I do not intend to debate it this year and only mentioned it to show that there were, at any rate, three dismissals from the Guards during the current year. Then again, as I say, we know that there were deaths, and I am perfectly certain that there must have been some resignations. The normal wastage in the Guards in a normal year used to be at the rate of something like 200 a year. In consequence, unless recruiting has been going on, as the Minister for Finance says it has not been going on, or unless it is the intention to bring in a very large draft of recruits immediately—because this is an estimate for the whole year and we are now in the month of June —unless it is the intention to bring in a very large number of recruits, then, this is obviously a completely misleading estimate which is being put before the House by the Minister. Exactly the same number of Guards is estimated for that was estimated for last year and 200 more than the year before last. There must have been wastage and, if there is to be the same number in the Guards, then it is perfectly obvious that the Minister either has been recruiting or intends to recruit and that the policy of his predecessor in title, that the Guards were to be reduced in numbers, has been completely and entirely abandoned.
But when a policy is mentioned by a member of the Executive Council in this House and that policy is abandoned, as obviously and plainly it has been abandoned unless this estimate is a document deliberately put forward to deceive—which, of course, I do not suggest for one moment—but when it has been abandoned, then, we ought to have been told and the country ought to have been told in a matter of such vital importance to the country—and everything connected with the administration of the Gárda Síochána is a matter of vital importance to the country—then, as I say, the country certainly should have been told of this change of policy on the part of the Government.
Leaving aside for a moment the question of recruiting, I would like to turn to another sphere in which the Minister for Justice has very recently shown activity. I would like to have from him some explanation of the extraordinary performance we had in appointing a Committee of Reference for the Sweepstakes after a Bill had been brought into the House to abolish the Committee of Reference. The law was that a Committee of Reference had to be appointed forthwith whenever a scheme was sanctioned. The Minister's predecessor and the Minister himself did not sanction a committee forthwith; they did not discharge their statutory duty. They sanctioned schemes and they did not carry out their statutory duty of appointing a Committee of Reference. Since the Bill was introduced to sweep away the Committee of Reference the Minister for Justice proceeded to appoint three gentlemen to a Committee of Reference. The Minister is the person who is entirely reponsible. The Minister for Finance in consultation with the Minister proceeded to appoint three gentlemen to do absolutely no work and they are to get a nice present for their services, one of them £1,000 and the other two £800 each. Why did that take place? It was not to carry out a statutory obligation. The Minister suddenly discovers that the Minister for Local Government is introducing a Bill to do away with the Committee of Reference and he then proceeds to appoint three gentlemen who are to draw good pay and do no work because, long before they could get to work, the Bill abolishing their office will become law. He gives these men a free gift of these big sums of money and, in my opinion, that is a matter on which the House and the country are anxious to have an explanation.
I now turn to what is really the most serious matter which can be discussed upon this Vote, and that is the way in which the Minister for Justice is discharging the duty imposed upon him of seeing that the law is obeyed in this State, that it is openly flouted by nobody, that it is obeyed by all. That is a duty which the Minister for Justice is shirking at the present moment. We know that there are illegal associations in this country, the I.R.A. principally, whose activities call for attention. The I.R.A. is an association which has for its aim the overthrow, not by constitutional agitation, but by force of arms, of the Constitution of the existing State here. That body has been put by the Minister above the law. The law says they shall not drill, they shall not be armed; but they drill, they arm, and they recruit as much as ever they like and there is no check or hindrance. We had a very significant thing some time ago. A firing party of these gentlemen fired over the grave at a funeral in Tipperary. I put some queries to the Minister here and I was told that the Guards were not there. I pressed the matter. I had to put down the same question three or four times until I finally wrung an answer from the Minister to the effect that the Guards could not ascertain who did the firing. That is a very strange state of affairs. Either the Guards have suddenly lost their efficiency— which I hesitate to believe—or else directly, or indirectly, whether by open order or by covert hint, it must have been conveyed to the Guards that they are to make no effort to bring I.R.A. men who break the law in that fashion to justice.
That body is recruiting all over the country. We see examples again and again of how much the heads of the Catholic Church are alarmed by the spread of this body. Repeatedly you see the bishops, who are the responsible heads here of the Catholic Church, denouncing the I.R.A. and urging young men not to become members of the association. They have been explaining to them how that association is condemned by the Church, and yet you find all over the country recruiting for that organisation, which is not only condemned by the Church, but was rendered illegal by the law of this land. You find all over the State recruiting posters put up, saying: "Join the I.R.A." tarred up. a sort of answer to the bishops to have on a convent wall in County Mayo the These gentlemen are entitled to do precisely what they like, to drill as much as they like, and the Minister for Justice will not face them. It may be that the fault does not lie completely and entirely in the Minister. It may be that the Minister might be able, if left to himself, to screw his courage to the sticking point and face them. It may be, on the other hand, that the Fianna Fáil Party is so impregnated with I.R.A. doctrines—that there are so many members of the Party either members of the I.R.A. or else closely in association with the I.R.A.—that the Minister for Justice cannot trust in the support of his own Party if he discharges the duty which is upon him and sees that that body observes the law. For all I know, that body may have got a footing in the Executive Council itself.
The Minister may have difficulties, but I say that whatever difficulties he has, he has also got a duty to the people of this country and a duty to the State. He holds a high office, and, holding a high office, he has a very heavy responsibility placed upon his shoulders. No matter what the difficulties may be, whether they come from inside his own Party or from inside the Executive Council itself, or whomever else they may come from, no difficulty will justify the Minister for Justice in allowing the law to be openly flouted as it is when an illegal and highly dangerous organisation recruits just as much as ever it wishes.