On this Vote for the Department of the President of the Executive Council, I recognise that we are dealing with it under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. I hope I will not be accused of trying to make a debating point if I say that, as far as I am concerned, I think the President has not merely come to the parting of the ways but has definitely shown a turn that is entirely and completely for the better. If the President has taken that turn, he must remember that it is very hard to get people who have not had the experience of what demoralisation means, such as he has had, subtly to accept the same swerve, because it is a swerve, and I hope that it will be admitted as a swerve. It is very hard to get young people who thought that the President was pursuing a particular course, and had read his comments as exhortations and definite praise for them to follow that line with him—to get them now to recognise that a change has taken place. The President has been forced by the logic of circumstances and the difficulty of governing to announce a change. The President must remember that quite a number of comments of his own can be quoted by anybody who cares to search the records, to search the newspapers, and to search the records of this House, comments which would enable those who are now, in the phrase used by a Minister, definitely in league with murder, to show that the President thought fit to praise them at one time.
In Committee on Finance. - Vote 3—Department of the President of the Executive Council (Resumed)
Let us have the quotations. It would be interesting to have them.
Certainly. When the Public Safety Act was introduced the President spoke in this way: "These men were misguided, if you like, but they were brave men anyhow." Remember that we were then dealing with a Bill brought in on the basis that it was against murder. The President's comment was: "Let us have for them the decent respect that we have for the brave. They have done terrible things recently, I admit, if they are responsible for them, and I suppose they are, but let us appeal to them and ask them in God's name not to do them." Now, faced with murder, because the President admitted that it was murder, he said: "These were misguided, if you like, but they were brave men anyhow," and his resort then was to appeal to them in God's name not to carry on in this way, and to appeal to this House to have for them the decent respect that we have for the brave.
Let us assume that the men of whom the President was then speaking, the people whom we must have in our minds now, were the very salt of the earth. I said at the time, that "if the salt loses its savour there is no use for it except to be thrown out and trodden under the foot of man." The President at that time did not think it his duty to take a line against these people, and if they were misguided then they can say that they have been much more misguided since. I put that to the House as the pivotal comment of the President when speaking on the 15th October, 1931, when Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Bill was before the House, or, as it was called, the Public Safety Act. If at this moment anybody in these benches stood up and alluded to these men as misguided young men, as people who are brave and people for whom we should have the decent respect that we have for the brave, I do not think the President would consider that comments of that kind were likely to help him in the difficult and dangerous situation with which he is now dealing. But these were his comments in those days.
I do not think they are decent and brave men, and I think the President, through his Ministers, has recently said that they are neither brave nor decent men. The unfortunate situation is that the speech made by the Minister for Finance the other night at Balbriggan could easily have been made ten years ago and, if made ten years ago, it would have met with objection from the then Deputy MacEntee. In 1931, apparently, the Government that brought in Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Bill was right; apparently, at that time also, the Bishops who proclaimed that particular organisation were right, and the Seanad that passed that Bill was right, and the only thing that has happened since is that the President has learned how right they all were and has decided to follow them. As long as the President follows them and pursues the big line of establishing law and order in the country, and recognises that these men, no matter what their past record was, whether they were decent or brave, are engaging in a course of conduct that every citizen must be against, he will get the full backing of the whole House. The President must appreciate that he praised some people to that extent. If he says that is not the case, let him explain what has changed the situation to enable him to condemn these people. He certainly forbore to condemn them at the time I speak of. As long as the President has turned and is at the parting of the ways, as long as he turns his back on his past, there will be nothing but help for him in the new effort that is going to be made for the future.
The President should remember that he has left many points upon which he can be countered in his activities against these people at the moment. He must remember that in the most general terms he criticised the introduction of such measures as were found to be necessary in almost every State in the world: measures against treason and measures for the preservation of the public safety. The President classified these generally, and, particularly when he came to deal with any one of them, as measures of the British type. There are quotations scattered through this debate of October, 1931, in which the President again and again referred to the fact "that the British had tried methods of coercion against the people of this country and that methods of coercion were of no avail." The President did say immediately after what I have quoted, that the result of measures such as had been alluded to, would be to drive people underground instead of their being an open organisation having, as he thought then, a good viewpoint—that there would be resort to secret societies and to machinations of the underground type. The President must not now believe in what he then said. It is good that he does not any longer believe in it. The President should remember that when dealing with these people and the suddenness with which his change was announced, that previously, in 1931, and prior to the application of the Act passed in that year, a warning was given and time was allowed to people to clear out of certain organisations.
I do not understand—and I think it is a point that the House is entitled to some information on—why the attitude the President has recently found it wise to adopt towards the I.R.A. was adopted at the particular moment. So far as the 1931 episode was concerned, that measure was brought in with a full documentation. It was revealed to this House, presented to this House, with statements as to organisations and any proof of evidence that could be adduced with regard to the danger of certain organisations. The matter was in that way disclosed to the House, and all that came after certain murders which had shocked the community. People who even welcome the change in the President's attitude are somewhat bemused by this. What happened to make the proclamation and the banning a good and a wise move on the date of a certain event very near us, and the non-happening of which prevented that banning and that attitude being adopted some time earlier?
We were told by the Minister for Finance the other night at Balbriggan, in a rather incautious speech—one no part of which would have been repeated by any man who had any appreciation of what a judicial trial in this country means—that there was evidence to connect somebody, whom the Minister purported to know, with the murder of Admiral Somerville, and that was followed up by the grim comment that when that evidence was produced it would be the last shooting for somebody. When did that evidence come to hand? Was it that evidence which connects up somebody apparently in the banned organisation with the murder of Admiral Somerville that led to recent events? When did that information come into the possession of the Government? If they thought it fit on the eve of the Bodenstown celebration to ban the I.R.A. and prevent a certain march, which they did not interfere with previously, did they do it the moment certain information came into their hands connecting some member of the organisation with the murder, or am I wrong in thinking that the Minister had any background when he threw out these incautious remarks of his at the public meeting the other night?
We know that after one murder there was a certain amount of police activity, but no result. We know that after a further murder definitely prearranged, and a more revolting crime, there was considerable police activity which produced nothing in the way of a good result. There was an attempt made to round up a certain number of people and, in the face of the most serious crime that could be committed in any country, all that happened was that this group of people were paraded before the Military Tribunal on charges of refusing to answer questions. When these questions were investigated, the sole object of the questioning appeared to be that they asked those people did they know who committed these murders, and could they implicate anybody. Of course they got no answers to these questions, at least so far as the public have been allowed to peep behind the scenes. In the matters that have been brought before the Military Tribunal there has been no evidence produced to connect any of the people raided and arrested with either of the two crimes. The only thing is that there have been produced before the Tribunal a certain number of suspected people who, I suppose, can definitely be placed with the I.R.A., but no evidence was produced against them except that they refused to answer a question, the answer to which was going to implicate themselves or somebody else.
So far as the two murders are concerned, we were met after the death of Admiral Somerville with the view that the police knew nothing and, I think the public, who had believed that there was something successful going to be produced with regard to the second murder, were rather shocked by what appeared in the main to people to be rather light-hearted proceedings at a time when the gravest of all crimes had been committed. We were told by the Minister for Finance that the Government have information and proof, and that the proof is going to lead to the charging of certain people with one or other of these murders, and when that particular proof is produced it is going to put an end to shooting on the part of people who are going to be accused and, presumably, convicted. The public are somewhat in the dark about what the Minister means, and they are in the dark as to the information that came into the possession of the Government.
The public are aware of this, that if the Government had been wise in moving at a particular time, they had been unlucky in the opportunity presented to them. There was this organisation continuing its activities for a long time, so far as the public know, not aggravated, not increasing, no evidence produced that there was any close connection. There might have been suspicion, but there was no definite, clear-cut connection. Being left in that state of doubt, they do find the banning of a particular organisation and the proclaiming of a certain event somewhat puzzling. If the Government were wise in doing this at the time, or were forced to do it, and if they can produce evidence to that effect to the country, there will be relief, but they were unlucky in their opportunity because it has been stated by one of the people involved in that particular organisation, whose arrest was attempted, that on previous occasions the Party to which the President belongs had backed the Irish Republican Army going in the Bodenstown procession and had said that they were solidly behind them. There must be some explanation of the change and, when the President sets out to give any explanation, I hope he will address it not merely to this House, where Deputies will be willing to support him in his attitude along the line he has adopted, but that he will address some phrases particularly to the people whom he now describes as misguided while previously they were in the category of brave, decent young men. Let me emphasise that these same young men, according to the President, are now misguided and are potential criminals.
The President also knows that the municipal elections are on. The President knows that, for the first time, these people, whether for the purpose of afterwards decrying constitutional methods, have at any rate adopted a policy very like one he adopted at a particular time in his history. They have decided to use the machinery of election, even if it is for the purpose of destroying the machinery of election later and, having emerged in that way, they were holding public meetings in the city and were getting people to listen to them, getting audiences to listen to them. The President decides at this juncture to take a step which he must know gives them, however unjust the accusation may be, the right to say that the President's action indicated a desire to stop them in what were legitimate activities. If they are illegal, if their whole basis of operations is illegal, the President is even entitled to stop that part of their activity which has a legal gloss put upon it if he thinks in the end the whole aim of the organisation is the destruction of the Constitution by force of arms. But he has been unlucky in that he has given that argument, an argument that he, when in Opposition, often stressed in similar circumstances. That action has been taken against these people whom he then befriended and now disowns. He gives those people the right to use that argument and to put it, if they care to get quotations, in phrases taken from his own utterances. These are the immediate events leading up directly to this particular banning.
I do not care how much he may argue that his words were misinterpreted or even distorted, the President knows that certain phrases of his were only accepted as meaning one thing. As I said before, the President did not approve of a measure being brought into this country which had been found necessary by nearly every State in the world. A measure prohibiting treasonable activities was derided by the President. The President thought, speaking of that particular measure, that it was a continuation of British Government and British methods in this country, a continuation of political unrest, as a result of which unrest this country has suffered for centuries. The President has not in words given the people to understand how much he has changed from that mental attitude towards that measure, and why? I say he has not put it in words, because, judging from his conduct, we all know he has changed. I remember a time when we were threatened with an immediate repeal of that measure. The President has now been in office for some years, but he has taken no steps, and I hope will never take any steps, to repeal it. I hope he will have courage and conscience enough to declare that the measure is a good measure; that it is necessary for the State, and that anybody engaged in any way which would leave him open for charge and conviction under the Treason Bill will be dealt with under the provisions of it. Its practice has been good, but people are confused by seeing a person who phrased that type of activity as British coercion suddenly adopt a changed attitude without explaining why he has changed. Even some of his followers are disposed to be querulous as to why he acts in this way; a word of explanation might pacify them, as well as a general explanation of the new activity.
This measure of 1931 was definitely described by the President as being the worst type of continuation of British coercive measures. It was not merely that according to the President; it was impregnated with the wrong British psychology and the mistaken British attitude towards this country.
Describing this measure, the President said that he could not believe that the people of this country were so vicious as to require extraordinary legislation; he believed that they were orderly minded people who could be governed by the process of ordinary law, and that this extraordinary type of tribunal and those extraordinary measures that were taken against what was admitted to be a small group then described as irresponsibles were a mistake—a mistake which was a continuation of British coercion based upon British view that those people were so vicious that this extraordinary measure was required. He has since in this House said—I think I phrase him correctly here—that if he had to draw up a permanent Constitution for this country, he is now convinced that for some years at least a measure such as that which instituted the Military Tribunal will be a necessity. Presumably, now that he is discussing a new Constitution, he is pinning his efforts towards getting a Military Tribunal installed for the trial of those so-called extra vicious people by extraordinary methods. One hears rumours that the President has already consulted with one Party in the House as to whether an agreed report could not be brought in, backing his viewpoint that such was necessary. The President, at any rate, has indicated his viewpoint quite clearly, and I think he has made no withdrawal of that second and better thought of his.
The situation then is that the President has made a sudden swerve. Now, in the year 1936, he retraces his steps and pretty nearly swallows all that he said in 1931. The President surely must realise that when he has taken this line in law and order he must justify it. Ordinarily it requires no justification. Ordinarily he would only have to say: "There are certain people here engaged in illegal activity. That illegal activity has gone to the length of arrogating power over life and death, and that has got to be put down." But the President must remember that he had not always that clear-cut view, or, if he had, he succeeded in deceiving quite a number of people in the country with regard to it. I think the President would be well advised to give as clear a documentation as is in his power as to what is the connection of the I.R.A. with crime in the country. He should give an indication, such as was done in 1931, as to what are the activities of those people that have been under review, and what are the changes in their activities now in the year 1936 that we, at any rate, did not phrase to be treason in 1931. To what point does the President consider that this new policy of his has got to be pushed?
He will get from this side of the House unqualified approval of his attitude in this matter. I do not care whether he phrases it to be his old attitude or his new attitude; as long as we know that the particular policy now inaugurated is going to be pursued ruthlessly the President will get our full support. I think we ought to know whether he has the full support of his own Party in this matter. We should also know—the Labour Benches are empty to-night—whether the President has thought fit to query what would be the attitude of those who sit here representing Labour in this House towards the 1936 attitude adopted by him in regard to this particular organisation. I do not want to say that the President ought to shrink even in the slightest from the fullest possible activity, the use of force, the use of courts machinery, even of extraordinary courts machinery, to put down whatever danger there may be apprehended by him from this organisation, but would the President just think over this—that there is a new situation in the country? He always derided the thought that there may be Communism growing up in this country but at any rate there is a new situation. The people here cannot be completely divorced from public opinion. They do not fail to read the newspapers. They do not fail to see what disorder—even disorder of an organised type—there is on the continent quite close to us. The President in his speech in 1931 said that to seek out what was the reason for certain unrest and to try to deal with that was a better method than a merely blind blow struck by certain people. Will the President tell us what he has thought of the serious unrest in the country at the moment and whether he is satisfied that everything is being done to remove the cause of that unrest?
There is a material side to that and there is another side to it. On the non-material side, will the President regard it as mere argumentation in debate if I say this, that when he seeks to apply force to the I.R.A., who have decided to take the law into their own hands as far as life and death are concerned—that, we are told, is the reason for the banning— he has decided that they are in breach of one part of the positive law of this country? They say they can take the lives of certain people because of certain political views that they hold, and I think they can get grounds for that argument in the President's own statements of some years ago. But they do not need to go back to the President's statements of years ago; they can point here and now to the President's attitude towards the same positive law which makes the taking of life by them, unauthorised so to do, a crime. They can point to breaches of that same positive law by the President himself, and they know that the President defended those breaches by him of that particular law of the country by political arguments. There is a vast difference in degree between the arguments that the President used on his attitude, say, towards the Seanad, towards the Governor-General, towards the whole system of the Oireaehtas, towards the Constitution, and the same mistaken principle which actuates these men in saying that, because people are not going to operate with them in certain lines of activity, they are entitled to take those people's lives. But they do get the bad example from the President and his attitude towards what is, at the moment, the law of the country; and it is no great excuse for him to say: "Wait a bit; have patience and bide your time and these particular parts of the law which remain here as law for the moment are going to be changed." The I.R.A. might easily answer: "Wait still a further time and our policy will win through, and activities which are now classified as criminal because we do them will cease to have that criminal taint just as the President himself experienced in his old political history."
That is the non-material side. There is another side to it. The President knows well that he flattered the people of this country that there was a problem awaiting solution here which did not require any great degree of statesmanship to settle. He had the phrase that there was a cure for unemployment staring us in the face such as no other country had, and he promised the people of this country work, more production, wealth. He detailed that over industry and over agriculture. He promised that there was to be more money for spending, and he promised that the money that was going to to be spent by the State was going to be better spent, and that that better spending was to be accomplished without in any sense economising on the salaries of people who were serving the State. In addition to these promises, there was no threat held out of any increased taxation on the people of this country. The President, and his Ministers, if they were here, may counter what I am saying by pointing to social services. This country was not promised free beef or dole, unemployment assistance or public relief works.
The Deputy would stop all that?
They were not promised these things. They were promised work, as the Deputy probably knows. They were told that the unemployment situation here was such that we had a cure for it that no other country had. I need not repeat the figures again in detail—the numbers of thousands who were to get work that were flaunted before the eyes of the people. Now, receipt of public money in order to ward off destitution is no substitute for the work that was promised, and the President knows well that, if the building activity that is going on at the moment were stopped, there are less people in insurable occupation than on the day when he took office. There is only one activity that has helped to swell the number of insurably occupied people in this country beyond the figure that was added in 1931, and that is the activity of building—a passing phase and an activity that is provided for, not out of revenue, but out of borrowed moneys; an activity, therefore, that means that the country is going— it may be for a good purpose, but very definitely going into debt. If anybody steps back from the picture and looks at it, all they can see is a very big exhaustion or drawing in of resources and nothing that holds any promise for the future.
There is no line of activity that is likely to be permanent, no line of activity that can be pointed to at the moment as providing more in the way of occupation than previously. I am speaking of this in net terms. There are certain lines of activity that have provided more people with work, but their impact has resulted in more people losing work in other occupations. In the net, however, the figure of those employed in industry in this country is down, saving for building operations. Now, people are not always flattered, to their own later discomfiture, by promises. A promise does attract for a time, and the nonperformance of a promise may be excused for some period on the grounds that there is not enough time to have the result seen or appreciated. However, after four years that sort of an excuse wears thin, and people at the moment are beginning to wake up to the fact that costs of living are being increased on them; that taxes are being imposed on the necessities of their lives; that, apart from the building activity, there is no increase in employment in the country; that any increase in employment that there is in the country is not of a productive type; that it is costing money and that the money is being found, first, by the taxation of necessities, and, secondly, by going into debt, by raising the national and local debt; and that there is not much hope that anybody can see in their operation being continued at the moment.
The President bound economics together with politics when he was speaking in 1931. Speaking chiefly, as I say, on the political situation, he said that, undoubtedly, among the causes of unrest there were in the background economic causes, and the chief economic cause was unemployment, and that the chief remedy for that was not relief, not provision of more roads, not the cutting of corners or the provision of sewerage and other schemes, not building—that it was work in productive industry; and that work, of course, was promised, in amazing terms, to the people of the country. The President, in those days, thought that if unemployment were to continue violence would become more widespread, and if violence were to be met by such provisions as were contained in the Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Act, the only result would be, not to quell violence, but to drive it underground. His mood at the time was, more or less, that these people were misguided, if you will, but that they were brave men, for whom, at any rate, we should have the decent respect one has for the brave. I do not know if the President now thinks that the economic situation is so much bettered that that side, at any rate, of the argument has weakened or disappeared. I do not know what the President is going to say about the political side, but at that time we were told that there was a reason for disturbances in 1931. We have got to presume either of two things now: either that the causes have been removed or, alternatively, that there is such a particularly vicious conspiracy on foot now that the President, despite his principles in 1931, is going to use force, even though he has before him his own warning that force may result only in driving underground and not in quelling a particular outbreak.
Then, in all these circumstances, the President must surely realise that it is, at least, not tactful, not political good sense, to have Ministers of his Government addressing meetings throughout the country and advising people and putting into the heads of people this particular idea that if folk approve of a form of government such as, say, there exists in Russia, those people should promulgate these views on their platforms openly and the Government would see that they were protected, or at least would feel bound to recognise an obligation to protect them. The President must know that people listening to the Minister for Agriculture speaking in that way must remember what was said in connection with other people. They will remember that it is not so long ago that the President, when asked to protect certain property against raid and attack, said that the Government could not make unpopular people popular. These were decent citizens in the country. They were rather people threatened with arrest —people who had occupied important positions, the most important political positions that could be held in this country. However, there is evidently to be one type of attitude towards such people and another type of attitude towards others, and the Minister for Agriculture could even say that if it were thought that there was a line of argument agreed upon by certain people to the effect that the form of government in, say, Russia was good, then the people who believed in that argument should mount their platforms and give it voice and the Government would protect them.
I am not one of those who believes that even those who at the moment preach Communism ought to have bottles thrown at them. The kind of person that you attempt to put down by throwing a bottle close to his head is not going to be put down unless he is physically knocked out and overwhelmed by that particular type of argument. I do not care what his cause is. At any rate, if the Government stands for constitutional rights, freedom of association and freedom of speech, they must remember there is a reservation in the Constitution Articles with regard to such activities as are lawful and in accord with public morality. As long as the Government allows it to be thought, and by positive law have it, that the preaching of doctrines of this type is in accord with public morality or with the law, they are bound to protect people who take it that way, and in the present circumstances that prevail, say, in the City of Dublin, the Minister for Agriculture, via Wexford, in inviting them to preach these doctrines publicly, and promising the full support of the Government when they so preach them, is certainly not marked by any great sense of responsibility. The President must remember that in 1931, when speaking against the Act on which he now relies so much, the Deputy who is now Minister for Industry and Commerce said:
"This is a Bill, we are told, to safeguard the rights of the people. We have the most glorious and democratic Constitution in the world, and in order to preserve it we are going to abolish it...."
That is in regard to the measure that the President is now calling to his aid:
"In order to safeguard the rights of the people we are going to take their rights away! What are the rights of the people? The right of free speech, the right of free assembly, freedom of the Press, the right to be allowed to go at liberty until a charge can be brought and proved."
Those are still the same constitutional rights that the President is now turning against people who can argue, as Deputy Lemass did then, turning the measure against those for whom the Deputy was making the argument. The President knows that a particular measure, the Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Act, was described by a man who is now Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry as a Bill which would degrade this country as a Catholic country in the eyes of Spain. He made a junction of a particular phrase, in which he said this measure in Ireland would be like a lance in the side of the Catholic Church in Spain. The President is going to use that particular measure and is correct in using it. The President must definitely realise that he will not get the unqualified approval of the good action he is now taking until he makes it clear to his own Party, to the Labour representatives, and those sitting with us, what has happened to make him change his mind so suddenly. What happened at any rate to make so sudden a change as this? Certainly within about seven days we got disapproval of the phrase that an organisation had not got to be banned because its activities were illegal, as it banned itself, so to speak, but there was a definite declaration of the ban and the proclamation. Has it anything to do with the comments of the Minister for Finance at Balbriggan, that proof had come into their hands to connect some members of that organisation with one of the two crimes, and when the evidence came to their hands? Because all that is a reason why the President is now adopting as sound what he previously thought to be vicious, and he is now accepting as a permanent feature of the Constitution, what he thought were British coercive measures and bound to fail. The President has got to explain the change even on that, because the people will wait with interest to hear why the President has definitely taken the correct turning, and when he came to the parting of the ways.
The first point I should refer to is that which is made here constantly whenever I have to introduce an Estimate, the complaint from the opposite benches that I did not make a statement. That complaint, of course, was made here by three or four Deputies to-day, and in particular by Deputy O'Sullivan, who has been in the habit of making it in the past, and who, as long ago as 1933 was challenged by me to show a single instance in which the President's Estimate was introduced by a statement of policy in general. Everybody who knows the procedure in the House knows why such a statement is not made, and was not made in the past, unless on some particular occasion, when there was something immediate and pressing, on which no information had already been given to the House, which might be used to give that information. For example, I suggest that if the Vote for External Affairs had not been taken, this Vote might have been used by me as a suitable occasion to indicate what was the attitude of the Government with regard to an immediate question on which a decision had to be taken. But every question which is before the public, as far as I know, has had Ministerial policy in regard to it indicated. Why then should I at the start make a statement? As a matter of fact, everyone who is acquainted with the procedure of the House knows that the opportunity is taken on this Vote to give a field day to the Opposition. This is the Opposition day, the day on which every aspect of Government policy can be criticised more freely than on Estimates for other Departments. If there were some changes in regard to the organisation of the Department, or something of that sort, that had to be explained, the Minister for Finance, in introducing the Vote, might possibly have made reference to them, or I might have made reference, if questioned about them, but ordinarily this Vote is used as an occasion to enable all members of the House who have any questions to ask with regard to general policy to ask them.
There is a convention here—at least there used to be a convention—about this Vote. Seeing that on each of the other Departments an opportunity was given, except in so far as projected legislation was concerned, for discussing and criticising the Administration, in order that there might not be a repetition of that on this Vote, and in order, further, that the discussion might be confined to some particular major points, there was a convention that arrangements were made with the Opposition in advance by which they would indicate what was the particular subject they wanted to discuss so that the President or members of the Ministry, who might speak in the debate, would be able to make full replies to the questions raised. Instead of accusing me of not treating the House properly, I think that the Opposition have indicated very clearly themselves that they have not any definite matters to bring forward which have not been already dealt with on other Votes. As to the points that were raised here to-day, there was the question of unemployment. That has already been dealt with, not once but many times. The question of the farmers' position has been raised constantly and the Government's answer has been given many times. There has practically been no question brought up here to-day on which the answer has not been given, many, many times.
The question of the proclamation and banning of the I.R.A. has been raised but on that, too, the Government's policy has been made quite clear by the Acting-Minister for Justice, so that this debate, in fact, is nothing more than a rehash of all those debates which we had constantly day after day in regard to the other Estimates. In replying, in the main I must give a reply that has already been given many times both by myself and by Ministers in dealing with their several Departments. Deputy McGilligan says that a very sudden turn has been taken recently in regard to our attitude towards the I.R.A. organisation. He wants to know in particular why the formal banning of the organisation and the declaring of it an unlawful association took place at this particular juncture. The attitude of the Government has been all the time consistent, that an organisation which relies on force is by the very terms of Article 2A an illegal association. That was held constantly in other cases. It was precisely because it was questioned by members of the Opposition, and so as to make quite clear what the attitude of the Government was, that the formal proclamation was issued. It has no special effect but was issued lest anybody might be deceived by the statements that were made on the Opposition Benches. It was issued in order that everybody might clearly know that it was an illegal organisation, an unlawful association, and that members of it, therefore, were open to the penalties which attach to membership of such an organisation.
Where was the sudden turn? Deputy McGilligan has taken a passage out of a very long speech on the occasion of the discussion of the debate here on Article 2A. If you take a single passage out of a very long speech, it is quite obvious that it can be misread. We have that happening constantly when a phrase is detached from its context and is made use of for political purposes by those who want to misrepresent what has been said in that matter. If the Deputy cared to give the substance of the speech on that date, he would find that it was made quite clear in that speech that we did not stand for crime of any sort. It was made quite clear in that speech that in every organised community there had to be an authority to enforce order. It was made quite clear in that speech that if there was not that authority here it did not exist anywhere in the country. If Deputy McGilligan were anxious that the authority, which he says exists here, should be respected, I think that, on an occasion like this, he might at least have given some balanced extracts from the speech. If I did say, giving the history of the whole situation as it had developed at the time, that there were brave men in that organisation— as I did say—I was speaking of the organisation as a whole, as it had come down to that time. No word of mine at any time is, or was, open to the construction that I was defending people who had committed murder.
As regards the attitude of Fianna Fáil and my own attitude in particular, from the beginning it has been this. When the "cease-fire" order was issued we attempted to get a basis on which we could have an acceptance of majority rule here in this part of Ireland. In order that that might win the broadest acceptance, we put it forward as a condition that every citizen in the country should be free to advocate his particular principles and that he and his representatives should be free to go into the people's Assembly without any political test being imposed upon them. I believed in a policy of patience. I believed in removing from everybody any possible excuse that might be put forward for the non-acceptance of the authority of the people's representatives elected freely. Our whole policy as a Government, our whole policy as a Party, was based on that thesis. That was why we faced, and told the people we would face, whatever risks were involved in the abolition of the Oath. If there had not been crimes of violence committed, I, at any rate, had intended to urge that our Party as a whole should have as part of its next election programme, that under no circumstances would any organisation that had as its aims the use of force or that proposed to use force as one of its methods, be permitted to exist in the State. Of course, there are people who are such that unless you do everything they want, they will never be satisfied. There are such. You cannot possibly please them. What we regarded as our duty, in the political circumstances in which this country was, was to reduce that number just to those who wanted everybody, no matter what their views of the circumstances, to have their views and who were determined that until everybody conformed to their views there should be no peace and no order. I think the numbers are reduced to very few to-day. I confess—and I am quite willing to admit it, as I admitted it before—that I am disappointed that there are even so many, and not only the few I had always to bear in mind. But that there are so many as there are makes my disappointment the greater because I had the hope that those who were in that organisation, and who might have continued in it from the older times, would see that, though they had reason in the past for their attitude, any reason whatever for the maintenance of an armed organisation had disappeared.
Do I regret the policy we have adopted? If that policy has led in any way to the murder of individuals in this State I regret it. I cannot say whether it is that policy that has done it but, if it has, I must regret it. Otherwise, I would have held that our policy on the whole is justified, and that the people could not but realise that the reason we were taking strong measures is because no other way whatever is left open to us. We have taken these measures, not for political purposes, but because we regard them as absolutely necessary unless great evils are to follow.
It is said that we came into office with the pledge that we would repeal Article 2A of the Constitution. One of our first acts on coming into office was to put it out of operation, and it was out of operation for more than a year. The first occasion it had to be brought into operation was when we had an organised semi-military force using a certain occasion to concentrate large numbers of people, some 20,000, in Dublin.
It was 100,000 people the other day and they were to be armed with Hailsham rifles.
Assuming the leaders of that organisation indicated that they were much stronger than they were, I cannot help it. But of this I am certain, that we issued that ban at a time when the Executive Council were convinced that to permit that assembly would mean bloodshed. It was the only legal weapon we had to stop that mobilisation. We had this position in the country: We had two organisations, each of which was ready to use the existence of the other for intensifying organisation on its part. It was in the presence of such organisation, with the example of the Continent before us, which shows quite definitely that if you are to have contests of this kind only one form of government can result, and that is dictatorship and the depriving of the people of their liberty, that we brought into force Article 2A of the Constitution. I repeat, in that connection, what I said on a previous occasion, because Deputy McGilligan referred to it. I say deliberately that in the present condition of the world as a whole, and with examples such as there have been in other countries, as long as there are organisations prepared to band themselves in a military way with arms and capable of intimidating ordinary witnesses and carrying on their activities under secret machinery, with which the ordinary law is incapable of dealing, so long as such a situation continues you will need to have such special machinery to deal with them. And one of the things that will be provided in the new Constitution is some means by which such a situation can be dealt with by the Executive Council of the day.
I remember when I sat on the Opposition Benches, and saw the Ministers who introduced that measure, and when I looked at it, I came to the conclusion that they were incapable of carrying out such a measure without making it a measure of pure vengeance and not something that would create for the Executive popular support in order that it should be successful. I have been accused of not having chosen an appropriate time for doing these things. We did not stage it. We took this course because we were presented with circumstances that made our action inevitable. We did not stage a situation in which we had a chief of police going round the country and telling the country that the evils of Communism were such that the action the Government proposed to take was necessary to deal with Communism. We said that Communism had no roots in this country and would not take root in this country. Not only did we say that, but the moment we came into office we proved definitely that that was so. I gave figures on previous occasions to show what the position was in the year 1933 or 1934. I have not those figures by me at the moment but they can be found in replies I gave to all those allegations about Communism. I showed that the votes cast for Communistic candidates here in Dublin demonstrated that they were dwindling here. In the present municipal elections not a single person has dared to go up for election as a Communist, because in the past they got no votes. Why, therefore, try to manufacture Communism? Why make it appear that people with legitimate grievances had to be classed with those calling themselves Communists? Our attitude is this: that there is nothing in this doctrine of Communism that is likely to win any acceptance from our people. If then it is put forward it can be refuted and it is better that it should be put forward as a policy by those who believe in it, in order that it may be refuted, rather than that people who are agents for those theorists should go around in private propagating this doctrine and pretending that the only reason why they do not do it publicly, as a policy, is because they are prevented by the Government for political motives from explaining their position.
We cannot have it both ways. We have got to say to every section of the people in the country, "If you have any policy with regard to economic requirements or any policy with regard to national matters that you want to put before the people, you have a free platform to do so. Because you have a free platform and because there is no restriction on your right to send representatives into the national Assembly, you are not entitled to organise yourselves for the use of force." When I was dealing with this matter in the speech to which Deputy McGilligan referred, speaking of the situation at the time, I made quite clear what our aim was. I stated that our aim was to open the door, so that every person who had a national programme to put before the people would have liberty to do so, and that if they got a majority of the people to accept their policy, then all the instruments of government would be handed over to them. In the past, there was in this country a doctrine called the "physical force doctrine." What was called at the time "constitutional activity" was not regarded as sufficient. It was considered that Britain would not release her grip and would not cease to govern here until methods other than those described as "constitutional methods" were adopted. The basis for that theory was that, in the British House of Commons, Irish representatives were outvoted and there was a number of other theories, every one of which has now ceased to be applicable. If physical force has ever to be used by this nation to advance its liberties, it is there to be used by the party that is returned by the people to use it, but not by anybody else. It is quite clear that anybody else attempting to use it would, as I pointed out in that speech, be, in the first place, up against civil war. I repeated on that occasion the speech I made at Thurles—a speech which has been misrepresented on both sides. I pointed out that the moment you had set up and established here a Government consisting of representatives of the people, with the obligation to rule and maintain order, and having at their disposal arms—the moment that situation was completely established, if any other body than the State relied on physical force to advance any of their ideas, it would, in the first place, necessarily mean a civil war, a war in which there would have to be killing of brother Irishmen. I pointed out that that was such a horror that it ought to have been sufficient to deter those who were being fooled by members of the Opposition at the time of the Treaty as to what would be the conditions when the Treaty was accepted—that that was such a horror that it ought to make them pause before they would bring about such a situation. It was being held at that time that, under the Treaty, the old methods of the I.R.B. and what was called at the time the "physical force method," would still be available. They did not point out, as I pointed out or tried to point out, the situation that would have to be faced if anybody other than those elected by the people tried to use physical force. I pointed out that they would, first of all, have to face the forces at the disposal of the responsible Government elected by the people. If, in such a contest, the physical force party were successful, I pointed out that the circumstances would be such as to make it extremely likely that the next step would be to face an outside force if they wanted to make good and secure their objective.
Since the time of the "cease fire" order, I have said constantly in private and in public that, if you think force is necessary to secure this nation's independence, the one way you can get it is to get the confidence of the people and get them to put you into office. That was the position when we were successful from 1919 to 1921. We were successful then, or rather, we owed whatever extent of success we had, mainly to the fact that throughout that period we were able to speak as the Government of the Irish people, freely elected by them, entitled to their allegiance, entitled to use any force at hand and to organise the nation to use any force that might be necessary to preserve the independence which had been declared and to secure the recognition of that independence which was being sought. Undoubtedly, those who have listened only to the propaganda from the opposite benches, where for years they were interested in trying to represent us as standing for things we did not stand for, feel that a very sudden change of front has taken place.
That is one of the difficulties we have got to contend with now. Deputies opposite pretend that they want to help us, that they want to help to put public opinion behind us in order that the least possible amount of disturbance will be caused in carrying out our duty. While they so pretend, practically every paragraph of their speeches and practically every word of theirs is designed with a different purpose.
We, on these benches, are not approaching this matter with the idea of having vengeance on anybody. We want to maintain public order. It is our duty to do so, and whatever steps are necessary in order to carry out our duty, we give due warning to everybody, will be taken. We say there is no possible excuse for anybody advocating the methods that are being advocated by certain people. We say that it is only people who have not given any thought to what they are after who give countenance to these methods in the present conditions. It has been suggested by Deputy McGilligan that some political purpose is involved in our action and that we have chosen a bad time. In other words, if he and his colleagues were in office, they would manæuvre very much better as regards this proclamation, in view of the general circumstances. As I said before, there is no manoeuvring whatever about it. The time was chosen, not by us, but by those, whoever they were, who showed by their actions that they were capable of committing murder, and claimed that they had authority—if they thought of the matter in that sense—over the lives of Irish citizens. It is those—whoever they are—who have been the occasion of it, and not the Government. All the time our attitude has been clear.
I do not know if any other point has been made which calls for comment. What our programme is has been made clear by me here time after time to the Dáil and to the country as a whole. On each occasion I had only to take the manifesto issued in the 1932 and 1933 elections and read it out paragraph by paragraph. I showed that we were systematically going through that programme—the political programme and, in its main terms, the economic programme. The Constitution which it is proposed to bring in in the autumn has been mentioned. Deputy O'Sullivan criticised proposals which, I believe, were given by some individual somewhere. They were of so little importance that nobody seemed to think it was worth while to bring them to my notice. I must say that I was not aware that there had been any supposed disclosure of what the Constitution was likely to be, and I do not think that anybody could, in fact, make a full disclosure of the constitution as it is intended to be, because it has been decided in certain main principles, but obviously, if you are going to have a discussion of the Constitution you are to have it as a whole, and the Dáil and the country are in the autumn to be given ample opportunities for discussing it.
I have said that the intention is something like this: that we would bring in the measure, debate it here, pass it into law with a suspensory provision so that it would not actually be effective until it is referred to the people. It can be referred specifically to the people by way of referendum if that is found convenient, and possibly apart from any election if that can be done, or with an election if it cannot be done. When the people have indicated their acceptance of it, the Constitution would formally be brought into law by a resolution of the new Parliament when it assembles. That will make it clear that everybody in the country will have a say in the matter; that it will not be as it was in 1922, that is, published on the morning of the polling, when nobody in the country would have an opportunity of criticising it. Then the Party which gets the majority would be able to say that the people had approved of the Constitution. No such tricks as in 1922 will be tried on the people or on the Parliament. The fullest possible opportunity will be given to everybody to discuss and criticise it, first, as I have said, here in this Parliament—assuming that we are in existence, and I have every reason to hope that we will be in existence unless an earthquake or something like that comes along—when the Autumn Session begins. You will, therefore, have a full opportunity of dealing with it, and I suggest it is very much better that we should postpone criticism of any parts here and there of the Constitution when such an ample opportunity for considering it in full is promised.
We are told that we are Constitution mongering, fiddling, I think somebody said, while Rome is burning. As a matter of fact, every other Department is at its own work carrying out its part of our general programme as hard as it can and the amount of time that Ministers will have to devote to this part of the work is not very great. Has anybody, I wonder, looked at a copy of the Constitution and tried to bring it up-to-date or tried to know exactly what is the Constitution at the moment? There are certain people I see who not long ago have been through a course of constitutional law under the able guidance of Deputy McGilligan. I should be rather interested to know how clear they are in their minds as to the Constitution at the moment. There is no place to which you can refer anybody. I have here a copy of the Constitution, which I got specially marked for myself, and there are far more lines erased in it than lines left whole. I had promised, when we were bringing in the amendment about the Seanad, that I would get a revised version of this Constitution. Let nobody get away with the idea that it is we who have been tinkering with the Constitution. We are, I am quite ready to concede, responsible for five or six rather sweeping amendments, but the greater part of the amendments to the Constitution were introduced by our predecessors. While every amendment of ours was in the direction of trying to make the Constitution fit in with the aspirations of our people, the people on the opposite benches, when tinkering with the Constitution, were working in the opposite direction. When we came here with a motion to enable the people to pronounce on the question of the Oath, the people on the opposite benches by virtue of their majority changed the Constitution. They did the same thing as a man would do who, when he goes, say, before a court, in order to prevent the other litigant from getting his rights according to the existing law, makes the law different. That is Constitution mongering, I think, and if there is tinkering there it is in the wrong direction. If we changed the Constitution we did it to make it, as far as we could, agreeable to the wishes of the Irish people so that they will feel that it is their own Constitution, that every syllable and every bit of it will be their own making and that it will be a guarantee to the people of their rightful liberties and not an attempt to hamper them in exercising liberties previously given them and acknowledged as theirs.
We will then have a Constitution, and I do not propose here to outline it in advance. It will be necessary for me, in view of the Vote for the Governor-General's establishment, to go into one particular part, but I propose to confine myself to that. I would not go into that point were it not necessary to explain what I said last year when the Vote for the Governor-General's establishment was under consideration. What I said at that time has not been fulfilled to the letter. I said that probably it was the last time that Vote would be before the House and that I had hoped before we came to such an Estimate again that there would be no need for the Vote. The reason why that statement has not been fulfilled is because I had intended when I made that statement to have the Constitution brought in during this session. But there has been such pressure of work that I did not think it right to bring in a constitutional matter, important as it is, and take up the time of the House when the Department of Industry and Commerce, the Department of Finance and the other Departments wanted to get urgent measures dealing with the immediate needs of the people through the House. So that all these charges that have been made from the opposite benches are without any foundations whatever. Deputy McGilligan kept at the old tune again. That is the old charge that has been, time after time, exposed. He said that more people were not put into employment by the present Government. That is not true. A considerable number of people have been put into employment in industry and on the land.
Nonsense.
There are less people employed on the land.
The fact is that there are more people put into employment in agriculture and put into employment in industry. That is the fact. When you consider that that is so at a time when the great danger was that there would be less employment, even to have kept things in the circumstances at the previous level would have been in itself a big achievement. Not merely have we done that but we have given extra employment. It is obvious that these are the facts.
You have driven them across the Border to work for your deadly enemy.
The next big aspect of our policy that might come under criticism was that of our relations with Great Britain. Deputies on the opposite benches talk as if we had only to go over to the British and say: "We wish to be good friends with you," and the moment you did that you were going to get the British immediately to agree to your proposition. That is quite clearly not likely to be the case. Our position is that we hold that these moneys are not legitimately due, and that we can only do that which any person who felt the same in private life would do, and that is, to retain them to the best of his ability—to retain these sums anyhow. If the person who claims these moneys from you is in a position to try to extract them otherwise from you, that is part of the situation that you have to deal with—to do your best about it; to try to prevent him from extracting these moneys, if you are able, and, if you are not, at any rate to make it clear that that pressure is not going to get you to admit that he has a right to them.
We do not admit that the British have a right to these moneys. We have entered into negotiations a number of times, and these negotiations did not result, as I pointed out here, in our getting farther than the British saying to us that, if we admitted they were entitled to these moneys, then there might possibly be some mitigation. Deputies opposite pretend, of course: "If the people only elected us what a wonderful chance we have now." Deputy Hogan does not happen to be here, but if he were here, I can imagine him standing up and saying, as he stated on many occasions in the past on a Vote like this: "If you had only the courage you have a wonderful opportunity for making a great bargain." That is what he would say.
I wonder why is the feeling abroad that there is an opportunity of making a great bargain. If it is simply their personality is concerned with it, the Deputies opposite had many an occasion in the past. For several years they were in control of the Government of this country and were in a position to make this bargain. Why was it that when we came into office there was an opportunity for making bargains which did not exist before? I know of none in reality except this, perhaps, that we have made it quite clear that if there is to be any settlement, so far as this Government are concerned, it can only be on the basis of that which we think our people as a whole are going to accept. We do not want to pretend to anybody that you can make settlements of a political character at any time, and our policy as a Government has always been that we will make no bargain with any Power, that we will enter into no obligations of any sort, except those which we think, as a Government, we will be able to carry out with the support of our people; and not merely that we, but that any Government that we can reasonably expect to come after us also will be satisfied with the political arrangements that are made.
In view of the history of our country, I think it is quite clear to everybody that until the unity of this country is recognised, and until the right of our people as a whole to choose for themselves whatever form of government or governmental institutions they wish is freely acknowledged, no settlement that can be made by a Government for anything less than that can last. That is a fact. We stood to that firmly and we stand to it to-day. I say that if there is any other section of the people who are prepared to underbid us and say they can make a settlement like that, let them get the support of the people for it. I believe that the people will not support anything else. I believe that the only way in which the people might be got to support it, perhaps, is on the same basis on which they were got to support the Treaty and that is: "We will use it as a stepping-stone; we will not regard it as being of value; we will regard it only as something imposed upon us under duress which we will have the right to get out of; something we will have the right to get out of the moment an opportunity offers."
If the people of this island are satisfied that their rightful aspirations are admitted and that their right to freedom is acknowledged, I believe that the great thing that has hampered us in the past and prevented good relations between the people of this island and the people of the neighbouring island will be removed; that co-operation and goodwill will result from it; and that there will be a readiness to consider questions that are common, interests that are common, and to deal with them on the basis that each party is going to be served by any arrangement which may be made. I think it is good policy both for our people and for the other people who may be involved to have a settlement on such a basis, because you have the foundations on which there can be goodwill, and there can be faithfulness to the contracts which are made. If you have it on any other basis, you have the basis of want of settlement in the future, you have the basis of fear of deception and want of confidence. You will have all these interfering unless you get it on the basis I have been stating.
It is not going to be easy. It requires courage to face it. When Lord Derby was over here in 1921 he asked me on what basis co-operation and goodwill could be got between the peoples of these two islands, and I pointed out to him that it was on that basis. If I remember correctly, his answer was that he did not think the British Ministers would have courage enough to face a solution on that basis. They have been accustomed to come along and look for courage from us. I think the courage ought to come from those who are doing something that they are not legitimately or rightfully entitled to do. We have the courage to do what we have a right to do, but we have not the courage to go beyond that which we have a right to do and to pretend that you can get faithful co-operation, or co-operation of any kind, from the people of this country unless the things which the people of this country have a right to have are admitted.
That has been the basis of our policy —the policy of fair play for everybody in this country, fair play for every political institution and every political organisation. We are not trying to prevent any other republicans who may believe that they have a better plan than we have from going ahead. The last thing in the world that would cross our minds would be to prevent them from having a free field. If anybody asks what is the difference between ourselves and them, I would say that the big difference, if we could have it out in public, between the two is that question of method. I hold that our method makes for the unity of our people. It helps to knit the people together in a disciplined body, strenthens them to withstand any efforts to coerce them, whereas the other method, in the present circumstances, is bound to lead towards disruption and can never succeed. If there is anybody who genuinely wants to see a republic established here, in whatever time it may be possible to establish it, I will say he will do what we are doing and not do what those are doing who say they are faithful to the republic proclaimed in 1916 and declared in 1921.
We are working towards it. I am asked why I do not declare it immediately. For the simple reason that I know that I cannot make it effective over the country as a whole. Our aim is to work towards a situation in which it will be possible for those in the North also to come in and join with us. We are told by the people on the opposite benches that we have that if we accept the Commonwealth. My answer to that is: let them get Lord Craigavon and the people in the North to admit that they are prepared for the unity of Ireland, to accept the unity of Ireland, and then they can go to the people with their policy and we will fight them on ours. But let them get it and let them not be saying that if they accept the Commonwealth they are going to get it. Lord Craigavon and those with him were against Home Rule in the past, and there has been no indication, as far as I can see, that they are prepared to accept the programme put forward from the opposite benches any more than we are. We are going to move ahead on the lines that we indicated to the people when they first put us into office, and that we repeated we intended to continue on when they gave us a further term of office and renewed their confidence in us.
I have nothing new to say whatever. If anybody is interested in the policy of the Government and of our Party he can go back to the manifesto that we issued during the campaign in the 1932 and 1933 elections, and if in the near future we have to go to the people it will be on the completion of that programme, because, in its nature, it is a programme that requires a number of years in order to completely carry out. We did not say to anybody that we were going to cure unemployment in a couple of years. We were most careful not to say that. We pointed out then, and I still hold it is true, that we had better opportunities for dealing with unemployment than had countries in which there was overproduction, with massed industries built up for world markets which were rapidly declining, countries such as America and Britain. That was the position that we had to deal with. I am quite willing that we should be judged on the basis that, on account of our comparative backwardness in the industrial sense, we had a virgin field to till. I am quite prepared that that should be taken in as an element in calculating what progress has been made. I give anybody a free present of the fact that we had a better position in that respect than most other countries. In so far as we have not been able to avail of that position and have not shown results, then, I think, we can be justly held to account. But I did not say that we were going to cure unemployment in a couple of years. Because of the position in which we found ourselves when we came into office, industries had to be built up here, and I believe that we have done enough to justify our policy and to show the people that what we said could be done in relation to industry has been done.
If we have to go to the people again it will be for a renewal of their confidence to continue and consolidate that position, to try to make this country, not one depending solely on the production of agricultural produce, but a country very much better balanced economically, better fitted to stand the strain of critical times, economically or otherwise. I think if it should happen that the present situation generally in the world should develop in a worse direction, everybody here will bless the fact that we have made progress in the direction of making ourselves less dependent on foreign peoples than we were when we came into office. As I have already said, I have nothing new to say. I am tired of saying these things. No matter how many times I say them I find Deputies getting up on the opposite benches and saying that we have no policy, that we do not know where we are going, that we are going backwards to-day and forwards to-morrow, and that we are always changing our direction. That is not so. The main aims of our policy have been set out, and we have no excuse to offer for it.
The President says that he has nothing new to say. I think that he ought to add something at this stage. He has told us that we are going to get a constitutional plaster to cure our economic ills.
I said nothing of the kind.
The President told us that, to cure the ills of the economic war, he was going to put a constitutional plaster on them.
I did not suggest anything of the kind.
In connection with unemployment, would the President tell me if his Department has done anything to find out the number of young men and young women who have had to go over to Great Britain, looking for work, during the last four years and four months?
In the nature of the case, reliable figures on such a matter as the Deputy speaks of could not be got.
Has the President made any attempt to get them?
I do not try impossible and stupid tasks. It is obvious that special machinery would have to be set up and that inquiries would have to be made in every townland and village in the country to try to find out the various reasons why people had gone away.
Would it not be worth while to get the information?
Tá
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Broderick, William Joseph.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Davitt, Robert Emmet.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Keating, John.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel:
- Morrisroe, James.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Brady, Brian.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Carty, Frank.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Fred Hugh.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Flynn, John.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ryan, James.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C.