I move that the Dáil disagree with the Seanad in the following amendment:—
Section 1. The figures and words "31st day of July, 1935," deleted in line 20, and the figures and words "30th day of November, 1934," substituted therefor.
Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) (No. 2) Bill, 1934—From the Seanad.
I should like the Minister to give the House some idea of what difficulty the Seanad had in this particular matter. As far as we are concerned here, we have very serious difficulties in appreciating the way in which the Minister is administering the Army. Repeatedly we have asked questions here as to why men in large and apparently growing numbers are being discharged from the Army reserve for no other reason than that the Minister says their services are no longer required. All of these men, in respect of whom questions have been put to the Minister in the House, have given up to six, seven or eight years' service in the Army and three, four or five years' service in the Army reserve, and I do not think there has been any one of them whose character was not very good and admitted to be so by the Minister. Yet, while a large number of men like that have been discharged from the Army reserve, the Minister is not prepared to say a single word as to the general policy on his part that is dictating this action. The only answer that he gave is that their services are no longer required.
Deputies from the country who are in touch with these men and their neighbours know that in some cases at least these men have been discharged from the Army reserve because representations have been made to the Minister from the local Fianna Fáil Club to the effect that these men were not political supporters, but were perhaps political opponents of the Minister. There seems to be a great necessity to ask on that particular point, if the Minister has any reasonable explanation to offer to the House, that he should offer to the House that explanation in full and take the stubborn stand he is taking in this matter over an explanation given rather than over a refusal to give any explanation, good, bad or indifferent.
There are many happenings, both with regard to the Volunteer reserve and this reserve, which suggest to members of this House, and apparently to the Seanad, that the Minister is endeavouring to develop a purely political Army. A certain number of the reserve were in training in Portobello Barracks during the last month. A day or two ago, a friend of some of the officers or men there—it may be more than one person for all I know—called to Portobello Barracks and, in the usual way, went through the regular routine which a visitor goes through to see an officer in barracks. He saw some of his friends in the reserve battalion that was in training there before they left for the country. He was visited the following day by a member of the new detective force who questioned him as to what business he had in Portobello the day before, whom he saw and what matters he discussed with them. This visitor to reserve officers or men from the country in training in Portobello is visited by a detective in his home to know what he said, what business he had there and generally what he was doing there. In fact, as far as my knowledge goes, the detective got full information about the persons he was seeing and what conversations transpired. I do not know why any person visiting an officer in barracks, whether a reserve officer or not, or visiting men in barracks, whether in the reserve or not, should be under any obligation to give any person from the detective force visiting his house an account of the conversations which took place or any reason why he should have been inside the barracks. Not only that but I understand that a certain number of the reserve officers and men who were supposed to have seen this visitor—there may have been other visitors—were paraded before a group of officers and questioned in the same way as to whom they received as visitors; what conversations transpired and generally what it was all about.
The only feeling that you can get from the whole business is that some kind of a German plot is being run by the Ministry. We did have occasion to complain that a very short time before this Ministry came into office the Vice-President rang up, late at night, the Archbishop's Palace and conveyed to the Archbishop that he wished to have Mr. Cosgrave informed that two of his then Ministers were plotting to raid military barracks in Dublin that night and take arms. The background to that kind of suggestion was the background to the Glasgow suggestion, which was that an ex-Minister was in Glasgow seeing a British Minister for the purpose of getting armed assistance from Great Britain to overthrow the Government here.
All this kind of a German or a Cuban plot is apparently being pursued in a subtle propagandist way by the Minister. If there was not something like that, then we would have the Minister telling us, however brutally, what are his reasons for discharging men from the Army reserve in the way in which it is being done; we would not have the members of the new detective force following to their homes visitors to officers in a military barracks to find out not only what they were doing but what they said; and we would not have inside the Army a parade before officers of other men or officers of the reserve to ascertain what kind of visitors they saw in the barracks, and what they said to them. There are very serious reasons why the Seanad should ask the Minister to tell them more with regard to his general administration of the Army and there is very good reason why we should press a lot more than we are able to press against the Minister's majority here in order to find out something of his policy with regard to Army administration. The Minister can be very downright and brutal and dogmatic at times. He might as well have been downright and brutal and dogmatic in telling them something about his Army policy rather than not saying anything to them on the subject.
Deputy Mulcahy made an allegation that certain reservists were being discharged on reports by members of Fianna Fáil clubs. That is absolutely untrue. All told, since we came into office, there were something like 61 reservists out of 8,000 discharged for the reason that their services were no longer required. Undoubtedly, a number of those men who were discharged under that regulation were discharged because they were members of the Blueshirt organisation. In October of last year there was a regulation issued prohibiting members of the reserve from being members of the organisation which has changed its name many times but which is commonly known as the Blueshirt organisation. If, upon inquiry, I find that any member of the reserve is a member of that organisation, he cannot be kept in the Army. Now, as regards the men who were discharged for the reason that they were Blueshirts, their cases have been inquired into by the Civic Guard in the ordinary normal way and it was only upon a certificate coming from the Guards to the effect that these men were members of the Blueshirt organisation and that they had paraded in Blueshirts, that they were discharged by me.
Deputy Mulcahy accuses us of wanting a political Army. Since we came into office we have been doing our utmost to turn the Army into a really national Army that will have the confidence of all the people. If we were to allow members of the Army reserve to parade in the uniform of a revolutionary organisation, the type of organisation responsible for certain crimes which were recently committed on the Continent, I do not think that the people would hold that we were doing our duty either by the Army or by the country. They would not hold that we were doing our duty by the decent men in the Army who want the Army run under the control of the representatives of the people. They would not hold that we were doing our duty properly by the country. My duty as Minister for Defence is to put down any idea that may be instilled into certain members of the reserve by Deputy Mulcahy and a few of his friends, that they can use the Army for their own purposes, that they can use the Army to co-operate with their revolutionary activities.
Has the Minister the slightest scrap of evidence for that suggestion?
There have been numbers of cases recently that would show even to the uninitiated in the country what is happening. The people as a whole know Deputy Mulcahy's history in the matter of secret organisation and all that sort of business.
Including the Glasgow meeting.
The Army inquiry which was held, and as a result of which Deputy Mulcahy was kicked out of the Cabinet, gave a pretty clear indication of his character, even to the people who did not know anything else about him. It did not require an Army inquiry to tell me all about him. If Deputy Mulcahy thinks he is going to get away with that stuff again he is mistaken. The case was proved in court where a member of the Blueshirt organisation was found guilty of endeavouring to seduce members of the public service into giving him information. You had one case where a member of the Blueshirt organisation was found guilty by officers of the Army of attempting to take bombs from the Army during his last training period. He admitted he was a Blueshirt. After being found guilty of attempting to take bombs unlawfully out of the Army stores for Blueshirt purposes, he was received by Deputy Mulcahy and his friends in County Meath and welcomed as a hero. Those are a couple of the things the public know. They know also there is an intelligence service run by the Blueshirt organisation which was told to find out everything about every public service and to get all sorts of public servants under their control.
I am not going to allow the Army to be undermined by the Blueshirt organisation if I can prevent it. When we took over here, as the President has already said, one of the things which ex-President Cosgrave and those others who handed over willingly the reins of Government to us had reason to be proud of was the fact that we took over peacefully from them. I was given charge of the Army. Generally speaking, the Army has behaved magnificently. There is no complaint. They have given loyal service to the Government and they have acted up to the principle for which they were asked to fight during the civil war, and that was that the majority should rule. They have continued to act in accordance with that principle, even when the people who led them in the civil war deserted them. I think there is no reasonable grievance in regard to the Army and I do not see why there should be this suggestion to restrict this measure to a period of three months.
I think the attention of the House should be very emphatically called to one of the most surprising incidents that has so far happened. I have been present in this House on at least seven occasions when the Minister for Defence said that certain individuals had had their services dispensed with because they were no longer required. On each of those occasions Deputy Mulcahy put a supplementary question asking the Minister if there was any additional reason and, amidst the gibes of his colleagues, the Minister said there was no reason other than that their services were no longer required. To-day the Minister rises in his place and proclaims himself, before all beholders, a liar. He says in one breath that he dismissed them because he no longer required their services, and in the next breath, because they were members of the League of Youth.
I would call the Deputy's attention to the fact that it is not permissible to call a Minister or a Deputy of this House a liar.
I did not do it, Sir. I suggested that the Minister proclaimed himself to be such by saying in one breath: "I dismissed them because I no longer required their services," and in the next breath, "I dismissed them because they were members of the League of Youth." It is unnecessary for me to describe that contradiction. Its description is manifest to everybody who heard it. I say that the procedure of the House with regard to Parliamentary questions should not be used for the purpose of deliberately deceiving the House and the country in the Parliamentary answer. I have had occasion to say here before, Sir, that the Minister in debate has a scabrous record. He will go out of his way to employ the most offensive, the most provocative and indefensible language that he can think of. He chooses to refer to the League of Youth here to-day as the type of organisation which has been found guilty of various crimes on the continent, the implication being that the League of Youth in this country is a type of organisation which may be expected to be guilty of crimes in this country. He went on to describe it as a revolutionary organisation.
Now, as I pointed out on a previous occasion, what Frank Aiken would say matter very little, but what the Minister for Defence of Saorstát Eireann says carries weight. He has no grounds whatever for either of those allegations, but he tosses them off from his Ministerial position without any regard whatever for what he is, and then has the barefaced effrontery in this House to refer to the case of Captain Hughes as having been convicted on a charge of having written a letter advising members of the public service to communicate with him, although the court, which sentenced him to jail, did not convict him of having written the letter.
The court found him guilty of writing a letter.
The court found the man, on whose evidence it was stated he had written a letter, a perjurer.
It did not.
And he is in jail to-day on the uncorroborated evidence of a perjurer.
I object to Deputy Dillon's language in reference to the court.
Is this a point of order?
I have not heard it.
Does the Minister state that it is a point of order?
I have already stated that I have not heard it.
Mr. Aiken rose.
Does the Minister rise to a point of order?
I think that the language used——
Is it a point of order?
It is a point of order.
You are rising to a point of order?
Yes. I put it to you, Sir, that the Deputy should not be allowed to criticise the Military Tribunal in the way he has done.
I, Sir, would not have referred to the case in question but for the fact that the Minister deliberately brought it in to justify himself for having victimised members of the League of Youth and because he used the procedure of Parliamentary Questions and Answers in this House in order to deceive the House. He referred to the case of Captain Hughes in order to justify himself in holding that the League of Youth was in a conspiracy to seduce from their loyalty servants of the State. I pointed out that Captain Hughes is sentenced on the uncorroborated evidence of a man whom the court found to be a perjurer.
I do not know what the court found, but if it did not find the man to be a perjurer the charge should not be made.
Certainly not, Sir, but the man, McNamara, in that case——
The evidence in that case does not arise here. The question for the Chair is that the Deputy has stated that the court found that man to be a perjurer. If it did not so find, the statement should not be made in this House in relation to a person who has no defence against a privileged attack.
The court found that the evidence the man gave on oath was not true and they found it specifically as part of their verdict. That case might well have been left rest and would not have been raised from this side of the House but that the verdict in question was used across the floor of this House to substantiate a charge against an organisation with which I am proud to be associated—a charge that they sought to seduce from their loyalty servants of the State. That kind of language is reckless. As I say, on the lips of Mr. Aiken, speaking as an individual, it will have no consequence whatsoever, but on the lips of the Minister for Defence, unfortunately, it is deserving of notice and it does require rebuttal. I think that the House should take grave notice of the Minister's procedure in respect of Parliamentary Questions and Answers and I invite the House to observe that there is no Parliamentary precedent for it in the memory of anyone sitting here to-day.
I should like to say one word in reply. If I discharge a soldier from the reserve for the reason that his services are no longer required, I take the attitude that I can, if I wish, disclose to the House the exact and detailed reasons as to why his services are no longer required, or that, if I wish, I can withhold the exact reasons. If members of the reserve are discharged under the regulation which gives me power to discharge them for the reason that their services are no longer required, I hold that a very good reason as to why their services should no longer be required is that they are members of the League of Youth. I hold that to be an excellent and all-sufficing reason.
I happened to be here when the Minister answered the question and there were certain other members of the House here too, and I was distinctly under the impression that in answer to supplementary questions from General Mulcahy—to the first of the two questions at all events addressed to him—the Minister stated that they were not dismissed because they belonged to a political organisation.
No.
I am referring to what has just happened in the hearing of everybody in this House within the last ten minutes. Whether it is what the Minister said in actual words is one thing, but it is what he conveyed to the House, and it is not alone on this occasion that it was conveyed to the House that men were not dismissed because they belonged to a political organisation.
It is the other way around.
He conveyed to the House that men were not dismissed because they belonged to a political organisation.
Dr. Ryan
It is the other way around.
What does the Minister for Agriculture mean?
Ask Deputy Mulcahy.
He asked whether they were dismissed because they belonged to a political organisation. I asked were they dismissed because they did not belong to the Fianna Fáil Party.
Dr. Ryan
That is different.
If the Minister will refer to some of the Parliamentary Questions on former occasions he will find that the Minister for Defence has said it both ways.
Deputy O'Sullivan was referring to the question to-day.
I was referring to a number of questions. I should like to say that if I misrepresented the Minister in regard to his answer to-day, I certainly withdraw; but undoubtedly he has conveyed that political considerations did not enter into his dismissal of these men. To-day was the first time that we heard that they were dismissed because they were members of the Blueshirt organisation. That is the first time we heard it officially in this House.
Dr. Ryan
That may be so.
And every opportunity was given to the Minister on previous occasions in answer to previous questions, but the House probably will notice the extraordinary contempt with which the Ministry is treating this House on this and all other matters. They simply refuse to give the information asked for—completely and absolutely refuse to give it. They give no reasons for what they do and they are reducing this House, as was indicated formerly that they would be bound to reduce it sooner or later, to a mere registration machine to carry out their wishes. I do not know if it is because of a feeling that is going through part of the House—merely to support the Minister. But there has been a distinct lack of courtesy so far as the House and the country are concerned. There is the refusal to give information; the effort at least to evade the giving of information and a few moments afterwards that is followed by the Minister breaking his silence and giving information. He confesses that because this certain organisation is of a certain character, though no illegalities have been proved against it or against those who are members of that organisation, he is determined to take certain steps. That is allowing political considerations to interfere with his administration of the Army.
Question put and agreed to.