On this stage, I want to take this opportunity of dealing with and replying to a rather unworthy personal attack which was made on myself by the Minister in closing the debate on the Second Reading of this Bill. He made use of his position as Minister, in closing the debate, when nobody could speak after him, to indulge in an attack on me which was characterised by a display of inaccuracy and falsehood, excusable perhaps, in a member of his Party who was not a member of the Government, and was not in a position to ascertain the accuracy of the statements made, but inexcusable in a member of the Executive Council, who, by walking into any office in his own Department, was in a position to ascertain the accuracy of the facts and the accuracy or inaccuracy of the figures. The baseless charge was levelled against me that I had indulged in a personal attack. I submit, a Chinn Comhairle, that I have never been guilty of making a personal attack on anybody in this House. I pointed out the fact that we were engaged in discussing a Bill to reduce the salaries and the wages of salary earners and wage earners throughout this country, because of the financial distress which the country was suffering as a result of the policy of the Executive Council. I pointed out that even assuming that the policy was right, if it was necessary to call on every salary earner and wage earner to contribute not only by way of cut, but also by way of increased income tax, an example should have been set on top by the Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries applying the Bill to their own salaries, and by Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries paying not only income tax, but increased income tax.
I submit, a Chinn Comhairle, that that was a perfectly reasonable argument. It was aimed at the whole Government. It was not a personal attack. It was aimed at no individual. It was a perfectly legitimate Parliamentary argument to use. It was a perfectly legitimate picture to hold up in opposing a Bill such as this. The Minister pleased to interpret that as a personal attack, and he comes back by levelling at me the charge that there was no man had his hands more deeply in the public purse than myself. I am not going to follow that kind of argument. If I had an inch rule, and I measured the depth of my hand as against the Minister's, the Minister would beat me by many yards and by many years. The portion of his attack that I resent is: No. 1, the injustice; No. 2, the falseness. The picture portrayed by the Minister was that I was a Deputy of this House; that I was a medical officer of health, working for a living; and that, in addition, I was a pensioner drawing a pension in this State. Even the amount mentioned by the Minister was false, and the facts are very well known to the Minister. By virtue of the fact that I work for a living, I do not draw as much as a farthing a year pension. I have a certificate recording my service, and that certificate does not give me as much as a farthing a year. A charge was made about the gratuity I obtained when I resigned from the Army, as if that was something personal and something corrupt. I got a gratuity not from the Government, but from this Dáil, the same as 400 other officers. A decision was taken in the interests of economy, that every officer who resigned before a certain date would get two years' pay on the understanding that he surrendered all rights to pension. I was one of those 400 officers. I got no more and no less than the other 399. There was nothing corrupt, nothing political and nothing personal about that particular act of Dáil Eireann. The Minister went further. Not only by way of his speech but by way of interruption he pointed to my appointment as a medical officer of health as a political appointment, which is unworthy of the Minister.