That does not entirely meet the point I made. I had an amendment down on the last day to the effect that nothing in the section shall operate—therefore, whatever powers there were previously would still remain—to confer on the Minister or on the variety of people mentioned any power or right to arrest or detain or search a citizen of Saorstát Eireann, or forcibly to enter the dwelling of a citizen. The President proposes to take out of the section merely this: "and powers of searching persons and places." There is, therefore, still left this, that the Minister any time he likes can bring in aliens orders and that these may contain provisions with regard to giving the Minister and a variety of officers through the country the power of arrest and detention. That is not even confined to aliens. There are powers for the arrest and detention of anybody. I am presuming, since there is no restriction on it, that it has complete application. The point I made, therefore, has not been met. That may be deliberate, but it is wrong to phrase it as if the point I made had been met.
I urged that under the Constitution we have set out to give certain guarantees, such as personal liberty, freedom from arrest, and also that a dwelling house would be inviolable. We now have these two sets of principles broken in on. With regard to search, the new proposal is that the power of searching persons and places is to be taken out of this section, and that is all. It then goes into a special section afterwards and, when the search order is given, arising out of the order anybody may be arrested. So that we have the power of arrest reinforced. First of all, under the section as it stands, the Minister at his own sweet will can bring in an aliens order and put in provisions conferring upon himself and a variety of people mentioned the power to arrest and detain. Then later on he can move towards the arrest and detention via a search order. But under this he can arrest and detain anybody, not merely an alien, and the necessity for that has not been explained to the House.