[DAIL IN COMMITTEE.] - EMPLOYMENT OF CIVILIANS IN MILITARY BARRACKS. – Dáil Éireann (3rd Dáil) – Wednesday, 9 May 1923

[DAIL IN COMMITTEE.] - EMPLOYMENT OF CIVILIANS IN MILITARY BARRACKS.

Mr. LYONS

I gave notice earlier that on the Motion for the Adjournment I would raise the question of the employment of civilians in military barracks. I want to know from the Minister for Defence why the Army Council request civilian workers employed in military barracks to attest, and to wear military uniform, and allow the Officers in charge of those barracks to order these workers to go to any part of Ireland. Some of these workers have been employed in military barracks for nearly 30 years, and during all that time they were never requested to attest or to wear any kind of uniform against their wishes. The view I take of the action of the Army Council is that they are trying to enforce an act against the will of these workers: the same act that the British tried to enforce here in Ireland, namely, conscription. I cannot find any other word to explain the action that has been taken by the Army Council, because it is conscription when you request a worker to attest, against his will, as a soldier, and to take up arms and go out to fight if necessary. Fancy the idea of a carpenter, a man who uses a plane, a hammer or a chisel, having a rifle put into his hand. Take also the case of a painter or a tailor. These men have been called on to attest, and if they refuse they are told to go outside the gates, and the gates are closed against them. At the present time, in the town of Athlone, you have about 21 men who have been thrown out of employment. Some of these men have worked in the barracks in that town for the last 25 or 30 years. One man who was over 60 years of age, and an apprentice to a plumber under 16 years of age, employed in the local barracks, were requested to attest and to wear army uniform. For refusing to do so, they were told they could go: that their services were no longer required. It is a great hardship on workmen who have been employed in these barracks for a great number of years, that when their own Government came into power, the very Government that they had been longing for, its first act should be to throw them out on the street to starve, and because of their disemployment to see their little ones die by their sides for the want of food. These are the tactics that are used by the Army Council for the purpose of trying to force these working men to attest and to wear uniform. In the town of Mullingar 15 men refused to attest. Five of them are married men with families of four children; that is to say an average of six in each family. In all, 36 people have been refused the right to live. The fathers of these children have been refused the right by their own Government to earn food for the support of their children, and to keep body and soul together. I do not want to make an attack upon the Minister for Defence or upon any of the Army Council, but I want to get a proper explanation of this matter, so that the working people in Ireland may fully realise the form of Government that they longed for, and above all things that they gloried in seeing when it first came into operation. All classes of workers are affected in this matter. You have plasterers, shoemakers, plumbers, carpenters, tailors, and, in fact, all classes of tradesmen as well as labourers affected by this order. During the time the British Government were in this country you had 50 or 60 men in constant employment in Athlone barracks. Even during the time of the Anglo-Irish War, these employees were not disturbed in their employment, and were never required by the British Government to attest. Take, for instance, the case of an engine driver that happens to be working on any of the railways or driving a traction engine through the country and is capable of driving the engine of an armoured train: that man has to work 18 hours a day. I can assure you that the days of long hours in Ireland, I mean extravagantly long hours, anything over 10 or 8 hours a day, are not going to continue. Eight or ten hours a day are quite long enough for any man to work. These working men in Athlone were told that it was for the sake of economy they were requested to attest, but, in my opinion, it is the thin end of the wedge to reduce the wages of the employees.

The Government certainly is the leading light of the country at the present moment, but I warn the Government that they must be very careful for fear that light may be extinguished by the working people. If that Government refuses the workers' right to live or if that Government throws the breadwinners out into the street they let them starve. I fail to see why the Irish workers at the present time are requested to attest in the Army. It does not matter what kind they are. Some of them I am well aware could not possibly, or would not possibly pass any medical man. Well, after all, they were well able to do their daily work and out of this they succeeded in keeping the bodies and souls of their children together. They are now requested to attest and because they would not do so, they are thrown out on the street and their children are almost dying with hunger. In some of those cases you have six or seven children in the family and the breadwinner who was taking £3 or £4 a week into that house is deprived of that. Surely there must be nothing in that house but starvation and that family must be destitute. I have nothing more to add to that but I want the Minister for Defence to do his best with the Army Council to try and abolish this thing of having the workers of Ireland attesting I can assure you that it is impossible for you to carry on if you get the workers of Ireland up against you. Take the army man at the present time, a soldier with £1 4s. 6d. a week. That is the wage paid to a man who has attested. Before attesting, before he had been conscripted, he would be in receipt of £4 a week. Now he is paid £1 4s. 6d. Of course I am well aware that if he is a married man who is getting Dependants' Allowance that this will bring his wages up to more than he had been receiving before he was attested. But the principle of Trade Unionism is there. In my opinion the present Army Council are out for no other purpose only to smash trade unionism, but before you do that your lights shall be extinguished.

Mr. JOHNSON

Deputy Lyons, inadvertently I think, used a phrase that does exemplify a very common opinion in the country. He asked the Minister for Defence to use his influence with the Army Council to prevent certain things being done. That may seem to be a very indefinite phrase, but it is, I say, an impression in the country and in relation to this matter that Deputy Lyons raises, that the Army Council has taken this thing in hands and that the Ministry are following instructions. I hope that is not true. Deputy Lyons has touched upon the case of Athlone where a number of men who have been engaged for many years, some of them in civilian work in the barracks, have quite recently been called upon to join up and submit themselves to military law and discipline or their places will be taken by those who will join up. That is to say, soldiers will be taken to do what has for very many years been civilian work. That applies to Athlone but it applies to other places too. A certain grievance of this kind had been mentioned to the Minister for Defence some months ago. When it was first brought forward the explanation was given that military exigencies necessitated in a great measure that all men working within the barrack walls should be subject to military discipline because of certain dangers that accompanied ingress and egress from and to the Barracks. That excuse or explanation can hardly suffice to-day. Many of the men that are being now asked to attest have been working as civilians all these months and were not then during that time asked to attest, and no danger resulted from their going in and going out. But they are now being asked to attest for the last month or two and no explanation has been given as to why this new policy has been adopted through the country. Similar complaints have been made as to the policy of displacing civilian labour in the Curragh, and some other military centres. It is necessary that some public explanation should be made. But in addition to the substitution of military labour for civilian labour and skilled occupations there is also a matter that requires some explanation and it seems likely to be bound up with a change of general policy. I asked a question the other day respecting the reduction of the amount of living-out allowances of craftsmen, who had hitherto been working for 28s. a week living-out money in addition to their pay. The reduction of 50 per cent. had been decided upon. The men were told to take it or leave it, and no explanation was given except one by the Minister for Defence that a decision had been come to, to the effect that the allowance was to be reduced to 2s. a day. Then another complaint from another part of the country, Claremorris, to the effect that painters who joined the Army in Dublin had a recognised pay of 53s. 6d., plus 3s. of grade pay. These men have been told, without any notice and without any question of a new agreement or anything of the kind, that they were to be reduced by 1s. a day, that is, instead of 3s. a day, to be reduced to 2s. I want to call attention to the fact that the Dáil was notified by the Minister of the rates of pay and allowances that were to be given to the various classes of men in the Army. That notification was in effect an agreement and without any further reference to the Dáil and without any consultation with the men or their representatives these reductions are insisted upon. That is not likely to excite loyalty amongst the men concerned. I have a case where a soldier is put to do the duties of a signal man in a railway station, in Cork. He is expected to be on duty at that railway signal for 16 hours in the day.

I think that the Dáil is entitled to some explanation of this change in Government policy regarding the Army. Why has it been found necessary to dismiss men who have been working for years at civilian work and replace them by attested men? This is important because it means that it is not a desire to reduce the expenses but to offer those men the right to continue the work provided they attest. The dismissal of civilian labour from barracks and the substitution of that civilian labour by military labour is a matter of considerable importance to very many people. It means that with the extension of work within the army and for the army work which has hitherto been done by contractors, public employers and workmen who are civilians is going to be done by military labour on military terms and under military discipline. Then comes the question of the change of conditions and breach of contract. Men have been engaged on certain terms, and without any formal notification to the Dáil or the people concerned, they are simply told that there is to be reduction in their pay and they have nothing to do but to agree to it. To refuse to work under the new conditions would be mutiny and those who refuse would be liable to all the penalties of the mutineer. Those are considerations that I think require some explanation, and probably after the explanation a good deal of discussion.

General MULCAHY

Much of what Deputy Lyons has said on this matter is on a par with some newspaper notices that have appeared recently. You have a paragraph in the Press headed "New Army Order"; then you have material following that shows nothing at all about any Army Order because there is no such Army Order.

Mr. LYONS

On a point of explanation, I have not seen anything in the Press on this matter. There were references in the Press to Kildare.

General MULCAHY

You have the statement that there are three or four hundred men in the Curragh under notice. Apparently there was no notice at all; at any rate there is no notice. When the British military left Fermoy and Dublin very many people were thrown out of employment and very many people lost much of the custom that the British military, concentrated in those particular towns, brought to those towns. As has been stated in an answer here there were in Athlone barracks approximately 59 employees engaged on some kind of general maintenance work. The weekly wage bill of these employees was approximately £180, amounting roughly to £9,000 a year for the up-keep of Athlone barracks. Some of our barracks are maintained by the Board of Works and some by ourselves. In those barracks that are maintained by ourselves any repair or maintenance work on a large scale, involving a cost of £200, including time and material, goes to an outside contractor. In Athlone the barracks did not come under the Board of Works; we took them over directly from the military and we had our own men there. We had the nucleus of our own engineering companies and we had good engineering officers. There was no reason from the economic point of view—to look at that alone—why we should spend £180 a week on maintenance work which, in the first place, when investigated, might be considered unnecessary, and in the second place might be done by our own men much more readily and in a much more convenient way, taking into consideration the requirements of our men at the particular time. Therefore it was first and foremost a matter of necessity from the point of view of our organisation at the time, and a matter of economy, to dispense with civilian labour in Athlone barracks. There was very great consideration for men who would be displaced like that and as an alternative to unemployment they were offered attestation in the army which would mean that at any rate the more elderly men would be left in Athlone and the other men, if they were not required in Athlone, could be more usefully employed elsewhere. It is absurd to talk of ever imposing conscription or throwing people out in the streets and letting themselves and their children die. That is exaggeration that does not lead us anywhere. Another way in which the civilians become disemployed is when we take over from the Board of Works, as we are doing in certain places, the maintenance of the barracks. The Board of Works employees are then naturally disemployed.

We were recently taking over Kildare and Newbridge from the Board of Works. Because of certain representations I held up the transfer of Newbridge, involving twenty-six civilian workers, but at Kildare, where there are 100 of our own Works Companies, a detachment consisting of carpenters, plumbers, and a number of people like that in the different companies, there was obviously no reason for keeping in employment, as was suggested, eleven men, consisting of three carpenters, a bricklayer, a plumber, some labourers, a carter and an electrician. It is questionable whether, for the ordinary running, day to day maintenance of barracks, a staff like this is required at all, and it is certainly not required when we have our own men there who, as a side issue to their own work, can do most of the maintenance required, and when any large piece of maintenance or constructive work would be given to an outside contractor. There is not, in the working out of our schemes, disregard of unemployment, and this very great throwing out of employment that has been stated.

The Dáil may be assured that we are shaping ourselves towards efficiency, economy, and business-like control, and having work done in a proper and systematic way, and that in working out that policy we are not going to create either serious unemployment or discomfort even to small groups of people, or that we are doing anything that would be so sinister as pressing conscription on the working classes. I think all that is absurd. I am not able to deal with the point that Deputy Johnson raised with regard to the reduction of painters in Claremorris, but if there are any of these points that, as he says, require to be further discussed it would be useful if we had some notice of what these particular points are.

Mr. LYONS

I would like to know from the Minister for Defence whether, in the case of those men who refuse to attest, the Ministry of Defence or the Army Council advise the managers of the Labour Exchanges that they are not to receive any out-of-work benefit, or do they stand in the way of them receiving out of work benefit?

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 9 May 1923