On a point of order, before we proceed may I ask what is the procedure in regard to a Bill coming forward from a Special Committee in this way. Is the procedure to receive and consider as a report, and is it then to go to the Dáil? Has notice been given for the Committee Stage, or what is the position?
APPROPRIATION BILL, 1923. - REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON THE PUBLIC CHARITABLE HOSPITALS (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL, 1923.
I think the procedure would be that the report should be received, and that the Bill, as amended in the Special Committee, should be considered after notice. In that way we could consider the Bill as amended in the Special Committee, either as we consider Bills which are reported from a Committee of the whole Dáil, by taking a motion that the Bill be received for final consideration, and taking amendments to the Bill in the Dáil, or, if the Dáil so ordered, the Bill as amended in the Special Committee could be referred for consideration to a Committee of the whole Dáil. Either of those motions could be made. For example, that the report be received, and the Bill, as amended by the Special Committee, be received for final consideration on next Wednesday, which is the first day for private business, or that the report be received, and the Bill, as amended in the Special Committee, be considered in Committee of the whole Dáil on Wednesday next. I think these are the two alternatives.
Bhi mé i m' uachtarán ar an g-Choiste Airithe seo agus mar gheall ar sin ba mhaith liom an cúntas seo a chur os cómhair na Dála. Rinne na Teachtai a bhí ar an Choiste a n-dicheall chun an Bhille d'fheabhsú.
I wish to submit this report to the Dáil, as Chairman of the Committee. Members of the Committee having different views on this Bill made an effort to try to improve the Bill and have it in such a way that if the Bill becomes law no fraud can take place under it. A large amount of evidence was taken, and this evidence, if the Dáil so decides, can be printed and circulated amongst the Deputies. There are also a number of accounts and documents that came before the Committee, and those also can be made available if the Dáil so desires. No radical change has been made in the Bill, but considerable amendment has taken place, and the Committee has made the best efforts it could to bring in a measure that would meet with large support in the Dáil. It is necessary for me to say nothing more on the matter, because all the documents and reports can be obtained by the Deputies, but I would move this resolution: "That the Report of the Committee be received and adopted, and that the Fourth Stage of the Bill be taken on Wednesday next, August 1st."
I second.
"That the Report be received and adopted."
What does that mean?
That the Report of the Committee be received, because, after all, what the Committee reports in substance is the Bill as amended. I am afraid there would be serious trouble over the word "adopted." I suggest that the resolution be altered to read:—"That the Report of the Committee be received, and that the Bill as amended be considered on Report on Wednesday next, 1st August."
I agree, and I propose the motion as altered.
The motion does not mention the adoption of the Report, and, therefore, the only question is, whether the Bill should be considered next Wednesday on Report.
I hope I will not be charged with being a spoil sport, but this of course does not deal with sport. Sport is only a peg on which to hang something else, but I want to ask whether it is the intention of the Dáil to agree that this Bill receive consideration when Bills are being thrown overboard by the score almost, and other Bills of infinitely more importance, if not less dangerous, are being rushed through the Dáil without consideration. I want to say this, if this Bill is going to be considered on Wednesday next by the Dáil then other Bills will have to be considered thoroughly.
If that is the intention, and if the Dáil is going to decide that this Bill is going to be considered on Wednesday, then other Bills will have to be thoroughly considered.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
Personally, I consider that Deputy Johnson's attitude on this matter is most reasonable. There is extreme pressure on the time of the Dáil. The President has communicated to the Dáil the considerations which render an early election a matter of urgency. These considerations are not party but national considerations, and the Dáil has been asked to pass really important measures with the irreducible minimum of consideration, and I do not think that the Dáil should be asked to devote any portion of such time as is at its disposal between this moment and the elections for the consideration of this Bill. I do not know whether this Committee devoted any portion of its time or labour to the consideration of any alternative method of raising money for the hospitals. Probably that would not fall within its terms of reference, but I think this whole matter might be left over until a Parliament, elected by the adult population of Ireland, is in a position to consider it. I know that the hospitals are very hard pressed, and from another angle this matter of sweepstakes has been represented to me. People have come and put the point of view as to how our churches are to be built in the future—how are we going to get £70,000 or £80,000 for building churches if we are barred from this method. I grant both one and the other of these questions are important, but in the proper perspective, having regard to the existing conditions and the pressure put upon the Dáil, and the consideration that has been asked from the Dáil and individual Deputies, I do not consider that they ought to be asked to consider this Bill this side of the election.
The time occupied in discussing this Bill is, I take it, the time for Private Bills, and the idea of submitting this Bill to the Committee was to get that Committee to produce as water-tight a Bill as was possible in the circumstances. The other primary factor, I take it, why that Bill was submitted to the Committee was to do away with unnecessary oratorical effusions in the Dáil.
I think this Bill was first introduced about February, and I think the supporters of the Bill have possessed their souls in patience, and have done everything to meet everyone who is more or less opposed to the Bill. We have looked at it from every reasonable point of view, and we tried to facilitate all parties. The Bill is now before the Dáil, and I think it is time that a climax was reached. There is no doubt that the Bill, honestly considered, is a most important one, and it cannot brook further delay. The proposition proposed by the Ceann Comhairle is, I think, a reasonable one. The documents are now circulated amongst members, and any further evidence that any member may require can be got by applying to the Clerk. I said, when introducing this Bill, that I fully appreciated, and so did my colleagues who were in harmony with me on this matter, the grave national condition of the country then, and we appreciate that now also, and that other important Bills have been considered, and, perhaps, not examined as critically as they might have been. I think that the important points of this Bill are fully appreciated and understood by every member of the Dáil, and it is with the idea of, if you like, facilitating the national and parliamentary work of this Dáil that we have suggested that this Bill, as amended, should be circulated amongst the members, and that by Wednesday next, when they would have their minds made up and have had time to consider and digest the important parts of the Bill, they would have an opportunity of voting for or against it.
I would like to support the motion in favour of this Bill. I am glad to see that the opposition offered by one side of the Dáil has been altered considerably. We were treated on the last day to a great many lectures from the highest moral standpoint and to tirades by people who closed their eyes to what was going on in the country about them. There has been some change, at all events, in some parts of the Dáil in the attitude towards the Bill, but there has been no change on the part of Deputy Johnson. He has given this Bill most strenuous opposition of a fair and unfair kind from start to finish. This Dáil appointed a committee, and asked them to invite some of the most eminent doctors in Dublin to come before it and give evidence. The committee was empowered to invite those who conducted sweeps to come before it and tell how these sweeps were carried on, what was the cost of management and also what were the profits. They came before the committee, brought their books and papers, and at great inconvenience gave us all that evidence. The Committee did not exhaust one minute of the time of the Dáil in doing all that work, yet when it has all been done Deputy Johnson stands up and suggests that we should sweep it all aside. I think it is most unfair. It is entirely in the spirit of the amendment which he put down in regard to the title of the Bill. With regard to future Bills we do not propose to take up one hour of the Government's time, and that part of the opposition is not honest, for we only propose to take up the time of private members. We are not encroaching upon the Government's time, so there is no great point in that either. One witness stated that the hospital with which he was connected was in debt to the extent of £20,000, and other witnesses told similar stories with regard to their hospitals. Those people are carrying on the hospitals and doing their charitable work, taking in patients, some of them gratis and some at a small charge, a few of them taking in even members of this Dáil at low rates, and the doctors attending there, are men who give their valuable time for nothing in these hospitals.
Imagine what must be the atmosphere in a hospital having £20,000 of a debt hanging over it. Is all urgent work to be set aside and are we to get on with nothing until the elections are over? I do not wish to support gambling but I do not see why that stream should not be turned aside to support the hospitals, why it should not be allowed to bring grist to the mills of the hospitals. We were lectured here the last day on lotteries and sweeps. It is a mistake. Why should we not get money out of those things? It reminds me of a story in the Gospel. In Jerusalem there was a great difficulty in establishing the Sabbath, but then they established it so well that a man would not pull his sick cow out of a ditch on Sunday. They were rebuked. Now, you will not help the hospitals, and every day in the week you play bridge and back horses. Deputy Johnson is afraid that we will rob the poor English people with these sweeps. If he takes up the "New Leader" or any labour paper, he will find pages devoted to advertisements about the Golden Ballot, the Silver Ballot, and other kinds of ballots. There are ballots for Unionist clubs and Labour clubs. I saw where the first prize for one club is £32,000. I contend that the opposition is either mistaken or misinformed, but it is a cruel opposition. We propose that those sweeps should go on the lines that Fr. O'Nolan took in the Toome Sweep when he made £50,000, and no one was a penny the worse. Those hospitals are badly in need of money, and the money going to the book-makers may not go to those hospitals. One of our experts informed us that £100,000 could be got from those four great races. I do not know their names, but our chief Whip could give you their names. With regard to fraud, Deputy Gorey said he was over in England anl was pestered with people selling tickets. Those may not have been Irish tickets at all. He says all the money was not sent back. Fr. O'Nolan managed the Toome Sweep and said out of three million tickets sent out that there was only an allegation of fraud in 30 cases. He said that people who bought those tickets took good care that they got some proof that their money reached the right quarter. In this Bill there are provisions made to prevent fraud. Every loophole the ingenuity of the opponents of the sweep could discover was closed up. First each Deputy must be furnished with an audited statement of the condition of the hospitals. Then the hospitals must appoint a Committee of the Chief Medical Officers in Ireland, and those men will be responsible to the Minister for Home Affairs as to how the sweep is to be carried on. Regulations will be framed governing the conduct of a sweep. If a local Committee is appointed to carry on a sweep that local Committee must give all information to the Central Committee of Doctors. A full audit of all the accounts will be submitted to the Minister for Home Affairs. He has power of life and death over a sweep, and although he is not in favour of it, we are certain that if this Dáil authorises it he will give it fair play, and we are prepared to abide by any of his decisions in all points regarding the sweep. If there were any other means of getting money for the hospitals I would not propose this method. The only point against a sweep that weighed with me is whether it might not dry up subscriptions for charities. I am confident it will not. One little sweep more or less will not do us any harm. We are not going to take up the time of the Dáil further, and I think it should accept this motion.
To anyone who read the original Bill and has compared this product with it it will naturally occur to him to praise it. They have done very excellent work in transmuting a most objectionable thing into a far less objectionable thing. I am willing to pay that tribute notwithstanding that the Committee has not seen fit to pay any tribute to the help I gave. I was a member of that Select Committee and I helped it all I could by staying away. Now Deputy Sears, I think, was rather unhappy in his opening statement that those of us who in the Dáil opposed the original draft of the Sweep Stakes Authorisation Bill lectured the Deputies from a lofty standpoint of morality, and I took it down "without regard to what was going on in the country." It would seem as if the movement for the moral regeneration of the country outside was so active and so widespread in its activities that our homilies here were in some measure in competition with the practical work of moralising the people so that we were interfering with the great efforts of the nation builders. The specious argument that Deputy Sears advanced as his last word to us on the subject just now is the temptation by which the new beginner is lead along the path until he ends as a confirmed drunkard, "another little drink will not do us any harm." He said "another little sweepstake would not do us any harm." He also argued as if there was any dispute whatsoever as to the fact that the hospitals are in grave need of assistance. We have never questioned that We are quite as well disposed towards the great charities the hospitals constitute as the promoters of this Bill. We are not convinced as they are that this is the only way of getting the money that is requisite. No doubt Deputy Sears and his colleagues would denounce the high morality of John Stuart Mill who declared on one occasion that he would rather go down to hell than tell one deliberate lie for the advancement of any cause, however sacred, to which he was devoted.
Deputy Sears thinks that this is an unattainable ideal to put forward. After all what does one Commandment broken amount to? Look how many people are breaking, say, nine or ten Commandments; why leave one untouched therefore? These are very specious arguments. I recommend them for Sunday study to Sunday school children as very profitable. Now there are other ways for raising funds for the hospitals. It is a big question altogether to tell us that we must legalise schemes by which young and old, the young more particularly, should be invited to study the betting pages of the ordinary newspaper and become subscribers to the sporting papers. There are other ways.
Suggest them.
I have already made one suggestion; the great source on the Continent for getting money for municipal buildings and for a variety of things that it is not desirable to charge altogether upon the rates. It is necessary to have beautiful and extensive buildings for the city. These buildings are raised by Premium Bonds. In Belgium and France you may hear any afternoon the street-boys running along selling the "Liste Officiale." People quietly come out their shops and out of the restaurants and cafes to buy the "Official List" to see who has won the 40,000 francs. That promotes thrift——
On a point of order, may I draw attention to the fact that there is no House. We are not in Committee, and I understand that the Dáil may be counted out.
The Dáil may be counted out, except in Committee, but I believe a ruling was given that when a count was called the division bell should be rung, so that people who were in the House though not in the Chamber should be given an opportunity of attending to be counted.
A count of the House was taken.
Being satisfied on a count of the Dáil that there is not a quorum present, I declare the Dáil adjourned until Monday next at 3 o'clock.
The Dáil adjourned at 2.40 p.m. until Monday, 30th July.