I think the answer to Deputy Johnson is that suggested by the President. The secret service seems to me to be one of the services where you cannot very well come for a supplementary estimate. Such a course would certainly do very considerable damage. It would do damage if, in the middle of the year, the Government has to come along and say: "We want a supplementary estimate." That would stimulate a type of mischief that one would not like to have stimulated. It certainly would create a very unsatisfactory position. If this were a vote for some ordinary service, it would be a very different matter. On the information I have I would make it a few thousand pounds less. I expect there will be some saving on the £20,000. I am not estimating for, or anticipating, the expenditure of the full amount, but you must remember that anything might arise. If, last year, when we had an estimate of £35,000, we had been cut down to the narrowest margin, owing to the state of feeling that then existed, and that existed for some time after that, I would have felt very uneasy if I had not available a sum that could have been used in any way that would have been thought proper for the secret service and that would have enabled the Department of Defence and the police to meet any development that might have arisen.
The Deputy should remember that only very recently we came out of chaotic conditions, and that we still have people amongst us who have actual experience of how easy it is to create enormous trouble in the country, people who were only lately out in arms. We are not in the condition in which a country would be where nobody had any actual experience or recent experience of revolt, and where there would be a hesitation on the part of anybody, no matter how much they might be inclined to do it, to attack the State and come out into the open. Here things might come much more rapidly to a head than in a country which had come through a peaceful period. The Deputy will understand all that, and how easy it would be for a comparatively small number of determined people to give a good deal of disturbance. It could be done in various ways, and we know that there are always people advocating it. There is no doubt that the possibility of their doing anything or getting anything is very much less and the possibility of a large number of people being led by them is also getting less.
The situation is certainly improving very steadily. The possibilities of any sudden or considerable action in the nature of a revolt are getting less day by day. At the same time, one never knows what sort of temporarily unfavourable turn events might take, and we ought to be provided with the means for dealing with any such likelihood in any way that may be deemed necessary in order to secure the safety of the State. I do hope that next year we can ask for a very much lower sum; but I do not really want now to take the minimum, thus providing for no unfavourable contingency. One might have to come back to the Dáil so as to be able to provide the Minister concerned with the funds necessary to enable him to deal with any situation that would arise, and that would be required in the interests of the State.
