I beg to move the adjournment of the Dáil.
ADJOURNMENT.—RAID ON DEPUTY'S HOUSE.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
I desire again to refer to the question of the raid which took place on my house on the Tuesday before Easter. I again desire to emphasise the fact that I am doing so on impersonal grounds. I am doing so, because I think that it is a matter which goes to the very root of the right of constitutional opposition. On the last occasion, when the Minister for Home Affairs was unfortunately absent, I tried to make the matter as impersonal as possible. I very soon realised that it would be necessary, if the proceeding was to be defended, that it should on the Ministerial side wear a personal character. I put a question to the Minister for Home Affairs, and he answered it very frankly, taking responsibility for what had been done. One was struck with the difference in the way in which he met the matter, as compared with the manner in which it was received by the President who feigned indignation at the very notion of such a question being raised against the Ministry. Now, I want to give the Minister for Home Affairs this opportunity of justifying what has been done, and of making such defence as he can in the matter. One is somewhat disarmed by the candour with which the Minister for Home Affairs admits his sins. The Minister has the rare gift of your true Die-Hard, that he has the courage of his convictions, even when they are wrong, unlike the gentlemen who served under him on this occasion. A few days after the raid, a relative of mine called at Oriel House—I was still away —and asked for the restoration of my property. She was met by a gentleman who professed complete ignorance on the subject, and suggested that it was probably the military. When she wrote a letter setting out the claim, it is hardly necessary to say that Oriel House vouchsafed no answer. The same tendency was shown by the C.I.D. when on the very day of the raid, but later in the day, they returned the bundle of papers which they had taken. It is obvious that at that time they did not know whether the raid was to be official or not, because they said this bundle "had come from Pim's," and they were covering their tracks in case the raid was not going to be official. The Minister has the courage of his convictions. He admits the act; "of course" he did it. Why not? But I can imagine how the Minister's sleuth hounds barked with joy when they saw the label pinned on the particular parcel which they took away. The address on the parcel was "Art O'Brien, Personal." Now, they thought, we have got something. It so happened that I had been Mr. O'Brien's legal adviser for many years, and that this bundle of papers dealt with matters of no interest to the administration, but going back to the year 1908. That was the bundle that had to be returned, and was returned, from Pims. Now, I am curious to know what kind of defence can be put up for the curious action which I described on the previous occasion, and which I need not describe again. In what I may describe as semiofficial circles, the story has been put about that this performance was necessary to capture Mr. de Valera. I am rather afraid that that particular nag will not stay the course. It so happens that I have a friend, not unconnected with the Seanad, who occasionally pays me visits, and, as Deputies know, every little boy of 8 or 9 is now a budding Sherlock Holmes. The little boys in my neighbourhood very speedily discovered that this gentleman was Mr. de Valera. Proof positive was furnished by the fact that he generally arrived in a motor car unaccompanied, and that he wears a heavy beard. I have ascertained that, on several occasions when this gentleman has visited me, the neighbourhood has been told, first by the little boys and then by the bigger people who heard it from the little boys, that there was no doubt whatever that Mr. de Valera was seen in Mespil Road, and was seen in the garden of No. 39, and, in fact, that he was seen going into 39. Therefore, there could be no doubt whatsoever in the mind of any reasonable person that if you went round to No. 39 you would find Mr. de Valera there. One can imagine this information percolating eventually as far as Oriel House, and upon that very definite evidence Oriel House, no doubt, conveyed the matter to the Minister. One can see the Minister in that inner sanctum, that heavily draped inner sanctum where he weaves his web, receiving this tiding from some emissary who would tell him there was no doubt whatever about the whereabouts of Mr. de Valera. He would thereupon rattle his sword, and, at that familiar sign, Oriel House would at once stand to attention and take the orders which we see they so thoroughly carried out. The trouble about that particular explanation is this, that if these people were looking for Mr. de Valera and satisfied themselves, after three or four minutes, that he was not in the house, it seems strange that it was necessary then to telephone, apparently for instructions, and necessary to spend a considerable time in the house looking through my papers. I do not know whether it is thought Mr. de Valera would be found amongst the papers. However, that is what happened. I pointed out to Deputies on the last occasion the provisions of the Constitution on this matter. These provisions being what they are, I think it would require very cogent facts indeed to justify such a proceeding as this. I cannot resist the impression that the motive of the raid was a different one from that officially given out. It so happened that, at that moment, there was a peace move developing which might have had very interesting results for the Ministry. It so happened that I had a remote connection with that peace move, and it so happened that about the same time a person who has taken no part whatever in armed resistance to the Free State, but who was very intimately connected with that peace move, had his house visited on behalf of the Saorstát and his papers searched through. One can only draw one's own conclusions, and I await the Minister's explanation with considerable interest.
The reason for bringing up this matter again is that I want to get it ascertained definitely what are Deputies' privileges. We say in the Constitution we take power to protect the Deputy from molestation and interference and to protect his private papers. I want to see that done, and I want to know what case can be made by the Minister against doing it. The Dáil will realise that if this kind of thing is tolerated it will be possible for Ministers to exercise against persons opposed to them a form of control which is absolutely indefensible. I do not suppose the Minister for Home Affairs or Ministers generally would pretend to be wholly impartial in my particular case. They know, and the Dáil knows, that we all receive correspondence from our constituents and from other people containing criticisms of the administration, containing sometimes reflections of the severest kind upon members of the administration, and suggesting various proposals which may not be satisfactory to the administration.
Now, we have a right, as public representatives, to receive and answer correspondence, whether that correspondence is satisfactory or distasteful to the Ministry, and bad as it is to have your house invaded in the way adopted by the Ministry, it is ten times worse to have your papers inspected by the Minister's agents no matter what object they may have in view in doing it. In going through your papers they are doing wrong, and if they say they claim the right to continue to do that wrong, they are giving notice to my correspondents, and other Deputies' correspondents that it is most undesirable to communicate with Deputies, at all events Deputies who are against the Government, because that correspondence may be inspected by Government agents. I do not think I need elaborate that point further. It is obvious if that is to be the state of affairs you are striking a very severe blow indeed against constitutional opposition, and I raise the matter now so that subsequently proper action may be taken to define the right of members of the Dáil in that matter.
Not only do I object to the indignity— because indignity is the worst part of a raid—but I object much more that papers should be touched, inspected or looked at, by officials of the Ministry, and it seems to me that if that is justified, then you must equally justify, upon the same grounds, the handing out to the Minister for Publicity of any documents that may be found in the house. Is that going to be advanced as a tenable theory of the rights of government? If you are entitled to go into my house and search through my papers, why are you not entitled to distribute whatever you may find to the Minister for Publicity and to have it appear next morning in the newspapers?
I have little to add to what the Deputy has said in justification of the raid on his house. Stripped of histrionics and mock heroics, the facts are roughly as stated by himself. Deputy Gavan Duffy's house was searched because there was reasonable ground for the belief that a wanted man was in refuge there. I do not know who the wanted man was. I knew nothing about the weight of his beard. I was simply told that there was reasonable ground for believing that a wanted man was in Deputy Gavan Duffy's house, and that Deputy Gavan Duffy himself was away. I was asked whether there was anything against having the house raided and searched. I said there was not. I have a report here about the raid. But I want to know just where the Deputy takes ground. On the last occasion when he raised this matter I was not present, but I read with interest an account of the proceedings, and I notice that he talked vaguely of the Constitution. I looked up the Constitution and I found that the Constitution lays it down that the Dáil shall have power to make Standing Orders defining the rights and privileges of members of the Dáil. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the Dáil has omitted to make any Standing Orders, and there we are so to speak. When the Dáil comes to make Standing Orders I trust it will make them with due regard to all possibilities. I trust it will not make it possible for a Deputy to come into the Dáil, and to take the oath, and then go home and proceed to run a civil war from his home. In other words, I do trust that no absolute barrier will be sought to be erected against the searching of a Deputy's house by the Government forces, on definite grounds and with a definite excuse. I am not suggesting that Deputy Gavan Duffy was running a civil war from his home. Deputy Gavan Duffy was not at home at all, on the occasion on which the search took place. At least he was gone to his spiritual home abroad. Some time ago we were told that every-time a Deputy smokes a cigar, or takes a whiskey and soda, that he is paying for good administration, and that if he were conscious of that he would at least hope that in addition to the pleasure of a cigar, or the whiskey and soda, he would get good administration. Well, now, Deputy Gavan Duffy in the flesh was away. He had left Ireland some few days before this visit and search took place. But the way I looked at the thing was, if I failed to take action on what was believed to be reliable information that I would deserve the wrath of Ratepayer and Taxpayer Gavan Duffy.
Will the Minister say what the information was?
Mr. O'HIGGINS
I have said what it it was. The information I had received was that there was reasonable ground for believing that a much wanted man had taken refuge in the Deputy's house. The Deputy was away, and, on his own admission, there was only a maid in charge of the house. I do not know whether it is suggested that Deputies' maids, like Cæsar's wife, are above suspicion. But that would seem to be the deduction. But if a Deputy says, "Even if I am away at the end of the earth, I left my house in charge of a maid, and in no circumstances should my house be visited and searched while I am away," I suggest that I would not be doing justice to Taxpayer and Ratepayer Gavan Duffy if I failed to take action on receiving that information. I would be cheating him. All that money that he paid for the good administration that Deputy Magennis told us about, would have been given under false pretences if the Executive had failed to try to secure the arrest of this man who was disturbing peace and order in the country, and who was suspected of taking refuge in Deputy Gavan Duffy's house. The suggestion has been made that we wanted to see what Deputy Gavan Duffy's constituents thought of him. Now, that is not so. We have no curiosity whatever on the point, and if we had curiosity we would be able to hold it for a couple of months until——
A DEPUTY
The election.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
Quite so. Neither had we any particular interest in the Deputy's legal or historical papers. The papers that were removed were papers which, on the face of them, as the Deputy himself was candid enough to state, referred to a man who was in the custody of the Government, and who was a known participator in the challenge to and conspiracy against the State.
Does the Minister admit that he directed the search of my papers?
Mr. O'HIGGINS
I admit nothing, except that I had knowledge of the visit, and that I authorised it on being informed that there were reasonable grounds for believing that a wanted man was in the Deputy's house. I have the reports here which I will read:—
On the 26th March, what was considered very reliable information was handed in, and I ordered a special party to search the house of Mr. Gavan Duffy, T.D., for a much-wanted man.
Unfortunately, the search proved abortive. Attached is copy of report furnished by the Officer in Charge:—
I beg to report that, in consequence of information received that there was a much wanted man in hiding in the house, 39 Mespil Road, I, in company with a party of C.I.D. officers, visited the said house between the hours of 6 and 7 a.m. The house was carefully and thoroughly searched, under my supervision, but the wanted man was not on the premises. In the course of the search I discovered a file of papers relating to Mr. Art O'Brien at present in custody. I took possession of this file, which I forward.
I have little to add. The Dáil has not made Standing Orders laying down the definite rights and privileges of members. When it does come to make such orders, I trust it will make them with intelligent advertence to all possibilities. I think that I have perfectly good and solid ground for saying that on that information I would have failed in my responsibility to the people, including Deputy Gavan Duffy himself, if I had refused to authorise that particular visit. I am absolutely unrepentant. Deputy Gavan Duffy may call that "characteristic Diehardism." He may call it anything he very well chooses, but my withers will be comparatively unwrung.
Does the Minister justify an hour's search through my papers, or does he not?
Mr. O'HIGGINS
I have the greatest confidence in the discretion of the particular officer under whom that search was carried out.
After the statement of the Minister, I think the sooner we do set up some Committee to prepare Standing Orders the better——
That is to say, Standing Orders on Privileges?
Yes. I think the Minister has amply justified the authorisation of a search for a much-wanted man in the house of a Deputy who was known to be away at the time. Plenty of people take refuge where one would not expect to find them, and where they would not be likely to be admitted if the owner were there. From the information that the Minister read out, I think, Deputy Gavan Duffy would be, himself, the first to admit that the Minister justified that part of the action. But it does seem to me that when you send the Criminal Investigation Department people to search the house of a Deputy for a wanted man, they ought to be scrupulously warned not to do anything beyond searching for the person of the man in question, and that they ought not under any circumstances touch the private papers or documents in the house. I do not come under the head of the class whom Deputy Gavan Duffy described as "constitutional opponents of the Ministry." But for a very long time round about Christmas, night after night, a little girl on a bicycle used to drop a copy of "An Poblacht" into my letter box. I believe that was at the time a document that it was a crime to have in one's possession, and if any investigator, coming to my house in search of a wanted man, who was supposed to have taken refuge there, had come across this document I would, no doubt, be counted as a member of an Irregular Republican junta and I might at present be languishing in Kilmainham or Mountjoy. Certain persons have been detained in jail on this very charge for having copies of that particular document—and for all I know I may have had at some time in my possession the very numbers of "An Poblacht" named in some of these charges. It does seem to me that if Deputies are to have any privilege at all, the privilege they must have will be the right to do their duty to their constituents, and the right of free communication not only with their constituents but with anybody in this country who chooses to write to them as Deputies. I have had letters from people whose names I do not know, and of whom I know nothing except that they stated in their letters that they were Republicans, asking me to do this, that, and the other—things I had no power to do, and, in some cases, no will to do. But if my papers were to be searched every now and then, for all I know some of the people who wrote to me may be people who were deeply in the black lists of the Executive or of Oriel House, or somebody else. I do think that if the Minister is again compelled by his duty to authorise the search of the house of a Deputy for people who are suspected of being there, that however responsible the officers—and the more responsible they are the more they will obey the orders given to them—they ought to be told that in the course of the search for the persons they are to arrest that they must scrupulously avoid interfering in any way with the private papers of the Deputy or with any papers that they find in the house that they are sent to raid.
I hope that the discussion will not close with the statement on behalf of the Ministry by the Minister for Home Affairs, because if it does, throughout the country officers, police or military will feel they have a right, an authority from the Minister to search the house of a Deputy for persons, and incidentally, look through all the papers in the possession of that Deputy; that the Minister responsible for police administration, at any rate, has given his approval to the action of a police officer, not only in looking through the documents in the house of the Deputy, but in taking them away for such purposes as he may deem desirable in the carrying out of his duties. I think the Minister should not treat this question as though it were a light one. No doubt the manner of its presentation rather encouraged it, being treated somewhat lightly in some of its aspects. That was, of course, to remove any impression that the Deputy was thinking of it as a purely personal matter or that he wanted it to be taken too seriously on the personal side. But the Minister ought to treat it, I think, very seriously, as it is a matter affecting the whole character of the Legislature and the responsibility of Deputies here.
I agree with Deputy Fitzgibbon in saying that on the strength of the case that was put before the Minister the search for a person was justified, but the kernel of the complaint is that in the course of the search for a person a police officer thought he was justified in taking away papers having looked through them, or in looking through the papers and also taking them away. If we are to be protected in carrying out our work those papers at least ought to be secure from observation, from search by any authority. We ought to be protected in the sanctity of that correspondence, and I hope that if any other Minister is to speak on this question that it will go from the Ministry to the officials of the various departments that they must refrain from interfering with the private papers of any Deputy. There may be risks in doing that. I am not denying that there are possibilities that amongst papers may be found documents which would bring the possessor into the clutches of the law, but the danger on that side is very much smaller than the danger on the other side, and we ought to be at least protected, if we are to do our work properly, from interference by the executive authority, or any of its servants in connection with our public work. If we are to be encouraged to be conscientious in our duties, then the papers concerned with these duties ought to be considered securely private, and I hope Ministers will not leave the discussion at the stage at which it has arrived, inasmuch as military men and policemen will feel that they are encouraged and authorised to search and take away private papers of Deputies in any house which they may be compelled to enter upon.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
If I may speak again in response to the more sober note struck by Deputy Fitzgibbon and Deputy Johnson, I have no hesitation whatever in giving this undertaking, so far as the forces or resources at the disposal of my Department go; that if in future if there should seem to be sufficient cause for authorising a visit to a Deputy's house explicit instructions will be given bearing on the matter of papers. A question will arise as to what is put forward as a justification for the visit at all. That is a matter that will be carefully considered, but even pending the making of any regulations by the Dáil with regard to Deputies' papers, I would certainly give explicit instructions that the papers of Deputies ought to be treated as of a confidential nature and should not be inspected by officers carrying out raids While I give that undertaking now, I want to make this quite clear. In the first place, this was a matter of a hurried nature, late at night, amidst the pressure of other business. I had no sooner dealt with it than it was gone from my mind, some other nail having driven it out, and the explicit authorisation I gave was, that the house might be visited in search of this wanted man. At the same time, I do not regard it as any lapse on the part of the officer who had charge of that particular raid, that, not finding in the house the person whom he sought, he made certain investigations. You have to bear in mind that the Deputy was away for almost a week at the time, and the information was that the house was being used by a man who was evading arrest, and if he could use it as a refuge for himself physically, he could just as well use it as an office, as a place for carrying on communications with others as part and parcel of the conspiracy. The fact that he was not actually on the premises when visited was not proof positive that he had not been there. Men have been known to escape from houses where they were in hiding. Men have been known to get some information that a visit was pending and to clear out, and even to clear out when troops or plain clothes men were actually approaching the precincts. I think the further steps the officer took, not finding the man he sought actually on the premises, to make an inspection, were proper steps, and I think also when that particular file met his eye, bearing the name of a person in custody known to be rather an arch conspirator, in two senses of the word "arch," he did the natural thing and a not improper thing in the circumstances in bringing it away. That is one side. The other side is that I am prepared, pending the making of definite regulations by the Dáil, to give explicit instructions in any future instance in which I am asked to authorise a visit to a Deputy's house, that the papers there be treated as confidential.
I think the explanation of the Minister is satisfactory. I did not intend to attribute blame to him, and, as the Minister says, I think it was only natural and not improper that an officer who had not received special instructions should have done what the officer did on this occasion. I attribute no blame to the officer. The Minister has promised, and, I think, is bound to give instructions to the officers in future.
The Dáil adjourned at 6.55 p.m.