I rise to raise a question in reference to a query I had on the Order Paper to-day relative to the treatment of prisoners in Mountjoy Prison. I asked the Minister for Justice to state fully the facts in reference to the treatment of the prisoners in Mountjoy Jail who have been kept in solitary confinement for various periods during the last six months, and in particular to state the exact details as to the treatment of Aidan Sweeney, Patrick McGuinness, Seán Russell, George Mooney, and David Fitzgerald, giving also the ages and condition of health as reported by the Medical Officer of the Prison in each of these latter cases. To that I got a reply from the Minister in which statements are made which, on the information I have, I cannot accept as correct. The Minister, for instance, says that no prisoner has been kept in solitary confinement in Mountjoy during the last six months, and he goes on to describe the state of health of these five prisoners and in one or two cases where I am informed that the parties mentioned are not, to put it mildly, in good health, the answer of the Minister describes their health as good. My information, and I think it is reliable information, is that some of those prisoners have been kept in solitary confinement for a period of 140 days; that they have not been allowed out of their cells except to go to Mass on Sundays, to confession some day in the week and to leave the cell for other purposes that can be readily understood. I made inquiries from a relative of one of these prisoners—this prisoner is a young man whom I do not know personally. I know his father and he has informed me that his boy is in solitary confinement. That boy is in solitary confinement because first of all he refused to allow himself to be treated as a convict or to mix with convicts.
He demanded, and his colleagues also demanded, that they and those who, like him, claim to be political prisoners and to be imprisoned for political offences, assert that they are entitled to political treatment. They claim that they should not be asked to associate with people who are in prison for purely criminal offences. The father of this boy, in a letter, tells me that his son was sent into the tailor's shop and was put to work alongside of a man who is in prison. I do not know for what term this particular man is in prison, but I know certainly that he is in prison for offences that in most countries are regarded as very heinous offences, and particularly so in Ireland. These offences are regarded, at any rate, as offences of so serious a nature that boys should not be asked to work with them or to be brought in close contact with individuals charged with such offences. There is a certain doctor—I do not know much about the case, but the father of the boy tells me that the boy knew the charges on which this doctor was convicted. His father was told that his boy was asked to work alongside this man in the tailor's shop. The boy felt very indignant at being asked to work with such a man, or to be brought into association with a prisoner who had the record that this particular doctor had. This doctor was arrested somewhere in Pearse Street some months ago. Those who read the Dublin newspapers will probably remember the charges brought against him. The same applies to another of these men who was sent into a shop and asked to associate with that prisoner, and with prisoners of a similar type, at any rate, with people who are criminals. Those men claim that they are political prisoners and that they are in jail for political offences. On general grounds I think that our treatment of prisoners, our treatment even of people convicted of offences that are not regarded as political, is not what it ought to be in the Free State area. Perhaps if I enlarge on that you will call me to order. I will, therefore, say no more on that subject for the moment. I do not think that we are treating our prisoners as they ought to be treated, that is, if we bear in mind the fact that we ought to reform and improve their character and conduct. Outside of that, however, I do not think that other prisoners of the type of these five men about whom I asked a question to-day should be treated as common criminals. The Minister may say, and he has said it before, and others occupying similar positions to the Minister have said that there is no such thing recognised in the Free State as political prisoners. That may be so, but I remember that not so long ago—the Minister may not know it and has no experience of it, but his colleagues do—when a great fight was put up by the Minister's colleagues and other prisoners in Ireland, they got political treatment from the British Government. That treatment was won, and won more than once, by Irish political prisoners. Special treatment was accorded to men who were in prison for political crimes.
Prisoners claimed that treatment and they were segregated from the ordinary criminals. These five are men that one could not charge with being criminals in the accepted sense of the word. I know the father of one of these prisoners. I know another of the prisoners and I know him to have been in the Irish Republican movement perhaps as long as I have. He is not quite my age but he has been in the movement for a very long time. He is known to the majority of the members of the Executive Council. They know what his character is. They know that though he is in prison that he is not a criminal: I know the members of the Executive Council would confirm that statement. Yet they insist on treating him as a criminal and putting him to work in the workshop with men of the vilest character. That is not good enough. Some of the colleagues of the Minister for Justice know what prison treatment is here. The Minister, himself, has not had that experience. The Minister's education has been sadly neglected in that way. However perhaps there is a good time coming. But his colleagues know a good deal about them. I think they ought to be the last people to condemn some of these men or give them the treatment they are now meting out to them. After all, we have got to bear in mind this fact that the so-called crimes for which some of these men are now in prison are things that were preached to them by persons of responsibility in the country, by persons who to-day are members of the Executive Council of the Free State. They were told in season and out of season to do the very things for which they are now ordered by the same individuals to associate in workshops with the lowest and the vilest of humanity, as far as we can find such inside the Free State area and inside Free State prisons. We know that Ministers on the other side have changed their politics, but if they wish to change the people to whom they preached that gospel for so many years it certainly cannot be done in a day or in a year. The violent doctrines that in some cases they preached so long and so persistently cannot be eradicated all at once from the minds of these people. The gospel they preached entered into the minds of young and old people, people who are not as quick to change as some of the Ministers who preached it. These people were taught to carry arms, to get them wherever they could and store them and use them. They were taught that by the Minister's colleagues. I am not accusing the Minister of preaching those doctrines, but his colleagues preached them for years in season and out of season.
I know the father of one of these boys. He was in prison with President Cosgrave, with the Minister for Defence and with others who sit alongside and behind the Minister for Justice. He was in prison for putting into practice the gospel that was preached by the President, by the Vice-President and other colleagues of the Minister for Justice. While these people have not changed certain Ministers have. These people have kept on to the gospel that was preached to them.
The main burden of our story here is that these people ought not to be treated as low-class criminals. If the Ministry desire to change them, then this is the wrong way to go about it. The very worst way to go about it is to degrade these men in their dignity as men and as citizens. That is what is being done. You are throwing these men into association with the lowest and the vilest scum of humanity, so far as you can get such types in the Free State. Having done that, you expect them to come out afterwards and respect law and authority. That is the treatment these men are getting because they have obeyed the gospel and the teaching of the Minister's colleagues. In yesterday's "Irish Independent" I read an account given by a distinguished medical man in the Free State who recently while in America visited some of the prisons there. He told of how the ordinary convicts in American prisons that he visited are treated. The men he referred to are not men who claim any particular privilege as political prisoners. They are ordinary convicts. In the course of his lecture he said:
The New Castle Co. Workhouse (Jail) is the official name of the State Penitentiary of Delamare... Here, he said, is none of that forbidding gloom of exterior that bids the prisoner abandon hope; no spiked walls, nor armed guard, nor rogue's livery to mark the criminal in his own and others' eyes. The prisoners wear the clothes of an ordinary citizen, and there is no boundary wall or line of demarcation whatever. The neighbouring farms are separated only by hedges; the prisoners move about in a free and easy fashion, and when not at work, can smoke and chat and laugh in perfect freedom.
At the end of the report of the lecture there is a note that is very appropriate. It is that "Mr. H. O Frighil, Secretary to the Department of Justice, represented the Minister." I hope he gave his approval also representing the Minister to the type of treatment that is meted out to the prisoners there. I do not know that that account is typical of America. Being interested in the subject of penitentiaries and criminology, I visited some prisons not only in America but in other countries. I saw in different prisons in some of the States of America where efforts were being made on the lines described in that lecture. In all cases, there was an effort to try to remove from the minds of those unfortunately enclosed in these places ideas usually associated with convicts and prisons. There was an effort to try and reform the individuals and make them better citizens. That applies to ordinary convicts. While I suppose it would be a good thing if we could improve our prison system, so far as ordinary convicts are concerned, we ought not to treat men who have good national records, excellent records in some cases of work done for the nation, as low-class criminals. A man like Seán Russell could stand up as a citizen and be honoured in any assembly in Ireland for his work for the Irish nation and for Irish freedom. No one in this House could throw a stone at him. Neither he nor those associated with him should be treated as low-class criminals, and that is what is being done under the orders of the Minister. I know what his record has been. I cannot speak of the records of all these men, but I know that Aidan Sweeney, if he is anything like his father, must be a good type.
There is no Prisons Board now, and the Minister is directly responsible for all that happens in the prisons. Perhaps it is that he is not cognisant of all that happens inside these prisons. In case he is not, we have raised this matter to bring to his notice what is going on. We say that it is not to his credit, that it is not to the credit of the present Ministry, either collectively or individually, that it is not to the credit of the Free State that citizens such as some of those to whom I have referred should be asked to associate with low-class criminals, should be locked up for a period of 140 days in jail without liberty and without being able to take exercise because they refused to work with these low-class people. That is not good enough treatment for them, and against it we protest.
