saorstát extends only over the Twenty-six Counties. There have been a number of cases that I, personally, have enquired into, and most of them have been technical breaches of the law in the Six Counties. If the Deputy would let me know of any definite cases in which men are arrested for merely crossing over the Border, and in which there is nothing in the nature of a charge urged against them, I would be glad to hear of them.
The case that has been referred to by Deputy O'Shannon was brought to the notice of the Minister for Home Affairs about three weeks ago, and I understand the Minister for External Affairs has had some notification of the particular case. It is the case of one Osborne; and the information that has been supplied to me in the matter is that this particular man's business, at least his going into the Six County area, was entirely a matter of innocence and social amenities. As I understand it, no charge whatever is preferred, no technical offence has been charged against him, and they have exercised what they had deemed to be their rights to intern this man under the provisions of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act. Now we have got into the unfortunate position that I suppose is not easy to make representations in such a case. But I wonder whether there have been any cases of commercial travellers, visitors from the Six County area, who have been arrested on suspicion in the Saorstát and interned. I think there is just as much justification for such arrests and internments in the case of residents of the Six County area coming into this country and conducting business which may, or may not, be innocent, travelling from one town to another with messages conveying information of a kind which may be innocent, but which may not be innocent, just as this man was presumed by the Government of the Northern area to have been one that ought to be arrested. There has been no charge against him, no evidence, and he is interned. I think it might be well to understand from the Government whether any such similar cases have arisen, and whether the Ministry have had under observation any of these frequent commercial travellers and the like coming from the Six County area into the Twenty-six Counties of the Saorstat.
None that I know of. I will make inquiries.
It is a danger, I take it, that the Six County Government ought to bear in mind in regard to their particular residents when conducting their business or travelling for pleasure into the Saorstát.
With regard to the specific case just mentioned, I wish to say that the Minister for Home Affairs has that matter in hands, and has made representations, but in his absence I cannot tell exactly what has transpired in regard to it.
The Dáil adjourned at 6.45 p.m.