I should like to make a rather general statement to the Dáil about the situation as it stands under the recent Emergency Powers legislation. Deputies will have seen from the newspapers that yesterday those persons who were interned under the Act, some fifty in number, were released. That step was taken because, in the opinion of the Executive Council, a situation does not now exist in the country which would warrant the continued detention of persons against whom it has not been found possible to formulate any charge. About a month or six weeks ago, certain Gárda stations were raided by armed men and the unarmed garrisons were subjected to a certain amount of humiliation and injury and, in two cases, two members of the Gárda were murdered. One wonders just what the object of all that outrage was, just what was hoped to be achieved by it. If one could strike something in the nature of a national balance sheet from these occurrences, it would make sorry reading. Two young men murdered, two families stricken, the reputation of the country injured, a handle given to the many who are glad to seize on every incident of the kind to deride and defame the country. On the other side, what can be set? What useful or constructive thing can be set as against all that shame and sorrow? One cannot see it.
So far as I have been able to get information on the matter, the position was this: There is in the country this unlawful subterranean military organisation. People up and down through the country have retained a connection, an association with that organisation. That connection differed very much in degree and in reality in many cases. Some who were prominent in activities of this kind in the years 1922 and 1923 have retained a nominal connection, and, in some cases, a nominal rank in that unlawful organisation, but have been tending more and more to become entirely inactive and to accept the duties of citizenship, to obey the laws of the State. Then there is a new vintage. Young men, boys of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and seventeen years of age, seized on by propagandists, mostly feminine propagandists, are inspired to commit utterly ruthless, desperate, irresponsible actions of this kind. Amongst the fifty odd persons who were interned, I would not place very high the proportion whom we believe to have been privy to these occurrences. I would place very high, in fact I believe that the entire number had an association of greater or lesser reality with the subterranean military organisation which it is sought to continue in the country. There was pressure from below in this organisation in favour of those outrages, and there was also objection from below. The hierarchy, the so-called headquarters staff of the organisation, did a thing that is rather unusual for a headquarters staff: they authorised, as distinct from ordering, these raids on the Gárda stations.
As a result of those raids, as I say, grave injury has been done to the country, quite apart from the sorrow inflicted on the humble families to which the murdered men belonged. Yet it has been decided to release those fifty persons. As I say, I am not disposed to believe that a large proportion of that number were privy to the actual raids. I believe that all, or almost all, are still in some association with this unlawful military organisation which we know to exist.
It may be asked, and I hope will be asked, by Deputies and by people up and down through the country why the Government decided to take the step of releasing these men. I believe it will be thought—I even hope it will be thought—that we are lenient, foolishly lenient, almost criminally lenient, with those persons in the way we are dealing with the entire situation which has arisen and which necessitated this emergency legislation. These men are being released in the hope that even now the persons who have been responsible for endeavouring to maintain in the country an unlawful military organisation will realise that the continued existence of such an organisation, while it can achieve no good and no useful thing for this country and its people, can do, and is doing, serious harm. The reaction of the general public to these occurrences was good, quite good, and the action of the Dáil and the Seanad in passing in a very short space of time the legislation which was thought necessary was simply an index and a reflection of the state of public opinion throughout the country.
We are told that the excuse for these raids on stations occupied by unarmed policemen was that it was believed that in each station there was kept a large ledger, presumably with gold lettering on the outside, in which the names of persons giving information to the police would be kept, and that it was desired to consult these ledgers with a view to punitive action against the individual. I do not for a moment believe that any person, even foolish persons like those who go to make up this unlawful military organisation, believe anything of the kind. What was desired was some form of activity, some definite action, to enable them to hold their dwindling numbers together, to enable them to give those foolish young boys whom they are able to draw into the net of their organisation the belief that they were heroes and patriots doing wonderful work for the advancement of the country and its prospects. Something had to be done, and a safe thing to do was to visit in this way, armed to the teeth, these little stations occupied by four or five unarmed men. Well, they have had the experience of that, and they have seen its reaction on decent public opinion throughout the country: they have had whatever thrill and pride and pleasure it gave them to participate in activities of that kind and to murder two unarmed policemen in the course of those activities.
I wonder are they pleased with the result, and viewing the situation generally, whether they think that to persist in sporadic outrage of this kind is a course that is likely to produce any useful results in the future. It is to give them an opportunity of viewing the situation in the light of these recent occurrences that the men who were interned have been released. At any rate it cannot be said that these incidents, five or six barrack raids throughout the entire State, were seized on by the Government to give an excuse for energetic, vindictive or punitive action against any large section of persons in the country; but if there is a recurrence of outrage of this kind, if there is this challenge repeated on the physical plane—on the direct action plane— then it will be the duty of the Dáil, I submit, to consider that as a new position and to recognise the fact that there is in existence in the country an unlawful military organisation challenging the peace, stability, prosperity and good name of the country. If there is a recurrence of incidents of that kind I will have advice to give to the Dáil and proposals to make to the Dáil which are not covered by the Act which the Dáil and the Seanad passed in the course of four or five days immediately following those barrack raids.
There is one matter that I think I should refer to here. I do not know where I could refer to it more appropriately. Deputies are aware that letters which are inadequately or wrongly addressed are opened in the Post Office with a view to their return to the sender. From time to time communications have reached me that were opened in that way in the Post Office because of wrong or insufficient addresses that show an interesting fact. A certain amount of ingenuity is displayed. I got one such communication lately in an envelope bearing a date in the present month. Such a date of December, 1926, was the date of the stamp mark, and in that envelope there was a communication of a very serious nature. The date on that communication was such a date of December, 1923. In other words, in the event of that document being captured with any person or in any house it was to pass as a stale document: some remnant of "old, unhappy, far-off things and battles long ago," and the District Justice or the Circuit Court Judge who would be asked to take cognisance of that document and its contents was to so regard it. The year was 1923. It dates back prior to the Treasonable Offences Act and to the period of active civil war. Consequently, the court will not feel called upon to take very serious notice of it. Now, knowing these things and knowing the perverted ingenuity that is at work in matters of that kind, it is, I think, right that I should make public that information—that these dates are not genuine dates. Every device that could be resorted to is resorted to. The letters are not signed. They are merely initials, and the year given is 1923, when, in fact, the genuine date is in the current year.
People are endeavouring very frantically and very energetically to hold this organisation in existence—to what end? To what end is there a persistence in endeavouring to get into the country large supplies of ammunition and occasional consignments of arms? The other night, in a house on the north side of the city, close on 50,000 rounds of ammunition were discovered. Who is that ammunition to be used against? What do people responsible for endeavouring to maintain this organisation in existence, hope to gain? To put it quite crudely, who are they going to shoot and why, and to what purpose? These people talk about independence and about the sovereignty of the Irish people in Ireland, but they are the only section in the country challenging the supremacy of the Irish people in Ireland. They talk about the unity of the country. They are a most serious factor impeding the unity of the country. They talk about Great Britain as Ireland's only enemy. Ireland's only enemy at the moment is this small section of individuals in its midst who are insisting on prolonging this absurd challenge on the physical plane, on the plane of direct action. As I say, I do not want to comment now by way of criticism on what might be considered the shortcomings of a Bill which was hurriedly passed to meet a special situation, but I do say that if there is a recurrence of this particular kind of trouble I will have proposals to make to the Dáil different from those which are embodied in that Act.
The present action of turning free these men, whom we know, or at any rate believe, to be in association with an unlawful military organisation in the country, is to show that there is no tendency on the part of the Executive Council simply to seize on to these five or six barrack raids with a view of taking vindictive, punitive action on a large scale against any section of our citizens. But this challenge, this direct physical challenge, must end, and if it does not end, it will be the duty of Deputies in the Dáil, representing their constituencies as guardians of the public interest, to give their support to any and every proposal designed to end it.
There is another matter to which I wish to refer. I refer to it with deep regret and a feeling of humiliation. In one area in Co. Waterford, under the provocation of these raids, under the provocation of the murder of two of their comrades in other districts, one of whom had served in Waterford and was popular amongst his comrades in the force, the police seem to have been guilty of a deplorable abuse of authority and to have subjected to physical ill-treatment certain prisoners in their charge. When I received reports of that nature I had the matter investigated by a senior officer of the Gárda Síochána who was sent down from Headquarters to investigate these occurrences over the heads of all local officers. I have received the report of that officer, and while he found, as I suppose was natural, a certain conflict of evidence as to the degree of injury in particular cases, the broad fact is borne out by his report that occurrences of the kind I have described did undoubtedly take place.
I want to make it quite clear to the Dáil and, through the Dáil, to the people, that there is no disposition on the part of the Executive Council or any member of it to countenance or approve methods of that kind. This State can be maintained, and this State must be maintained, without resort to methods of that kind and, as the Minister responsible for the discipline of that particular force—responsible through the Dáil to the electorate—I want to say that I apologise through the Dáil to the people, as well as to the individuals who suffered injury, for this excess and abuse of authority on the part of the servants of the people.
I propose, with the consent of the Executive Council, to set up a committee to hold an inquiry into these occurrences, to fix responsibility and to make recommendations as to compensation. The compensation will be borne by the persons who are found to be responsible in each case.
