Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 9 May 1935

Vol. 56 No. 6

Committee on Finance. - Vote 32—Office of the Minister for Justice (Resumed.)

Debate resumed on the Motion "That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration."—(Deputy Mulcahy).

Mr. Belton

I have little more to say on this Motion to refer back the Estimate but I want to impress upon the Minister the undesirability of flinging diatribes across the floor of the House about alleged conspiracies and seeking in that way to justify an increased police force and increased police activity in the country, thereby trying to transfer the responsibility which is on his shoulders and on the shoulders of his colleagues of the Executive Council, and the Government Party generally, to the shoulders of others. In administering the law, if he finds resistance, he should examine the cause of that resistance He has legal sanction to plunder the most law-abiding section of the people of this country and his whole case for increasing the Garda Estimate is based on the allegation that resistance is shown to this plunder. Why should there not be? He and the Government are responsible for the Act which is producing that resistance. His only cure is to overcome that resistance with force. He tries to deal with the effects of that for which he is responsible. He tries to make these people meet an obligation twice. He increases the police force and prostitutes that force by converting the members of it into "puffers" and buyers at auctions. They are acting as agents for others who will not come into the open to buy at these auctions. That all this is being done with the connivance of the Government, shows that they are doing a thing which the people they claim to represent do not want done. If the people are with them in that, why do they not go to the auctions and buy the stuff? The Minister supplies the police to go there and buy it. I wonder how much that class of work is responsible for the increase in this Estimate. Our friends of the Labour Party have a bit of trouble from time to time.

There is trouble now. What is the resistance shown by the farmers in refusing to meet an obligation twice but a way of striking, a way of asserting the right to live? The Minister has no remedy for that but to increase the police force and compel the farmers to meet their obligations twice. Why does not the Minister treble or quadruple the Guards in the City of Dublin now?

Mr. Davin

For what reason?

Mr. Belton

To force the strikers to work. The Deputy will go into the lobby and vote with the Government to force the farmer and farm labourers to work for a wage which is not half that of the strikers in the City of Dublin. Is not that the position?

Mr. Davin

Not at all, except in your own imagination.

Mr. Belton

When I make that comparison I do not want to be understood as advocating interference with the right to strike or advocating that police should be put on the streets of Dublin to scab. I do not advocate anything of the kind, but why do the Labour Party support the police in scabbing on the farmers? The Deputy cannot have it both ways. The Deputy who supports the Government in this scab policy is on those benches because of the votes of the agricultural labourers and small farmers of Leix and Offaly. Not a tram-driver, tram-conductor or bus driver gave him a vote. I am not saying that if he went up in the City constituency he would not get these votes. But when the farmers strike for a living wage, the Deputy votes with the Government to deprive them of that right to strike.

Mr. Davin

No.

Mr. Belton

You vote to use machinery to compel a man who is his own employer to meet an obligation twice. In one case, a wage is kept down. In the other case, you are just as much reducing the wage by making the man meet an obligation twice. In essence, where is the difference? There is none. I remember when the Labour Deputies almost went into hysterics because a wage of 24/- per week was alleged to be paid on minor relief schemes or was advocated by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. I put it to the Deputies on the Labour Benches who represent agricultural constituencies that the few constituents of theirs who are now employed do not receive 24/- a week. I challenge them to prove that, in Wicklow, Wexford, Kildare, Laoighis or Offaly, the wage for agricultural labourers is 24/-, or even £1.

Mr. Everett

It is much more. We take good care to see that the agricultural labourers in Wicklow get much more than 24/-

Mr. Davin

Who contradicts it?

Mr. Belton

Deputy Everett says that it is much more, but I think that Deputy Davin agrees with me.

Mr. Davin

If the Deputy thinks that, I am afraid that his hearing must be very bad.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair submits that the rate of agricultural wages is not relevant to this Estimate.

Mr. Davin

I think that Deputy Belton's vision is warped.

Mr. Belton

Of course, Deputy Davin's second thoughts came to his relief, evidently. Of course, Sir, the question of agricultural wages does not arise under this Estimate, but I submit that the case made by Government speakers to justify the increase of the Gárda Estimate is due to a campaign by the Government to reduce the paying and the purchasing power of agriculture. In that way, Sir, I submit that there is a relation between the proposed increase in the Gárda Estimate and the wages that are paid by agriculture—or, perhaps not so much the wages paid as the capacity and ability of agriculture to pay such wages. However, we have the position now that Labour speaks with one voice here and in the City of Dublin and with another voice down through the country.

Mr. Everett

Let the Deputy not forget that in some cases there is a question of £1 a week for rent.

Mr. Belton

I should like to know where that is payable.

Mr. Everett

What does the Dublin Corporation charge for rents for its houses?

Mr. Belton

It varies—7/6, 15/-, 18/- and so on.

Mr. Everett

I am not aware of any. I do not know whether the Deputy deals in keys or not.

Mr. Belton

However, the Minister is seeking justification now for his policy of increasing expenditure on the Gárda in order that Court messengers and sheriffs will be protected when they go out to seize the stock and furniture of the farmers.

Mr. Davin

And motor cars!

Mr. Belton

Why should not the farmer have a motor car? Surely, he is entitled to have a motor car. That kind of remark shows the warped mentality of some people in this country. According to that type of mentality, it is all right for anybody to own a motor car except the "ould farmer." He dare not own a motor car, according to them. He must always go around with mud on his heels and with a choker round his neek and wearing a bawneen, and I suppose with a pipe stuck in the band of his hat. That is the warped City idea of the poor farmer.

Mr. Smith

What about poor Richard?

Mr. Belton

Deputy Davin, however, will not go down and stand in the square of Maryborough and say that, but he will stand on the pier of Dun Laoghaire.

Mr. Davin

I often stood there too, and perhaps was able to oblige the Deputy.

Mr. Belton

You would not get 2,000 votes outside your own constituency. The Deputy could not go outside his own county and get 2,000 votes as I did in the Deputy's own constituency on a certain occasion. Mind you, that was not a bad vote for a stranger to get in a strange constituency. Now, the Minister pursues this policy calmly and coldly, and I dare say that he finds himself in a cleft stick, and that he has to go on because it is the Government policy. I dare say that his Party forces him to do so. Surely, however, the Minister should bear in mind that he is possessed of manhood, and that he owes it to his own manhood, if the position he holds calls upon him to do something that is wrong, to resign from that position. The Minister has the course open to a man, and if his Party is driving him to do work which he believes to be wrong, he owes it to his own manhood to hand in his resignation. The Minister smiles, but he would frown for a good many years if he were asked to take such a job even without having to do this class of work. It is an extraordinary thing and it is a terrible judgment on the mentality with regard to agriculture in this country.

I remember a case last year where a Bill was going through this House in which the doctors were concerned. That Bill had to do with insurance, and the doctors wanted a guarantee that the employer would be directly liable to all medical men for a fee up to £5. The doctors in the House, in that case, soon got out of the strait-jacket of Parties where their own interests were concerned. I now appeal to the agricultural interests here to get out of the strait-jacket of Party affiliations and, where agricultural interests are concerned, to vote for this motion to refer back this Estimate and, in that way, to bring the Minister and his Government to their senses. The Minister has the option of resigning. If he resigns, of course, there will be no trouble, probably, in the President's getting a Hamar Greenwood to run this job in this country. I submit that there are sufficient danger signals appearing before the Minister, apart from the resistance he is getting in view of the position in which he finds himself. The Minister knows the financial stringency that exists in the country at the present time. He knows that industries that were amongst the largest employing industries in the country a few months ago are now closing down. I refer to the building trade in the City of Dublin.

An Ceann Comhairle

Will the Deputy refer to the Estimate under consideration?

Mr. Belton

I am relating, Sir, or endeavouring to relate, the present economic condition with the position in which the Minister finds himself, and pointing out that, in order to increase the Garda, he is endeavouring to extract money out of people who have not got it and who, even if they had the money, have already met these obligations and who, as a result, naturally are putting up a resistance to the law. I am pointing out that the Minister should take notice of the danger signals, and I only mentioned the depression in the building industry as one of the danger signals. I am pointing out that the Minister should take notice of the fact that in this case he is trying to extract blood out of a turnip and, moreover, out of a turnip which has already been bled. I ask the Minister to take notice of that. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs had it put up to him last Sunday. We stand for the economic war—I am not going to discuss the economic war now—but we do not stand for the bailiffs and the Gardai and the battering-ram forcing one section of the people to bear the cost-and that from the Government's own supporters. That was the first time that they came into the open and expressed that view, but I know of my own knowledge that they have expressed it in petitions to the President during the last one and a half years, I challenge contradiction of that. I hope that this sign which has been shown by its agricultural supporters will not be lost sight of by the Government. I also hope that it will not be lost upon any member of the House who tries to drag a red herring across the track of the problems affected by this Estimate and confronting the country at the present time. If they want to force the issue of a Republic or Commonwealth, let them choose some other ground and some other grievance rather than harnessing the oppressed agriculturists of the country either to the flag of the Republic or the flag of the Commonwealth.

Mr. Anthony

I have a considerable amount of sympathy with any Government in this country which makes an attempt to govern. The Cosgrave Government undoubtedly made a herculean endeavour at government here. As a result of a ten years' effort they had brought the country to a certain stage of success, a country new to parliamentary institutions. To the credit of the country and of the people it has to be said that the country made wonderful strides during the regime of ex-President Cosgrave. I have, however, always regarded in this Parliament and in the last the Department of Justice as one of the most important departments of government in this country, or, indeed, for that matter in any European country that I know of. I have done so for the obvious reason that if that department is not impartially and efficiently administered, then the other departments of State will suffer as a consequence. Their administration will become increasingly difficult if not altogether impossible.

Everybody who looks at the position in the country to-day and takes an impartial view of it—that is to say if anybody in this country at the moment can be said to take an impartial view —even Deputies who have strong Party affiliations who review the position as it obtains to-day in the Irish Free State, must admit that since this State was established there was never such lawlessness as there is at the moment. Putting on one side for the moment the question of the retention of the land annuities and the trouble arising therefrom, one is tempted to make a somewhat closer analytical examination of the situation to try and find one at least of the root causes of that state of unrest. I want to suggest at least one or two. Early on, under the Minister's regime the prison gates were opened and a number of persons who had been charged with very serious offences against the State—people found in the possession of arms which they themselves had declared they intended to use against the State— were allowed to go scot free. It was perhaps a generous gesture on the part of the Minister or of his predecessor, but in what way was that action construed?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister is not responsible for the policy of his predecessors.

Mr. Anthony

I am talking of what the Minister himself did. It was the Minister who let those prisoners out.

An Ceann Comhairle

Within the last twelve months?

Mr. Anthony

I am attempting to trace the history of this unrest during the regime of this Government. The Minister for Justice now was the Minister for Justice at the beginning of President De Valera's Government.

A Deputy

No.

Mr. Anthony

Well, he is his successor.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister is not answerable for his predecessors. This Estimate only covers a year.

Professor O'Sullivan

But if there is a continuing policy, and if the Deputy tries to establish that there is a continuing policy and, that despite certain statements by certain Ministers, there is no change of heart, surely that is quite relevant to a discussion of present day affairs?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy may remember that the matter which is now being referred to was already referred to in this debate without objection from the Chair as it was advanced as proof of policy. If, however, there were to be a detailed review of the past three years, then this debate would be interminable.

Mr. Anthony

Looking about for other reasons than that of the retention of the land annuities and the trouble arising therefrom, I come to the second reason which I regard, and I think most of the people in the country regard, as the primary cause of much of the restlessness and lawlessness that is manifest in the country to-day. I refer to the fact that for many years before coming into office the Minister and his Party conducted a campaign against the then Government—the Cosgrave Government—from which they are now reaping the whirlwind. Offences against property and persons in this country, whilst not acquiesced in by the Opposition of that day—the Fianna Fáil Party—were almost condoned. I have evidence myself of members of the Minister's Party boasting of some of their exploits in putting the wind up, as they said, some supporters of the Cosgrave regime of that period.

I want to make my position quite clear on this, and I challenge interruption even from Deputy Davin. I believe that every decent citizen in the State, myself included, condemns the campaign that has gone on for some time in the country of cutting telephone and telegraph wires, felling trees and all such activities as against the best interests of the State. I want to make it quite clear that that is my attitude in relation to the activities of those people, but I feel that we are just now reaping the whirlwind of the activities of the Fianna Fáil Party before they became the Government. Hence it is that you have to increase the Vote for the Gárda Síochána, and for other services under the administration of the Minister for Justice. Anybody who has any concern at all for the future of the country must be alarmed at the lowering of the morale of our people. There is no question whatever about it. Turn to Tuesday's Press and you will find a report from the City Manager of Dublin, in which he deplores the vandalism existing in this city. That vandalism is not confined to Dublin; it is quite common throughout the country. The City Manager, Mr. Sherlock, says:—

"It was a disgrace that they should have to appoint a guard for every citizen in these parks. Was there no decent citizen with sufficient civic spirit to stop this sort of thing themselves?"

He was referring to some destruction of public property in the parks in the city.

Mr. T. Kelly

A lot of trees are being felled in Cork, too.

Mr. Anthony

We are very respectable in Cork, I assure you. The City Manager goes on:—

"Was this a country of savages or barbarians? He had written to the Civic Guards, to the clergymen of all denominations, and to the managers of all schools in an endeavour to get some type of civic spirit instilled into the people. Within one week all the windows in a new building in Hill Street were smashed."

At that meeting, a Fianna Fáil member of the Dublin Corporation, who is also a member of this House, said— and I quote from the Press report:—

"They required someone, if necessary, to put discipline into the lawless type who are going around damaging the city's property in the manner described."

That has only local application in Dublin, but I submit that it has general application all over the Free State, most of which I attribute to the doctrine preached for so many years by the Fianna Fáil Party, before they became a Government. Now they are finding it very difficult to govern because of the doctrines which they preached at the cross-roads throughout the country. I want to say that I have a considerable amount of sympathy with the Gárda Síochána in matters of this kind. I quite understand the difficulty of the Minister and I appreciate the difficulty of the various county superintendents all over the country. They cannot—it would be a human impossibility—provide a Guard at every corner of the Street.

To advert once more to the downward trend of the morale of the people, even in cases in which people who have transgressed can be identified it is most difficult, if not impossible, to get those people to come forward to identify at an identification parade the persons who have transgressed the law. What is the reason? Those people are afraid of the bully with the gun in his hand. That is happening to-day and the Minister has not only the machinery of the common law, which he can exercise at any time, but he has the machinery of Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Act which the Minister himself, and all those associated with him now in the present Government, so hysterically condemned, and which the Labour Party so hysterically condemned, and which the Fianna Fáil Party cum the Labour Party have taken to their bosoms. This Constitution Amendment Act, otherwise known as the Public Safety Act, as I have just said, was roundly condemned and caused almost hysterical outbreaks by members of the Labour Party at the various cross-roads when they were seeking Fianna Fáil votes.

Deputies will remember that little line, "When we were rightly struggling to be free." When we were rightly struggling to be free, I often felt very much insulted and aggrieved when I heard it said that the Irish people were not fit to govern themselves. I resented it as a libel on the Irish character, but I am beginning to examine my conscience. We enjoyed, for a considerable period, a large measure of freedom under the Cosgrave regimé in this country which, I believe—and this is a very challenging statement to make; I make it in all seriousness and with a full sense of responsibility—we did not deserve. I do not care what capital is made out of that, but I am tempted to say it when I read of recent shocking happenings and occurrences in this country; when I read of the murder of young O'Reilly whose murderers have not yet been brought to book; the case of young More O'Ferrall, and again, the burning of Deputy Murphy's house in East Cork last week. Do those occurrences show any kind of reasonable indication that we are fit to govern ourselves?

I feel, however, that notwithstanding these facts, and they are facts, there are still a sufficient number of people in this country who will have the moral courage to stand up to that kind of conduct and I will ask the Minister for Justice, or the Attorney-General, who is now acting for him, if he is even at this late hour prepared to take his courage in his hands and govern—g-o-v-e-r-n. It takes men to govern. Government is a most unpopular thing in this country and will be for a considerable period.

Adverting to what the City Manager of Dublin said the other day in relation to the barbarians who have destroyed a good deal of public property, I feel that the figures disclosed by the reports from the Gárda Síochána and from the Minister's own Department, go to show that while this wonderful missionary country has been sending missioners to China, to the Far East and to the Near East, I suggest that they have a more useful field of activity at home. That, again, perhaps is a very challenging statement and will possibly cause a good deal of annoyance to some people, but it is true. I feel that the situation at the moment in the country is very grave indeed. We have the glorification of the gun and the fact that a number of our young people have become trained in the use of arms, and because of inflammatory statements and speeches by members of the present Government for a long number of years, these young people are enjoying not liberty, but licence, and the Attorney-General must know that there is a very great difference indeed between the meanings of the two words "liberty" and "licence." Numbers of those young people, young irresponsibles, having imbibed their political faith from leading members of the Government, are now operating in the country with guns in their hands and defying the Minister and his Department. I believe that in the House as it is at present constituted the Minister will get every support—and not alone from members of the House will he get it, but from every law-abiding citizen—if he invokes the aid of the legal machinery he has at his disposal in order to bring about peaceful conditions, to bring about such an era of peace as operated before their advent into power.

I want to refer to some matters that are within the knowledge of the Minister for Justice and the Attorney-General. As the cases are sub judice I do not want to say much more than that it is to be hoped that when men are found with arms in their possession, lethal weapons, in the act of committing a robbery or terrifying peaceful citizens, in the act of intimidating the ordinary John Citizen of this country, they will be punished adequately. When I say that I do not mean to reflect in any way whatsoever on judgments given in the courts; but I do feel that in order to strengthen the hands of the Minister for Justice the sentences should be the maximum allowed by the Acts in the different cases, rather than the minimum. Also, there should be no more opening of the jail gates. We have had a very sad experience of that. I am wondering what gratitude has been manifested by those people who were let out of prison on the advent of this Government to power. I do not gamble, but I would venture to bet that most of those people are to be found to-day in opposition to the Government. They are the people who translated the action of the Government on that occasion as a sign of weakness. Hence it is that you have armed men drilling, armed men who have not the authority of the State to carry their arms. That is a matter which the Minister should take immediate notice of, if the country is to be worth living in, or unless you want to turn the country into a second Mexico. I have heard it said by some followers of Fianna Fáil: “Why not have a second Mexico?” If we are told definitely that they desire a second Mexico we will know at any rate where we are, and every man will get a gun. But the ordinary law-abiding citizen wants to be allowed to go about his own business without any interference of that sort.

I think the Minister has, through the agency of the Minister for Defence, a very powerful army, relatively speaking. When I saw it marching past on Easter Sunday—I was not on the platform—I thought it was the outbreak of a European war. Surely, with all the anti-aircraft guns, all the field telephone arrangements, the engineering corps, the cavalry corps and the artillery corps, you have sufficient forces at your disposal to bring about a state of peace in this country, unless you are going to translate the bringing about of the peace in this way, that we are going to fight for peace like hell until we get it.

In conclusion, let me mention that anything I have said is in the direction of being helpful to the Minister. I know there is a big volume of opinion behind what I have said. It is suggested that the Minister has exercised the powers he possesses very leniently in respect of a certain type of person in this country. I do not want to attribute any motives to the Minister or to his Department, but it is a singular coincidence that most of those persons happen to be persons who were in armed opposition to the previous Government. Many of those people have got away with light sentences. The Minister must know, as an experienced lawyer, that you can stretch leniency too far. It is a dangerous thing to talk in this country about the administration of law and order when it means bringing to book the ruffian or the blackguard with a gun in his hand. There are too many in the country of the type who carry guns, who level a gun at an unoffending citizen when they know that unoffending citizen is not armed. That type of bully must be put down in this country if we are to have any peace or happiness in it. The country will not be peaceful unless the Minister deals determinedly with such a situation.

I regard the Minister's Department as the most important Department of State. Ordinarily, I would regard the corresponding Department in other countries as of very great importance, but I regard it in this country as really the most important, much more important than the Department of Justice is in any other country that I know of except, perhaps, in some of the Latin countries in South America. Surely we, who have proclaimed from the housetops that we are the descendants of a great race, we who have proclaimed our nationhood so proudly all down the centuries, have a right to expect from an Irish Government and from an Irish Department of Justice that protection and peace for which the taxpayers of the country are paying so dearly.

Mr. Keyes

In Deputy Belton's eloquent address, when he was supporting the proposal to refer this Estimate back, he accused the Government of being directly and solely responsible for the necessity of increasing the Gárda Síochána because of the policy they were pursuing against the agricultural community. The Deputy suggested that the agricultural community were naturally resisting the law imposed by the present Government. Perhaps they thought it too harsh. In his statement the Deputy seemed to indicate that the increase in the Gárda Síochána was due solely to the position brought about in the agricultural sphere by the policy of the Government.

Mr. Belton

On a point of explanation. I said that that case was made by the Government's spokesmen.

Mr. Keyes

I got the impression that the Deputy was dealing mainly with the fact that the Government in their agricultural policy were solely responsible for the increase in this Vote, and he did not think that that increase was at all justified. He treated us to a mixed grill of doubtful quantities when he was endeavouring to tell us that the Gárda Síochána Vote should not be increased. Did the Deputy mean to suggest that the Government should abandon their functions completely and give way to the campaign that has been taking place? The point whether the people are able to pay or not does not arise. Did it occur to the Deputy that the increase might be due in some way to the cutting of telegraph wires, the blocking of roads and railways, and so on? One would imagine from the Deputy's statement that those efforts should have been allowed a measure of success and that, in short, the Government should have abandoned their attempt to govern.

Mr. Belton

Not at all.

Mr. O'Leary

A lot of the trouble is due to the bad example set by the people on the Government Benches.

Mr. Belton

A lot of the trouble is due to the effort of the Government to make people pay twice.

Mr. Keyes

Deputy Anthony presented a much more serious aspect. In his view the lawlessness has spread to the entire country; there is no section or element of the Irish race to-day that can be covered with any kind of clean or fairly decent sheet and, since the Cosgrave Government went out of office, we have sunk to the border-line of barbarism and paganism. The Deputy desires to appear helpful and sympathetic and not anxious to offer hostile criticism. Deputy Belton suggested that the Minister's retirement was the handiest way of dealing with the situation. Deputy Anthony thought that the Civic Guards might well be replaced by missionaries. He did not quite say what he actually meant. Did he mean to send the missionaries amongst the Government Benches? I fancied it was the Government Benches he wanted to evangelise, and not the people.

According to the Deputy all evil has descended upon the Irish people since the advent of the Fianna Fáil-cum-Labour Government. Between all the various advices one is apt to lose hope. If we are to believe Deputy Anthony the country is so morally submerged at the moment that crime was never so rampant. One would think there never had been any crime in the country until within the last 12 months, and that it was only in the last 12 months we got this wave of crime, until now we have reached the position that we have become as bad as Mexico. The Deputy says the evil was so great that there is no hope of coping with it until we get a band of missionaries amongst the people. We used to hear tributes paid to the efficiency of the Gárda Síochána. I do not think I heard here anything that would tend to show that there was any lessening of confidence in the Gárda Síochána who are administering their duty as efficiently and as impartially as any police force in the world. I am satisfied, as long as police officers are required in this country, that irrespective of whatever Party may be in control there will nowhere be found a more efficient instrument than the Gárda Síochána. I do not want the force increased unduly, but Deputies must remember that the people responsible for the peace of the country and the people responsible for providing safeguards for the protection of the citizens are entitled to use as many Gárda Síochána as they think are necessary to cope with the occasion. I deprecate the idea that the Gárda Síochána are protecting certain interests in the country and ignoring others. Personally I have never known anything but perfect impartiality being displayed by that force under both the late and the present Government. It is only purely a matter of degree. I suggest that the Ministers would be very foolish if they attempted to increase the personnel of the Gárda Síochána beyond what is necessary. But they would be foolish if they did not increase the Gárda personnel to the extent they consider necessary in order to give full protection to the citizens of this country, to the people who are endeavouring to carry on their duties and to order their lives in a perfectly normal manner. Unlike Deputy Anthony, I do not want peace by fighting like hell for it. That was what the previous speaker suggested. I prefer that the Government by having well trained Gárda Síochána and using them in sufficient numbers would ensure that the record they have already set up for themselves will be maintained irrespective of whether it is Fianna Fáil, Labour, or Fine Gael is in control of the affairs of this country.

Mr. MacDermot

I was glad to see Deputy Keyes rise in this debate, because I thought it was time that we heard something from the Labour Party with regard to the administration of justice. That is not a subject on which we hear from them very often. Yet there is nobody as much interested as the poorest of the poor in the impartial and efficient administration of justice, and especially in the protection of the individual against intimidation. But I cannot say that I am otherwise than disappointed with what Deputy Keyes has said; I cannot say that I am otherwise than disappointed at the absence of the expressions of indignation that one would hope to hear in regard to the amount of intimidation that has been going on and is still going on in this country. I think too it is time that we heard from the Labour Party what their views now are with regard to the operation of what is known as the Public Safety Act as it is being used at the present time. The Labour Party defended their action in supporting the Public Safety Act by pretending that this country was threatened with a Fascist revolution. They themselves have announced that they have no such fears to-day, and according to them, it is through their activity and propaganda that the prospect of a Fascist revolution has been smashed. Even so, they do not appear to have withdrawn their support from the Public Safety Act, though it was an Act which they had denounced previously in all the moods and tenses. They supported it only, they said, through fear of the Fascist revolution that they said was in prospect. They see it now used against farmers—to a very large extent against men who have always been law-abiding citizens, and who, when they have become otherwise than law-abiding citizens, have become so only under extreme economic necessity. They see it also being used against such persons as members of the I.R.A., obviously a more appropriate use, and one for which the Act was created, but persons that the Labour Party protested, under the previous Government, it should not be used against. I think it is now time that the Labour Party made it clear to the House and to the people of the country what their position in the matter is, if we are not to have always before us such a disedifying spectacle as a political Party in this country supporting a state of things which they previously denounced in the most violent terms, and giving that support without any sort of attempt at explanation. For the sake of decency in public life, something should be said as to how the Labour Party stands.

Deputy Keyes paid a tribute to the Civic Guards. Such tributes are constantly paid in this House and to a very great extent they are deserved. I do believe that the Guards always have been and are on the whole impartial but let us not give ourselves up to an orgy of soft soap. The Gárda force is not perfect and in particular I suggest that it is not perfect in relation to political crime or the sort of crime which is conveniently labelled political crime. I do not suggest that the Gárda Síochána are partial in cases of that nature but I do suggest that they are now and to the best of my information they were often under the Cosgrave Government less active than they should be where political crime is concerned; that the tendency amongst the Gárda Síochána is to turn so far as possible a blind eye to political crime and especially to the sort of crime which is not exactly overt, the sort of crime which takes the form of intimidation and putting improper pressure on citizens to do something they do not want to do or to refrain from doing something which they have a perfect right to do. The Civic Guards can hardly be blamed for that, because that state of things arises inevitably from the policy of the Government. But do not let us pretend that it does not exist. Do not let us pretend that on the whole the Gárda Síochána has been successful in bringing political offenders to book over a period of years since this State was created; because on the whole it was not successful either under the present Commissioner or under General O'Duffy when he was Commissioner.

The Government speakers in the course of this debate have vacillated between saying that the state of the country in relation to law and order is good, and saying that the state of the country in relation to law and order is bad but only bad because of the wickedness of the Opposition. I do not believe that any unprejudiced person looking around and taking note of what is occurring could consider that the state of the country in relation to law and order was otherwise than bad. There have been a very large number of offences labelled as political offences brought to the courts. But there have been a good many more political offences that have not been brought to the courts. There have been many offences where those guilty have not been detected. There has been a great deal of successful intimidation, and succesful intimidation, which is the worst evil that our country is afflicted with, is something that does not issue into specific cases at all, but is none the less there, and none the less evil. So long as it is there we cannot consider that the state of the country in relation to law and order is satisfactory.

The fault of this state of things is no doubt in part the fault of the administration of the Department of Justice itself—the fault of the way in which justice is administered. Deputy Mulcahy put up the other day a formidable indictment against the Department with regard to the inconsistency and unintelligibility of its conduct in relation to political cases. Deputy Belton put a question to the Minister, which I hope he will see fit to answer when he is concluding the debate, as to the principles on which he acts in choosing the cases to send to the Military Tribunal and the cases to send to the ordinary courts. Why is it that comparatively trivial cases are often sent to the Tribunal, that cases where intimidation is, to say the least of it, extremely unlikely are tried by the Military Tribunal and that, on the other hand, serious cases, where intimidation is certain, are not sent to the Military Tribunal at all, but sent to the ordinary courts? I suggest that it would be really impossible for any intelligent man, reading the newspapers and seeing the reports of the various political cases that have taken place in the last twelve months, to arrive at any view as to what the principles are on which the Government act; and it would be, I think, equally impossible for him to think the Government had acted wisely or impartially in these matters.

But apart, of course, from technical errors, or from partiality in the conduct of the Department itself, you have the difficulties created for the Department by the Government policy which underlies the whole situation with regard to law and order. According to the supporters of the Ministry, the fundamental trouble is the attitude of the Opposition. According to them, it is we who are creating a state of opinion throughout the country unfavourable to the maintenance of law and order. I wonder how many of them believe that in their hearts.

Mr. Corry

We know it; we need not believe it.

Mr. MacDermot

Deputy Corry knows it. Deputy Corry and some of his friends are convinced that all these acts of wire-cutting and tree-felling and all the resistance to the payment of land annuities are due to the propaganda of the Opposition. Is that right?

Mr. Corry

Yes. You have not the pluck to stand over them afterwards.

Mr. Norton

Read Deputy Minch's statement on the land annuities.

Mr. MacDermot

The logic of the leader of the Labour Party is rather weak. The fact that one member of this Party made a statement advocating the non-payment of land annuities —assuming he did make it—is very far from being evidence that the general feeling against the payment of land annuities, and the acts arising out of that feeling to which I have referred, are due to propaganda on the part of the Opposition.

Mr. Norton

Read ex-Deputy Heffernan's speech at Clonmel.

Mr. MacDermot

In other words, I suggest that, in so far as any Opposition speakers have shown sympathy with the resistance to the payment of land annuities they have been following the people and not the people following them. The objection to paying land annuities twice or three times or four times is a thoroughly natural and inevitable feeling. That was bound to be there if no Opposition existed at all.

Mr. O'Leary

Do you deny that?

Mr. MacDermot

In the newspapers of Monday last the following resolution appeared:

"From our experience for two years past as people living on the land, we find it impossible to carry on under present conditions. We consider there must be a change in the internal economic policy in the Twenty-Six Counties, so that if it is a war it must be a war for all, each having to bear a proportionate share. Peace and content cannot be in this country while one section is working hard and cannot work out a living and another is getting 400 per cent. over pre-war rates of pay. We hope the Government will consider any reasonable proposal put before them, and not drive the people into the other organisations, which might not be for the good of the country."

Is that a resolution passed by some wicked Opposition organisation—a branch of the League of Youth, or the Central Council of the League of Youth, or a branch of the United Ireland Party?

Mr. Donnelly

Your constituency.

Mr. MacDermot

Yes. It comes from a good constituency, but it comes from a Fianna Fáil club in that constituency. Though I will admit that it is not relevant strictly to what I have been saying, I cannot forbear to add that the resolution concludes by stating that they consider the giving of free beef and free milk to able-bodied men is degrading. Fianna Fáil is getting educated, at any rate, in County Roscommon. When a Fianna Fáil club can pass that sort of resolution under the pressure of economic circumstances, is it not babyish to suggest that, when those who are not subject to the discipline of the Fianna Fáil organisation take exception to what the Government are doing, they do not take such exception of their own motion and out of their own intelligence, and of their own will, and because they realise that the Government are ruining them to no purpose, ruining them to the good of nobody except the Government themselves? The pretence that the opposition to the Government policy which has resulted, as we have heard from the Attorney-General, in 625 offences of road blocking and wire cutting during the past 12 months, is due to artificial incitements by politicians on this side of the House, is absolute bunk, and I do not think there is a Deputy opposite who believes in it. As a matter of fact, if this Opposition had wished to throw the country into chaos it could have done so, and done so easily.

Mr. Corry

It did its best.

Mr. MacDermot

No Opposition ever had such an opportunity. Deputy Belton—I was not present during this speech, but I read it in the newspapers —says we ought to have done so in 1932.

Mr. Belton

We should have refused to pay twice.

Mr. MacDermot

He says I sold the farmers because I did not do so.

Mr. Belton

Only for you we would have done it—only you misled the farmers we would have done it. The thing would have been over and done with long ago, and you are the man responsible.

Mr. MacDermot

How much I sold them for, I cannot gather.

Mr. Belton

I did not say you sold them for a price, but you misled them.

Mr. MacDermot

To whom I sold them I am not sure.

Mr. Belton

I did not suggest that you got anything or asked anything, but we would have been better had we not met you.

Mr. MacDermot

At any rate, there was Deputy Belton, a man with a Fianna Fáil past——

Mr. Belton

A national past.

Mr. MacDermot

And a national past, of course, but a Fianna Fáil past, too.

Mr. Belton

No.

Mr. MacDermot

He was—though I am bound to say he did not make it very clear at the time—he tells us, in favour of a definite refusal to pay annuities, and perhaps rates, in order to break up the whole Government administration.

Mr. Belton

On a point of explanation.

Mr. MacDermot

I do not think we will bother with the explanation.

Mr. Belton

We had legal advice that we could refuse.

An Ceann Comhairle

The House may not be interested in this historical dispute between two Deputies. It may be decided elsewhere. It is not relevant.

Mr. MacDermot

The relevance I submit is this, that far from the Opposition having gone to improper lengths in making trouble for the Government, we are actually accused of being far too tame and law-abiding. At the time to which Deputy Belton refers, in 1932, he actually announced in one speech that he was going to be the first martyr; that he would be sold up, and was going to refuse to pay. Why this martyrdom never took place I do not know. At any rate, that was the frame of mind of a man with a Fianna Fáil past, and a thoroughly national outlook in 1932. Now we have his colleague, Deputy Kent, getting up and saying that it is the wicked Imperialists that are stirring up the people.

Mr. Corry

They did their best on him and failed.

Mr. Belton

The Deputy knows that there was no law to collect these payments then.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Corry should realise that there are no licences for interruptions in debate.

Mr. Norton

Can he get a licence?

Mr. Anthony

From the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. MacDermot

Were it not that, owing to the history of this country, and more especially the recent history, it would have been, in our judgment, a criminal thing to create chaos again by disobedience to the law, I do not think there was ever such an opportunity for an Opposition to create chaos, because a degree of injustice was being practised on the unfortunate people which would justify disobedience to law, if anything would justify it.

Mr. Belton

There was no law then to collect the payments and the Deputy knows it.

Mr. MacDermot

That statement of Deputy Belton is incorrect.

Mr. Belton

Deputy Finlay, the Lord have mercy on him, gave an opinion and the Deputy is aware of that.

Mr. MacDermot

So much for the class of offence that sprang from the economic policy of the Government.

The task of the Minister for Justice has also been extremely difficult, because of the offences, also called political, committed by those who profess to be the only true Republicans. The record of the Government in relation to offenders of this class has been very far from satisfactory. Their attitude was described on Sunday by my collegue in the representation of Co. Roscommon, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. He referred to the I.R.A. and he is reported verbatim in the newspapers as having used the following words:

‘They will realise, anyway, that they cannot go around shooting people. That game has got to stop in this country. We tolerated it as long as we could, but they have gone too far."

Mr. Dillon

They began shooting themselves.

Mr. MacDermot

Government spokesmen have over and over again claimed credit for the extraordinary tolerance which they have shown towards offences of this class. They have shown extraordinary tolerance. They pleaded for patience and brotherly love in regard to offences of this kind, at the very time that they were applying the sharpest rigours of the law, and not only of the ordinary law but of the special coercion law which they themselves denounced, against men who had been law-abiding all their lives, and were only driven into other courses by physical suffering and the prospect of losing all they had. Aside from being tolerant too long, the Government have made inevitable, and are still making inevitable, a continuance of this class of crime by the pretence that this country is fighting for its independence, and has got to fight for its independence. There is not a Minister who sits on the Front Bench who does not know that that claim is a fraud; that we are not fighting for our independence; that we have got our independence.

Mr. Donnelly

When did the Deputy discover that?

Mr. MacDermot

In a speech he made in Co. Monaghan only a few weeks ago, which I have already quoted in this House in another connection, Deputy Ward admitted that fact. He said that it was easy to be an extremist, now that we could have separation to-morrow if we wanted it.

Mr. Donnelly

For Twenty-Six Counties?

Mr. MacDermot

For Twenty-Six Counties.

Mr. Donnelly

Better define them.

Mr. MacDermot

We cannot go into the question of a Republic and Irish unity now but, if we could, I would have plenty to say on that. I will limit myself to pointing out that if you create a gigantic fraud, and spread around an atmosphere in which crime becomes respectable because it is committed in the pursuit of an alleged noble object, then you have only yourselves to blame when that crime takes place. Spokesmen on the opposite benches should busy themselves pointing out that there is nothing to fight for so far as independence is concerned. They merely say that there is a fight; that "the majority have decided to fight on our lines and not on yours." That is not enough. There is no reason at all, in view of the past record of the Government, and the past utterances of Ministers, why the Irish Republican Army should submit to the views that the Government is trying to impose upon them. If the Government wants to make a good impression upon them, it must do so by convincing them of the truth, that there is no fight, that we are free to separate to-morrow if we want to do so, and that if we do not want to separate, it is only because the Government has come to the conclusion that, for economic or some other reasons, it does not suit them to do it. This whole spirit of jingoism, this war atmosphere, has got to be got rid of, if the Government is to have any real success in establishing a satisfactory state of things in this country in regard to law and order.

One more point, small in itself, but interesting as an illustration of the general situation with regard to law and order. I notice in the Irish Times this morning an account of several interviews between a representative of that paper and the managers of various cinemas in the City of Dublin with regard to films of the Royal Jubilee procession. The correspondent asked the managers of these cinemas whether they intend to show such films. The answers of all the managers indicated that they felt considerable trepidation about showing them. One went the length of saying that it was unsafe to show Royal Wedding films and, therefore, it would probably be unsafe to show Royal Jubilee films.

We remember what happened in regard to the Royal Wedding films. In various parts of the country young men called on cinema managers and told them not to show them. The cinema managers prudently refrained from doing so. Is that what is going to occur on this occasion? Is the Government prepared to give adequate protection to any cinema that wishes to display such a film? Obviously a large number of the public would be interested in seeing them, including a great many people who may not even wish to belong to the Commonwealth. They might, nevertheless, enjoy seeing a great spectacle. Is there any reason why they should not? Is the Government prepared to give protection to cinemas that wish to show such films? I dare say a large number of people, even the most extreme Republicans, would enjoy seeing the picture of the representative of the Irish Free State arriving at St. Paul's for the Jubilee ceremony, or they might enjoy seeing the very elegant decorations adorning the office of the High Commissioner of the Irish Free State in London. Is there any reason why they should be denied that interesting spectacle? This is an opportunity for the Government to show whether there is any genuineness in their allegation that they want to see liberty in this country, and that the individual citizen should be free to do anything which it is legal for him to do. Are they, on this occasion, going to do something which they have so often failed to do, and that is to protect the liberty and the rights of the individual citizen against the threats of gangsters?

Mr. J.M. Burke

A Chinn Comhairle, this long-drawn-out and tedious debate has been illuminated by at least two episodes. First of all, we had the mock heroics of that great apostle of law and order, Deputy Corry, who was very disappointed that there should be any opposition at the present time to the forces of law and order in this country. The second episode was the simulated indignation of my friend Deputy Cleary the other night. It reminded me, with some modifications, of an old poem which I am sure is well known to some members of the House:

"My dear friend Mick with his lipstick,

Is breathing terrible slaughter;

He is going to kill ten thousand men

On the banks of the Lee Water."

Let me now say at once that I condemn most unreservedly the outrageous attack which was made on the house of one of the kindliest and most inoffensive members of this House, Deputy Murphy. I would condemn equally an attack on the house of even the humblest citizen of this State, but what I should like to know is why the perpetrators of those dastardly outrages are not brought to justice? Is it due to the fact that we have not sufficient Civic Guards in the country— because I am sure the Civic Guards are only too anxious to do their duty towards the State—or is it due to the fact, as was adverted to the other night by Deputy Minch, that too many extra police duties are being put on them, and that they are, in consequence, unable to carry out their ordinary duties? Or is it due to the lack of civic spirit that the people are afraid to come forward to assist the State in bringing to justice offenders against the law? If this lack of civic spirit exists why is it so? Is it due to the fact that the public conscience has been stifled by the growing power of lawlessness in this country, or is it due to the fact that people are afraid if they come to the assistance of the State they will not be guaranteed adequate protection by the State? That is the only explanation I can see at the present time why the law is not being enforced in this country. I do not blame the Minister for Justice. I am sure he is honestly doing his best under very trying circumstances. I am glad to see the Attorney-General in the House. His outlook, I hope, has been considerably improved by his recent visit to the Eternal City and by his reception by our Holy Father the Pope, so I am looking forward to a more generous execution of the law in this country for the future. Some weeks ago he said—and I think it was a very ill-advised remark on his part—that he had broken up the British courts in the West of Ireland. I doubt if there is anybody in this House who has had greater experience of the old Sinn Féin courts, as they were called, than I have had, but I think in the present circumstances he ought not to have made that remark, because it suggests to the young people of the country that if they feel any grievance, no matter how ill-founded, it is the proper thing for them to break up the courts of the de facto Government of the country. I am sure he did not mean to use the expression in that spirit, but I do know as a fact that his statement on that occasion has had a remarkable effect on the young people of the country. I can speak with the very clearest conscience on this Vote, because I have always stood for the supremacy of law, and will continue to do so, no matter what Government may be in power for the moment.

There has been a lot said here about farmers. In any reference which I make to them now I wish it to be clearly understood that I have no sympathy whatever with any offences against the law, but I would ask the members of the Government Benches to take their minds back to the year 1879, and to reflect on the condition of Ireland in that year, when the Land League had been founded by Michael Davitt. There were then rack rents and the people rose in revolt against the law. It was illegal then, as it is now. There were "No Rent" manifestoes issued. They had behind them the backing of the people and they eventually won. They had a really just case against the rackrenting landlords and the Government of the day. The Irish farmers at the present time feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are in the same position. They are quite satisfied, in their own minds, that they are being called upon to pay the annuities twice. Under these circumstances, human nature being what it is, they have to make some protest and the only way they can make a protest and a claim against the Government is by, if you like, disobeying the law as they did in 1879. As I say I have no sympathy whatsoever with the cutting of wires or the cutting down of telegraph poles or with any disobedience of the law of the land. But at the same time I feel, as I am sure the Attorney-General and the Minister for Justice feel, that farmers at the present time have a real grievance and are entitled to the sympathy of the whole community.

There is one particular question I want to put to the Minister for Justice. There was a superintendent of the Gárda here in Dublin—I mention no name because the Minister for Justice knows his name. He was as fine a police officer as any country in the world could produce. He was a man whom, if you met in the street, you would turn around to look at, and he was a man of unblemished record and his character was without blot or stain. That man was forced to resign. I ask why?

Mr. Belton

Because he would not order his men to shoot.

Mr. Burke

Was it because in connection with the "John Brown" case he tried to do justice fairly and impartially? I mention this case without any knowledge of the man concerned and I ask was it because there was a certain member of this House who had some grievance against him and was perpetually plaguing him in his office and trying to get him to do things which his duty did not permit him to do? Why was that superintendent forced to resign? I want the reason to be stated definitely and distinctly to the House. I am sure the Minister is not to blame. But he is responsible, and has taken upon his own shoulders the burden that has been put upon him by somebody else. Deputy Minch said the other night, and I agree with him, that the police have too many duties imposed upon them. Several of the Gárda in Dublin have spoken to me about this and about allowances for boots which have been cut down in recent years. I think I spoke to the Attorney-General last year about that, and I certainly think that these allowances should be restored to what they were in the old days. There is one thing that I want to commend to the Minister for Justice, and it is this: There was once a famous judge—one of the most famous in any country in the world—and he said that "bad laws well and impartially administered were much better than good laws badly administered." He said "the important thing was that the people should have confidence that the laws were being administered impartially whether they were good or bad." I commend these words to the Minister for Justice. As I said before—I say again sincerely—I am sure he is doing his best in very complicated and difficult circumstances.

Mr. T. Kelly

I have listened here for two days to the speeches that have been made. The last speaker referred to the year 1879. I remember it well. I remember a few years later when there was the propaganda known as "Parnellism and Crime." I was very forcibly reminded to-day and yesterday of a particular period when a section of our countrymen thought it right to round up with a muck-rake all the muck they could gather in to be used as propaganda for England in order to sustain the Opposition against Home Rule. They eventually succeeded, and they destroyed the one chance England had in the 19th century of making a fair and sympathetic agreement with Ireland through the administration of probably the greatest statesman of the 19th century, the late Mr. Parnell. These people succeeded in their propaganda and Parnell was destroyed.

Yesterday and to-day we had this sort of thing brought up here. The Ministry were accused as if they had hand, act and part, in all those so-called crimes throughout the country. In all communities—in Europe, America, and even Asia—terrible things occur no matter how well governed people may be or how just their laws. Human nature being what it is, very often people are overwhelmed with passion and things occur that every one of us deplores. But by what process of reasoning do Deputies on the benches opposite accuse Deputies sitting on the front Government bench of being responsible for these crimes?

Mr. MacDermot

Read their speeches.

Mr. T. Kelly

I have not read a speech within the last 12 months delivered by any Minister which did any thing else than deploring all such acts. Does the Deputy opposite mean to say that Ministers have justified these acts in any sense or form? We know this game of blackguarding our country has existed in this country, unfortunately, for centuries. Judging from the demeanour of Deputies opposite, I am afraid it is going to continue as long as the Fianna Fáil Party are in power, and hence I can only conclude it is done for Party purposes and not for the good of the State. Any one conversant with the history of the 17th century, or who wishes to study it, could easily lay his hands on broad sheets about bloody and murderous wars in Ireland. During the Cromwellian period it was the same; during the Williamite period it was the same—more bloody wars in Ireland; and all these broadsheets were arranged for England. It is the same to-day. All the speeches made by Deputies opposite yesterday will, I have no doubt, be read by the enemies of Ireland in England. They will be studied and quoted.

Mr. MacDermot

They can get all that from the speech of the Attorney-General.

The Attorney-General

What does the Deputy mean?

Mr. MacDermot

The Attorney-General said there were 625 outrages.

The Attorney-General

By followers of the Party opposite.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Kelly says all this is propaganda for the enemies of Ireland.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Kelly must be allowed to make his speech without interruption.

Mr. Kelly

Deputies opposite are making use of this as propaganda. Deputy Belton said that, in 1932, they were anxious to do great things and to burst up the Government——

Mr. Belton

He said nothing of the kind.

Mr. Kelly

You insinuated that.

Mr. Belton

I speak for myself; I do not get Deputy MacDermot to speak for me. That is what Deputy MacDermot said.

Mr. Kelly

Deputy MacDermot may have said it. If it had been attempted, it might not have come off. There is a story told of the late Max O'Rell when he was driving around Cork. Approaching the city from some eminence—there are many of them, I believe, around the City of Cork—the jarvey said, pointing to the city: "In that town down there are 10,000 men willing to die for Ireland." Max O'Rell said: "Why do they not do it?" and the jarvey said, "The ‘polis' would not let them." Perhaps those people did not try in 1932 because the "polis" would not let them. (Interruption.) I know that political prayers, so to speak, have been offered up for Deputy Belton's conversion.

Mr. Belton

I am sure your prayers will be heard.

Mr. Kelly

Deputy Donnelly was the leader in that movement for your conversion. I told him that it was no use, that he was only wasting his prayers. You cannot be converted; you are a restless, turbulent spirit. I am more fearful as to what will happen you in the next world than I am as to what will happen you in this world.

Mr. Belton

Will you intercede for me there?

An Ceann Comhairle

There is no monetary provision in this Estimate for Deputy Belton's conversion.

Mr. Kelly

As an exercise of charity, I might be allowed to try to bring Deputy Belton to a right course of reasoning.

An Ceann Comhairle

Not on this Vote.

Mr. Kelly

I am afraid that Deputy Belton will join Mohammed in the next world. The only consolation is that he is not in hell but is certainly not in the other place. If Deputy Belton talks about the farmers being in the front line trenches and about their paying their annuities thrice over, he will not believe him.

Mr. Belton

Will you not let me remain with the Dublin Corporation in the next world?

Mr. Kelly

A statement alleged to have been made by the City Manager at last Monday's meeting of the Council was trotted out by a Deputy from Cork——

Mr. Anthony

The statement was made at the Dublin City Council.

Mr. Kelly

You are very interested in Dublin. The City Manager made a statement concerning a number of boys who are constantly playing football and damaging trees in a park out at Fairview. That has gone on constantly, and I have no doubt that, during Deputy Anthony's lifetime, he has often said things about boys that would not be printable. The City Manager was just in the same state of mind when he made the statement concerning these boys. Reference was also made to the breaking of glass in an old tower of a disused Protestant church, the greater portion of which was demolished two centuries ago. The tower remains, and when the boys kicked the football it went through the window. In these circumstances the Deputy stood up to make more "Parnellism-and-crime" out of a statement made by the City Manager concerning these terrible outrages.

Mr. Anthony

It was in the Press.

Mr. Kelly

I did not intend to trouble the House with my oratory but, listening to our friend up there, who is always so elevating, alluding to 1879, my mind went back to 50 years ago, and I recalled with what horror I used to read, when I was young, all this muck-stuff, gathered up all over Ireland for use in England. It helped to destroy Parnell and his Party. I should like you to get that into your heads. This sort of propaganda is only helping the enemies of this country. Even if these dreadful things occurred and if these outrages arose from human depravity, I should be prepared to keep the matter to myself for the sake of my country and for the sake of the good people still living in the country. But they do not arise through human depravity. They arise through political passion. Consequently, men charged with the responsibility of Deputies ought to be very careful how they use these occurrences, and think of their country first, rather than their own political betterment or the betterment of their Party.

Mr. Belton

Will I be permitted to make a personal explanation?

Mr. Davin

About what?

Mr. Belton

It has been said of me that I advocated, during my remarks on this Vote, the challenging of the law at a particular period. I did not. The point I made was that, at that particular period, there was no power to collect land annuities when those land annuities were not being used for the purpose for which the land annuities were originally intended. As Deputy MacDermot knows, opinion was got on that matter from eminent counsel in this city. Counsel said that not only would he pledge his reputation that his opinion was right, but that he would pledge his life. Deputy MacDermot misguided the farmers at that particular period, and they have been paying for it ever since.

An Ceann Comhairle

The alleged action of Deputy MacDermot cannot be the basis of a personal explanation by Deputy Belton.

Mr. Coburn

I should like to put a few questions to the Minister for Justice in connection with recruiting for the Gárda Síochána. Am I to understand that the same rules and regulations that formerly governed entrance into the ranks of the Gárda Síochána still obtain, or is there any change? There has been a great increase in the number of the Gárdaí and it is common knowledge that only through the influence of certain Deputies can young men become members of the force. It has been stated—whether there is much truth in it or not, I do not know—that Deputy Oscar Traynor has almost usurped the position of Chief Commissioner of Police. I should like to have a statement from the Minister as to whether that is a fact or not. As the Deputy was such a great warrior during the years that fighting was to be done for the freedom of this country, the Executive Council probably thought he was the best man to get the right type of recruit for the work which the Guards are being asked to do at present. Possibly, Deputy Kelly had something to do with the matter, he being the oldest Deputy representing the City of Dublin and one who seems to know so much about ancient history and "Parnellism and Crime." Possibly his advice is taken also.

Mr. Kelly

No.

Mr. Coburn

Seeing that the people, as a whole, contribute to the upkeep of the Gárda Síochána—a very efficient force—young men who are eligible and who fulfil the conditions governing entrance should have an opportunity of joining the Gárda when occasion arises.

Mr. T. Kelly

I have nothing to do with it.

Mr. Coburn

I see that the sum that is required this year for expenditure on the force is £1,879,478, as against £1,818,463 last year—a gross increase of £80,995, and a net increase of £61,015. I was wondering, and I am still wondering, why that increase has taken place, especially in view of the speech delivered by Deputy Kelly to the effect that there is no crime in this country. I should like to have an explanation from the Minister as to why it is necessary to have this very huge increase. There must be some reason for it. I wonder what are the reasons. I have come to the conclusion that the main reason of the increase in the Gárda Síochána Vote is the seizures that have taken place all over the country. In all seriousness, I ask the Minister and the members of the Government, is there no alternative to this policy of seizures? Would it not be better to set up some tribunal before which these farmers could appear and put up their case as to their ability or inability to pay the sums due by way of annuities, just as members of public bodies, before they evict the tenants of the houses owned and controlled by the members of these public bodies, always give the tenants affected an opportunity of making a statement, either by writing or by appearing in person before these bodies, in order to ascertain whether or not some agreement which would be mutually advantageous to both parties could be arrived at.

I seriously suggest that course to the Minister because, after all, these farmers must be suffering from some sense of grievance. They are our own fellow-countrymen. I know that the majority of them are men who have always been law-abiding and who were always willing and ready to pay their annuities and rates. I am not going into the reasons which are responsible for their inability to pay at the present time, but I do suggest that the Minister, with profit to himself, to his Department, and to the Government and those who would profit in so far as the good name of this country is concerned, should be able to get some procedure that would do away with the unpleasant state of affairs that exists at the moment in this country. I presume also that the increase in this Vote, so far as the Gárda Síochána is concerned, is also due in a large measure to the great expenses incurred in railing these cattle all the way from Cork to a place called Ravensdale Park, which is from 3½ to 4 miles to the north of Dundalk. That is a big distance, and I should like to ask the Minister to tell us what is the necessity for railing these cattle such a distance, if, as has been stated by the members of Fianna Fáil, and supported by Deputy Norton, the leader of the Labour Party, and by every member of the Labour Party, the Government is justified in their actions. What I want to know is this: Why does not Deputy Corry attend those sales and buy these cattle if, as he has stated in public, that is the stuff to give them? Why has he not the moral courage to go to these sales and give a fair price for these cattle, thus saving his Government the extra expense of railing them all that distance? Why does not Deputy Smith, from Cavan, who also stated in public that that is the right sort of stuff to give the farmers in Cork and that the farmers will get more of that stuff if necessary—why does not Deputy Smith go down to Cork and buy the cattle? If not that, why does not Deputy Smith say: "I will be man enough to look after these cattle in Cavan and see that men in Cavan will buy them"? Possibly, Deputy Kennedy, who has also some connection with cattle, might get a few cattle to kill in that way also in order to make enormous profits out of the blood and sufferings of his fellow-countrymen in the South. If you believe in your country; if there is any moral courage in any one of the Government members, or if there is any moral courage in any member of the Labour Party— although I do not give you much credit for moral courage—why do you not come out like men and buy these cattle instead of sending them up to the smallest county in the Free State, the County Louth? We do not want them there. As a man who is always very jealous of the interests of my county, and as one who has a very high opinion of the people of that county, as one who knows and believes that the people of that county are law-abiding without exception, and have always stood up for law and order, I wish to make an emphatic protest against the action of the Minister in making Dundalk the dumping ground for all the seized cattle of the South of Ireland. I feel very strongly on this aspect of the situation, particularly with the knowledge that I have gained recently that the names of decent cattle dealers are being bandied about all over the county as having something to do with the purchase of these cattle. In this connection, I might remark in passing that there is no finer body of men in the country than the cattle dealers of Louth, although it has been stated by Deputy Davin and Deputy Corry and others that they are robbing the farmers at the present time, but I know from the experience of the last 30 or 40 years that the cattle dealers of Louth, and especially those about Dundalk, were always foremost in every national movement and in every movement for the uplift of this country.

Mr. Davin

Is the Deputy quoting me in that connection?

Mr. Coburn

Let the Deputy look up his own speeches. He quotes so much himself, or rather he twists so much himself, that it would be almost impossible to follow him. The Deputy is what is called a trick-of-the-loop man a million times a day. He is always turning somersaults.

Mr. Davin

The Deputy should not make false statements in this House.

Mr. Coburn

Anyhow, as I was saying, the names of decent cattle dealers in Louth, for obvious reasons, have been bandied about all over the county. So strongly do I feel on this matter that I made it my business on last Sunday night—and again I will remark in passing that I am not one of those to ask a man to do anything that I am not prepared to do myself— to track these cattle to Ravensdale Park, a distance of four miles. I did that at 11 o'clock last Sunday night. I tracked them right through the streets of Dundalk, past Dundalk, down a lonely road—no fear of my friend Moore if he had his Thompson gun being around—I was there alone at that hour of the night in order to try to clear the issue and find out who were the actual men who were buying these cattle and who were the clever men behind the scenes who are bandying it all round the county that the decent men of Dundalk are buying these cattle.

That was done by me on last Sunday night for the simple reason that I wanted to vindicate the names of those decent citizens who would rather go down in poverty than have anything to do with the cattle under such conditions. Only the other day the name of a respectable dealer from the North of Ireland was given by those people as one who was dealing in cattle of that sort. I would ask the Minister to stop sending those cattle from Cork to the County Louth. We have always done our best there to co-operate with the Government in the maintenance of law and order. I myself have gone out of my way to do all that I possibly could to get people to pay their annuities and they have done so, but we do not want to be tempted, and we do not want to have the slur cast on the people of that county that they, or anyone from the county, have anything to do with the buying of those cattle.

On the following day there was a certain detective named Moore in Dundalk. I wish to make a clear distinction between what is called the auxiliary force and the force known as the Gárda Síochána. The Gárda Síochána, so far as I know, is composed of an efficient, courteous body of men, but Mr. Moore—Owen Moore —was in Dundalk on last Monday. He was there in the discharge of his duties, and was entitled to be there.

Mr. Kennedy

On a point of order. Is it fair that an official's name should be mentioned here where he cannot defend himself?

General Mulcahy

Ah!

Mr. Kennedy

What is the "Ah" about?

Mr. Belton

He can buy cattle in Clonmel.

Mr. Coburn

Possibly Deputy Kennedy is here to defend him.

Mr. Belton

And he is paid his salary out of this Vote.

Mr. Kennedy

Deputy Kennedy will defend anything he likes.

Mr. Coburn

Does the Deputy want to say anything?

Mr. Kennedy

When I like.

Mr. Coburn

I presume that the Deputy likes many a thing. I am here to answer anyhow. Mr. Owen Moore is a member of the detective force and, as such, he is quite entitled in the discharge of his duties to come into Dundalk. He has been present at many of these sales all over the country, and no doubt he is doing his duty, like the good dutiful person that he is; but there is such a thing as a man doing his duty and outstepping and overdoing his duty. Now, Mr. Moore on last Monday went over to a very decent respectable citizen in the Co. Louth and asked that citizen what he was doing there: did he know that he was Moore, the man who shot Lynch in Cork, and said, "I am here with revolvers in my pocket and I am going to do more shooting in Dundalk if necessary."

Mr. Kennedy

On a point of order, that is a scandalous charge to make against an individual in a privileged place.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I think that line should not be continued by the Deputy. He has the opportunity of asking that the matter be inquired into by the Department and disciplinary action, if necessary, taken, but when he asserts that an official did certain things the outcome of the resulting investigation should not be prejudiced by a statement here.

General Mulcahy

Is it not in order to say what is a fact: that a policeman on the streets of Dundalk went across to a man and asked whom he was looking at, and said: "I shot for cattle before and I will shoot again"? Is it not in order to make a complain of this kind when discussing the Estimate for the Department of Justice here?

Mr. Corry

Is the Deputy the judge of the truth of that?

General Mulcahy

We can state the facts.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am not anxious to curb Deputy Coburn at all, but if there is a charge made against a public servant and if there is the possibility, or the likelihood, of an inquiry into that charge, it is not right that that inquiry should be prejudiced by a statement here.

General Mulcahy

An example has been given on the matter that is symptomatic of a certain class of persons in the Guards at present, and surely it is in order to draw attention to a fact of that kind when discussing this Estimate?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I allowed the Deputy to proceed as far as I thought it was desirable. My attention was called to it earlier, but I allowed him to proceed because he had not made any charge at the time that the point of order was raised first, but now he is making a specific charge which probably will be inquired into by the Department.

General Mulcahy

There is not the slightest chance of it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am not concerned with what the Deputy thinks. I have to consider what is the ordinary normal course that will be taken by the Department, and if an inquiry is held I do not think it would be fair to that particular Guard that the inquiry should be prejudiced by any further statements here on the matter.

Mr. Coburn

I would be long sorry to make any charge that I could not substantiate. The only regret I have is that it was not to me that Moore came—this great fighting man, with two revolvers in his pocket and a Thompson gun in his motor car. That is the only regret I have, because he would find, in the words of the song commemorating '98, "That good men and true men are plenty here to-day." They would be there in Dundalk to meet Mr. Moore or any Fianna Fáil Deputy who cares to join with him in shooting down harmless, inoffensive men. I would not make any statement that I could not substantiate, and it is because I have such a high opinion of the general body of members of the Gárda Síochána—there is a very high opinion held of that force at the present time—that I do not want it lowered one iota by the actions of a particular member of the force. But Moore has made those statements, and I want to know is it essential that, in the discharge of his duties, he should deliberately insult and threaten a respectable citizen of the County Louth whose family and ancestors have always stood for law and order? I want to know from the Minister is it right and proper that such a man should be kept in the force?

As I said earlier, I pride myself on the fact that the County Louth at the moment is a quiet county in so far as this particular thing regarding seizures is concerned. That is due, in a great degree, to the attitude of the public men in the county. We have the courage to advise the people to do the right thing at the right moment and we do not want our efforts for the preservation of law and order thwarted by the actions of men of the type of Moore who, on his own admission, and I repeat it here, shot an innocent man in Cork and has said that he is prepared to shoot more men in Louth.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

These statements should not be repeated. I have told the Deputy that he has gone far enough in that case.

Mr. Coburn

There has been an inquiry into it, and not alone has this man not been convicted, but he has been praised and clapped on the back by the Minister.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If an inquiry has been held, has the decision been promulgated? If not, does the Deputy not see that he is prejudicing a fair trial?

Mr. Coburn

With all respect, I am not going to argue the question; but, so far as I know, the case is finished and a decision has been arrived at.

Mr. Ruttledge

There are civil proceedings pending.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister says that proceedings are pending and I think the Deputy, in fairness to that particular person, should allow the matter to end here.

Mr. Kennedy

Fair play.

Mr. Coburn

We will pass from that. I am here, as I have said, as a Deputy representing the County of Louth and I am going to do my duty in spite of what Deputy Kennedy, or any other member of that Fianna Fáil Party may say. We have always stood up against lawlessness of every description and we will stand up against the lawlessness, even of members of the Government or their forces. Again, I may state that, in my opinion, another of the main reasons for this increase in the Gárda Síochána Vote is not alone the actions but the public statements of members of the Fianna Fáil and the Labour Parties. I happened to be reading an account in the local and the daily papers of certain meetings held recently and I find that at meetings of the I.R.A. the names of Ministers appear as attending those meetings and holding official positions. Take, for instance, the case of the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Lands and Fisheries. They attended a meeting of the I.R.A. here in Dublin recently and, of course, praised the work of the I.R.A. on that occasion. I have read in another newspaper at home of the Parliamentary Secretary, Dr. Ward, attending meetings of the I.R.A. Of course, I will be told that the word "old" is before I.R.A. He was appointed President at that meeting and Deputy Rice—a decent man, I believe, from all accounts, and a man held in high esteem in County Monaghan—was, I think, appointed treasurer. The I.R.A.—of course, the reason for Fianna Fáil's laughter is that it was the old I.R.A.

Mr. Kennedy

What about the Molly Maguires?

Mr. Coburn

I have deliberately left out the word "old" for an obvious reason. The reason is that there is no difference between the old I.R.A. and the I.R.A.—none whatever. This flirting with the name of I.R.A. is one of the reasons for this increased Vote. You have betrayed them and you have no right to mix with the I.R.A. You are traitors to the I.R.A. and you have no right to go to those meetings and masquerade as men who are still loyal to the policy pursued by the I.R.A. You are traitors to that policy and because you have members of the Executive Council, and members of the Fianna Fáil Party, who are so hypocritical and dishonest as to attend meetings of the I.R.A., on the plea that they are the natural successors of the Irish Republican Army, it is necessary to have an increase in this Vote for the Gárda Síochána.

Then we have the laugh of Fianna Fáil: "Oh, it is not the I.R.A. ; it is the old I.R.A." Did anybody ever hear of such deceit, such dishonesty, masquerading behind the actions of men like Pearse, whose policy you have betrayed and let down? One of the main reasons for the increase in this Vote is that these young men, enthusiastic and, possibly, misguided young men, but yet brave, think they are entitled to pursue the policy they are pursuing at the moment when they see members of the Executive Council and members of the Fianna Fáil Party joining the ranks of that organisation. We have the same thing in relation to the Labour Party. They stated at the last meeting of the Trades Union Congress that they were out for a thing called a Workers' Republic. If that be so, how can any member of the Labour Party support a Government that casts into prison the men who are out for the same type of Republic? It is another reason for the increase in the Vote.

Why not have the courage and honesty—I make this appeal to the Government in all seriousness—to admit once and for all that you have left the question of the Republic behind you; that you are here governing a State a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and recognise that fact, like the men of the late Government. I can assure you that in a short space of time you will have the overwhelming support of all the right-minded people of this country, but so long as the members of the Executive and members of Fianna Fáil go round the country masquerading as Republicans and claiming to be the natural successors of Pearse and the other 1916 leaders, so long will it be necessary to have a big force of Gárda Síochána in this country. Why not have the courage to admit, once and for all, that you are carrying on the same Government to-day as Cosgrave and the other men carried on? Do not think that you, the members of the Fianna Fáil Party, or the Executive, are the only patriots and the only nationalists in this country. I claim to be as good an Irishman and as good a nationalist as any member of the Executive Council or any member of the Fianna Fáil Party. There is one thing, and it is that I hope I will never see the day when I will turn my back to any man in this country. Courage is here, and I am ready to do my bit in the upholding of law and order in this country. Are the members of the Executive Council prepared to do the same? Are the members of Fianna Fáil prepared to do the same? If so, then there is no necessity for this extra £80,000 for the Gárda Síochána.

In conclusion, I wish to impress on the Minister the desirability of at once doing something to end the seizures that are taking place all over the South of Ireland. Those men are human. They are Irish, as Irish as any member of the Fianna Fáil Party. A few years ago they were always able to meet their bills. Something must have happened since that period. What is that something? The Minister and the Executive Council know it. They should make allowance for that something. They should make allowance for human nature, and they should do all they possibly can in the interests of peace and order to come to some agreement with those people, so that the actions that have been taken and that will, I am sure, be taken in the future, may be dispensed with.

Mr. Davin

I shall intervene in this debate for a short period, because I feel that certain statements that were made by leading members of the Opposition require some explanation from that side of the House. Since this Party came into the Dáil in 1922 the members of it have at all times definitely discouraged the making of charges here against individual members of the Guards or against the Guards as a body, or those responsible for the administration of the Force. We believe that every right-minded Deputy should convey his charges or complaints to those responsible before making them public here. Deputy Mulcahy, who is regarded and rightly regarded by his Party supporters as a leading member of the Party, made a statement here in reference to the I.R.A. to the effect that Gárda officers who reported upon I.R.A. activities, at the same time allowed information to leak out to the I.R.A. officers or followers of that organisation.

General Mulcahy

No, Sir, their superiors did.

Mr. Davin

I believe Deputy Mulcahy knows the present Commissioner of the Guards, and he knows the Minister. Did he, as a leading representative of the Opposition, as a man who held a Ministerial post for ten years, take an opportunity, before making that serious and demoralising statement, to convey whatever information he had to either the Commissioner or the Minister?

General Mulcahy

No, sir, and I gave the House my reason for not doing so.

Mr. Davin

Deputy Mulcahy, when he was a Minister here, would always rightly resent the making of an allegation against State servants unless the Deputy making the allegation had drawn the attention beforehand of whatever Minister was responsible, to the nature of the charge. I submit that a statement was made here deliberately by Deputy Mulcahy for the purpose of causing further demoralisation amongst the officers and men of the Gárda Síochána, and the Deputy did not think it necessary to acquaint the Commissioner or the Minister beforehand of the charges he was about to make. The statement made by the Deputy, if true, is likely to cause demoralisation, and it should not be made by any responsible person without some steps being taken to have the subject-matter investigated beforehand. Even if the charge concerns only one officer of the Guards, it was the duty of the Deputy to go to the Commissioner, whom he knows fairly well, and have the matter investigated. If found to be true, that officer should be dismissed from the Guards.

General Mulcahy

He should be, but he was not.

Mr. Davin

Are all the Guards to be held responsible for the activities of one officer, no matter what his rank may be? Is it to go out that that kind of activity is general on the part of officers and members of the Gárda Síochána? I feel pretty sore about this, because I am of opinion the Gárda should be kept apart from politics, and I believe the overwhelming majority of the Guards, both during the lifetime of the previous Government and of this Government, had and have no desire but to do their duty in an impartial way to whatever Government is elected by the people. If any officer in the Guards is responsible for the conduct Deputy Mulcahy has attributed to him, I say he should be removed from the Force.

General Mulcahy

The Deputy ought to talk it over at some of his fortnightly meetings with the Government.

Mr. Davin

Deputy Mulcahy knows that the present Commissioner is not the type of man who loves to live in the limelight. He held a high position in the lifetime of the late Government and he was even promoted then. He is a police officer pure and simple. Any Deputy who has the welfare of his country at heart and the impartial administration of the Guards in mind, should make it his duty first to go to the Commissioner with any complaints he might have to make before coming here and endeavouring to demoralise the whole force by suggesting that that kind of activity is general amongst the Guards.

Deputy O'Higgins made a filibustering speech and he made more allegations on the same lines as Deputy Mulcahy. He wants the House to believe that members of the Gárda, including officers, are being continually removed from one place to another as a result of the passing of resolutions by Fianna Fáil clubs. I have no knowledge of any such resolution being passed in my constituency for the purpose of getting the Minister or the Commissioner to remove Gárda officers or men. I have received appeals—I do not know whether other Deputies are in the same position—to endeavour to get Gárda officers and ordinary members of the Force retained in places from which they were being removed. The fact was, they did not want to go away, nor did the people want them to go away. I would like the Minister to furnish a return to Deputy O'Higgins showing the number of officers and Civic Guards removed during the lifetime of this Government and compare it with such removals during any three years of the previous régime. That will prove that these charges are unfounded, so far as my area is concerned at any rate. Deputy Mulcahy laughs at that. I say such a return will either prove or disprove the kind of charge made by Deputy O'Higgins.

General Mulcahy

I am laughing at the idea of the type of proof that is looked for.

Mr. Davin

The Deputy laughs at everything except at what is said by himself, but he scarcely realises the number of people in the country who laugh at what he does say.

General Mulcahy

The Deputy who makes the people of this country laugh deserves to be appreciated, because there is many a district in the country where the people badly want a laugh, and have not had a laugh for quite a long time.

Mr. Davin

Deputy Mulcahy has done a good deal in this House during the last three years to demoralise the people by making such charges as he has made arising out of this Estimate. There are many people who are prepared to take at a discount what the Deputy says in matters of this kind.

General Mulcahy

And there are many people who badly want to laugh.

Mr. Davin

I will never try to prevent Deputy Mulcahy making the people of this country laugh. It will do them no harm. But every decent-minded and right-thinking citizen will not laugh at the allegations the Deputy made here and which he had not the courage to make in the right place. Deputy Belton, whom I regard as a good-humoured speaker, endeavoured to make it appear that the attitude of the Labour Party in supporting the Government in this matter was tantamount to refusing the farmers the right to strike on issues affecting the farming community. I hope to God the day is not far away when the farmers of this country in their own interests will have the sense to join an industrial organisation and use their power for the purpose of improving their own economic condition.

As a Labour Deputy and a Trades Unionist I regret that the farmers have not done that long ago. I hope they will do so if not under Deputy Belton, then under some other leader who will arise in this country and persuade the farmers to join an industrial organisation having the right to strike. I would be the last person who would deny the farmers the right to strike. I would not be associated with any Government or with any person who would deny the farmers of this country the right to organise in their own interests and the right to strike for their own protection. Deputy Belton knows very well that this Party does not oppose the right of any organised body to strike. But Deputy Belton is a house owner. He builds houses, lets houses and receives rents for them. Supposing the people who occupy Deputy Belton's houses in Clonturk Park, Donnycarney, or wherever these houses are, refused to pay rent, I wonder would Deputy Belton seek the protection of the courts and the protection of the sheriff and the Gárda to recover these rents?

Mr. O'Leary

Does Deputy Davin insinuate that the farmers have not already paid their annuities?

Mr. Davin

I am making a comparison with the statement of Deputy Belton concerning the attitude of the Labour Party.

Mr. O'Leary

The Deputy should not twist. Let him answer the question.

Mr. Davin

I doubt if Deputy O'Leary has yet given the House and the country the benefit of his wisdom on this Vote. If he has not, I am sure he will have many an opportunity of ventilating his views when I am finished.

Mr. O'Leary

Yes; I will do so. There is no rush at all.

Mr. Davin

I do admire the speech of Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney who paid a tribute to the discipline of the tramway strikers in the City of Dublin during the present strike.

Mr. Minch

Deputy Davin is too late now.

Mr. Davin

Not too late. It is a thing that would not be said in the ordinary way from those benches but it is to the credit of the tramway strikers and everybody else connected with the strikers that they did not require any police force to maintain order and discipline in the city. I know a good deal of provocation has been given to the strikers. A number of people with their peculiar opinions and some organisations with peculiar views have offered advice and assistance to the strikers. I think anybody who has any association with these strikers can, in the future, look back with pride on the unity and solidarity displayed by the tramway men. The fact that they did not cause any disturbance or make any threat against life or property in the City of Dublin during the ten weeks of the strike is something to be proud of. I was delighted on hearing the tribute to the strikers, coming as it did from Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. I say that because of the position he held in the late Government. I hope every right-thinking Deputy will resent the allegation made by Deputy Mulcahy regarding the leakage of information by the officers of the Gárda Síochána. I trust that whenever there is any good reason for thinking that any such thing is taking place in the future that even Deputy Mulcahy will not look upon himself as an infallible person but that he will have the commonsense and the public spirit to go first of all to the Commissioner or Minister before he comes into this House and makes charges of this sort.

Mr. James Murphy

Like Deputy Coburn, I feel very deeply concerned about this particular incident in Dundalk on Monday last, when I understand a very respectable official of County Louth, a man who, as far as I know, has never associated himself publicly or privately with any political Party, was intimidated and insulted. This public official, it is alleged, was intimidated and insulted by a member of the police force. That County Louth officer at the time he was insulted and intimidated was discharging his duty in the market place of Dundalk. That such a thing should have happened is a matter for deep concern and I simply rise to ask the Minister if he will grant a disciplinary inquiry into that alleged incident. I ask further, when he comes to reply, that the Minister would tell the House the exact position occupied by this Mr. Moore in the police force and whether in attending sales of seized cattle as a police officer he is at liberty to purchase these cattle, and if so, whether he so acts in his official capacity or in his private capacity? The matter that most people are concerned with is that this disciplinary inquiry should be held. If it is necessary to furnish anything in the nature of official references Deputy Coburn and myself will attend to that. I tell the Minister and I tell the Attorney-General who is now in the House to remember that there is on the part of the public a very deep anxiety that this disciplinary inquiry should be set up to investigate the charges that have been made.

Mr. O'Leary

I did not intend intervening in this debate and would not do so now but that I wish to reply to a statement which Deputy Cleary put before the House on Tuesday last. On that occasion Deputy Cleary attacked the members of this Party and said they associated themselves with illegalities up and down the country. The Deputy even went so far as to accuse us of associating ourselves with bank robberies. It is certainly rather a funny thing to hear members on the Government Benches charging us with associating with bank robbers or with any other robbers. We have always stood for the will of the majority of the people of this country and that is the position in which we stand to-day. Deputy Davin talks about farmers standing up against the payment of their land annuities. Farmers are not standing against the payment of land annuities. The farmers have paid their land annuities over and over again. Deputies have only to read the speech made by Mr. James H. Thomas in the House of Commons a few days ago when he said that the British Government collected £4,700,000 in taxes from the Irish farmers. The President himself admitted that out of that sum only £2,900,000 went towards the payment of the land annuities, so that on that one item alone the farmers have been fleeced to the extent of £1,800,000. That is, they paid last year £1,800,000 more than their annuities to the British Government. Then they are being asked to pay them again to the Government here. Will Deputy Davin turn around and tell the farmers of this country, whose markets have been destroyed, that they are to pay their land annuities over again? I put that question to Deputy Davin and I ask for a reply. He, too, represents a constituency largely composed of farmers.

My policy always has been that I stand for the will of the majority of the people of this country. Deputy Cleary talks about cutting telegraph wires, destroying telegraph poles and cutting trees. I may tell Deputy Cleary that I remember the time when his followers in my part of the country cut nine miles of telegraph poles and wires and the people of the country had to pay compensation for that. What is the result of that to-day? We have people on the Government Benches preaching that the farmers are not law-abiding citizens. What has the Government done with the people who cut those wires and destroyed poles and trees some years ago? Why, they are now giving them pensions. Do the Government think that the ordinary people of the country can have confidence in an administration such as that? People are talking a good deal about these things. My advice to my friends in Cork has been on these lines: I have told them that the people now on the Government Benches tried to upset the legally established Government of this country by force. They failed. They became wise and they turned to the ballot boxes. My advice now to the people of the country is not to commit illegal acts but to turn to the ballot boxes and in the ballot box to say that the Government, which has placed the country in the position it is in, should be driven from office at the earliest possible opportunity.

Mr. Donnelly

That is something constructive all right.

Mr. Ruttledge

Listening to this debate one must feel satisfied, owing to the very little criticism put forward against the Department, that the various sub-departments, including the police, have been doing their duty. The first thing emphasised, and which was referred to by several speakers, and would seem to have been the spearhead of the entire attack on the Department, was the parade on Easter Sunday. It has been stated very definitely by a number of Deputies, who may consider themselves, whatever anybody else thinks about them, as having some responsibility as public representatives, that the President proceeded by an unannounced route on that occasion. While one can allow for a certain amount of dishonest criticism, one would at least imagine that no Deputy, who has any respect for his responsibility as a Deputy, would make a statement like that knowing that it was untrue. In the first place, the route was very definitely published in all the papers circulating in Dublin.

General Mulcahy

That is not so.

Mr. Ruttledge

That is so.

General Mulcahy

That is not so. Could the Minister mention the papers in which it was published?

Mr. Ruttledge

The "Irish Press," the "Independent," and the "Irish Times." Does the Deputy deny that the route was announced in the papers published on the Saturday preceding the parade?

General Mulcahy

I deny that the route was announced in the "Irish Independent" on the Saturday preceding the parade.

Mr. Ruttledge

Does he deny that it was announced in any paper?

General Mulcahy

I am denying the statement by the Minister that it was announced in the "Irish Independent" on the Saturday.

Mr. Donnelly

Or the "Irish Press"?

Mr. Ruttledge

I may not have that particular cutting at the moment, as I did not think it would have been denied. It certainly was published in the "Irish Press."

Mr. T. Kelly

We all saw it.

General Mulcahy

Like the invitation to the ceremony.

Mr. Ruttledge

This was done at any rate, and if the papers did not publish it, it is not the fault of the Government. It was issued from the Government Information Bureau on the Friday to the papers circulating in Dublin, and it certainly appeared in the "Sunday Independent" as well as appearing, I maintain and state very definitely, in all the other papers. They got it anyway. The route as announced on the Friday was followed and the statement should not have been made here, as it was made repeatedly by Deputies on the opposite side, that the President proceeded by an unannounced route. I repeat again that it was issued on the Friday from the Government Information Bureau to all the papers circulating in Dublin. I have got only the cutting from the "Irish Press" before me at the moment, but I do know it appeared in the "Sunday Independent" anyway, and if the Deputy looks it up I will be very surprised if he does not find it appeared in the "Independent" and the "Irish Times" on the Saturday.

General Mulcahy

The Minister ought to look up the "Irish Independent."

Mr. Ruttledge

If it did not appear, it is not the fault of the Government. It was issued to them on the Friday. Then the suggestion was made that the President, through fear that he would be attacked, or something like that, chose a certain unannounced route. That route was selected without any reference to the President by the military authorities in conjunction with the Gárda authorities, and the reason why the Clanbrassil Street route was selected was in order to cause the least inconvenience to the citizens of Dublin. Whatever route is selected, everybody knows that that route has to be closed to the public during a certain period. If the parade came by the Camden Street route, down by Rathmines, it would mean that at the very time people would be attending Mass from 11 to 1 o'clock, they would be held up going to and from two churches, Rathmines and Whitefriar Street. That was one consideration. Another consideration was that the route followed was a shorter one by about 1,000 yards. It was approximately a mile shorter, when you take it each way. That was some consideration for the troops, and they had to be considered also.

General Mulcahy

Troops on horses.

Mr. Ruttledge

They were not all on horses, were they?

General Mulcahy

They were in motor cars.

Mr. Cooney

Were you looking on?

Mr. Ruttledge

Does the Deputy admit that the consideration of the people going to and coming from Mass between 11 and 1 o'clock was a fair consideration to be taken into account? For the Deputy's consolation I may say that they did get into the fashionable streets about which he seems to be so very anxious. For his consolation I may say that they proceeded through Dame Street, College Green and Westmoreland Street, to O'Connell Street. Is it the Deputy's complaint that the parade did not pass by 3 Merrion Square to see the garlanding and festooning there in celebration of the occasion; or is the Deputy annoyed because he was not in some place like 3 Merrion Square, where he could cheer the President as he passed by? Is the Deputy suggesting that the President would be safer in the poorer streets of the city than in the fashionable thoroughfares? Is the Deputy suggesting that the poor people of this city are not as much entitled to see a parade like that and have an opportunity of viewing, from their own homes if they wished, the President of the State and the parade going through, as are the fashionable centres of the city? What is the point?

General Mulcahy

Mrs. Mulligan, right enough, has her rights.

Mr. Ruttledge

Is that the way the Deputy wants to refer to the poorer people of the city?

Mr. Donnelly

And a Dublin City Deputy at that.

Mr. O'Leary

I never knew whether Mrs. Mulligan was poor or rich, although I often heard the song.

Mr. Ruttledge

That was the spearhead of the Opposition attack which we have had here. The next thing raised in this debate was a very regrettable incident that took place when a citizen of this city was arrested in mistake. It was stated that the Guards went to a lot of trouble in getting a warrant, and I suppose the suggestion was that a district justice was got out of his bed to get the warrant before they went to this man's house. Deputies opposite provided the present Government with means by which it is not necessary on such an occasion to disturb any district justice, and that was not done in that particular case. Then it was stated that when the Guards went to this man's house a whistle was blown and they scurried off. If that were true, I would have been very glad that it happened in the circumstances, because it might have avoided the unpleasantness to this citizen of being arrested if they had scurried off and did not come back. But what happened was that when the Guards went to the house they knocked at the door and were in conversation with this citizen's wife when a whistle was blown at the back of the house and they went round to the back of the house to see what was happening. There was no such thing as going away and coming back hours afterwards. This man was arrested, his name being the same as that of another man for whom the Guards were looking and who has since been arrested. There was a mistake in the address. When the man was brought to the Bridewell it was discovered and an apology was made by the officer in charge. A motor car was provided for him and he was sent home. Subsequently, I gave that citizen an ample apology, and in his reply to me he acknowledged that, and also said that the Guards had treated him with the greatest courtesy. Since the question has been raised, I want to avail of this opportunity again to express the regret I feel, and that the Guards feel, that the mistake occurred.

Deputy Mulcahy referred to certain things that happened in Kilfinane. He talked about certain crimes occurring in that area, and that no persons had been brought to justice. As the Deputy should know, that is one of the most difficult and the most lawless districts we have at present to deal with. In 1934, 50 crimes occurred in that area in connection with malicious damage to telegraph communications. They were committed during the six months commencing 31st December last. Forty-five members of the League of Youth were convicted in respect of some 30 offences. During the six months ending 31st December seven persons were convicted for various crimes committed in pursuance of the non-payment of annuities campaign in the district. With regard to seven offences, or crimes, or whatever the Deputy wants to call them, to which he drew attention, the police reported to the following effect:

No. 2 of these outrages never took place;

No. 3 was never reported to the police;

In No. 4 a member of the complainants' family is believed to have been involved;

Nos. 5 and 6 are common burglaries, and in

No. 7 the crime was helped by failure to lock up the premises at night.

These were all the cases mentioned, as showing that the Guards were allowing crimes to be committed and taking no steps to bring the perpetrators to justice. Except for the reference made by Deputy Coburn, we have nothing but general statements about the Guards neglecting their duty; the usual statements that the Guards had been interfered with and prevented making investigations or making arrests for certain crimes. That does not impress anybody who has been listening to that sort of propaganda from the Opposition for the last three years. I submit that it is dishonest propaganda, and that the Opposition, instead of trying to facilitate or to help investigations, are only concerned with making political capital out of them. Anything that happens, no matter how terrible the crime, no matter how bad it is, or how sacrilegious, the opposite benches try to suggest that the atmosphere is that of Fianna Fail. I did not hear any apology from the Opposition for the statement Deputy McGilligan made about the Birr outrage. When Deputy Cleary referred to it here, it was suggested by Deputy O'Higgins that no such statement had been made. Deputy Cleary's interpretation of it was that the suggestion was that it was done by a political party. This is what Deputy McGilligan said:

"I shall make this allusion to it. When I opened the paper and first read of that burning I placed it myself as the work of a maniac. That was what I felt at first, but I have since had this doubt cast in my mind, that if it was a maniac who did it the Guards would have arrested the maniac, and I had the feeling that it is only because the Guards have an apprehension about arrests that, if arrests bring revelations and involve certain political disputants and agitators, then there is going to be criticism of the Guards for doing their duty. It is only that that prevents their making an arrest."

Is not that a clear suggestion, and could anyone interpret it otherwise, that that was done by the adherents of Fianna Fáil? Can anyone put any other construction upon it? When they knew that that sort of propaganda, lying as it was, could not be proved, would it not have been the decent thing for someone on the Opposition benches to get up and to apologise? There has been no retraction of the statements that were made, no matter how unfounded or how baseless. There is no apology from the opposite benches. There will not be an apology for the statement about the President proceeding by an unannounced route. That statement will not be withdrawn. That is the sort of political propaganda that we hear in this House, as well as wild statements like those of Deputy Mulcahy, about information being given to the I.R.A., without a title of evidence to support them.

General Mulcahy

But plenty of truth in them.

Mr. Ruttledge

Of course the Deputy says there is truth in them but he will not submit the proofs because he could not rely upon any one of them. It is the simplest thing in the world to get away with political propaganda, and it is easy to say: "I know that if I give that information to the proper quarter it will not be properly investigated." That is the way to do it and to try to get away with it.

Mr. Davin

And to demoralise the Guards.

Mr. Donnelly

And to get a heading in the Daily Express.

General Mulcahy

The readers of the English newspapers are on the far side, because they take much more interest in them than we do.

Mr. Davin

Who supplies the dope?

Mr. Ruttledge

I have been asked for the reasons for increasing the Guards. The reason for increasing the Guards is the one the Opposition have given, that is, the number of outrages that were carried on by their Party and its supporters. I agree that there are no outrages in County Roscommon. In fact there are none west of the Shannon. They are confined to a comparatively small area in the counties of Cork and Limerick, portion of Tipperary, and a little in the midlands. I think they have got sense in the midlands for a considerable time, and that very few outrages occurred recently.

Mr. Donnelly

None.

Mr. Ruttledge

Extra duties were imposed upon the Gárda in connection with the campaign for the destruction of road and rail communications during 1934. It was necessary to transfer two inspectors, four sergeants and 97 Guards in connection with the non-payment of annuities, and to enforce payment special units were formed in Mullingar, Kilkenny, Claremorris and Naas, and to these units were transferred two inspectors, five sergeants and 64 Guards. During the year 1,826 members of the Gárda performed 144,000 extra hours of duty. On 424 occasions obstructions in connection with the collecting of rates and land annuities, and in connection with seizures of stock, took place during the year 1934. On 133 occasions prosecutions were instituted, and 706 persons were prosecuted, of whom 492 were convicted. Twelve cases were also pending at the end of the year 1934. From July, 1934, to the 16th January, 1935, there were 604 outrages directed against railways, roads and telegraphic communications, mainly in the Counties Cork, Limerick, Louth, Meath, Longford, Westmeath, Tipperary and Wexford. Let anybody consider the amount of duty that is imposed on the Gárda as a result of that. While it is all right for Deputies to get up here and say they do not approve of those outrages, what way are they trying to stop them? We had Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney here the other day saying he did not approve of those lawless acts, but in the very next sentence he says that the Government are the real criminals. That is the sort of speech you get from the Opposition—in other words, that those people who stand up against the criminal Government are heroic people. We were told here the other day that Deputy Cosgrave condemned it. The campaign was two months going as hot as it could be in the South of Ireland, and why was it not condemned? When it was condemned it was referred to as "those deplorable breaches of the peace," and again in the very next sentence there is sympathy for what Deputy Mulcahy would call the inflamed farmers. Has there been even one definite condemnation of those people who carry on those illegal and lawless activities?

Mr. MacDermot

Certainly.

Mr. Ruttledge

What is it? Every time there is a statement made, very lightly and very easily condemning them, you will find in the same speech that they are sympathising with them and more or less apologising for them.

Mr. MacDermot

If the Minister is not prepared to accept my statement about it I suppose there is nothing to be said, but over and over again we have implored our supporters to refrain from illegal acts. If the Minister expects us not to sympathise with men who are being ruined he is asking too much. We do sympathise with them, but that is not the same thing as asking them to commit illegal acts.

Mr. Ruttledge

I think the Deputy, even to-day, referred to this campaign as a natural outburst.

Mr. MacDermot

Yes. That is not approving of it.

Mr. Ruttledge

What effort has been made by the United Ireland Party organisation or by the League of Youth to deal with those members who are committing these illegalities? Can anyone suggest why they are confined to a small area? Are they not able to control their supporters in those areas?

Mr. MacDermot

What is the Minister's proof that they are our supporters?

Mr. Ruttledge

I assume that the League of Youth are your supporters. I do not know anything further than that in their evidence they state that they are members of the League of Youth. Some of them glory in those activities and appear to be very proud of them. I admit that a number of them state they had to do those things under orders.

Mr. O'Leary

They will probably be looking for pensions hereafter—the same as your friends.

Mr. Ruttledge

I am sure if you get into office you will very quickly give them pensions. I am quite sure you are going to consider them. They will probably be called heroes of the land war, or some other name of historical significance. You have not gone out to stop it and you know you could stop it.

Mr. MacDermot

That is absolutely untrue.

Mr. Ruttledge

You are not trying to stop it.

Mr. Dillon

Ask the Attorney-General if that is true.

Mr. Ruttledge

I did not interrupt the Deputy. He can speak afterwards if he wants to. Why do you not put those people out of your organisation when they are found guilty of those offences? Not a single one of them has been put out of the organisation. Take another matter; there has been a good deal of condemnation about it now, but for two days the burning of a Deputy's house was not referred to by the Opposition. It was not referred to at all until Deputy Cleary referred to it.

Mr. Dillon

On a point of order, is it not better that the Minister for Justice should refrain from referring in any way to a crime in respect of which men are in custody and liable to be charged? Have you not repeatedly ruled in this House that the Chair prefers such matters to be left uncommented on until the persons charged are discharged or convicted?

An Ceann Comhairle

I understand that nobody has been charged in connection with that matter, hence no one is being prejudiced. In the course of this debate, at least four Deputies have already referred to the incident.

Mr. Dillon

After Deputy Cleary had raised it.

Mr. Ruttledge

I do not think it is going to prejudice anybody in any way that Deputies should join in condemning that outrage.

Mr. Dillon

We are all of one mind on that outrage.

General Mulcahy

Might I ask the Minister is he now setting up a general standard for political Parties in this country, or a standard for the Opposition?

Mr. Ruttledge

I do not expect the Opposition to decently follow any sort of standard in politics in this House.

General Mulcahy

The Minister is speaking of a certain standard——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister is concluding.

Mr. T. Kelly

He will not be allowed.

Mr. Norton

What about the 30-minute speeches, Sir?

General Mulcahy

Is the Labour Party going to choke off discussion in this House?

Mr. Ruttledge

I do not think, as a matter of fact, that there is anybody in custody in connection with that outrage; at least I have no information that there is. Deputy Mulcahy referred to a case in Midleton, where he says some young man was found with a revolver on New Year's Eve, and because he was a prominent supporter of Fianna Fáil there was no charge made.

General Mulcahy

No. I said a young fellow was found with a revolver, and because he was the son of a prominent supporter of Fianna Fáil no charge was made.

Mr. Ruttledge

Very good. The facts of that case are these: a boy of 13 years of age was found at the merry-go-rounds on the fair green at Mitchelstown, with what appeared to the Guards to be a revolver. I do not know whether they examined it at the time or whether they did not.

Mr. Brennan

Did they do their duty?

Mr. Ruttledge

The revolver was broken. It was a broken revolver with holes in the barrel, a bit of a stock, no trigger and no magazine. Where the boy got it I do not know, but when the Superintendent saw what it was he directed that the boy should be sent home.

General Mulcahy

If he were a Blue-shirt he would have been kept for 72 hours.

Mr. Ruttledge

Did we arrest any Blueshirts of 13 years of age? If Deputy Mulcahy wants to make a case he ought to make a truthful one.

Mr. Bennett

You certainly arrested them at 15 years of age.

General Mulcahy

Might I ask the Minister——

Mr. Ruttledge

Am I to be allowed to speak for one moment without interruption? We can see what disorderly people we have to deal with even inside the House. General Mulcahy said that this man was a prominent Fianna Fáil supporter. This man is a civil servant, and while he may have his views, I do not see how he can be a prominent supporter of any Party while he is in the civil service. What does the Deputy mean by a prominent Fianna Fáil supporter? Would not one imagine that a prominent supporter of Fianna Fáil would be a man who took some very prominent part? Surely the Deputy would not put in the word "prominent" unless this man was taking a very big part in Fianna Fáil. Civil servants have their views, and they have their votes, but I think they are very careful not to go out speaking on platforms, or anything like that. To come back to this campaign, we see where Deputies' cattle are still being seized. According to the Irish Independent of May 7, 12 cattle belonging to Deputy Wall were seized in County Waterford and brought to Kilmacthomas to be entrained to Dungarvan pound. Deputy Wall, however, paid the annuities, amounting to £25, and the cattle were restored to him. That is the kind of nonsense that is imposing all this duty on the Guards. What is the idea of the Deputy holding out, allowing the cattle to be seized and then paying up the amount, which was only £25?

Mr. O'Leary

It would take a lot of sucking calves to make that up now.

Mr. Ruttledge

The Deputy was able to pay up when he had to pay. Could he not have paid earlier? We had the same state of affairs from time to time in connection with other Deputies and that has imposed extra duty on the Guards. They have to run after these people who are in a conspiracy not to pay their annuities. Deputy Mulcahy asked some questions about statistics of crime. He got replies in the ordinary way and he had them published in United Ireland, with the heading: “How Fianna Fáil administers justice—57 outrages, one conviction.” Deputy Mulcahy asked three questions covering various kinds of crime. One of these questions was with reference to the obstruction of persons collecting rates, land annuities or other public moneys during the period from the 1st January, 1934, to the 31st December, 1934. That would show a very different position from the table he published but he did not publish that in United Ireland. He deliberately suppressed that.

General Mulcahy

I got it published in the records of this House.

Mr. Ruttledge

Very few of the United Ireland Party get the Official Report.

General Mulcahy

The Irish Press does.

Mr. Ruttledge

The Irish Press did not get the reply in the ordinary way. It was issued by way of table and supplied afterwards to the Deputy. I do not know whether or not Deputy Coburn reported the matter to which he referred to the superintendent. Perhaps he suggests, like Deputy Mulcahy, that the superintendent cannot be relied upon and that if he gets a complaint there will be no investigation. Deputy Mulcahy chips in very glibly and says that this is symptomatic of the police force at the present time——

General Mulcahy

Of certain groups of the police force.

Mr. Ruttledge

I say that that is a thing that everybody in this House— no matter on which side he is—knows is not true.

General Mulcahy

Certain sections of the police force.

Mr. Ruttledge

What sections are there? If Deputy Mulcahy could substantiate those charges, he would not make a vague statement but would refer to these charges in detail, as he has referred to these seven so-called outrages with which I have dealt. He is very good at procuring details and bringing them before this House. He is very good at putting down questions about every little incident that happens in the country, whether it comes to his notice through the newspapers or otherwise. If details could be got, he would have got them, and the organ of the United Ireland Party would have got them. But all he does is throw a statement around the House that it is symptomatic of certain sections of the police force that they go up to a man and boast of having shot some other man, and say they will do the same to him. I do not feel like replying in any detail to these matters. Any of them that have been mentioned here have been dealt with. Those are the only cases about which I have heard from Deputies opposite. The matter mentioned by Deputy Coburn I had not heard about until it was mentioned in the House. I do not know whether he kept that information to himself for the purpose of using it in this House, taking no steps to have it dealt with. We had play made about the old I.R.A. I do not know what Deputy Mulcahy thinks about that.

General Mulcahy

I know that the Fianna Fáil clubs having gone, the old I.R.A. is to be resurrected.

Mr. Ruttledge

Does the Deputy deny that it is old I.R.A. men who form these clubs?

General Mulcahy

A lot of the members are not.

Mr. Ruttledge

They were much nearer to it than Deputy Coburn ever was.

General Mulcahy

Deputy Donnelly knows more about it than I do. Ask him.

Mr. Ruttledge

Deputy Coburn does not know much about it, at any rate. To say that the old I.R.A. are the same as the new I.R.A. is to say a thing which could not be put across anybody in this House. A person is driven to a very peculiar argument if he suggests that the old I.R.A. are really the new I.R.A.—that they are all the same. There are old I.R.A. men in those clubs who have records that they can be proud of and who have, certainly, no association with the new I.R.A. I have been asked by several speakers what our policy is with regard to the I.R.A. Our policy is known by the action we have taken already in this matter.

General Mulcahy

Flag days.

Mr. Ruttledge

I should like to point out to the Deputy—I suppose he knows it already—that there is considerable difficulty in respect to the law about flag days and the question of permits. If those flag days were considered of any moment or if it was thought that money was going to be got for the purpose for which they alleged they required money, action might have been taken under some new legislation. But what can one think when one sees all through Tipperary the O'Duffy section of the League of Youth—that gentleman may not now be associated with the Party opposite—buying and wearing Easter lilies? That is the position that is spreading through the country—that you are going to have General O'Duffy's party wearing Easter lilies. I suggest that seems innocuous enough. Anything that General O'Duffy, who was Commissioner of Police, would be associated with in that way will not make for overthrowing the Government by unlawful means.

Mr. MacDermot

Is the Minister for Justice expressing his own view?

Mr. Cleary

"The most level-headed man in Irish history," according to Deputy MacDermot.

Mr. Ruttledge

Deputy Dillon referred to him as "the greatest Irishman of this generation."

Mr. Cleary

Except himself.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister has not told us what his policy is in regard to the I.R.A. We should be glad to hear it.

Mr. Ruttledge

When dealing with it, I was interrupted by General Mulcahy, who referred to Easter lilies.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister can now proceed at his leisure.

Mr. Ruttledge

Action has already been taken in the matter of the I.R.A. That action will be taken against anybody who commits an illegal action or is concerned in anything that would be a menace to this State or an attempt at overthrowing this State by unlawful means.

Mr. Dillon

In dealing with the I.R.A. the Minister resembles a cat walking on hot bricks.

Mr. Ruttledge

Reference was made to the number of serious crimes that have gone undetected. I do not want to quote again the speech of Deputy Cosgrave when introducing this 2 (A) Amendment to the Constitution. I have quoted it on two occasions in the House. That showed the number of unsolved crimes committed before that legislation was introduced. I challenge anybody on the opposite side to compare the number of undetected crimes under the Cumann na nGaedheal Government with the number of undetected crimes under the Fianna Fáil Government. I do not want to refer to any of those crimes which are sub judice. At any rate, I think it will be conceded that there has been no slackening whatever, with regard to any crime committed in this country, in trying to make the culprits amenable; and it is not helpful, apart from being not decent, even in politics, to have people trying to undermine confidence in the Gárda and to undermine the Gárda's own morale. That is what the Opposition are trying to do and that is the effect of all this kind of criticism and of such a suggestion as that recently made by Deputy McGilligan, which is typical of all their criticisms, that the person who burned Birr church was likely to be a Fianna Fáil supporter and that therefore he would not be arrested. That kind of suggestion is typical of the Opposition. One wonders what is the necessity to go into other matters of that kind or refer to them, because that is typical of the whole propaganda from those benches opposite. Whatever others may think about the matter, all I have to say about it is that at least it is not honest. Perhaps one should not be surprised at it, but one should at least regret it.

Some other matters have been referred to by Deputy Minch and Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney with regard to conditions in the force and so on. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney suggests now that the Gárdaí should get the franchise and that they should get back the boot allowance and some other things. I think that, at any rate, the Gárda themselves will know who would be the more sympathetic towards them. It is very easy for Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney to get up here and ask to give back what he took care to take away. It is very easy also for Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney to talk about giving the franchise to Gárdaí, but he took very good care, while he was in office, that they would have no franchise.

Mr. Donnelly

He knew how they would vote.

Mr. Ruttledge

With regard to the matters raised by Deputy Minch, I can only say that the Gárda have a representative body and that representations come along through that body in the ordinary way. The Deputy can be assured that any representations made on behalf of the Gárda, to help them in the difficult times through which they are going, are being considered sympathetically, and that everything that is possible to be done is being done to help them to meet those difficult conditions. With regard to the question of the franchise, it is my own personal opinion that Guards should not have votes. I am only expressing my personal opinion in this matter. I think that you are bound to bring them into politics very definitely if they have votes. I do not think that the Guards themselves have any grievance about that matter. At least, no representations have been made to me asking that they should have votes, and my own personal view is that it would be undesirable. I am open to argument on the matter, but I personally think that the present feeling is that they should not have votes, and I believe that it is better for themselves and for the morale of the force that they should not have the franchise.

Mr. MacDermot

Before the question is put to the House, I should like to know whether or not the Minister feels inclined to answer the question I put to him with regard to affording protection for cinemas.

Mr. Ruttledge

The Deputy can be assured that when those matters arise all possible precautions will be taken and every protection afforded.

Mr. Seumas Murphy

I should like to point out to the Minister that he has not replied to the question I put to him asking whether or not he would order an inquiry to be held into the incidents in Dundalk last Monday, and to take disciplinary action, if necessary.

Mr. Ruttledge

On several occasions I have dealt with similar questions. I think that it was Deputy Anthony who, in a similar case, raised the question of disciplinary action. That was a case where a man, who was protecting an individual down in Cork, threatened the man he was protecting. That man was only a few days in the force after that incident took place. He was dismissed. The case was made by Deputy Anthony at the time that the man would not be put out of the force because he happened to be recently recruited, but he was dismissed from the force only four days after that incident took place, and even that delay was due to having to get him to come up here. With regard to the particular case mentioned by Deputy Murphy, how can I give the Deputy any assurance other than to say that I will have the case investigated, and that, if we are satisfied as to the facts, the necessary disciplinary action will be taken?

Mr. Minch

I should like to ask the Minister whether, without prejudice to the Guards' status, he would investigate cases where certain Guards have become involved in the toils of moneylenders and have become subject to exorbitant rates of interest. If a Guard makes a clean breast of his difficulties, will the Minister undertake to give his sympathetic consideration to such a case?

Mr. Ruttledge

I certainly would not like to encourage any Guard to get into the hands of moneylenders, but where it has been shown that they have got into such difficulties through no fault of their own, their cases have been dealt with sympathetically, and they have been given an opportunity of trying to make good. However, very few such cases have arisen.

Mr. Dillon

I should like to know from the Minister if he has investigated the incident to which I referred, which took place in Keadue, and if he is satisfied that there is no substance in the allegation.

Mr. Ruttledge

I am satisfied. The police report is that on the night this explosion took place—I think it was about 11 o'clock—all the Guards were in the barracks with the exception of one man who was a married man and living outside the barracks. Immediately the explosion took place, the sergeant and two Guards went to collect the other Guard on their way and found him at home in his own house. They were the only Guards available, and they refute the suggestion.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister is satisfied, after inquiry, that no member of the Gárda was involved?

Mr. Ruttledge

I am satisfied, because I have the police report on it.

Mr. Dillon

Very good. I am very glad to hear it.

Question put: "That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration."

The Committee divided: Tá, 42; Níl, 56.

Tá

• Anthony, Richard.
• Beckett, James Walter.
• Belton, Patrick.
• Bennett, George Cecil.
• Brennan, Michael.
• Broderick, William Joseph.
• Burke, James Michael.
• Burke, Patrick.
• Coburn, James.
• Costello, John Aloysius.
• Curran, Richard.
• Desmond, William.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dolan, James Nicholas.
• Doyle, Feadar S.
• Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
• Fagan, Charles.
• Finlay, John.
• Fitzgerald, Desmond.
• Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
• Haslett, Alexander.
• Holohan, Richard.
• Keating, John.
• Lynch, Finian.
• MacDermot, Frank.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• McGovern, Patrick.
• McGuire, James Ivan.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Minch, Sydney B.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Murphy, James Edward.
• Nally, Martin.
• O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
• O'Leary, Daniel.
• O'Mahony, The.
• O'Neill, Eamonn.
• O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
• Reidy, James.
• Rice, Vincent.
• Rogers, Patrick James.
• Rowlette, Robert James.

Níl

• Aiken, Frank.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Boland, Patrick.
• Brady, Brian.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Breen, Daniel.
• Cleary, Michael.
• Concannon, Helena.
• Cooney, Eamonn.
• Corish, Richard.
• Corkery, Daniel.
• Corry, Martin John.
• Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
• Crowley, Timothy.
• Davin, William.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• Donnelly, Eamon.
• Everett, James.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• Pattison, James F.
• Pearse, Margaret Mary.
• Rice, Edward.
• Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Martin.
• Geoghegan, James.
• Gibbons, Seán.
• Goulding, John.
• Hales, Thomas.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
• Kehoe, Patrick.
• Kelly, Thomas.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick John.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Maguire, Ben.
• Maguire, Conor Alexander.
• Moane, Edward.
• Moore, Séamus.
• Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
• Norton, William.
• O'Briain, Donnchadh.
• O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Victory James.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Ward, Francis C.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.

Motion declared lost.

Main question put and agreed to.