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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 7 May 1924

Vol. 7 No. 3

DISMISSED AND RESIGNED R.I.C. MEN.

I beg to move for a return showing the names of the ex-R.I.C. men who have been awarded compensation on the recommendations of the Resigned and Dismissed Committee of Inquiry, together with the names of the stations in which they were serving when they resigned or were dismissed, also the amount and nature of the compensation.

In moving the motion standing in my name, I think there is very little need for any argument. The motion is that the members of the Dáil will be supplied with a list to be prepared and laid on the Table giving the numbers of all ex-R.I.C. men resigned or dismissed who received compensation or superannuation or some remuneration consequent on their being dismissed or retiring on national grounds. Some of these men were dismissed in 1916, and a good many of them left the service in 1918, 1919, 1920 and 1921, and it is nearly time they knew where they were. They do not know whether they are to receive compensation or not. They do not know what their position is to be, and I think the Minister will agree that it is nearly time they were in a position to know what the Government intends to do with them. Speaking on the 25th March last, the Minister said: "As soon as the list of those definitely passed for compensation is available I see no reason why it should not be presented to the Dáil," and again he said: "I see nothing against it," and later on he said: "I think it should be presented when it is completed. I think it will not be very long until we have compensation awarded in all these cases." I think, taking these things into consideration, the Minister will admit that it is time these lists were laid on the Table. I, therefore, content myself with proposing the motion.

Before the Minister replies I would like if he would be prepared to say whether or not there is any possibility of cases that have not been sanctioned or passed by the Committee being reconsidered. There are a couple of cases to my own knowledge which had no fair hearing, and they have been turned down. There are probably others. I think there ought to be some way by which cases like these, which are obviously entitled to consideration, should receive the attention and consideration they deserve. They should be reconsidered. I have the case of one in particular who resigned in 1917, and since then, right up to the time when the Free State was established, the man concerned spent the most strenuous life in assisting the national movement. He is one of the men who has been turned down, and the other one is similar to this. I think it is only right that some opportunity should be given for a review of some of those cases and for the remedying of the decisions given on them.

I agree with Deputy Milroy ——

I desire to point out to the Deputy that this is a motion for a return, and that we cannot have a discussion on the operations of the Committee on that motion.

I simply wanted to say that I know of a number of similar cases to those mentioned by Deputy Milroy, and I would like to have them attended to.

Perhaps the Minister, when replying, would avail of the opportunity to explain why it is that the undertaking which he gave in the Dáil before the adjournment has not been carried out, namely, that a Supplementary Estimate would be brought in making provision for the payment of arrears to the men whose cases have been passed by the Committee, but who have not yet been paid. I have received a number of communications, some reached me as late as yesterday, from individuals stating that while their claims have been passed by the Committee they have not yet received the compensation which the Minister promised they would receive before the 31st March last. When replying to the motion perhaps the Minister would say why these men have not been paid their money.

Strictly speaking, that is another new point.

These pensions are being got through fairly rapidly now. There was a certain delay at the end of the year. I had hoped that we would have been able to get on more rapidly with them in the last week of the financial year, or in the first week of this financial year, than actually proved to be the case. The difficulty of dealing more rapidly with them arose partly owing to the fact that the men whom we wanted on this particular work were engaged on getting the Estimates into their final form for printing. However, pensions awards are being signed every day now. I sign a batch of them every morning, and they are being worked off very rapidly indeed. It will be only a very short time until they are all worked off. I think, therefore, it is not desirable that this motion should be passed now when the awards are actually made, and when the certificates of the Minister for Finance and of the Minister for Home Affairs are given, and when the majority of the cases have been dealt with. As to certificates given or refused, as the case may be, I think it would be time enough to have the return I promised the Dáil when the big majority of the cases have been dealt with, and when there is nothing remaining over only the cases in which some doubt has been raised. Then I will lay the return before the Dáil. I think it is not desirable to pass the motion in this particular form. I think that the recommendations of the Committee are not really vital. They are not matters dealt with under the Act. In fact the Committee was only part of the machinery that was set up to deal with certain cases. Its recommendations are not binding, and are not final or conclusive.

If a case were rejected by the Committee and fresh evidence turned up, it would be possible for us either to refer the case back to the Committee or to decide that the case was a clear one where a pension might be awarded in spite of the fact that the Committee, not having sufficient evidence before it, rejected that case. On the other hand, if the Committee awarded a pension in any case and fresh evidence was forthcoming, as it has been in a good many cases, to the effect that the person did not retire for the motives he alleged; then, in that case, we could refuse to grant the compensation, even in spite of the recommendations of the Committee. If it would satisfy the Deputy, I would promise that when these cases, which are now being gone through very rapidly, have been gone through to such an extent that nothing remains to be dealt with only cases in which a doubt of some sort exists, I would present a report to the House giving all the particulars asked for. Then, afterwards, when these doubtful cases have been dealt with a further report could be given.

Are we to understand from the Minister that the Committee appointed originally to deal with these cases is still in existence, and is still in a position to deal with any cases referred back to it by the Minister? Is he also aware of the fact that the President, on the Report Stage of the Superannuation Act, speaking on behalf of the Minister for Home Affairs, who was absent in the Seanad, gave an undertaking to deal with a small number of special cases which were then outstanding. In view of that undertaking I trust that the Minister will carry out the request put to him by Deputy Milroy.

The Committee can be called together again, and if there is any member of it who cannot act, I presume he can be replaced by someone else if it is necessary to do so.

Mr. HOGAN

I must confess that I do not see any reason for the withholding of the return. The Minister has not convinced me that it is not time now to tell these men who retired or were dismissed on national grounds in the years 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, and 1921, where exactly they stand. Surely, it is time that these men did get some answer from the responsible Government in this country. When a similar question was put in March last the Minister said that this return would not be withheld. Now he wants to postpone it for another period. What I want to know is what is the length of the period? In March last he did not tell us what the length of the period would be. I daresay that if the matter was raised in another month's time that he would want a further postponement, so that this matter, apparently, is to go on until Tib's eve, and these men are to be left in a position of insecurity somewhat similar to that of Mahomet's coffin. They do not know whether the Government recognise their action or not. Many of these men have no means of subsistence, and some of them were taken out of their positions. I could take this opportunity to say, if I wished, that if these men had not resigned and left the R.I.C. for national reasons, they would have been very well compensated, as those who remained in the Force were. Instead of that, they resigned their positions, and many of them joined flying columns and risked their lives to get the country out of the mess it was in then. Are they now, I ask, to be left to the wolves. They do not know where they are, and perhaps it may be twelve or eighteen months before they get the money that is being recommended for payment to them.

They are not awarded compensation until the necessary certificate has been issued by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Home Affairs, and until a calculation has been made taking into account the years of service and the actual pension fixed. Awards have actually been made only in part of the cases yet. When the awards have been made in the bulk of the cases I shall be prepared to present a report to the Dáil, but I see no reason why the return should be presented in a minority of cases which have already had their awards given them. I do not think it is necessary to publish the recommendations of the Committee. As I said earlier, the Committee had, in many cases, to work on inconclusive and insufficient evidence. I mean in a certain number of cases, and there are a certain number of cases in which its decisions could hardly stand. Perhaps it made mistakes occasionally—I could hardly call them mistakes—but its decisions were not correct in all directions. In some occasional cases men who have been awarded pensions were not recommended by the Committee owing to the fact that evidence was not put before the Committee. In other cases men were recommended by the Committee, although they should not have been, the reason being that the Committee was not able to get the full facts put before it. As I say, the recommendations of the Committee are not a final stage in the thing, and I see no reason why the list should be published at all any more than any recommendation that might be made in the course of investigation by, say, an individual officer, should be published. The final list will be the list of those awarded pensions, and I think that that should be published, and I am prepared to lay it before the Dáil immediately the main bulk of the awards have been given.

I would like to point out to the Minister that in March last I put down a question on this matter, and it was answered by the Minister for Home Affairs, who said at the time that if the majority of Deputies in the Dáil were in favour of the circulation of the report of this Committee that he would have it circulated. It struck me at that time that most of the matters dealt with in the report were ready for circulation, and I submit that as the majority of Deputies are in favour of the circulation of the report I think that course ought to be followed by the Government. Since the Minister made his statement I and other Deputies have been simply inundated with letters from these resigned men. They think it is very unfair the way in which they have been treated, and they are anxious to know what exactly their position is.

They will know it very soon, and even if we were going to publish the list of recommendations it certainly, in my opinion, would be undesirable to publish the list before the final decisions had been taken in all the cases.

Mr. HOGAN

If the Minister could give me an approximate date as to when he would be in a position to publish the final list I would be quite willing to postpone the motion. I do not want to tie the Minister to a definite date, but if he would give me an approximate date I would be satisfied.

I do not like to give an exact date, as the evidence in all cases has not yet been completed. In any case, where additional evidence was sought it has been got in, and all the material is now in the office. In every case, with the exception, I think, of about three, all that is required is simply the making of the necessary calculations in respect of the pension of each individual man and the scrutinising of figures where there seems to be a certain conflict on paper evidence. I think that all the work ought to be done within a fortnight or three weeks, and perhaps it may be done before that.

Mr. HOGAN

On the statement of the Minister I beg to ask for leave to postpone the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
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