I propose to allow Deputy Aiken to explain the subject of which he has given notice.
ADJOURNMENT DEBATE. - COMPENSATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND.
I have explained several times to the President and to the House. I want to know what steps the President has taken, or what steps he intends to take, to secure that people who suffered very severely in the Six Counties in the fight for Irish freedom should get adequate compensation.
Before I answer the Deputy I would direct the attention of the Dáil, first of all, to the question which Deputy Aiken put this afternoon and which I answered, but he said that that was not a straight answer to his question. The question was answered very directly, and now we have simply a question as to what steps I took or propose to take in the matter. The question raised is, as I say, what steps I took or intend to take to have adequate compensation awarded to Northern Nationalists who suffered the loss of their homes and property without compensation, in consequence of operations carried out in Northern Ireland under the authority of the first and second Dáil. This question immediately raises another, and it is, what steps it is now, or was at any time since I took office, within my power to take to have compensation awarded to anybody in the Six County area. I have already explained that, so far as compensation for damage to property in Northern Ireland is concerned, it is on an entirely different footing from the position here. In Northern Ireland compensation was based upon the Criminal and Malicious Injury Code, which included the Criminal and Malicious Injury Acts of 1919 and 1920. In Sáorstat Eireann these Acts were repealed. In so far as our citizens were concerned, the result of what we have done by the repeal of these Acts and by subsequent legislation was twofold. In the first place we provided for what we regarded as a more equitable method of arriving at the amounts to be awarded, and, in the second, we took over from a charge upon the several local authorities concerned the collection and payment of awards and placed them upon the State as a whole.
The laws in Northern Ireland govern the payment of compensation in Northern Ireland. At no time since I took office was it within my competence to introduce legislation to amend the law in Northern Ireland. Before the Treaty negotiations opened there was a separate Parliament functioning in Northern Ireland. That Parliament is still there and, whether it deals equitably as between its citizens or not, is not a question for me to decide or for this House to debate. There is a place in which that can be debated, and that is in the Northern Parliament of which one of the Deputy's colleagues is a member. The particular cases with which the Deputy is troubled are, I gather, cases which do not come within the present scope of the Northern Ireland compensation code. We had to arrange a special extension of the Shaw Commission terms to enable them to be brought within its competence here, but if we did, we footed the bill. So much for the question of legislation.
Now in regard to representations, there is scarcely any matter affecting the welfare of Northern Nationalists that was not at some time or other between 1922 and 1925 made the subject of representations generally by members of the Government here. Certain cases of the type referred to by the Deputy were brought to my notice long ago. I asked a deputation which brought these cases to my notice to let me have a complete brief on the cases; to get an organised effort made to have the facts collected in every case. That was not done. Even if it were, quite clearly the only action I could take would be to make representations. In the fairly numerous meetings which I and others of my colleagues had with Northern Ministers and with British Ministers during the years from January, 1922, to 1925, this matter of compensation was amongst the matters upon which unsuccessful representations were made. And let us be quite clear about this: that any representations I made could only be made by the courtesy of those to whom I made them. I had no judicial right to act as the spokesman of any body of persons who were not citizens of Saorstát Eireann.
Whether this question of compensation was raised at the time of the 1925 conversations I cannot remember. I rather think not. Matters of wider import were under consideration at the time, and I remember we were taxed upon our return with having failed to secure accommodation. My answer then was, and it is my answer to-day, that accommodation could only be secured for them in the way accommodation was secured here for minorities. I pointed out that with the four parties then in this House it was a question of putting their case before this House and getting fair play from us on it. I said that if the Nationalists of the North attended the Northern Parliament in the same spirit, if they made their case and were refused justice, then it would be time enough for them to say that there had been no success. Has this been done? Have the Deputies' colleagues in the Northern Parliament gone in there and made their case? They have not. In conclusion I want to say that while I have the greatest sympathy with the sufferers to whom the Deputy refers, there is no way in which I can help them. There are many citizens of ours who have suffered also for their actions in those troubled periods and suffered in directions which are outside the scope of compensation measures—consequential losses, for example. The people of Saorstát Eireann have paid in full the compensation payable for damage done within the Twenty-Six Counties; it would neither be equitable nor feasible to ask them to pay for damage which was done by others in an area outside their jurisdiction.
In the year 1919 the people of Ireland selected a body of representatives, and the area of jurisdiction of those representatives was the whole thirty-two counties of Ireland. President Cosgrave was one of those who asked the people of the whole thirty-two counties to support the Government then elected by the people in securing the freedom of the whole thirty-two counties from foreign rule. In the course of the war that the Irish people waged in defence of their right to be free from foreign aggression and to rule themselves as other peoples rule themselves, many people, North and South, suffered, and suffered severely. The area of jurisdiction of the Government of the Republic was the whole of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. President Cosgrave has responsibility for everything that happened then in the whole thirty-two counties. He cannot come now, eight years after he urged the whole people of Ireland to wage a war to drive the British out, and say he has no responsibility for what happened in the Six Counties. When he urged the Irish people to fight the British from 1919 to 1922 in my village, Camlough, County Armagh, we were urged by President Cosgrave and many members on the opposite benches to wage a war in order to drive the British people out of our country. As a consequence of the war many people in the village of Camlough were burned out. I think about twelve houses in that village, which contained-no more than eighteen houses, were burned. That happened in 1920. Six of the houses were adjacent to the barracks, which were attacked, and the British military authorities claimed that the houses had been used for the purpose of covering fire and supporting the attacking party, and they claimed that it was necessary from a military point of view to destroy these houses. Owing to the claim which the British military authorities put forward in the courts, no compensation was awarded in these cases. These people suffered, as I say, because of the war which we waged on the British at the instigation of President Cosgrave, and many others like him, who were fired at the time with enthusiasm to free their country.
We claim that these people have a right to be compensated by any section of the Irish nation that has the power to compensate them. President Cosgrave comes here and he says, to use his own words: "The proposal that an all-round increase of 10 per cent. should be made in the awards under the Damage to Property Act, 1923, was mine." President Cosgrave wants us to believe that he went over to London in 1925, and, without being asked, he insisted that Clause 4 should go into the London Agreement, and as a consequence of his insistence, according to himself, on putting in that clause the Irish people in the Twenty-Six Counties have had to pay an increased compensation of £270,000 up to date. He says no one asked him to do that. He even admits that: "In a very small number of cases the addition of 10 per cent. brought the total payment to a figure exceeding the amount of the original debts." Many Southern Unionists whose homes were burned out after July, 1921, received more than they claimed. I maintain that if President Cosgrave had £270,000 of the Irish people's money to burn, or part with, that he should also have a few thousand pounds to burn or to spend in compensating the people in the North who suffered the total loss of their property, because of the urging of himself and his comrades to fight the British. These urgings on the Irish people who lived in the Six Counties to oppose English rule in Ireland did not end on 11th July, 1921, when the Treaty came. In the Treaty was Clause 12, under which many of the Deputies and their supporters on the Government Benches thought the Irish people had a way of achieving their right to rule themselves, to rule every sod of Ireland, and they asked the Irish people to support them in bringing the Treaty into effect on the plea that by the operation of Clause 12 Ireland would be made one. Michael Collins, who was then the chief spokesman in favour of the Treaty, said:
"Our claim was clear. Majorities must rule, and in any map marked on that principle we secure immense anti-partition areas. If we go by counties, anti-partition has a clear majority in two of the six. Under other headings anti-partition gains much in Down, Derry and Armagh. These are facts, and we can only come to an agreement with Craig and the British on a recognition of these facts."
Again, on February 5th, he said:
"Under the Treaty Ireland is about to become a fully constituted nation. The whole of Ireland as one nation is to compose the Irish Free State. That is the whole basis of the Treaty. It is the bedrock from which our status springs."
I believe that when Michael Collins said that he meant it, and that Michael Collins meant to say that, so far as in his power lay, Clause 12 would be put into operation, as he meant it to be put into operation, and as Lloyd George, Birkenhead, and Churchill promised it would be put into operation in order; when the Boundary Commission would be set up, that Craig and the Unionists in the Six Counties would not have consolidated their grip on the Nationalist portion of the Six Counties. The Nationalist population in the Six Counties were urged to resist Craig and his followers digging themselves in in Nationalist portions, particularly in South Armagh, South and East Down, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Derry and Derry City. The people, as I say, were urged to resist Craig digging himself in. The Volunteers in that area were urged to support the people in their resistance. The County Councils were urged by President Cosgrave and his colleagues to refuse to give recognition to the right of the Unionists in the Six Counties to control Nationalist areas. Teachers were told to refuse payment from the Northern Government, and were actually paid out of the funds of the Second Dáil in 1922. Members and servants of county and local councils were also urged to do all in their power to resist Craig and his followers in securing a grip that could not be shaken when the Boundary Commission came to report. As I have said, the Irish Volunteers or the Irish Republican Army were told to do all in their power to support civilians in their resistance to Craig and his Specials. I was an officer of the Irish Republican Army in the Six County area. Portion of my area—the area of the fourth Northern division — was Armagh Down, South Down and portion of West Down and North Louth. As a result of the endeavours of Craig and his Specials to drive the people out we waged war on Craig's Specials. We did so under the authority of, and on the instructions of, the Minister for Defence in the Second Dáil up to the time of the attack on the Four Courts. Deputies saw the other day the report that there was a certain number of rifles concealed in Belfast. Those rifles, I am sure, were the rifles that were delivered in Belfast by myself and volunteers under me in May and June of 1922. I mention those facts to show that we had the authority of the Second Dáil for the actions we took in trying to secure the utmost for the Irish people under Clause 12 of the Treaty —what Collins promised them under Clause 12 of the Treaty. In one case, as a result of the terrorism of Craig's Specials, we had to take action against the Specials. I will just read for the House the statement of James McGuill, Dromintee.
Might I ask, sir, is this in order? This matter which the Deputy is describing is outside the area of our jurisdiction.
It was not outside the area of your jurisdiction at the time.
Let us hear the President on the point of order.
No such action as the Deputy has stated was authorised either by the Second Dáil or the Provisional Government.
This is a very awkward discussion for you.
We are prepared to meet it.
The question raised was the question of compensation. Deputy Aiken has taken some little time to come to the matter of compensation. I would like to remind him of the form the discussion has taken. He asked a question, and he is now making a speech. Time will have to be provided before nine o'clock for a reply to the Deputy's speech.
I will conclude in a few minutes.
The Deputy should come to the point of compensation, and in doing so he will have to keep to the question as to whether the President has any power to make representations—that is the word I think—as to whether the President can take any action to remedy a particular set of circumstances.
I claim that as James McGuill, Dromintee, was burned out following military action taken——
When?
On the 17th June, 1922.
I deny absolutely any responsibility on the part of either the Second Dáil or the Provisional Government in respect of that particular act.
Will the President listen to proof?
No. There is no proof. I was a member of both the Second Dáil and the Provisional Government, and the Deputy cannot prove to me, as he was not a member of either, that what he says is the truth.
Mr. BOLAND
Perhaps the Minister for Local Government might tell us something about it?
He could tell you a lot.
Mr. O'SULLIVAN
He might tell you too much.
Let us keep to the question of compensation. If we were debating the question of compensation to persons who suffered loss at the hands of British forces previous to the Truce there would appear to be some relevancy in this—I am not saying what exactly the relevancy is— but in a matter that occurred in June, 1922, in an area outside our jurisdiction and under another Government, we are treading upon different ground. I am not admitting for a moment that this discussion is to be a precedent, but I do want to hear what the Deputy has to say. He has only a short time to go, and I ask him to come to the question of compensation.
I claim that these people were burned out as a result of action taken by the Irish Republican Army under the authority of the Second Dáil and that they are entitled to compensation by this Assembly, seeing that the President and his party claim that this Assembly is the legal descendant of the Second Dáil.
Does the Deputy claim it?
No. I deny it absolutely.
Then, where is his case?
I claim that if there was £270,000 to burn, these people should have received some compensation. I claim this much: that those who secured the support of the Irish people for the Treaty have a duty to perform in seeing and in forcing President Cosgrave and his friends on the front bench to provide adequate compensation for these people. There are people here on the opposite benches who secured the support of the young men of Ireland for the Treaty on the plea that they would get freedom for all Ireland—for the thirty-two counties. Men were killed in different districts in carrying out their instructions, and they should press President Cosgrave now to see that the people who suffered, seeing that it is in their power to compensate them, are compensated.
The President in reply to Deputy Aiken, referred to me because, I think, I am the only person here who does represent a Northern constituency. It was suggested that I should represent them in the Six County Parliament. My answer to that is that I was not elected to do anything of the kind. I was elected not to go to that Parliament, and the people who elected me know full well that it is no use for them—the Nationalists there —while they are a hopeless minority, to make representations in the Six County Parliament to get any compensation for the losses they suffered in the period 1919-1922. I say that these people have been very shabbily treated. There is probably no part of Ireland where those who engaged in the fight for Irish independence ran such risks as they did in the North. Here we were in the midst of a sympathetic population. Up there they were in the midst of a hostile population. Then again, when the Treaty became the policy of the majority here——
Mr. O'SULLIVAN
You did not accept it?
We did not accept it because we saw the consequences of it, and we are trying now to do our best to save the country from the consequences of it, and we hope to do it what is more.
Let us keep to the point about compensation.
I will try to. When this Treaty became the policy of the majority here—I take it it was the policy of the majority, and I am taking it here that it is the policy of the majority—they held out to the Nationalists of the Northern area that as a result of the operation of Article 12 the wishes of the inhabitants would be consulted, and that as a consequence there would be no partition—that the area cut off would be so small that the Northern Parliament could not carry on. But when it came to the question afterwards of the Commission they did not press to have the wishes of the inhabitants ascertained.
That is not true.
It was not done anyhow.
It was pressed all right.
It was pressed, I dare say, in the same way that apparently their rights were pressed for compensation. When there was a call by the majority for troops for the Free State Army they got probably from that area a greater proportion of young men than they got relatively elsewhere. I remember when I was in Arbour Hill Barracks, a prisoner, most of the young men who were guarding me were from the Northern area. They told me themselves that they had come in because they believed that as a result of the Treaty partition was going to be put an end to. On the point about compensation, I say that we have a duty here. If compensation cannot be got in the Six Counties for these people, I say that we have a duty to provide for them here.
I go further and say that if we here were as anxious about our friends and as careful of their interests as the British were about their friends, we would not have much trouble in this country. The British, when clearing out of the parts of this country which they have left, took mighty good care that their friends were not going to be let down, and any compensation it was possible to get for these friends they got. We have the President of the Executive Council going over and apparently volunteering to put into this supplementary agreement an article which provided for an increase of 10 per cent. in the compensation to be paid to these people. If you look at this agreement, you will find that one of the parties to it is the Premier of the Six Counties, Sir James Craig.
Is there going to be any allowance of time for an answer to these statements?
I am practically finished. I say this—that this was evidently the exact time that a demand for compensation should be made. The President of the Executive Council said just now that this was a matter of courtesy. Is it a matter of courtesy when we have a signed document to which Sir James Craig is a party?
This has been a most irregular proceeding. I was asked a question about the 10 per cent. compensation, to which I gave a perfectly straight answer. The Deputy had——
rose.
Does the Deputy say it was not a straight answer? If he does, he will waken up to-morrow and find it was. The Deputy then raises a question in the House, utters a sentence, and gets an explanation from me. Then he comes along with two speeches—one from his leader and one from himself. The fact of the matter is that none of the county councils in the Six Counties attorned to the Dáil during the period pre-Truce. My business as Minister for Local Government—I gave up military activities many years ago—was to look after the interests of the ratepayers and of the county councils. During the period I was Minister for Local Government I practically committed myself to ensuring that as far as we could possibly manage, the liability in respect of the Criminal and Malicious Injuries Code would not fall on our people. I carried that out, and no such liability fell on our people in respect of the Criminal and Malicious Injuries Code. It was taken over by the State. That was not the case in Northern Ireland, and the councils there did not attorn. They may have attorned afterwards, but in April, 1922, I advised that those of them which had attorned after the Treaty or during the period of the Truce—looking back on it, it appears to me now to have been a breach of the Truce—to apply for reinstatement and to acknowledge the Northern Government. I gave that advice with the authority of General Collins, after consulting other people whose advice would be of service in this connection. The case was not an honourable case, having made the Treaty, to have that sort of thing going on as regards the area of the Six Counties. When the Deputy says that I advised those people to go out and fight he is speaking, of course, of me in my collective capacity as a member of the Dáil. The same thing might be said of all the other members.
Of President's Griffith's administration.
My particular sphere of activity then was Local Government. Though it is now many years afterwards, and though that advice was given in difficult times, I fancy the advice I tendered was very sensible. An incident which happened in 1920 is reported here in 1927. The Deputy is probably one of those who went to the Shelbourne Hotel Parliament in 1925. That was a matter which could easily have been raised there. As a matter of fact, it was raised by Deputy Morrissey and if the Deputy reads the account of it he will find that I put up there the case that I have put up here—that we have met our liability for damage, that this is a liability in respect of another Government, that no case has been put up in the Parliament of that other Government in respect of compensation, and that it is nonsense to come here and say we should, out of our bounty, do this. No authority was given by the Second Dáil or by the Provisional Government for any military activities in Northern Ireland after the Treaty. I was a member of that Government. (Interjection by Deputy Aiken.)
The Deputy has made a simple statement, and the President has a right to make a statement in reply.
What about the rifles?
I am answering the Deputy, and I am answering him with responsibility, as one who was a member of the Provisional Government and a member of the Dáil Cabinet, with knowledge of the matter, and having had examined all the records during the last two or three weeks in connection with it.
Who was responsible for the trouble on the Border?
The President has a right to state what he thinks is true—the same right as any other Deputy. That right must be vindicated. Let us be quite clear about that.
I state not alone what is true but what I have verified and what is in accord with my distinct recollection. Surely, I am a man of sense, having had a lot of experience of administration. I was present at every meeting of the Provisional Government, with the exception of the meetings during one month when I was ill. I have had the records examined and there was no authority given for any attack on Northern Ireland. I repudiate and deny any such statement and I say that it is an untrue statement.
I would suggest to the President that it could not be on the records.
The Deputy spoke, and his colleague behind him, Deputy Aiken, spoke. It is no affair of mine for the Deputy to say that he was elected not to sit. Surely we have had enough of that farce. The exact time to have this matter raised, as I have said, was the time when Deputy Morrissey raised it, and he got his answer. There is no truth—not a scintilla of truth—in the statement that the Provisional Government or the Dáil Cabinet authorised or sanctioned or would even have condoned any attack on Northern Ireland.
Will the President listen to proof?
The county councils were urged by me to attorn in April, and—it may be an irregular thing for me to say—I am fairly well satisfied the Ceann Comhairle was present in the room at the time.
Could one of your Minister have gone behind the backs of the Cabinet?
I am dealing with the charge against the Government. I was most interested to hear Deputy Aiken quote the late General Collins. This is like many another incident that occurs in a Parliament. This, in my opinion, is not a means of helping the people in question. There are means of helping them.
Hear, hear.
And the Northern Parliament is the place. We have borne our own compensation here and it is no part of our business to bear the cost in another place. I have already explained about the 10 per cent., but I have very little hope of convincing the Deputy. As I have said before, people make responsible statements. I have made responsible statements regarding the 10 per cent. and I stand over them. I might go further and say that alternative suggestions, with reference to the 10 per cent., were made to me which I did not accept. If the Deputy wishes to have any further information with regard to the 10 per cent., I can tell him that there is one firm which has re-started business and got the 10 per cent., and it has been secured under a guaranteed loan for practically half the compensation that was awarded. I had many representations, notwithstanding the wrong statement made by Deputy Aiken that, by having no representations made to me, this 10 per cent. was added. I had many representations from persons whose property was destroyed in O'Connell Street, and I think this comes very badly from people who were so indifferent to the sufferings of our own nationals at that time. We are great fellows when we want to make a parade of sympathy for these people in the North. It is not a parade of sympathy that is wanted, but it is business. Go to the Northern Parliament and make the case there.
The Dáil adjourned at 9 o'clock until Friday at 12 noon.