PRISONERS ON HUNGER STRIKE.

Dr. McCARTAN

I beg to move: "That, in the opinion of the Dáil, prisoners who decide after the passing of this Resolution to go on hunger-strike to secure release should be allowed to take the full consequence of their act."

It is not necessary to go into much detail on this motion. The danger to the prisoners and to the Government is the danger that brought the war upon us, and that is that one side does not believe that the other will go too far. I believe each prisoner that goes on hunger-strike thinks that the Government dare not go the whole length and let them die. I think they dare let them die, and that it would not be a matter of twenty-four hours' talk and I fear also that there is great danger of the Government letting them die and consequently I think that hunger-striking is a very serious step to take on the part of any individual prisoner, and that they should not take it without serious consideration Some of these recently upon hunger-strike never went to the trouble of asking any members of the Dáil to ask a question as to why they were arrested or as to when they would be released. Only after they went on hunger-strike did we hear about them, and then their friends came round us asking us to intercede for them. I think they might have asked us to find out why they were arrested and detained; I do not think that many of them would be detained so long had it not been for the hunger-strike.

The hunger-strike is a danger, and consequently I think the prisoners should realise this danger and be prepared for the consequences. Evidently if they hunger-strike they think Deputy Johnson or some crank like myself will fight their case, and it gives them some hope, and I think the sooner they realise there is no hope the less hunger-striking, we will have and the greater chance of averting death from hunger-striking, which is a hideous thing. In the interests of the prisoners I make this appeal to them, though, of course, very few of them will believe it is in their interest I make it, but that does not matter very much. There are people in prison who should not be there. I believe that is inevitable, and I think the Government will admit that. The conditions in any prison are not all that could be desired. Perhaps they have to put up with these conditions which are unpleasant, but that is no reason for resorting to such a drastic means as the hunger-strike. If there are people in prison who should not be there, and do not deserve to be there, the conditions under which the Government would release them are not very stringent and not so great that they cannot sign the conditions that the Government wish them to sign. If it is a breach of their principles, I would suggest to any one opposed to my motion, and I believe there are some, that we should set up a Commission to investigate the grievances of those who have grievances, and to see if they have been arrested without just cause. The Commission could also investigate the cases of those who go on hunger-strike. Conditions in the prison may not be all that is desirable. Under the old conditions in peace times, there were such things as Visiting Justices, and I think the Visiting Justices could give orders, or make suggestions, to the Governor—I do not know whether they were superior to the Governor or not. I think the Government might institute something that would take the place of the Visiting Justices, so that grievances if they exist should be investigated and reported upon, if necessary to the Dáil. It is reported that some of the prisons are overcrowded, and that there are vermin in some of them, but I do not think that that is confined to prisons in Ireland. I remember seeing Mr. De Valera when he came to Dublin after being released from Pentonville, and he was covered with a rash which was due to bed bugs. Still, it is a serious thing if there are vermin in a prison, because you might have an outbreak of typhus, or something else, that would not confine itself to the prisons, and it is the duty of the Government to investigate any conditions that exist, and it is the duty of the medical officers in the prisons to make sure that no such thing as dirt or filth is allowed to be present there. I understand the prisoners are responsible in some cases, and that sometimes they destroy the water closets. If they do that they cannot complain of the conditions, and that certainly is no reason for hunger-striking. I make two suggestions now—one for a Commission to investigate the case of those who claim that they were arrested illegally, and another to set up again some body corresponding to the Visiting Justices, and I think if these two provisions were made the Dáil could unanimously agree to this resolution.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I do not know whether it would be proper for me to second that motion, but I think it ought to be passed.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

Is the Minister seconding it?

Mr. O'HIGGINS

I will second it, and I think it ought to be passed, because it is the only effective thing the Dáil can do to stop hunger-striking; to obviate hunger-striking, and by obviating it, to obviate the deaths of prisoners—men or women. I think that most people realise the progressive nature of the problem; the fact that one had one or two or three women hunger-striking; if they are released, the hope is greater in the minds of the next set who take that particular course, and greater still in the minds of the next set, and so on. It is to make it quite clear that there is no foundation for any such hope in the future that I would ask that this resolution be passed. Deputy Miss MacSwiney went on hunger-strike, and was released. There were reasons for that release—no doubt reasons of sentiment and of claims arising out of the past struggle, and so on; but it was felt at the time that some one less guilty, some one less responsible for present conditions in the country, both for their commencement and for their continuance, might die in her place, and that was very nearly being the case. After all, let us face it that there has been a very big change in the conditions in the country from the time when the hunger-strike was started, and when people looked on it with a certain amount of moral support and a certain amount of admiration. There is now in this country a Parliament, and an Executive responsible to that Parliament, which can remove the Executive; it can call its actions in question here and discuss them, and can, if it thinks fit, denounce a particular action or a particular course of the Executive. That was not possible before. There was not before a responsible Government in this country, and if one were to seek a justification for hunger-striking in the past it might lie just in that fact. But as regards the hunger-strike now, let us analyse it. We were told it was because there was no charge. That was not true, because these hunger-strikes were started before the arrested people knew whether there was going to be a charge or not, and they were not worrying about the charge; it was not because they felt that the arrests were unwarranted, it was simply a continuance of that challenge to the State which they had taken part in before their arrest. When you remember that a challenge to the State is a challenge to democracy, a challenge to representative Government—the very foundations of any State—then it is very hard to excuse that particular course. We have explained here, and it is unnecessary to dwell on it again at length, that it is our conviction at any rate that if this State is to be saved, if it is to live and flourish in present circumstances, we must stand sheer of our right to arrest and detain citizens and citizenesses. If that right is challenged by the weapon of the hunger-strike, then we consider that right of sufficient importance to justify us in allowing a hunger-striker to die in order to prove the strength of our own conviction, that we have the right intrinsically from the nature of the position with which we are confronted. The case was put up for these last hunger-strikers that, because of the treatment of previous hunger-strikers, they had started on that same course with a very definite hope that they would be released; that they were rather too far gone to realise that that hope was unfounded, and that in any case a stage comes in the hunger-strike when the vis inertice is rather in favour of continuing than of showing any sign to take food. That is not the position now, at any rate. That particular set of hunger-strikers has been released. You can consider this question now calmly. You can consider it apart from the natural human feeling that a woman, whom perhaps you knew or perhaps your friends knew, is lying between life and death. We are asking a judgment here that, in the existing conditions in the country, we are justified and have the right to arrest and detain citizens if we think they have been participators in the conspiracy against the State and against the foundations of the State We ask a declaration that if that right is challenged in the future by this women's weapon of the hunger-strike, if people fling themselves against this new-born State in that particular mad and insensate fashion, that then rather than give away on that right, which we hold is an undoubted right, we should be justified, and we should have the moral support of the Dáil, in allowing a person who does that to reap all the consequences of that course. That is what is asked. If persons outside fling themselves against your troops—if people outside decide to do that and die—there is no comment; it is considered merely an unfortunate, but an inevitable consequence of the course they took. After arrest if they fling themselves against the machinery of State; if they continue the challenge, if they deny your right to hold them, and in order to break you in that course endanger their own lives, my mind at any rate can find —and I thought a good deal on the subject—no sufficient reason why we should not allow them to reap the consequences. You have your Medical Service. Their business is to diagnose. They diagnose. Their business is to suggest treatment. They suggest treatment—plenty of food and plenty of nourishment; that is all the patient wants. If the patient refuses that, and refuses it with the express intention of forcing the hand of the State, of breaking its power to hold him, and its power to hold others, then I cannot see that there is any less justification for letting that prisoner die than there is for shooting people who fling themselves against your armed forces outside. It is done definitely with the intention of breaking your power to hold prisoners at all. It is simply the thin end of the wedge. Certain people are very judiciously selected and put on hunger-strike. There are others waiting to follow it up, and it is progressively more and more difficult to stand when you give way once. I ask here, seconding as I am Deputy Dr. McCartan's motion, a clear declaration from the Dáil that that course is not going to succeed in the future. If there are people arrested, who feel themselves that their arrest is unjustifiable and unwarranted, and who feel quite clear in their own minds that they have not been participants in the criminal challenge to the State that has gone on for the last ten months, then there is no absence of remedies for such people. The matter can be taken up. It can be taken up by a solicitor outside, or by their friends; Deputies can be approached, and the matter can be raised here on the adjournment. It can be thrashed out very fully. But there is not now in this country any justification—whatever shred of justification existed in the past—for hunger-striking, for there is here now, despite what anyone may say, a responsible Government, and there is no excuse for that mad criminal kind of challenge, saying—“if you do not let me out, I will take my own life.” If people say:—“If you don't let me out I will take my own life,” then let them take their own lives.

Mr. JOHNSON

I had intended to move an amendment to this motion, saying:—

"That in the opinion of the Dáil it is essential that the Government should continue to bear responsibility for the care and protection of prisoners under their charge."

You ruled that that was in the nature of a direct negative, and I agree that your judgment was not one to dissent from. I consider that this motion is very unwisely brought forward. It is by arrangement with the Government an attempt to ask the Dáil to bind itself not to criticise the action of any Government in certain circumstances that may arise in the future. The Government have accepted a responsibility and undertaken a responsibility for the care and protection of prisoners. They should not come to the Dáil and ask the Dáil to say in effect that we must be allowed to do certain things to these prisoners in certain circumstances which may arise, and you are to tie your hands or close your mouths by a promise given beforehand. That is not a proper position for the Government to take, and it is by no means a sensible position for the Dáil to take if it is so foolish as to pass this resolution. I can perhaps ask whether the mover of the resolution had in his mind the distinction between prisoners and those whom Deputy Fitzgibbon described on the last occasion when this question was debated as internees. It might be said that it is only intended to affect persons who have been charged, or who are to be charged, or who have been convicted, that it is not intended to apply to those who have been detained by the Government for reasons which they consider sufficient. But I imagine that, in view of the circumstances in which the discussion arose, it is intended not only to apply to prisoners in the technical sense but also to internees. We are asked to say that if prisoners take up a certain attitude which necessitates certain responsibility on the part of the Government that we shall beforehand relieve them of any occasion to hesitate or to consider what action they shall take and decide their duty beforehand. But there is another reason why this resolution should not pass. The time during which it shall be in operation is not defined. It is not set out how long the Government shall have this free hand to act without criticism or what the circumstances may be in which persons are to be interned or made prisoners without charge. It is asking the Dáil to give in the future to Governments who may decide to intern a free hand to deal with prisoners taking the only means they have to draw attention to their grievances. The Minister for Home Affairs is rather too insistent for one's pleasure or contentment upon the right of the Government to arrest and detain. I do not like that frequent insistence upon the right of the Government to arrest and detain. He has dropped the excuse that they have that right in times of war or insurrection —in times of extraordinary ferment, when it is not possible to bring into operation the legal procedure of the Courts. He has dropped that excuse and he lays down distinctly that it is the right of the Government to arrest and detain in the interests of the State. That is dangerous doctrine — very dangerous doctrine—and if we give this Government or any Government freedom to do as they wish in such circumstances we are depriving the Dáil of its rights and its powers.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

On a point of personal explanation, each time I spoke of that right, I qualified it by saying "in existing conditions."

Mr. JOHNSON

I take it the Minister does confine his claim to "existing conditions." But what are "existing conditions?" Is it impossible to bring the law into operation to-day? Nobody will claim that the courts cannot function. You have brought about a cessation of active hostilities. Is it impossible in existing conditions to bring the courts into operation? It is obviously not impossible, because you are doing it. But citizens are to be arrested and detained even in existing conditions. They have no access to the public, they are not allowed to consult a solicitor until they are charged. They may or may not have access to the public; because the Governor of the jail has the right to say whether they shall receive or be refused permits to send letters. A prisoner who may conceivably be arrested in existing conditions, and who has no right and no manner of reaching the public in any way adopts this extraordinary, horrible method of the hunger-strike. It has been, I contend, a testimony, on the part of the prisoner, to the humaneness of his jailers. Unconsciously and unintentionally, it is, as a matter of fact, a testimony by the prisoners to the humanitarian feelings of their jailers. Apart from that, the prisoner, in such circumstances, may use this only method, apart from other kinds of violence—this passive resistence method carried to extremes—and the Dáil binds itself not, in any circumstances, to raise a question as to the wisdom of the Government, apart from the right of the Government to allow him to die. I say it is stultifying for the Dáil to adopt any such resolution. The Dáil ought not to be asked to adopt such resolution. I say that every case must be considered on its merits. The circumstances surrounding every case have to be considered, and the Government must accept the responsibility themselves without asking us to give them a free hand in future to deal with all such cases, no matter what the circumstances are. I consider that it will be tieing the hands of the Dáil and preventing their raising any question, or, rather, it would give the Government who like to take it a feeling that they have been given authority to do anything they like in this matter in future, no matter what the circumstances may be. I think that that is a motion that ought not to be moved, and certainly ought not to be carried. I would ask you, sir, to accept a motion that we proceed with the next business.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The Committee on Procedure are just considering the question of the method of moving the next business or the previous question, but if a motion is made to proceed to the next business, it must be received forthwith and disposed of.

Mr. BLYTHE

There has never been any application of the closure here. This simply means an attempt on the part of Deputy Johnson to apply the closure.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The closure is a different matter. The closure is a motion to bring a discussion to a conclusion with a view to bringing about a decision. This is a motion which aims at avoiding a decision.

Mr. BLYTHE

Which can only occur by common consent.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

What is the point that the Minister was going to make?

MINISTER for AGRICULTURE (Mr. Hogan)

That hardly improves the position. I agree that the closure is a motion to bring a particular debate to an end. This is an attempt to bring a debate to a conclusion with a view to having no decision. That, I suggest, hardly improves it. I suggest to you what the Minister for Local Government said, that the closure in any sense has never been moved here, and that that should be adhered to in regard to this motion.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I shall adopt this ruling in the matter. Our rule for the closure of a debate says that on motions other than Ministerial motions any Deputy may move the closure of the debate when a motion has been proposed and seconded and further discussed for one half-hour. That has not yet occurred.

Mr. DARRELL FIGGIS

On a point of order, in respect of your ruling, does that mean that the future debate will have to be confined to the question as to whether the closure should or should not be moved, or whether, during the next half-hour, we can or can not discuss the question. I think that is very material.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

I do not know if there is any other member of the Dáil who is in the same position as Deputy Figgis. If there is I will explain the matter.

Mr. HOGAN

I do not think so. I agree with the Minister for Home Affairs that this is a very important issue and I do not think that the issue should be misrepresented in the way Deputy Johnson has misrepresented it. He states that this is asking the Dáil to give a free hand to the Government, that it is asking the Dáil to take all the responsibility for anything which the Government may do in the future with regard to prisoners. I have too much respect for Deputy Johnson's intelligence to believe that he really reads the resolution as meaning that.

Mr. JOHNSON

With regard to the prisoners, in respect of hunger-strike.

Mr. HOGAN

In respect of hunger-strike. That modifies it a little and makes it a little clearer. The meaning of the resolution is perfectly clear. It means that the mere fact of hunger-striking by itself is not to alter the merits of the case in regard to any particular prisoner. I do not think there is a Deputy in the Dáil who has any doubt about that. That is all the resolution means. Every other circumstance is relevant. The Dáil is asked to say to the Government that the mere fact of hunger-striking by itself does not alter the merits of the case. That is what the resolution means and that is the issue before you, and it is a very important issue and should be taken seriously. Is it seriously suggested that the Dáil has not the right to say "yes" or "no" to that question, to say "yes" or "no" to the question asked them in that resolution? I have often heard Deputy Johnson and other Deputies complaining that the Government is to some extent taking over the functions of the Dáil, but this is the first time I have heard Deputy Johnson complaining that the Government is not taking sufficient authority, that the Government is not exercising all the authority that it should exercise. This is the first time that I ever heard Deputy Johnson complaining because any question has been left to the Dáil; complaining that the Government is asking the advice of the Dáil on any question. That is what it comes to.

Mr. JOHNSON

On matters that have not yet arisen.

Mr. HOGAN

That is all it comes to. You are asked to rule on a specific point: is the mere fact of hunger-strike by itself to alter the merits of the case? Nothing could be more specific, and Deputy Johnson objects that the Dáil should give their support and their advice to the Government on that very serious question. It is a very serious question, because it raises the whole issue. Are we entitled in existing circumstances to keep prisoners interned without trial? That is the issue here, and it is a most important issue. We have something like 10,000 prisoners in jail or in internment camps, and if you fail to pass that resolution you are, at least, giving some colour to the contention that we are not in existing circumstances to keep those men and women in, and that these men and women are entitled to be let loose on the country at any moment. You are giving some colour to that, if you fail to pass this resolution. If I am wrong I would like to be shown how I am wrong in saying that the logical outcome of not passing this resolution means that the Dáil is giving colour to the theory, to the assumption that we must immediately release the prisoners and let them loose on the country. I think every Deputy here who has any sense of responsibility will take that issue seriously, and I suggest to every Deputy that it is an issue which should be taken seriously.

We are asked, "Is not the law functioning?" The law is not functioning. We are asked, "Why not try all these people in existing circumstances?" Existing circumstances are not normal circumstances and will not be normal circumstances for a long time. We are approaching the end of this civil war, if you like to call it one, and the circumstances of the war ought to be fresh in everybody's memory. We know that crime was committed on a wholesale scale during the last year, every conceivable form of crime. We know that the civil population was intimidated, that that was the whole end of the war, and hence, at the present moment the jury system will be a farce in a great many cases. We know, at least, that the ordinary citizen, taking everything into consideration, cannot be as independent as he would be in normal circumstances. When any Deputy suggests that existing circumstances at the moment are normal circumstances, or circumstances that would entitle a prisoner to the same rights of trial, and to the same treatment as he would get in normal circumstances, he is simply talking nonsense, and everyone who knows the country knows that he is talking nonsense. We must stand sheer on the right to intern and keep interned any prisoner on suspicion while the existing circumstances last. I suggest to anyone who is anxious for the good name of this country, and anxious to see this squabble ended, that he should very seriously consider the result of letting loose any large number of these prisoners, because, forsooth, we cannot try them, the reason being that the juries and the courts are not and cannot function as effectively as we hope they will in a couple of months' time.

We are told these prisoners will be kept there under this lettre de cachet of the Minister for Home Affairs, or the Minister for Defence, just as the prisoners were kept in the Bastille, and that we will waken up in twenty years' time, and hear all about them. There is a very simple way for most of the prisoners to get out. They are asked to sign a document that they do not intend to take up arms against the Free State. Is it too much to ask any citizen in the present circumstances to sign such a document? Can we be really so meticulous?

Mr. JOHNSON

Will the Minister repeat that statement following what other Ministers have said, that that is not the only condition?

Mr. HOGAN

I will come to that. I say we put the document to many of these prisoners, and they have refused to sign it. I say that a great many of the prisoners could get out if they did sign it. Is it too much to expect, considering all that has occurred, considering the disgrace and the dishonour of the last year, considering what it has cost the country in money and blood, and, above all, in national honour, that we should ask these prisoners to come down off the ditch, and say whether they are for the State or against it, for this dishonour or against this dishonour?

One would expect under ordinary circumstances that any decent man, I do not care what he is politically, would have repudiated the campaign of the last year, at least the dishonouring part of the campaign. We are not asking them; all we are asking them to say in the document put up to them is that in future they shall not take up arms against the Free State. That covers the majority of the cases. It does not cover them all, I quite agree with Deputy Johnson. People have got out who signed such an undertaking and we found them in arms afterwards. We found them robbing banks, we found them burning houses, we found them committing murders, and hence other relevant circumstances must be taken into account. It is absolutely idle to say that a prisoner, because we intern him in existing circumstances, is going to rot in gaol. There is not the slightest fear of that. This motion Deputy McCartan stated is in the interest of the prisoners themselves. That is absolutely true. There was a point made here the last day that people at the beginning of a hunger-strike hope against hope that they will be allowed out, but once they begin they have to see the thing through. That is very understandable and very human, and it was a good point in the special circumstances of the time. It is fairer to the prisoners that they should know now from the Dáil where they are. You tell them where they are by passing this resolution. You state simply that the mere fact of hunger-striking does not alter the merits of their case, and in a serious situation like this—one which will be serious for this country for a long time—it is the duty of the Dáil to take the responsibility and to tell them that.

Mr. FITZGIBBON

I suppose that there is one thing that one may safely count upon, and that is whatever one does on this motion one will be misrepresented. I am going to do my best at any rate to make it clear that I shall not be misunderstood. I have listened with great care to the arguments of the Minister for Agriculture, and I cannot find in this resolution any of the things he says are in it. If what he says is in this resolution was put forward as a substantive resolution I would support it most unhesitatingly. I do not think any prisoner has a right by a hunger-strike to change the terms of his imprisonment. I am as sure as I am of anything that no prisoner has a right to obtain release by committing a felony, and attempting suicide is undoubtedly in law a felony. No prisoner has any right to say to the Government, "Let me out, or I will commit suicide," and the Government that yields to a prisoner that says that, if there be no other grounds for it, does not seem to be fulfilling its duty. I believe I had, to my own deep regret, to tell other people that I believed that the Government were quite within their rights in refusing to allow people to go out because people said to them they would kill themselves if they were not let out. For all that, I do not see my way to support this resolution, because I do not think that any deliberative assembly of this kind has a right to pledge itself as to what it will or will not do in the future, and to pledge not only itself but its successors as to what it will or will not do in the future. If I, by accident, happened to be in your seat, sir, I feel it should be my duty, next week or the week after, under our Standing Order 31, to rule out of order any motion brought before the Dáil to deal with any prisoner who happened at that time to have gone on hunger-strike if this resolution were passed. It would appear to me that if we pass this resolution some prisoner upon some pretext may say: "We are going to hunger-strike," and if some Deputy were to endeavour to ventilate that case our Standing Orders would not permit it to be debated without a formal notice to rescind this resolution, and that that could not be rescinded within six months of the date of its passing, under the Standing Orders. I do not think we have any right to commit ourselves to such a position as that, but I do hope that no one will understand anything I have said as justifying the belief or hope that if future prisoners go on hunger-strike, and then, in their last extremity, come here and throw themselves on the mercy of the Government and the Dáil and ask to be let out, that I could support any plea of that kind.

Mr. JOHNSON

I assent to that.

Mr. FITZGIBBON

I am very glad indeed that Deputy Johnson has said that, because that will go further than anything else he said to-day to prevent future hunger-strikes. There is the danger, and the Government fears the danger, and I entirely sympathise with them as to that, that if one resolution were passed here that such and such a prisoner were to be let out, and that if we were to reject this resolution here, or if it were withdrawn, the prisoners would regard that as a general licence given to them by the Dáil to go on hunger-strike, feeling confident that they would be let out if they did. I hope nothing will be said here, and nothing has been said yet, and Deputy Johnson has cleared up any doubt that may be left in the minds of anybody, to justify any prisoner in that hope.

I think if the Government have that assurance behind them they will have what they really seek in this resolution. They do not want, by the acts of mercy that have been shown to certain prisoners in the last 4 or 5 days, to leave it to other prisoners to say "Do unto us as you did to them." I think we should be very careful indeed not to say anything to-day that may lead to the faintest hope of that kind in the minds of the other prisoners now in jail. I believe that the existing circumstances do justify the Government interning suspects, and I think it is upon the ground that existing circumstances do justify them that the Courts have on several occasions refused to grant a Habeas Corpus. That does apply, as the Minister for Home Affairs makes clear, to existing circumstances, and the moment the Judge, who must try this question upon affidavit or oath, is satisfied that circumstances do no longer exist which justify the Government in retaining untried prisoners he will grant a Habeas Corpus, as they always did under such circumstances, and these prisoners will be able to get themselves out by the ordinary processes of the law. Therefore you have over the Government the Courts of the land to decide whether or not prisoners ought to be granted a Habeas Corpus. That is really all the protection they require. Once the state of circumstances is such as to enable them lawfully to be tried they will be tried or released by order of the Court. It is only so long as a state of affairs exist that satisfies, not only the Government but also the courts before which the act of the State must come, that it is impossible that these prisoners should be tried by the ordinary processes of law that they can be interned without being brought to trial upon a Habeas Corpus. I think from that point of view they are amply protected. It is only under orders we make, or indemnities we may grant, that a Government can lawfully or unlawfully detain a prisoner untried, and therefore I think the prisoners are themselves sufficiently protected. The Minister for Home Affairs, and other Ministers, stated over and over again that any prisoner who is in on suspicion can get out on giving a simple undertaking that he is not going to take up arms against the Government. It does seem to me that a person who, upon any whim of conscience or caprice, is unwilling in the present circumstances to give a statement to that effect under his or her hand may be guilty and may very well be detained. As I say I may be misrepresented. I cannot vote for this resolution because I do not think it would be a proper resolution to pass. I am not going to vote against it because if on voting against this resolution, the Government were defeated, seeking to find in it what they say they have, I will not be a party to defeating them upon an issue of that kind. I think they have acted rightly in the past and I do not think they require this justification. I will not vote for it because I do not think it is a proper resolution, but I cannot bring myself to vote against it because it has been said, and I know it will be believed, that the defeat of this resolution will mean a general licence to go on hunger-strike and get out. I am not prepared to allow that.

Mr. BLYTHE

I am utterly unable to understand the point of view of the Deputies who think that this is an improper resolution for the Dáil to pass, because it does seem to me to mean exactly what the Minister for Agriculture said it meant. It means that the hunger-strike shall not be released because of his or her hunger-strike. The full consequences of the act are simply that if the hunger-striker is held the hunger-striker may die, but no hunger-striker will be held for reasons that existed prior to going on hunger-strike, so that this resolution, to my mind, simply asks the Dáil to declare that when the Government is satisfied on other grounds that a prisoner should be detained, then that they ought not to release a prisoner whom they believed to be dangerous, and who is a proper person to be held, simply because that prisoner has gone on hunger-strike. That seems to me a very proper resolution for the Dáil to pass, and I cannot see any real objection to the Dáil passing it. I do not believe that it ties the hands of the Dáil in the way that has been suggested. If this resolution were passed, undoubtedly the Standing Orders might prevent certain motions coming before the Dáil, but in spite of that we know that the matter could be discussed, and that means could be found, under the Standing Orders, of voting on the matter in an indirect way if any Deputy felt it necessary actually to put the matter to a vote in the future. He could not, perhaps, bring up the case of an individual hunger-striker, and that is a good thing. I think it very undesirable that an assembly like this, which cannot have evidence laid before it, or cannot go into a case in detail, should be considering an individual case, and that is about as much as this resolution would do in the future in the way of restricting the opportunity of the Dáil to discuss, and, as I say, even in an indirect way, to vote upon it.

Now, a great deal has to be said about the question of the distinction between internees and prisoners. I can see some justification in certain circumstances, perhaps, for a convicted prisoner going on hunger-strike, because that prisoner might have 15 or 20 years before him, and if he were unjustly or innocently imprisoned that would be a very serious thing. If anything could justify a hunger-strike—and that is a matter about which I have doubt—it might be justified under those circumstances, but nothing could possibly justify the hunger-strike, even supposing the prisoner was improperly held, of somebody who is going to be in for a very short space of time, indeed. I think that this matter of hunger-striking is one which continues merely because of the uncertainty as to the way in which it will be met. I do not believe that any person has yet gone on hunger-strike otherwise than in the belief that the hunger-strike would lead to his or her release. I do not believe that anybody has gone on hunger-strike, knowing and believing that that hunger-strike would end in his or her death, and for one, I do not believe anybody would be morally justified in going on hunger-strike if they held that belief. I think it would be a case of suicide, and quite unjustifiable. Although I was always strongly opposed to hunger-strikes I have been dragged into a couple because my comrades went on hunger-strike, and I did hunger-strike with them with the usual successful results that we then met with. But even those who did so earlier than I, who were believed to be in danger of death, told me that they had no intention whatever of dying. In most cases the matter is simply a bluff. Of course, it might end fatally. Some prisoners, women of a particular age, who might not be so reasonable as they would be in normal circumstances, might, perhaps, go further. But normally the whole hunger-striking may be looked upon as a miserable kind of bluff, and a thing that no encouragement should be given to, but that every attempt should be made to put an end to; a thing that could easily be put an end to by a firm stand, and if it is not put an end to by taking a firm stand may lead to one death or to several deaths, because people, having gone on it and having made certain professions, will sometimes continue to the end. I believe there were cases of people who went on, but did not intend to go so far as they actually did. I think it would be desirable for the Dáil to take such action as would finish off this whole hunger-striking business, and I can see nothing wrong in doing it. I cannot see that this motion commits the Dáil to anything that the Dáil should not be committed to. If it were to commit the Dáil to more than was proper it could easily be modified, but I think that a declaration by the Dáil that no encouragement was to be given to hunger-striking is quite a proper resolution to pass.

Mr. O'HIGGINS

Deputy Dr. MacCartan has accepted as an alternative to his motion the following form:—

"That it is the opinion of An Dáil that the fact of a particular prisoner being on hunger-strike should not affect the merits of the question of detention or release."

As the seconder of the motion, I would ask the leave of the Dáil to substitute that for the original motion.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

It is proposed by the mover of the motion, with the assent of the seconder, to substitute for his motion the following, if leave be given:

"That in the opinion of the Dáil the fact of a particular prisoner being on hunger-strike should not affect the merits of the question of detention or release."

Can we get agreement to substitute for the motion on the paper this motion, which shall then be the motion for discussion?

Agreed.

The Dáil adjourned at 7.45 until Thursday, 3rd May, at 3 p.m.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 May 1923