I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill. In doing so, I would speak for the moment merely of the legal position, which, I understand, is at present somewhat as follows. The Commissioners of Public Works, on behalf, of course, of the State, have certain rights. They have, for instance, the rights of management, and these rights, I understand, are very much the same rights that a private individual would have over a park of which he was the proprietor. As I said, I am speaking simply of the strict legal position and purely of the rights of management. They would have the right, therefore, to exclude undesirable people from the park; they would have the right of suing persons for trespass or actual damage done. They might call upon the police, or their representatives might call upon the police, to prosecute for actual breaches of the law. Now, that is so far as management is concerned. It is a different thing when you come to the question of the present existing rights, the rights, for instance, in regard to leasing or letting any particular portion of the park for any particular purpose. That power, of course, is affected by the Constitution and the Acts which follow. They have no power, naturally, of alienation or alienating any particular portion of the park. It may be that they have power to cut off certain roads from public use for a certain period of time. That is the strict limit of the legal rights of the Commissioners of Public Works. Of course the moral power to exercise any of these rights is an entirely different matter. In many cases a government, no matter what the government is, must often be slow to exercise even the strict legal rights that it possesses. It must be guided by a sense of what is proper, and also public opinion is bound to exercise a great influence over its decision. That was seen in the last century, and even in portion of the present century, in the case of the Board of Works. It was not even the strictly so-called Irish portion of the Government; it was directly under the Treasury, and yet in most cases it did act on the idea that the Phoenix Park was a public park in the sense that it was intended for the enjoyment, the recreation of the people of Ireland, and especially of the people of Dublin.
The purpose of the present Bill is to more effectively secure the enjoyment of the Park for the public. That is the significance of it. You have here something new, as it was not law in connection with the Park before. Now Section 3, sub-section (1) definitely lays it down that the Commissioners shall maintain the Park as a public park for the general purpose of the recreation and enjoyment of the public, and may maintain a particular portion of the Park for any special purpose for which the same or other portion of the Park has been hitherto used for such like purpose as the Minister shall sanction. That is not a mere pious expression of opinion. It means that when an application is made to the Commissioners of Public Works, their guiding rule must be in the acceptance of that principle. For instance, if an application is made that a certain portion of the Park be set aside for a certain purpose, they must be guided in their decision on that matter by the general principle, namely, the keeping of the Park as a place of public amusement and recreation.
The enjoyment of the Park by the public must, therefore, be the first consideration. You have a similar provision regulating Stephen's Green, in the Stephen's Green Act. That, for instance, would decide the Commissioners if a proposal were made that various erections might be put up—statuary, monuments, and so on—in Stephen's Green. If that would unduly interfere with the enjoyment of Stephen's Green by the public, undoubtedly the Commissioners would be bound to reject a proposition of that kind. The Bill, in its efforts better to secure the continued enjoyment of the Park by the public, falls into two parts, so to speak, in that connection.
I mentioned a few moments ago Stephen's Green Park. There is, of course, this difference, even so far as the public is concerned, between the Phoenix Park and Stephen's Green Park: in the case of the Stephen's Green Park, a number of the things allowed in the Phoenix Park must be excluded. The Park in Stephen's Green is a place where people may go to enjoy the air, the music, the flowers, and so on; but games obviously cannot be played there. That is not so in the case of the Phoenix Park. It has been the custom, in connection with the Phoenix Park, that certain games can be allowed there. Horses can be trained; football, hurling, cricket, and polo can be played, and in winter time there is sometimes skating. There are certain portions of the Park set apart for this particular purpose. It only requires a moment's consideration to see that if certain portions of the Park are set apart for football, there must be, to a certain extent, an exclusion of the general public from these particular portions. The idea is that the Park shall be used, not merely as a recreation ground in the more general sense where people may enjoy the air or take walks, but that it shall also be used as a recreation ground in the sense of providing playing-grounds for the great bulk of the people of Dublin.
A certain amount of local exclusion is in that sense necessary. It would not be right to allow horses to be exercised over the football grounds when a football match is actually being played, say, on the public football grounds there. When a football match is in progress on the public grounds I am speaking of now: during that time the public must be excluded from those particular football grounds. Hence it has been the custom to make leases and lettings in the Park. These leases and lettings are of two kinds, one of which gives the exclusive use of a certain portion of the Park to certain clubs. Anybody who has been in the Park will have seen instances of that. The other is of the more general type, such as the public football grounds that I mention. Generally speaking, the exclusive use of a particular ground is given to a club for a period of the year. So far as that power is concerned, it has been used with considerable discretion in the past. It is probable the Commissioners have come in for more criticism over their failure to make use of their powers in this connection rather than their too great readiness to set apart portion of the Park for various purposes. In this Bill power is given to the Commissioners, acting under the authority of the Oireachtas, and incidentally more immediately under the authority of the Minister, to make lettings for this purpose. For instance, a demand was put up quite recently for a public athletic training ground. If I recollect aright, it was referred to in the House on the occasion of last year's estimates. It may be taken for granted that in the future, even more than in the past, power of this kind will only be used with the greatest hesitation; that is, any encroachment on the use of the Park by the general public will, at all times, be granted only in very exceptional cases.
The other purpose of the Bill is to give permission or authority to the Commissioners to make bye-laws for the preservation of order in the Park and to see that the ordinary public can enjoy the Park without unduly having their rights interfered with, or their amenities disturbed, by the thoughtless and the unruly. Those bye-laws will be submitted, as the Bill lays it down, to the Oireachtas. It is definitely laid down in Section 10 that every bye-law shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. It enables also penalties for the breach of these bye-laws to be determined. There is a need of having some such power. You have it practically in every other Park. You have it in the case of Stephen's Green, and all the public parks in England and in Scotland. The need for this has been recognised for the past 50 years in the case of the Phoenix Park. Actually the Irish Executive never found time to put a Bill through the English Parliament to secure that power.
Very often the existence of these bye-laws is in itself quite sufficient. Only very rarely, for instance, in the case of the Stephen's Green Park, is it necessary to propose that the penalty shall be enforced. Generally it is sufficient for one of the guardians of the Park to bring an alleged offender to the place where the bye-law is displayed and point out to him that he is guilty of a breach of the bye-law. Generally speaking, the matter ends there. The existence very often of these bye-laws, with appropriate penalties, is sufficient to secure the purpose. In that connection it will be seen that we claim, under this Bill, as little as possible. Any interference with the individual; any interference there is, is, of course, in the interests of the general public.
There is one matter that may possibly give rise to a certain amount of doubt, and it might be no harm to have an expression of opinion on this particular point, namely, the power claimed by the Commissioners on certain occasions to close the Park altogether and to charge a fee for admission. Take a concrete case, to make it clear. When the Motor Union was anxious to get the permission of the international body which controls motor racing to have one of the races held here in Dublin, the only enclosed space in which they could reasonably be expected to hold it was in the Phoenix Park. They then made a suggestion that they should be allowed to hold the races in the Phoenix Park, but they pointed out that in order to make the races a success and in order to fall in with the conditions laid down by the body having control of international motor racing, that they would have to put up prizes of a considerable amount. They would also have to undertake rather elaborate arrangements in the way of fencing off certain roads. They calculated that in doing that they would have to incur considerable expense, and they held if they could not be given the power, if the Board of Public Works had not the authority to give it to them, or having the authority, would not give it to them, they could not make up the necessary sum. The only way they could raise all that sum would be from gate money. I am not speaking personally on the subject of whether or not if the Commissioners of Public Works had the power they should exclude the public even for a purpose of that kind. There would be no private gain, but I think the policy would be open to question as to whether they could exclude the public and charge for admission even if they had the power. The Bill now suggests that it should be left to the good sense of the Government to give this power in the occasional cases which may be necessary. I think I have dealt with the general scheme of the Bill and I move that it be read a second time.