I move: That the Bill do now pass.
Wearing of Uniform (Restriction) Bill, 1934—Fifth Stage.
At this stage of the Bill it is, perhaps, too much to hope that anything very new can be said. But the two features of the debate, so far, that have struck me most foreibly have been the complete failure of the Government to show, otherwise than by bare assertion, that there was any danger in the Blue Shirt movement, or anything improper about the Blue Shirt organisation; and their equal failure to show that there was not in existence a state of things for which the Blue Shirt movement was required as an antidote. I opened this debate on as conciliatory a tone as I possibly could, and I made a speech that was almost as much a speech against militarism in general as against this actual Bill. Let me say that I do not think that if the Government wanted to promote militarism in this country they could do a better stroke for that cause than by bringing in this Bill and forcing it through the House in the way they are doing. There has been no response from the Government side to the attempt to deal with this subject in a reasonable and conciliatory manner. The Deputy who immediately followed me in the debate had hardly got on his legs when, without a scintilla of evidence or even the pretence of a scintilla of evidence, he proceeded to make the offensive accusation that this Party was receiving or seeking financial assistance from known enemies of this country. That was the immediate reaction of, I presume, a typical member of the Party opposite to the attempt to deal with this subject in a conciliatory way.
Following him, we had the Minister for Industry and Commerce. So far as I could make out, the Minister rested his case on two things. One was, that a certain amount of strong language had been used in the course of controversy by the supporters of the United Ireland Party. What does that teach us? How much importance attaches to that fact? Do we not all know that violent language is used on both sides in politics and indeed in the politics of every country; that there is violent language used which, in our cool senses, we would much rather had not been used. I venture to say, and I venture to say it confidently, that for every ounce of abusive or scurrilous language that has proceeded from the United Ireland Party there has been at least a hundred-weight of such abuse from its opponents. If we want to accomplish anything in the way of conciliation and co-operation, it is not a good plan to go back and examine old files and work ourselves up into a fury because of language that had been used which appears to us to have been unnecessarily offensive. As far as I could make out, the Minister for Industry and Commerce took that line for the express purpose of preventing himself from getting into a reasonable frame of mind. He did not wish to be in a reasonable frame of mind. Then, in the absence of any evidence to show that, on the surface, the Blue Shirt organisation was an improper one, he proceeded to suggest that there were at the back of it a group of designing men who were hoodwinking and deceiving such persons as Deputy Dillon and myself, men whom those on the Fianna Fáil Benches knew better than we did, and of whose career they took an unfavourable and sinister view. I do not know why it is that when the special kind of history in Irish politics, which is usually described as "having a national record" belongs to somebody of the Fianna Fáil Party, it is a thing to be lauded to the skies, and furthermore, if there are any of us who are without the special kind of history for which they have endeavoured to monopolise the term "national record" they do not hesitate to reproach us for it. Yet, when they are referring to members of our Party who have that national record, they at once suggest that there is something in that record which makes these people dangerous and sinister.
Now, this is all absolute humbug about the alleged dangers lurking in the background in connection with the Blue Shirts. The vast majority of the members of that organisation came into it since the Party merger, and since whatever Fascist atmosphere, rightly or wrongly, may have been attributed to it before that merger, has been dissipated.
The rank and file of the League of Youth through the country are quite correctly described by General O'Duffy as the cream of the young men in this country. You have only to see them, to talk to them, to move among them to know that they are a thoroughly decent crowd in every possible way. I am quite certain that when the VicePresident on that day to which I referred a week or two ago in this House drove past 1,000 or 1,500 of them on the road outside Kildare he must have been struck by that fact; and he must have been struck by the fact that he was accorded a very different kind of reception, that he met with a very different spirit and very different manners from what, say, Deputy Cosgrave or myself would expect to meet with if we drove through a Fianna Fáil meeting and along a procession of a mile or so of Fianna Fáil supporters. In season and out of season, those young men, who are already drawn from the type that is the community's backbone, and that is the most law-abiding part of the community, are having preached to them the doctrines of obedience to law, of love of law and the preservation of the liberty of the individual citizen.
If there were a group of gangsters in the background, as the Minister for Industry and Commerce suggests, they could not possibly afford to sit still and to see the young men being encouraged and educated along the lines on which they are being encouraged and educated. I do not hesitate to say that if there were a group of designing men, if there were some scoundrels who were hoping some day to use that organisation for the overthrow of the institutions of this State they would find that if they attempted to use the League of Youth for that purpose the instrument would break in their hands. But there is no such group.
Deputy Dillon and myself may be referred to by Ministers as innocent babies, but we are not completely devoid of common sense or perspicacity. I will frankly admit that we did not come into the merger, which included the National Guard, without some hesitation and doubts. With regard to the whole of that Youth movement, from the very day of the merger onwards, things could not possibly have proceeded better from our point of view. If we had suspicions at any time as to the direction that movement might take, those suspicions have been completely scattered. There is not a single meeting that we go to down the country, and we go to them week after week, meeting those young men and talking with those young men, that we do not come away more confident, more satisfied with and more proud of the Youth movement behind the U.I.P. than before we went down.
It it were the desire of the Government to create a military spirit in the ranks of those young men, if they really believed that there was a group of designing men who were seeking to gain power over those young men, they could not have done better than bring in this Bill if they wanted to give those men an opportunity for getting more power than they had before. This Bill might certainly be designed to divert the young men from peaceable ideas and to attract them to the more bellicose of their leaders rather than to the more peaceable of their leaders. I am quite satisfied that if that is the design of the Government, the design will fail. I do not hesitate to answer the hypothetical question about what will happen if this Bill passes into law. I do not believe this Bill will pass into law. I believe that by the time this Bill can reach the Statute Book the Government opposite will be out of office. If this Bill does pass into law, or any other Bill that does not impose upon our people the duty of doing something that is definitely against the laws of morality, then the law will be obeyed, however tyrannical, however unjust, however unreasonable.
I want to ask the House to consider what it is exactly that the Government have offered us if we consent to drop what is called the uniform. They have offered us nothing whatsoever except the status quo ante. They have offered us nothing except to go back to the state of things before the Blue Shirt organisation became a power in the land. They have asked us, in other words, to hand ourselves over to them and to rely upon them to do something which, in the past, they disastrously failed to do. They ask us to rely upon them to take a tone about politics in this country and about the Opposition which, in fact, they have never yet taken. I suppose they ask us to rely upon them to take a line with regard to illegal organisations such as the I.R.A., which, in fact, they have never yet taken. How can we place that reliance upon them? They are speaking with two voices at this present moment. Several of them have got up and denounced ordinary political speeches by the Opposition as if they were treasonable and seditious because they criticised Ministers; as if they were treasonable and seditious, because we believe that the so-called economic war with England is a humbug and the private war of the President.
That is the line they have taken in the past, and that is the line they are taking in the present. What reason have we to expect that that will not be the line they will take in the future? As long as they take that line, they may send what police or troops they like to our meetings, but, nevertheless, they will not be complying with the spirit of democracy, with the spirit of liberty. They will be hoping that people will think of us as a despicable crowd who have to be protected from the fury of the multitude by Government forces, when, in point of fact, any bitterness of feeling that exists against the Opposition exists only amongst a minority and a small minority and is due entirely to the kind of language that the Government think themselves entitled to use and do use up and down the country every second day.
What about the I.R.A. or any other illegal organisation? Have the Government reached a clear and positive attitude with regard to the I.R.A. now? How can we think they have? How many back benchers would be prepared to go as far as the Minister for Industry and Commerce went? I have listened attentively to every utterance connected with the I.R.A. that has been made in the House since I became a member and I say this quite confidently, that until the Minister for Industry and Commerce spoke on the subject yesterday, nobody has said that the I.R.A. is an organisation which ought not to exist. The President indeed has said that they ought not to possess arms, that they ought not to use arms and so forth. But nobody had the courage to say before that the organisation ought not to exist and I am very glad that, at any rate, this debate has elicited that utterance. I think it was worth while to get it. Little as it may count in practice, I am glad to have it stated, and on the records of the House, by a responsible Minister.
But in this very same debate, I need not remind the House, we had a back bencher, a member of that Party, saying that the I.R.A. represented the Irish people. As I pointed out already, we had a speech on the same lines by Senator Comyn in the Seanad not long ago. We had a Deputy in this House saying, in the presence of the President of the Executive Council, that the I.R.A. were the real people who should be in control of this House and of this country. And then Ministers, whose conscience is so strict and so scrupulous about the necessity of Front Bench members of the Opposition repudiating immediately anything improper that is said by their supporters, never repudiate a statement by one of their own Deputies in this House. Not one of them rose to repudiate any of the statements of this kind made by their own Deputies in the House in the presence of the President of the Executive Council.
I do not believe that the I.R.A. is a very numerous body or that standing alone it would be a body of any importance. But it is made important by the fact of its alliance with the rank and file of Fianna Fáil and only by reason of that alliance. That alliance is a reality and nobody who knows this country can doubt that it is a reality. I know that to some extent it is beneath the surface, but it is there, and the Government got their power to a large extent owing to that alliance and to the sort of atmosphere which that alliance has served to create throughout the country districts. Why is it that throughout the Government's operations under the Public Safety Act they have not yet declared that the I.R.A. is an illegal organisation under that Act? Why? I cannot imagine any reason. It appears to me if they wish to make a beginning and get rid of militarism in this country the very first step they should take should be that. The Minister for Industry and Commerce says it is an illegal organisation. Very well, then, why not declare it so? Of course, it is an illegal organisation, but why not declare it so at the time when you are straining the Act to declare illegal organisations which have nothing militaristic in their objects or methods? On that point alone there is a lack of sincerity in the Government's record which makes it impossible for us to trust them in the simple way in which they ask us by dropping our uniforms and going back to the old position before the Blue Shirt organisation existed.
In a sense, the importance of this Bill can be overrated even though it does pass. I do not believe for a minute that if we dropped the blue shirts to-morrow we would go back very far from the stage we have now reached of being able to uphold the rights of the citizens in this country which were not upheld until the League of Youth and its predecessors proved their strength. But we choose to decide for ourselves whether we will clothe our young men in blue shirts or not. We will decide that for ourselves. If the time comes when we consider that that is in any way dangerous we will not hesitate to act accordingly. But we consider that we are very much better and very much more sincere judges of that subject than are the Government.
As I said yesterday, romance and glamour have always, or nearly always, been enlisted in this country on the side of law breaking. We are trying to teach the young people that it is more romantic and more noble to defend the laws and to help the weak individual against the bullies, whether they are bullies in masks or not in masks, or whether they are bullies by daylight or bullies by night. And if it helps us in that endeavour to have blue shirts we will have blue shirts and no apologies to make for them. There is one very great difference that nobody can deny between our young men and the young men either of the I.R.A. or the Fianna Fáil Party. That difference is that we can control them. They do not go out and interfere with Fianna Fáil meetings. They do not go out and commit raids and outrages. If they ever had any impulse to do it, and they have not, they would be taught not to do it. I have heard myself on various occasions General O'Duffy—the much-abused General O'Duffy, the bugbear of the Deputies opposite—preach to these young men that if they found themselves at a Fianna Fáil meeting with interruptions going on it was their duty to discourage these interruptions just as at their own meetings. That is democracy and that is liberty, and it is for that we stand.
The Government invite us not to rely upon ourselves. They invite us to trust to them. They consider that we are officious in preaching reverence for law and order and in encouraging our young men to take an active part in preserving law and order. They ask us to throw over every appearance of militarism, however innocent. I think the proper answer to that is similar to the answer which was made in France to people who wished to abolish capital punishment: "Que messieurs les assassins commencent,""Let the assassins commence," let the murderers abolish capital punishment first and then the law will abolish it afterwards. Let militarism be dropped by those in whose hands militarism is a danger and then we will talk. Let the Government give any evidence worth a snap of our fingers of sincerity in this matter, of a desire to co-operate in this matter, of a spirit of conciliation in this matter, and then we will talk. Meanwhile, we are not going to be humbugged.
Deputy MacDermot in the body of his speech tried to create the impression that his speech was a conciliatory one, but certain statements have been made by him which cannot certainly lead to conciliation. We heard a lot of criticism from time to time when we were in Opposition about power outside this House. We have heard from Deputy MacDermot to-night—we were told— that this Bill is not going to become law: that we will be out of office before it can. What is Deputy MacDermot hinting at? Is Deputy MacDermot hinting at what General O'Duffy said when this Bill was introduced, when he more or less ordered the Seanad to hold it up? Is that the suggestion made to-night when we talk glibly about democratic assemblies and democratic rights? Is this House not democratically elected and selected? Is this House not the more democratic of the two assemblies that constitute the Oireachtas? We have been told to-night, in spite of all that glib talk about democratic rights, that this Bill is going to be held up. And not only that. There is a certain reservation in Deputy MacDermot's statement about this Bill that if it became law, perhaps not being a really moral law there would then be the question of obeying it.
No. If I gave that impression, I wish to contradict it at once. If this Bill became law, I said, it would be obeyed. Naturally, there is nothing immoral in wearing a white shirt instead of a blue one. I said the only law which should be disobeyed was one which commanded the citizen to do something immoral.
I may have to some extent, after hearing Deputy Fitzgerald's speech, in some way confused things, but the House wants to get it clear from the Opposition now that if and when this Bill becomes law it is going to be loyally obeyed by them, and that there are no lay theologians in the Opposition who are going to try in some way to evade this measure when it becomes law. Deputy Dillon may laugh. I do not suggest by any means that Deputy Dillon is the lay theologian. I was not referring to him. I was referring to Deputy Fitzgerald.
I merely quote others.
There are other people who have been mentioned in this country.
Who are they?
There are other people who, at any rate, lead this country on theological matters. I respectfully suggest it is not for us to try and say what certain decisions on those matters should be. We have been taunted again to-night by Deputy MacDermot as having made no case for this Bill. I do not know what Deputy MacDermot means by making a case for the Bill. Deputy MacDermot should have appreciated my difficulty on the Second Reading when I made certain quotations here from reports. I offered to show these reports to Deputy MacDermot and they are available for him still. Any reasonable Opposition Deputy can understand the difficulty, when I am asked whether these things happened —he can understand how difficult it is to show these things to the House. There are obvious difficulties in the way. As to the reports that I quoted, I pointed out that they indicated that disorders arose from the Blue Shirts attending these meetings. I indicated that from these reports which I quoted at the time.
Deputy O'Higgins to-night raised the point that the only case we were making was that these people were likely to arm. I said that was one of the grounds, that they had all the appearance of a militaristic body, and no matter how they might ask us to shut our eyes to what happened in other countries, the fact is that we could not but see they were copying what went on in other countries and we could not help seeing that their organisation was developing along the lines of organisations in other countries.
Does the Minister recollect that when he was defending the ban on the Young Ireland Association here, the evidence he produced about militarisation was what he called chevrons on the uniforms? I think all sides admitted that there might be evidence of militarisation in that and those emblems have since been removed.
That is true. That was one of the particular matters I referred to at the time. But that was only one of the elements. I referred to the uniform itself and to the military titles.
What are the military titles at the moment?
They have gone, too.
Are they gone?
I believe that as regards the constitution that was lodged with the court in the cases pending, a copy is now in the possession of the Attorney-General. All the titles from top to bottom are in that constitution and I would like to have the attention of the House called to any military title in the whole lot. Chevrons were mentioned and they have been removed. Titles are mentioned now. If you point out the particular title you object to, we will see how far we can meet you.
There is a little more to be considered than the titles. There is the uniform itself. If you take off the chevrons, if you abandon the titles, then we are getting very much nearer to an agreement.
The only way to meet the Minister is to go out in no shirts.
That is a rather bare argument. Now, perhaps Deputy O'Higgins would tell us also whether the secret system that was built up as part of this organisation has also been abandoned?
I will tell the Minister anything he wants to know about it.
We had evidence before that there was such a system in the organisation.
In what organisation?
The Young Ireland Association.
That has ceased to be.
The League of Youth, then.
Produce the evidence in regard to the League of Youth.
We have been listening to statements about everything being thrown overboard. Will the Deputy deny that the method of communication is covering addresses to certain other people through the country?
I certainly will deny that.
You deny that?
I deny that the method of communication of the League of Youth between the headquarters and the individual is through the medium of covering addresses. I deny that most emphatically, and if that is to be advanced as an assertion here, the House is entitled to proof, and if it is proved, I will be the first to withdraw my denial, and I am talking now as a member of the staff, a member of the executive.
I am sure I can satisfy the Deputy that such is in existence.
In my own capacity in connection with the headquarters of that organisation I am certain I send out up to 20 letters every week and in that capacity I have never addressed a letter to a covering address.
I have not suggested you have.
I go further and I say that with my intimate and continuous knowledge of the organisation the method of procedure with regard to communications from top to middle or bottom is not through the medium of covering addresses.
Will the Deputy deny such a system was in existence? He may not know it is in existence at present, but will he deny it was ever in operation since the National Guard was formed?
I state that if there was such a system in operation it was in operation certainly without my knowledge.
I am quite prepared to believe that.
It may have been in operation between certain individuals, but even then it was without my knowledge.
I assume it was without the Deputy's knowledge.
I ask, in justice to the organisation that is going to be de-shirted under this Bill, that we should discuss that organisation and not organisations of the past. If we, in connection with the Government behaviour, discussed Sinn Fein or the I.R.A. or the forces that opposed the National Army, it would be absolutely unfair to the Government. Let us discuss the organisations from whose backs you propose to pull the shirts.
It may be very simple for Deputy O'Higgins to say that, but he also knows the tactics adopted whenever any of these organisations were proclaimed.
What forced us? Compliance with the law. They were changed overnight and the man who did not change within 48 hours is in Arbour Hill.
The same methods of selection, the same methods of appointment, the same personnel.
Not true in any particular.
There is no comparison in asking us to go back to the beginning and compare it with Sinn Fein. We have only to go back to the beginning of this organisation as Deputy O'Higgins went back to it to-night. Deputy O'Higgins went back and we got for the first time the reason the blue shirt was put on.
The second time.
It was the first time I heard the real reason the blue shirts were put on. It was a somewhat plausible reason and I am certainly prepared to take it before the reason given by Deputy Dillon, who said that they were formed for the purpose of protecting meetings. Deputy Dillon may not have been here to-night when Deputy O'Higgins gave us the real reason as to why the organisation was formed. He said that they were originally furnished with badges and that some time after being furnished with badges, a house was burned or raided or something like that. I assure the Deputy that this is the first time I have heard of that and I have inquired amongst my officials.
I did not make any suggestion of any connection between the burning of the house and the badges. I only wanted to mention the fact that in the ruins of the burned house some eight or nine hundred badges were found that had never been manufactured by the factory that was supplying us.
I am only dealing with the reason the Deputy gave. He said that the badges were found and he said that these people, whether it was the A.C.A. or the National Guard at the time I do not know, were likely sometimes to be confused with others or in other words were likely to be implicated in acts with which they had nothing to do.
That was my own view.
Deputy O'Higgins argued that to overcome that difficulty they decided to put their members into uniforms.
Not that exactly.
Anybody can refer to the official report to verify that. That is the organisation we have to deal with to-night. I suggest that while blue shirts or blue uniforms may to some extent be somewhat less likely to lead to the implication of people in deeds with which they have really nothing to do, that is a very poor argument. At the same time I accept it.
There is this to be said about it, that a badge can be carried in the pocket and dumped anywhere at the right moment.
I know that, but I put it seriously to the Deputy, does he really think that that is a sound argument for the maintenance of people in uniform?
I did not advance it as such. I was merely tracing its history, as I was asked to do by your colleague.
Tracing the reason why these people went into uniform?
That was not the only reason. I gave others.
If the Deputy gave others, I would be very glad to hear them.
On a matter of personal explanation, I think it is due to the House that before the Minister in charge of the Bill, comes to the closing stages of the Bill, he at least ought to be familiar with the debates that took place on the Bill. When I spoke on the Second Reading, I gave certain reasons. When I was speaking this evening I was rather hurried because the Chair pointed out that a division had to be taken. I did not deal fully with the matter, but I gave a reason or two and sat down in deference to the Chair. The Minister, I suggest, should associate my remarks to-night with my remarks on the Second Reading.
I think the Minister ought to be permitted to make his speech without interruption.
I do not want to take the Deputy in any unfair way. I did state, and I repeat it, that in tracing the history of the Blue Shirts here to-night I have stated correctly what the Deputy said to-night.
To-night.
I am quite entitled to do that and if the Deputy can prove that I misquoted him I am prepared to withdraw. Taking that argument, is it a sound argument? When the Opposition are faced with a Bill like this, are we not entitled to expect them to make a case as to why they should retain the uniforms? I submit that in all of these debates no case has been made for the retention of the uniforms. I do not want at this stage to go over all the ground which has been traversed on Second Reading, and repeated ad nauseam on the Committee Stage, but not a single reason that could convince anybody was put forward except this; that they had to come in, because the Government were not able to govern. Let us take that assumption and I say it was the only argument which had any weight or conviction in it. Perhaps this Government has not been able to govern in what one would call quite a completely satisfactory way but I would like to know what Governments have succeeded in governing with complete satisfaction to every citizen. A lot of point has been made about our giving complete scope to the I.R.A. That has been dealt with by the President on a few occasions when he stated what our attitude was when we came into this House and when we became a Government here. Our chief desire was that we might be able to carry on in this country as we always believed we could, without coercion Acts and we thought that that would be a policy that would pay best in the end. For over a year afterwards I think you had more comparative peace and you had less crime in the country than you had in the ten years before that.
In dealing for a moment with the question of the I.R.A. let us remember that you people over there did all you could to end that problem. When we came into office you had on the Statute Book in operation the Constitution Seventeenth Amendment Act which gave you unlimited powers to deal with the problem. In that connection there was some criticism to-night about there being no right of appeal from a conviction for offences for what might be treated as minor offences, and for which there were certain fixed penalties but you had the power of life and death and you left no appeal from that. Despite all that, the problem was there when we came in here as a Government. Complaint has been made and we are often taunted about it here, that we are not able to deal with the question of crime in the country. I want Deputies at least to be honest and fair and to consider the number of crimes that were committed during the time they were in office and the number of people apprehended and brought to justice and compare that with the number of crimes since we came into office. During your time in office you asserted that you were governing the people, that you were able to govern and that you were able to eliminate crime in this country during that period.
Were you able to say to yourselves: "We have cleared this country of all crime and we have now established absolute freedom and liberty for all peaceful citizens in the country"? I mean freedom and liberty in the sense of their homes, and their individual liberty to go about their ordinary avocations without being molested. Could any Deputy or any ex-member of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government say that? I submit they could not. All you have to do to get an answer to that is to go back over the number of crimes and the number of undetected crimes that occurred during the ten-year period you were in office and compare them, in their seriousness and in the number of detections, with what has happened since we came into office. We have contended that in dealing with the problem, which was there, we were getting to a position where we would be able satisfactorily to adjust it without resort to coercion. I believe that we could have secured that position were it not for the rise in this country of what was regarded and what we regarded as another militaristic body. You know that if there is one militaristic body in the country, and there is also another in existence— be it small or large—one will increase with the other. One is watching the other. One is trying to gain strength to catch up with the other. One militaristic force inevitably gives more strength to the other.
Therefore, bludgeon one of them?
No. There is no use in bludgeoning one of them. People must deal with those problems as they exist.
Mr. Lynch
Deal with the easiest, as you think?
It is not a question of dealing with the easiest. It is simply a question of saying to a political Party: "Are you prepared to carry out your programme on political lines, or do you want, as an adjunct, a militaristic organisation to assist you?" That is the position. There is no necessity for either the I.R.A. or this organisation—the League of Youth or whatever it is now. There is no necessity for either of them. We have done our best to try to preserve freedom of speech in the country. General O'Duffy, when he was in charge of the Gárda, knew that everything that possibly could be done was done by him and under his orders to try to preserve peace in the country. I am continually getting taunted from the other side of the House about interference with the police in the carrying out of their duties. I say that those taunts are baseless and unfounded. Instructions have been given to the police to take at all times every necessary step to ensure freedom of speech to the people of this country. That policy is being adhered to, and that policy will be adhered to. If that policy is carried out there is no necessity for any people to take on themselves police duties. There is no necessity for it.
I have not yet got an answer from the Opposition to the question as to whether, if they were in power, they would permit us to start here a body on semi-military lines, taking it in its mildest form, to take to ourselves police duties. Would they allow people to go out armed with bludgeons and batons, which would inevitably lead to the using of more lethal weapons? Some of the batons I have seen, even Deputies opposite would admit, were capable of taking human life. There is no question about that. Used in a certain way, any of those weapons could take human life. Suppose that lives get lost in that way, are you not going to get to a position where people are going to take stronger lethal weapons to answer those? You will have a position where you will have bodies scattered about the country, claiming the right to use lethal weapons, and always being able to put up some case about using them in self-defence. People may be killed. What position have you then? You will have bitterness in that area, and it is only a question of time until reprisals take place. Before people could see where they are leading to there would be in this country a civil war again. There is no question about that. I should like Deputies to realise, no matter how they may criticise this Bill, that it is not directed against a political Party. This Bill is directed against what we regard as a military organisation. We cannot help seeing what happened in other countries. We cannot help seeing that you have adopted here the same methods as were adopted there. We cannot help seeing that in this country since those Blue Shirts have paraded in the country a good deal of bitterness has been created, and considerable disorder has arisen at public meetings.
We have no right to be alive at all.
That is the sort of statement that does not do any good.
That is your policy.
We did not say anything as wild as that when the Seventeenth Amendment Act was brought in here, under which powers were taken that certainly are not attempted to be taken under this Bill.
You have got them already.
I am only dealing, in reply to Deputy O'Leary, with what our attitude at that time was.
It was pretty hot, and I do not blame you.
The Blue Shirts have not murdered anybody.
A Deputy
Keep down your temper.
Take this Bill as it is. There was some sort of atmosphere going round the House to-night that if and when this Bill becomes law it will not be accepted in the sense that it is a law which should be obeyed by all citizens who regard the Constitution in the proper way. Is not that a dangerous atmosphere to spread in the country at the present time?
Mr. Lynch
Who is spreading it?
Is it not a dangerous idea to try to get into the heads of people outside, who are in this organisation that the Bill is intended to affect at the moment? Other organisations may be affected if they come within its scope in the future. Is this not something that people should be very careful about at the present time? Whether we like it or not there is a tension in the country; there is a state of affairs in the country which is not satisfactory to anybody. There is a state of affairs in the country that might very easily be brought to a critical and severe pass. So far as the provisions of the Bill are concerned nobody can complain that it imposes very severe penalties. Complaint has been made here that an opportunity has not been given for an adequate discussion on the Committee Stage. I do not know whether reference to that matter is relevant on this stage. If that is so, it is not our fault. If so much time had not been taken up there could have been sufficient consideration of those amendments on the Committee Stage. In any case I can assure Deputies that those amendments will be considered by the Executive Council before this Bill goes to the Seanad. A lot of criticism has been made about the powers given to the police under Section 5. I had not an opportunity on the Committee Stage to reply to that. The powers given to the police under Section 5, as I admitted on the Second Stage, are very wide, but I also pointed out, on Second Reading, so were the powers that were given under the Seventeenth Amendment Act. Under that Act, every member of the Executive Council, and every member of this House, could be landed down in the College Street Station by the police and detained there for a certain time. The police get these powers but the police do not use these powers in that way, unless you want to suggest that police forces are corrupt or in some other way, are not people who will carry out their duties properly and in a sensible way. If you admit that they will carry out their duties in a sensible way, you cannot be anticipating all the extraordinary things that you were anticipating.
The police may get illegal orders from a Government, as the police got from the present Government.
What for?
The present Government illegally ordered the police to interfere with people wearing blue shirts and ordered the police to arrest O'Duffy.
It is better not to go into the orders that were given from time to time.
I can understand the Minister not wanting to.
I think that Deputies, who know the way in which the duties of police are carried out, have no reason to exaggerate what may happen under Section 5.
But the present Government gave illegal orders to the police, and the Minister knows it.
The present Government are not going to give orders that are illegal to the police.
But they have done it.
There is no use in people anticipating results——
We are not anticipating.
Can the Minister make no gesture but coercion, even at the eleventh hour?
I made a gesture here last night and I will repeat it here to-night. I asked what did you want uniforms for, if you are a political party, and I asked if you were prepared to give up these uniforms and to carry on purely as a political party, and I said that in that event, we were prepared to have this Bill reconsidered.
Will the Minister offer his organisation with ours to preserve the right of free speech for both of us?
What right have you to protect anybody?
Very well. Will you do it now, when you did not do it before?
The police are there for that.
Will you do it? Let it not be a cat and dog fight all the time. There is a country outside which sent us here and we should be doing something for it, instead of what we are doing, and the country is watching us.
I quite agree with Deputy Belton that there is a country outside and the country watching us. That country is in a serious position at the present time which, in our opinion, is such that unless the steps we propose to take in this Bill are taken, there is a danger of a very much more serious situation developing.
A serious situation is possible.
We have the cabbage stumps now.
The President referred here, on Second Reading, to a composite force. How that could be worked out in its details, or in what way it could be operated, I cannot fully visualise at the moment, but whatever steps are necessary to preserve in this country the admitted right of everybody to freedom of speech will be taken by us to secure freedom of speech in this country when this Bill becomes law.
I waited until this stage of the Bill to express my views in connection with it, in order that I might hear, if possible, what the back benchers of Fianna Fáil might have to say. Before I go on to say what I had hoped for and expected from the Fianna Fáil back benchers, I must refer to some of the matters mentioned by the Minister for Justice. Does the Minister for Justice expect anybody to believe him when he says that this Bill is directed not against a political Party, but against a military organisation? Is not the Bill, on the face of it, directed against a political organisation and not against a military organisation? Has not the Dáil and the Government, by its majority to-day, refused an amendment which might have led us to believe that the Minister for Justice was serious when he said that they are not working against a political organisation? When there was an amendment down to bring the operations of the Bill against a Party whose aims were to subvert the State by force of arms, that amendment, with the aid of the Minister for Justice and his Party, was refused by the House. Does the Minister now expect us to believe, for one moment, that the Bill is directed against military organisations instead of political organisations? Is it not, on the face of it, directed against one political organisation—our political organisation?
I was going to say that I waited until the last stage of the Bill to speak, excepting to hear something from persons on the other side of the House—from whom, perhaps, I was foolish to hope for something—because there are many persons on that side of the House whom I have known for a number of years. I knew them in other days, and in spite of different political affiliations in the last ten or 12 years, there are many of them for whom I have a sort of kindly feeling, because of old associations.
Get up and bow.
Mr. Lynch
I do not know who made that remark, but I am certain that the person who made it was not one of them.
It was I made it, and if you did not know me in the old days, I can tell you that I am just as long in the movement as you are.
Mr. Lynch
Devil the much good you were, Stephen.
Is that so? You know nothing about me.
Mr. Lynch
There are many of them on the opposite benches whom I did know intimately and I should like to have put that Bill into their hands ten or 12 years ago, asked them to read it and asked them if, for a moment, they would stand over it in any assembly. I would ask one of the most intelligent Deputies on the opposite benches— Deputy Martin Corry—whether if I had put that Bill into his hands in Belfast jail in 1918, he would have said that he stood over it for one moment, but he is standing over it to-day. Wait there a minute, now, Martin. There are many others on the opposite benches to whom I should like to have presented that Bill ten or 12 years ago and to have asked them if they would stand over it. Hang it, there was some sense of decency about us and we would not stand over the mere squashing of a political opponent who was not going to take up arms against us. That is the position under this Bill which you have put before this House and which you are now going to support. You are now going to walk in tamely behind the leaders on the Front Bench, in spite of your consciences, in spite of every decent instinct—and there are decent instincts there—and you are going to vote for it. You may say that you are bound by Party allegiance. I will admit that it goes a long way and Party allegiance would go a long way with me but I am hanged if any Party allegiance would ever have made me, even when sitting as a Minister on those benches opposite, support a measure of that kind to squash decent political opposition. There are sneers over there. I sat on the benches opposite——
Ná bac é sin.
Mr. Lynch
——and supported a vote of censure on the Executive Council when I was still a Minister, and there are men in this House who were here then and remember that. I sat on those benches as a Minister and seconded a Vote of Censure on the Executive Council of the day because I stood for a principle which I felt was honest. There is no Party allegiance that I can conceive that would make me vote for a Bill of this kind. I would do the decent thing by my Party. I would go to my Party and I would say that I would not support that Bill—I am presuming that this has gone to the Fianna Fáil Party— and I would go into the House and vote against the Bill and I would hand in my resignation of my constituency to my Party and to the Ceann Comhairle. That would be my attitude if I were put in the position in which some of the Deputies opposite must be in regard to this Bill.
Are we supposed to laugh at that?
Mr. Lynch
There are some fools born. There are others that make themselves idiotic merely. I said that there are men opposite—I mentioned merely one—with whom I had very close association during very hard times when some of the interrupters were nice and cushy.
And were not in Belfast.
Mr. Lynch
There are other decent men on those benches. At least, I have always felt they were decent. But I am afraid I will have to change my opinions both of human nature and of decency in political opposition when I see them walking into the lobbies, even at this late stage of this Bill, and supporting it. I will leave it at that.
Something I said during this debate seems to have excited a lot of acrimony among certain members of the Opposition. I was not in the House when most of these remarks referring to me were made. I waited till Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney had finished with me, and when he went on to a different part of his speech, I retired. I heard nothing more since until I heard the remarks of Deputy MacDermot here this evening, and I thought I might as well come in and endeavour to reply, in some small way, to his strictures on what I said. What I said evidently seems to have touched the Opposition very deeply. Now, I asked a question. I asked a very definite question—and I repeat it now—where is the money coming from?
Money for what?
Please hold your tongue.
It is not coming from margarine anyway.
Nor rhubarb.
When one is speaking in this House and when one is not very used to speaking, interruptions of this sort throw speakers off their balance and confuse them as to what they intended to say. I would ask you, Sir, kindly to see that Deputies do not interrupt me unnecessarily. I am not going to take any statement from any Deputy on that side of the House without having some foundation for it substantiated by documents. If I ask about the money, then I want to see the bank accounts, the cheque vouchers in the bank and so on.
You want to get into a confession box. Even then you would not believe it. Who believes you?
We want an audited account—an account audited by certified accountants.
Banks, undoubtedly, are very important, but supposing we heard something from the Deputy about the Bill.
Yes, Sir, I am coming to that now. One of the remarks passed by Deputies on the opposite side was: "Are we to be blamed for wishing to be successful?" Certainly not. They are not to be blamed for wishing to be successful. But the end does not justify the means and, certainly, I consider that the Blue Shirt organisation is not a justifiable means of getting themselves returned to power. I am very anxious not to say or to do anything that will in any way cause bad feelings. I think we have quite sufficient of that already, and anything that I say is said in the best interests of the country and of all Parties. Deputy Lynch, speaking a while ago, referred to other days. Now, it is very important that Deputies on both sides of the House, Deputies who were companions like Deputy Corry and some of the other Deputies here, should have a regard for one another. There are some of the Deputies in the Opposition on whom I cast a certain amount of blame, but there are some of them, like Deputy Lynch, for whom I have a very high regard. As I was saying, Deputy Lynch referred to other days. There is a saying that "Conscience doth make cowards of us all." I wonder if that be true. Do the members of the Opposition, like Deputy Lynch and some of the others, who were with our friends here in Belfast jail and other jails, ever, during the silent watches of the night, find the still small voice of conscience touching any slumbering chords of memory that will bring them back to the high and noble purpose that actuated them when they were fighting for the good of their Motherland? There is no question that all this lip talk about Youth movements and all that sort of thing is not worth a row of pins if it is not backed up by something more solid. There are some things in this Bill with which I am not quite in agreement—things that I think the Bill would be better without—but the Minister for Justice and the Attorney-General are better judges than I am, and when they decide to keep those things in the Bill I think they are the best judges. I ask the members of the Opposition to bear in mind what the Minister for Justice has referred to and what has been referred to here in the course of this debate, that we are leading to a state of civil war and that any political Party which organises a uniformed body to support them, like what you have on the Continent and what was strongly objected to in England, is contributing towards such a condition of things. I can refer Deputies to one of the issues of the Manchester Guardian and it will give them a very different idea. I feel that all the simulated indignation and pretended anger of the Deputies opposite is not at all so much because they are against the Bill as because their bluff has been called, and I hope the Bill will pass.
Sometimes one feels in this House that Deputies do not realise entirely what is going on outside, and I would ask the House to take heed of the very serious warning and the very serious speech made by the Minister for Justice just eight minutes ago. He said that there is a tension outside, an atmosphere, that is not satisfactory to anyone. That is true, not so much the political atmosphere as the atmosphere of unrest amongst the tenement dwellers and the unemployed who are living on doles. They are wondering when the time is to come when this House will stop talking politics and get down to the things that count. There are 6,000 families in Dublin to-day on relief, at an average of 15/- a week given to them by the ratepayers of the City of Dublin, and not by the Government. Within the past couple of weeks, in order to assist the Government, another authority, of which I am a member, recognising the difficulty, put on 1,200 workingmen on a building scheme on the outskirts of the city in order to help you in your duties. Then, we come along and we find this House, I will not say wasting, but on the border of wasting six days in discussing a Bill whether one side is to carry arms and throw stones and bottles at speakers at public meetings, which they did at Mrs. Collins-O'Driscoll 12 months ago, and whether the other side were to be in uniform and carry a baton or stick to protect themselves. I must certainly say that without that body of young men free speech would be denied to us. In Dublin City within the past two years there was no hope of any candidate on one side getting a hearing. He got no opportunity of making his voice heard. I ask the House again to heed the warning given by the Minister. Dublin is in a state of unrest. The people in the tenements who are getting served with pink pieces of paper from their landlords, who say they want their rooms or their rent, are in a state of unrest. These people say: "We will not be put out of our homes; we will not allow our children to be thrown in the gutter; we are not content to wait any longer and live on the miserable dole we get." I appeal again to the House to settle this question. In some days 100 cases are brought to my notice and they use language like this: "Around the corner, over there; what the hell are they talking about? Give us work, not doles." I invite any Deputy to go down to the police court. The Minister will find that there are 700 or 800 decrees for possession against unemployed workmen in this city of ours. I warn the House that there is real tension outside.
Hearing so many different appeals from the opposite benches during the last few weeks and particularly the appeal that was made by Deputy Lynch to-night, I begin to wonder why we did not hear that sort of appeal from Deputy Lynch while the 19 or 20 coercion Bills were passing through this House during the last ten or 12 years. In those years the Deputy saw one-time comrades of his in Belfast jail, getting arrested, kicked around the country, thrown into jail, let out, thrown in again and out again. Deputy Lynch was here all the time while these Acts were being passed. We also heard Deputy MacDermot talking about freedom of speech and law and order and decency. Is it freedom of speech Deputies opposite want, or is it licence?
To grow tobacco.
You did not take your chance last year. It is only during the past two years we have been told some of these things. We have been told that those things are happening in Dublin. Deputy Byrne and some of them here think the whole of the Free State is in Dublin. It is not.
A Deputy
It is in Cork.
I am glad to see Deputy Lynch coming back to the House.
Mr. Lynch
I am always pleased to hear Deputy Corry.
I would like to know what would be Deputy Lynch's view. What would be his attitude at public meetings where he heard the President of this State alluded to as the Pigott of 1933 and that from the platform by some little pup who was stuck under the bed from 1916 to 1931 and who then came out of it to tell this House that he would neither take off his hat to the "Soldiers' Song," nor kow-tow to the flag? That is the type of thing Deputy Dillon told us and here to-night he said that the Blue Shirts were formed for the purpose of protecting public meetings. Was the organisation formed to protect Deputy Dillon when making speeches like that and alluding to the President of this State as the Pigott of 1933?
On a point of correction, Sir, I never referred to the President of the Executive Council as the Pigott of 1933, or the Pigott of 1883 either.
You did.
It was reported in the daily Press.
I have seen the report of the speech in the Press and I have seen no denial of it.
The Deputy has denied it and his denial must hold.
It is in the Evening Herald of the 13/10/'33 and I will read it for the House.
The Deputy will not read it. It has been denied.
It should have been denied at the time.
Mr. Lynch
May I intervene with the Deputy's permission?
Yes. I am giving way to the Deputy.
Mr. Lynch
Is that the excuse? Does the Deputy say that is the reason why blackguards are to be allowed to prevent speakers on this side of the House from holding their meetings? Will the Deputy say if that is his reason for voting for a Bill to prevent protection being given to our meetings?
I will give my reasons for voting for the Bill and I will then convert Deputy Lynch, perhaps. Since I had the misfortune of becoming a politician. I have travelled seven counties of this State at general elections and by-elections and during the whole of that period I have never seen an interrupted meeting.
Mr. Lynch
They were your own meetings and our supporters never interrupted your meetings.
I challenge Deputy Daly to contradict me when I state that there were no interruptions at these meetings.
Mr. Daly
Deputy Corry was not at our meetings. The interruptions were at our meetings and not at his.
I saw no interruptions.
You were not in Macroom.
I was at by-elections all over the country, Kildare, Sligo-Leitrim and elsewhere and——
You created turmoil in Kildare.
I beat you well everywhere I went anyway. I hunted you out of Kildare. Three weeks in any constituency was enough for me to win an election and to hunt you out. I can go back again in the morning and be welcome there. I would hunt you out of Kildare in the morning if I went there. I have always stood for freedom of speech. Anywhere I was present when any individual in the crowd attempted to interrupt an Opposition speaker, I stopped him at once. There was very little of that in my constituency. During the last two years it has crept in with the Army Comrades and the Blue Shirts; they have been practically the whole cause of it. There are individuals going around the country making filthy political speeches, just the kind of dirt that the country sank to in 1914 and that Sinn Fein put an end to.
Mr. Lynch
Does the Deputy suggest that the Army Comrades have been interrupting meetings—have been interfering with meetings?
Yes.
Mr. Lynch
That they have come along and interrupted meetings held by their political opponents?
Yes.
Mr. Lynch
That is news to many people.
Yes, and deliberately. I have seen the leader of the Army Comrades, as it was called at the time, having to be taken, at a meeting that he came deliberately to interrupt, to cause trouble at, by the Superintendent of the Guards, shoved into a motor car, and driven away. That was ex-Commandant Cronin. It was at Glanmire in the last general election. The Superintendent will not deny it; he will tell you all about it.
He will be here soon to reply to you.
Let him. We are told by Deputy MacDermot that strong language is used at political meetings. By whom? We have had a lot of filth distributed at political meetings since those gentlemen got out of the warm corners they were struck in from 1916 to 1931 and put their noses back into public life. A lot of filth has been disseminated and now they want the Blue Shirts to defend them.
Mr. Lynch
You ought to say a few kind words to the Minister for Finance.
I still have a warm corner in my heart for Deputy Lynch, despite all the coercion Acts he helped to pass.
We still hope for unity.
I saw here to-night the arch-coercionist, Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, and he got up to talk about coercion. If he had any spark of decency left in him he would remain outside. The Minister of the kicking cow should at least remain absent from the House while we would be discussing any Bill of that description. There is talk about being detained for 72 hours. I remember six months before I was elected to the Dáil I was arrested and I had not even a badge on me. I was put into a police barrack and kept for three days. Day after day in the public Press was the solemn declaration that Mr. Corry was not detained in that barrack.
Mr. Lynch
You took care to have your publicity agent.
I was brought to Cork Jail and charged. The case was adjourned for eight days. I was brought back to be tried, but no evidence was produced and informations were refused. On the occasion of being brought to trial I was assaulted five times by one of the lambs Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney had to look after law and order in the country in those days. I was beaten across the head and shoulders with a revolver butt and threatened to be shot; but the gentleman took good care that he had a pair of bracelets on me before he started. That was the kind of stuff we got from them and that was the type of legislation Deputy Lynch passed to look after me in those happy days. Was that enough?
On a point of order. During his speech on the Committee Stage, Deputy Norton accused me of advocating the non-payment of rates in County Kildare. I gave him an opportunity to withdraw that and he did not do it. I demand a withdrawal now.
I will prove it, Sir, if I am permitted.
Question put: "That the Bill do now pass."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 77; Níl, 61.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Carty, Frank.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corish, Richard.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Dowdall, Thomas P.
- Everett, James.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
- Norton, William.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Doherty, Joseph.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C. (Dr.).
Níl
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Coburn, James.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Daly, Patrick.
- Davis, Michael.
- Davitt, Robert Emmet.
- Desmond, William.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finlay, John.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Good, John.
- Haslett, Alexander.
- Houlihan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Lynch, Finian.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- McDonogh, Martin.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McGovern, Patrick.
- McGuire, James Ivan.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Minch, Sydney B.
- Morrisroe, James.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- Myles, James Sproule.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
- O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Reilly, John Joseph.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Traynor; Níl: Deputies Bennett and O'Donovan.
Question declared carried.