I think Vote 32—Ministry of Home Affairs—is the next Estimate set down by the Committee on Procedure.
ESTIMATES FOR PUBLIC SERVICES. - MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS.
I move that the sum of £29,546 be granted as the amount required for the year ending 31st March, 1924, to pay the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Home Affairs. £10,000 had been voted on account.
I do not intend to discuss, under the terms of this Vote, any question regarding the policy of the Ministry of Home Affairs, but I desire to take this opportunity to draw the attention of the Minister to certain facts in connection with the cases of ex-R.I.C. men who resigned during the period of the Anglo-Irish War. You have, in another Vote, already made provision for pensions for men who served England up to the time of their disbandment. The Minister is well aware of the conditions under which many patriotic Irishmen resigned from that service during the period of the Anglo-Irish War. Promises were made, as far as I understand, that men making such sacrifices would be provided for not less favourably than the men who carried on and served England up to the time of their disbandment. A committee was set up a long time ago to go into individual cases, and I cannot understand why a report from that committee has not been submitted to the Minister, and some action taken to relieve the men I refer to, many of whom are in a very bad position, indeed. I know personally of two cases, two married men, with wives and dependants, who resigned from the R.I.C. about three years ago. I know that in these particular cases the men concerned have been unable to find employment, and ever since they resigned have been living on the charity and friendship of their relatives. I think that men who made such sacrifices as they did should not be placed in that position. I desire to ask the Minister whether there is any prospect, in the immediate future, of a report being submitted from the committee that was set up to deal with cases such as I mention, so that legislation may be introduced into the Dáil to make provision for these men and their families. In my opinion the committee that was set up has exhausted a good deal of time. Whether they have done all that could be done in the period since they were set up as a committee to deal with this matter, is not for me to say, but I think that in fairness to these men, to whom promises were made, that we should have some indication from the Minister as to when legislation is likely to be introduced to deal with cases of hardship such as I refer to.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
The committee in question submitted a report almost a month ago. It is at present under the consideration of the Ministry of Finance. It will not be for me to introduce a Bill bearing on that matter. It was within the scope of my Department to conduct an inquiry. An inquiry has been conducted by a Departmental Committee, and the result of that inquiry is at present before the Ministry of Finance.
Are we to understand from that that the decision of the Ministry of Finance is to be final, or are the facts to be brought before the Dáil before the matter is finally determined?
The Ministry of Finance is considering the matter and a Bill will be introduced. Otherwise it would be impossible for the Ministry of Finance to act and grant pensions; it would be against the law. These are persons who are not properly pensionable under the existing law.
I am sorry that I misunderstood the Minister for Home Affairs. I thought what he said was that it was not now a matter for the Dáil but for the Ministry of Finance. On the Vote, I would like to ask the Minister for Home Affairs to explain one or two items in the estimate. Though we have the sub-heads A, B, C, D and E, we have no explanation of E, which is given as "Expenses of winding up affairs of late Dáil Eireann Courts, including remuneration of certain Judges of Dáil Eireann Supreme Court." I think it would be desirable that we should know to what date the Dáil Judges have been paid, or will be paid, and how much they will be paid. It is even of more importance to have information as to the relations between the old Courts and the new Courts, and as to when litigants, who got judgments in the old Courts, will have the right to claim that these judgments shall be enforced. The position as I understand it at present, is that many of those who went through the courts and got judgments are not able to proceed any further, are not able to get their judgments enforced, and they are invited either to take new actions in the existing courts or to wait until the Ministry has made up its mind as to how to unify the two operations. I have heard complaints from litigants on that score, and I think it is causing a great deal of heart-burning and a lot of expense. People who were quite able to pay damages six months ago are not now able to pay, and, therefore, the complainant in the case will, probably, have to whistle for the damages that he was awarded in the courts.
No information is given to us in these Estimates of the £6,000, "Expenses of winding up the affairs of the late Dáil Eireann Courts." Under Sub-head (a) we have an item, "Adviser on Police Organisation, £567; salaries, £1,000, and presumably, the balance is pension. In looking through the other Estimates we find that, altogether, £6,528 is provided for police headships:—Chief Commissioner, Civic Guard, £1,300, Deputy Commissioner, Civic Guard, £1,000, Assistant Commissioner, Civic Guard, £900, Director of the C.I.D., an unspecified salary, plus £250 on this Vote; Chief Superintendent, C.I.D., £400, Chief Commissioner, D.M.P., £1,700, Assistant Commissioner, D.M.P., £975—a total of £6,525. One might almost imagine that that would be nearly enough for advice on police administration, but we are asked in this Vote to provide another £567 for an Adviser on Police Organisation, and £500 for a Civil Commissioner. Perhaps the Minister will deign to give us some information on these two offices, and explain why it was not possible to get from the existing police officers of long experience, the advice that this £1,067 was intended to pay for. There is also a question whether the provision for administration of the Alien Restrictions Act, £1,200, is really necessary, in addition to the ordinary police operations. One would think that police organisation would be quite enough to deal with this trivial work of restricting the invasion of aliens, and some explanation might be given to us as to the reason for this expenditure of £1,200 over and above the ordinary police operations.
Perhaps the Minister would be able to give an indication to the Dáil as to when the ordinary law will again become operative in the country unaffected by the over-riding powers of the military, and when it will be possible to declare that a state of war no longer exists, a condition which prevents the ordinary law from operating and which is the reason given by the Government on many occasions for adopting what some of themselves described as "rough and ready methods of carrying out the law." We are advised, of course, and rightly so, to obey and respect the law, and the law is there to punish individuals and also to protect individuals. But of late the measure of protection has not been very great, so far as individuals are concerned, and perhaps the Minister would be able to say how soon he hopes we will be back to ordinary conditions as they existed before the so-called state of war prevailed.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
The £6,000 to cover the expenses of winding up the affairs of the late Dáil Courts is made up as follows:—Payment of outstanding debts due in respect of the said courts, estimated at £1,500, the said debts falling into five main classes: costs due to Solicitors who acted as prosecutors in the late Dáil Courts; arrears of remuneration to District Registrars and Clerks of Parish Courts; claims for escort and conveyance of prisoners and their maintenance in custody, including expenses incurred in effecting arrests; minor expenses of Courts remaining unpaid, such as rent, purchase of stationery, cost of lighting, and similar items; sums paid by way of deposit for hearing of cases which were, in fact, never heard. There is a provision of £4,500 in respect of the salaries of judges of the Supreme Court. There were four such judges at £750 per annum, two of which are at present suspended from office without salary, the other two being employed in other capacities. A Bill will be introduced shortly dealing with this matter. I am well aware that there has been hardships to litigants, and I am equally well aware that there has been consequent heart-burning. There has been heart burning of many kinds, and there are many causes within the last year or so. I genuinely regret that it has not been possible to deal with this matter earlier. It was very complicated, and the condition of things in the country did not help towards the speedy straightening out of the tangles. A Departmental Committee has been at work on this matter, and a Bill is in preparation. That Bill will provide for the formal validation of the decrees of one kind or another given in these Courts, and after investigation and after formal validation the decrees will bind on an Under-Sheriff equally with the decrees given in the Courts at present functioning. There is no absolutely royal road out of the kind of chaos in which things were in the country a year or more ago. It was a revolutionary period. There was debris of one kind or another and it was a question of hewing our way out of it, but substantially the tangles will be made straight, and people who brought cases before these courts and produced proper evidence and proved them and secured decrees, may feel assured that such decrees will obtain execution. It may be very belated execution. That is unavoidable, but the writ will run and we will take measures and bring a Bill before the Dáil to make sure that that will be so.
As to the Adviser on Police Organisation—in the Estimates that item is starred, and it is pointed out that this post is held by an officer who is in receipt of a pension, and his actual pay as Adviser is the excess of £1,000 over such pension. Last July and August when the Civic Guard were down at Kildare men were sent in to make trouble, and they had a certain measure of success. That trouble centered largely around the personality of men who were admitted to that force, and who had served in the Royal Irish Constabulary. It was a good peg to hang activities on, and the very most was made of it. There was no advertance to the fact that these men were admitted to that force with the full approval and endorsement of the man who had acted as head of our Intelligence in the struggle with the British Administration, and the British Occupation here. That was waved aside, and these men were held up to odium as ex-R.I.C., as if they were ex-R.I.C. and nothing more than that. This man who is Adviser of Police Organisation was a member of the Civic Guard at that time, and was one of those that the trouble and the policy that was fomented within the Force centered around. When it came to dealing with that trouble, which amounted in effect to mutiny, some concession was necessary, and, at the same time, this officer was a man of great experience, a man with skill and knowledge of police matters. I could not agree to leave the new Commissioner who took over at that period, without his services, his experience and advice. The thing was met by technically removing this man from the Force, making him an official of my Ministry, and leaving him as a lay secretary to the new Commissioner. That is the position. He has acted in the capacity of Secretary to the new Commissioner since then, and he acted in that capacity with very good results. It is, I think, an advantage that the Ministry should be represented at the Civic Guard Headquarters by such a person who is not himself a member of the Force, and who is available to advise and consult with the Ministry from time to time in matters affecting public peace and order. There are not, I think, many items in these Estimates for which the taxpayers are getting better value than that particular item. The Civic Guard has been brought out of a very disturbed and precarious condition into an efficient Force, and while much of that is due to the personality, the efficiency and sense of discipline of the Commissioner, much of it is also due to the fact that he had available at his elbow a man of ripe experience, and extremely level-headed in dealing with police matters.
The Civil Commissioner is certainly an item that would call for attention. It will be remembered that a particularly inflamed situation existed in the Pettigo area something more than a year ago, and that impetuously, as we thought, and without consultation with the Provisional Government, the British moved their forces beyond the strict line of the Border, and occupied the village of Pettigo, having used a certain amount of artillery to clear their way. Pettigo was a little barrel of gun-powder on the Border line, with possibilities of trouble, one might say, out of all proportion to its own intrinsic importance. When the situation improved here, and improved up, in, and around that area, representations were made to the British to withdraw these troops, and that was conceded.
There was a tendency to represent the Orange or Protestant inhabitants of that area being in a state of terror, owing to the impending Free State occupation and administration, and it was considered wise and advisable, without ourselves agreeing that there was any particular ground for that suspicion or distrust to take all reasonable steps to meet those fears. A military post was sent up there under the charge of a picked officer, considered eminently reliable and specially suitable for a difficult position of that kind, and a specially picked number of the Civic Guard were sent up there. In addition to that there was sent a Civil Commissioner, generally to watch the situation and report direct to the Government through me, and readily available for any Protestant inhabitants of that area. Incidentally, he himself is a Protestant. It was felt that it was something of a gesture to send there a man of their own faith to listen to and transmit to us any complaints that had to be made. Very few complaints were in fact received through that channel, but the presence of the Commissioner had a steadying effect, and Pettigo, which six or eight months ago was in an inflamed condition holding possibilities of trouble that might spread widely and intensively in that area is now a little short of a model village.
The most cordial relations exist between all creeds and classes there, and between those Protestant inhabitants and the forces of the Government, of which they stood in dread before our administration. It is perhaps more correct to say they were taught to stand in dread. The need for the Commissioner there is rapidly passing away, and steps will be taken to place the person in question on some other employment. I do not think there were any other points raised except Deputy O'Connell's point as to when the situation in the country will be such as will admit of a recurrence to the ordinary law, as he says. That, of course, is a matter of surmise; but we have to face it that owing to the events of the last ten months you have a very grave condition of affairs in the country and a great deal of explosive material, literally and figuratively, lying about. It is rather for the Minister for Defence than for me to state when the situation would be so normal as to cease to require the military treatment of certain problems. There is a distinct improvement inside the last three or four months. That improvement is likely to be maintained, in fact progressively maintained, but if the Deputy had the facts and reports from the various counties at his disposal —the facts and reports that I have at mine—he would probably agree that there are throughout the country many problems and many situations that are not capable of being dealt with by Civil Bill procedure. Take one county alone. There is one county in which there are no less than twenty farms in the occupation of people who have neither legal nor moral nor equitable title to them. There are many counties where there is a considerable amount of real property also in the possession of people other than the owners. There are stolen motor cars from one end of the country to the other, and generally it will have to be recognised that there must be something in the nature of a middle period as between the period of absolute revolt and the period of normal conditions.
It is probable that within the next month I will introduce a Bill dealing with what we regard to be the requirements of that middle period. In so far as the use of the military is concerned, we will endeavour to see that that is kept down to the minimum. But it is also our duty to see that minimum will be the minimum which will ensure that the problems that exist as a result of the revolt and turbulence of the last ten months will be very adequately and very speedily dealt with. The country wants security. It wants the vindication of legal rights. It wants to end all the disorder that has been undermining the national credit and destroying the commercial security of the country within the last year. It will be best that we should all face that situation here, and agree, irrespective of mere catch-cries or mere electioneering, to do the best thing for the country, so that it can go ahead in stability, and go ahead with the very necessary work of reconstruction. The unemployment figure in the country is probably high. That unemployment will not even begin to be drained off unless people feel that they can wisely and with a fair prospect of a return, put out their money in enterprises of one kind or another. No one here wants to embark on any career of junkerdom or militarism, and similarly we must learn by the past, and we must realise that there are urgent problems existing in the country; that you have only an unarmed police force at half strength. There are only three hundred and fifty stations established out of a total establishment providing for eight hundred and seven stations, and it will be necessary, and necessary for some considerable time to come, to use certain things, at any rate the armed servants of the State, for whose maintenance the people are paying, and paying dearly. So it is that at present the problems of what may be called the middle period are being visualised, and a Bill is in course of preparation. That Bill will come before the Dáil in due course.
Question: "That a sum not exceeding £19,546 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which would come in course of payment for the year ending 31st March, 1924, towards the salaries and expenses of the Ministry for Home Affairs," put and agreed to.