I desire, with your permission, a Chinn Chomhairle, to bring before the Dáil a question of the privileges of Deputies which, as I conceive it, is one of very considerable constitutional importance—I refer to a question arising out of a raid conducted upon my house, a search through my papers by armed men acting, apparently, under the authority of the present Ministry. I wish to make it perfectly clear, in raising this question, that I want to do so as impersonally as possible, on public and not on personal grounds. I wish to make clear, also, that I want to deal as little as possible with the demerits of the raid, as a raid, because, compared with what other people have had to suffer, it was a very trivial affair, but its constitutional aspect is another matter; and that aspect, from the point of view of the privileges of this Dáil, is a matter of importance to every Deputy in the Chamber. Before raising the matter here I notified the Minister for Defence, setting out the facts in a letter to him, and I received a reply from him stating that the military authorities, and the military intelligence authorities, had no responsibility in the matter. Likewise, before raising the matter in the Dáil I notified the Attorney-General as the particular person responsible for the administration of justice and law in this country, and I asked him to make enquiries, on the Civil side, as to the matter complained of, and I asked for an assurance that there would be no further occasion to raise any similar complaints. I regret to say that the Attorney-General has been unable to give me any answer—at least, any answer that I can use in this Dáil— on the matter of my complaint, and I do not, up to the present moment, know whether the Ministry accept responsibility or do not accept responsibility. I informed the Attorney-General that I would raise the matter at the meeting of the Dáil to-day.
Allow me to state as briefly as possible what happened. In the early days of March I had a previous visit from un-uniformed armed men in broad daylight, about 4 o'clock. They came in a lorry, and three of them made their way into my house, and they asked for a person who does not live in the house, and whose name I did not know. They were told it was my house, and they apologised profusely and withdrew and searched other houses in the neighbourhood. That was in broad daylight, and quite publicly. The three men who entered the house on that occasion were among the number to enter the house upon the occasion which I wish to describe to Deputies now. On Saturday, 24th March, I left Ireland to go abroad for the Easter holidays. On Tuesday the 27th March, during my absence abroad, the raid in question took place, between 5 and 5.30 a.m. I had taken the precaution to leave a maid in the house, but the house looked as if it were an empty one, because the blinds had been taken down. On this occasion of the 27th March, two lorry loads of armed and un-uniformed men came to my house. The lorries were left on the public road, guarded by men with rifles, and the house was surrounded by men with rifles. Some 20 men armed with revolvers and flashlights made their way into the house. They tried to break in by breaking in a small window, and, failing in this, they were eventually admitted by the maid.
When she opened the door some twenty men rushed in. They said they were looking for a man unnamed, and they went all through the house apparently looking for this man unnamed. The maid said to them—"Do you know that this is Mr. Gavan Duffy's house, and that he is away?" One of them made answer, "We know it bloody well, and we will do him in when he gets back." That may be put down to frolic and exuberance, but one could wish that the frolic of these gentlemen would take a little less sinister form. Various small articles were purloined, and a certain amount of breakage was committed; but on these matters I do not wish to detain the Dáil. I mention them merely in order that the Dáil may see the setting of the picture. For some reason, which I do not pretend to have fathomed, gentlemen who, two or three weeks before, had apologised for their invasion had discovered in the meantime that apology was not the right attitude, and that quite a different attitude was to be adopted.
I now come to what is the main complaint I wish to bring before Deputies, because it involves every Deputy in this Dáil. The raiders, I may mention, were in telephonic communication from my house with someone, presumably the persons to whom they are responsible, and I am left to gather that when they did not find the man for whom they were looking they satisfied themselves that their duty would be to go through my papers. At all events, the fact remains that these persons spent, as nearly as I can ascertain, one hour in my house ransacking my papers; private papers, political papers, historical papers, and legal papers. I ask, by whose authority, and by what right? Am I, or am I not, a Deputy in this Dáil, and as such Deputy have I, or have I not, the right to protection from this kind of molestation? I bring the matter before Deputies here as a member of a minorty in this Dáil, as one with no Party to support him, but confident that my fellow-members will see that a matter of principle is involved. I do not bring it forward because it affects me personally, but because it affects—it goes to the root of—the right of Deputies to exercise constitutional opposition against the Ministry for the time being.
I have stated the facts as plainly as I could. I have not sought to embroider them in any way, and I do not wish to make very much comment upon them; but I do put it to this Dáil that the matter, if you eliminate the personal issue altogether, is one of privilege to which no member of this Dáil can be indifferent. Some of my papers were taken away. One man was seen to put a private diary of mine into his pocket after examining it. Later on, during the same day, a parcel wrapped up in brown paper was brought to my door. This parcel was addressed to me in block capitals, so that one could not identify the handwriting. The messenger who brought it, when asked where he came from, said: "This is from Pim's." That parcel turned out to be a parcel of papers abstracted by the armed raiders that morning. Perhaps I need not comment upon that. What I put to the Dáil is this: Either a Deputy, who has become in every sense a member of this Dáil, is entitled to protection from molestation, or he is not. The Constitution deals with the matter in this way. Article 20 provides that each House shall make its own Rules and Standing Orders, with power to attach penalties for their infringement, and shall have power to ensure freedom to Deputies and to protection for their official documents, and all their private papers. It reads: "To protect itself and its members against any person or persons interfering with, molesting or attempting to corrupt its members in the exercise of their duties." We have not made any Rules or Orders dealing with this matter so far, but I think Deputies will probably agree with me, that in stating in the Constitution specifically that we, this Dáil, have power to make rules to protect the private papers of members, and to protect members against molestation; that by putting that in the Constitution, we implied that these were rights of members which we intended to protect. Nothing has been done to give effect to that Article, but in raising this matter I raise it in the hope that something will be done now. I should not be frank with the Dáil if I did not tell them what I conceive to be the reason for this raid. I may be wrong. I hope I am.
