Vol. 69 No. 16
I move amendment No. 1, standing in the name of Deputy O'Higgins.
In sub-section (1), line 18, to delete the words "to any organisation without due permission" and substitute the words: "any political society or organisation whatsoever or any secret society whatsoever, and that I will not join or be a member of or subscribe to any other society or organisation without due permission."
I think amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 3 may be debated together. No. 3 seems to meet Nos. 1 and 2.
I think, perhaps, Deputy MacEoin will agree that my amendment No. 3 covers the first two amendments in the name of Deputy O'Higgins. I told the Deputy when he raised the matter on the Second Reading that I would try to meet his point of view. I think amendment No. 3 accepts the principle laid down in amendments Nos. 1 and 2, and does it in a more convenient way. After all, we do not want to clutter up the oath with all the regulations as to what a soldier may or may not do. In amendment No. 3 I think the problem is dealt with in a better way, because it proposes to put into the Bill a prohibition against membership of those organisations with regard to members of the Forces or members of the Reserve, and I think that is as effective a method.
I admit that it may be as effective, but the point is that it would be in the oath which the officer or the soldier swore. I admit the Minister's amendment is a prohibition, but we know that lots of things which are prohibited are sometimes done, and if an officer, noncommissioned officer or man swears a thing, it has more weight. It will have more weight if he has sworn to abstain from membership of those organisations, that is, any political society or organisation whatsoever and any secret society whatsoever. I think that to eliminate that is not good policy, because we have had enough of that matter at various stages, and we should try to keep clear of it.
If there were any necessity for it, it would be all right, but in the oath, as it stands in the Bill, every officer and soldier will swear to obey orders issued to him by a superior officer according to law. We are making it portion of the law in regard to officers and soldiers that they may not belong to a political organisation, and in regard to both officers and soldiers of the Forces and the Reserve, that they may not belong to a secret organisation. I think that covers it. If we were to put into the oath everything that was prohibited in regard to the Army, it would mean incorporating in it the whole book of regulations, and it would be a pretty lengthy document.
The point is that the young officer or soldier has not gone through the whole Act when he is going into the Army, and he is not fully aware of its provisions. It is only after he has gone through the lectures and so on, that he acquires a fair idea of what the law is. By putting it into the oath he runs up against it the very first day; it is brought to his notice right away, the moment he puts on uniform. While I admit that eventually the Minister's amendment might be just as effective, at the same time there is an advantage in having it brought to the notice of the young officer or soldier on his first day of entry; it is something that is stamped on his mind, something that he will be likely to remember. Swearing that on a particular day makes an impression on the soldier or the young officer that is not otherwise obtained.
I wonder if the Minister would give the House some indication as to what is in his mind and what is intended by the term "secret society"? I have a good deal of sympathy with the idea of preventing soldiers and members of the Reserve from being members of secret societies, and if I had my way I would prevent all citizens from being members of secret societies. The term seems to me to be a very vague one, and I should like to know what is meant by it.
I think it is pretty plain. We all know what a secret society is.
Does it mean an oathbound society, any organisation which holds a secret meeting, or what does it mean? I think the term "secret society" is not at all clear; I think it is a very vague expression.
It is a term that has been incorporated in the law here for a great number of years. The present oath contains the term "secret society," and it is so plain, its connotation is so well known to everybody, that it was not thought necessary even to put it into the usual definitions that are contained in the front of every Act of Parliament. It is not in the definitions as far as I can see.
There does not seem to be any definition. It may be perfectly clear to the Minister, but it is not at all clear to me. Apparently I cannot get a definition except by coming down to brass tacks, so to speak. Are the Knights of Columbanus a secret society, or is the Freemason organisation a secret society? Would it cover both of these?
I do not think either organisation is one to which a soldier or officer should belong, anyway.
Does the Minister say it does not cover them, or that it does?
I do not know if it was intended to cover them by that exact expression, but they would be covered actually.
The Minister, when he found he was in a difficulty, defended himself by quoting the old oath. That is perfectly legitimate, but at a previous stage of this Bill I pressed the Minister very hard to give us some reason or justification for departing from the terms of the old oath. In the oath that was previously taken by officers and soldiers each individual, whether an officer or a soldier, swore that he would not belong to a political organisation or to any secret society. For some reason which the House has not been informed of so far, the Minister now considers that it is wise to depart from that form of oath and no longer to bind an officer or a soldier by oath to refrain from membership of a secret society or a political organisation. We discussed that on the Second Stage.
There is an amendment down here to reinclude those words in the oath. It is opposed by the Minister, but he sidesteps the point by putting a paragraph into the Bill prohibiting membership of such organisations. That is not the same thing. If the Minister argues it is the same thing, what is the objection to extracting that declaration from the individual? What is the objection to having it in the oath? There is something very puzzling and very mysterious about all these antics with regard to this oath. The Minister, we must take it as a matter of policy, considers it inadvisable to ask for a declaration from officers and men that they will not belong to political organisations nor to secret societies.
There is another omission from the old oath in regard to which I would be anxious to hear what defence the Minister has. In the old oath the Parliament was referred to and the officer and the soldier swore obedience to Parliament. At that time they held their commissions directly from the Executive Council, and the higher officers of the Army held their appointments directly from the Executive Council. Now there is to be a change. The commissions will be held from the elected President, not from Parliament or the Executive Council. The appointments of the higher officers, the Chief of Staff, etc., will be made by the President and not by the Parliament. In that set of circumstances the declaration which was previously taken, swearing obedience to the Parliament of the people, has been completely deleted from the present oath. There are three significant deletions: (1) direct recognition of Parliament by the declaration of the officer or soldier; (2) a direct declaration by the officer or soldier not to belong to a political organisation; and (3) not to belong to a secret society.
Those are three very significant omissions from the old oath, and I want the Minister to advance some justification for those very significant omissions. It is not sufficient to get up with a nonsensical argument such as: "Are you expected to put everything in an oath that you desire to prohibit or make illegal?" That is merely a chaffish argument and unworthy of the Ministerial Front Bench. The old oath was there and it is the normal procedure of Governments to follow established precedents. There must have been some very grave reason for deleting those words, a reason which weighed with the Minister and his advisers. The reason may be quite a good reason, but I suggest the House is entitled to hear what it was.
I shall deal first with Deputy O'Higgins' point that in this oath there is no declaration of the recognition of Parliament by the soldier. He says it is mysterious why that should be left out, and that it is very significant. The Deputy referred to that on the Second Reading, and yet he did not think it necessary to put forward an amendment dealing with the matter. It is perfectly clear to everybody that the Defence Forces Bill comes up each year, and if the Dáil did not pass it, the Army would cease to exist. It is well known that it is from the Dáil the Army gets its funds. It is known to everybody in the country, soldiers and recruits included, that the President, who is appointed Commander-in-Chief, is elected by the people, and he exercises whatever powers he has in accordance with the Constitution and on the advice of the Government. I do not think that that point has any significance and, if it had any significance, the Deputy, having adverted to it on Second Reading, would, I think, have put an amendment down for to-day. It is perfectly clear to everybody that, according to the Constitution, the Army is under the control of the Dáil. This Bill is being passed by the Dáil and will be amendable by future Dála.
With reference to the question of leaving out of the oath reference to political organisations and to secret societies, I think that neither of these matters is of any great importance at present. It is accepted in the Army that officers and soldiers will belong neither to one type of organisation nor to the other while serving in the Forces. Reservists are aware that they must not belong to secret organisations. That is in the regulations. The old oath was a fairly long one and, in most countries where an oath is taken —in some countries no oath is taken by officers or soldiers—it is a very simple one. The officer or soldier swears to obey orders and, in the case of a kingdom, that he will be loyal to the king. In this new oath of ours, the officer or soldier will pledge his fealty to Ireland, his loyalty to the Constitution and obedience to orders issued to him according to law. I do not think that anything more is required. If we were to put into the oath everything we thought it advisable to bring to the soldier's attention, we should have to put in a long list of offences.
Nobody suggested that.
In the case of some oaths, they are put in. If you go back through the various oaths taken by soldiers at different times in different countries, you will find that they dealt with some problem of the moment. We ourselves had a reference to secret and political organisations in our oath simply because these constituted a problem at the time the oath was framed. They are, thank God, a problem no longer. To meet Deputy O'Higgins' point, I brought forward the amendments on the Paper. I think he will admit that my two amendments cover the point he had in mind except that the provision is to be inserted in the law rather than in the oath. There are a great many crimes to which reference should be made if we wanted to call the special attention of the soldier to them. In some oaths in the past in certain countries, crimes like running away from the enemy, treachery, or assisting the enemy were inserted. We have not thought it necessary here to put these into the oath. We have been content with providing by law for punishment of these offences. I think that there is a very good case for dropping this provision out of the oath and putting it into the law. It will really have the same effect. All we could do with the man who broke his oath would be to punish him. We could not do that if we had not provided for it by law or by regulation. As a matter of fact, it is not necessary to have this provision so specifically set out in the Bill, as I am proposing to set it out to meet the Deputy's view.
Compliments are rather rare here and I have no objection to the Minister taking a compliment to himself with regard to the case he has made for deletion of this reference from the old oath. All I can say is that I am not convinced by the case he has made. I doubt if many Deputies are convinced. The Minister gave no explanation of the deletion of the words pledging obedience to Parliament nor did he defend that course. He merely pointed out that I had not moved an amendment to that effect. I am not Minister for Defence and his responsibility is not mine. However, I can say without evasion that, if I were Minister for Defence and these words were staring me in the face in the existing oath, I should be very slow to remove them and to frame a new form of oath to be taken by officers and soldiers. Little importance might be attached to these words if they had never appeared in the oath, but the deletion of words in an oath taken by officers and soldiers has a certain significance in the mind of everybody. Even the simplest soldier will say: "These words are gone. There is no reference to Parliament now. Why is that?" What answer is he to get except that, for some reason higher up, it is considered unwise to link the mind of the soldier with obedience to Parliament? It is merely a matter of three or four words extra and three or four words more are not going to make the oath any more cumbersome or unwieldy.
It is an unfortunate thing that the Minister thinks it well to delete such a reference from the oath. It is unfortunate, too, that he will not see the desirability of relating the soldier's duty in a democratic country directly with the control of the people rather than with any individual in the State, no matter how appointed, whether by election or nomination. In a democracy, the minds of soldiers and officers cannot be too intimately connected with Parliament. It seems to be the Minister's deliberate intention to cut as big a channel as he can between the mind of the soldier and Parliament and between the appointment of the soldier and Parliament. I can only say that I consider that unfortunate and unwise. I do not at all agree with the Minister that because, in his opinion, the danger of political association or connection with secret societies is past, there is no further necessity for a declaration in the oath of non-membership. It was there before and, if the danger is past at the moment, is the Minister not prepared to admit that that is because of the firm declaration in the oath for the last 15 or 16 years? Does he think that we have reached a stage in Irish public life or in Irish military life at which we can afford to take chances and risks merely for the sake of deleting two or three words from an oath or merely for the sake of making a change in wording for which somebody else was responsible? I consider it untimely and unwise. If you are not confronted at the moment with the problem of political association, or membership of secret societies, is it not possible that before we are very much older, this Minister, or some other Minister, might be confronted with such a problem, and if the inclusion of a few words in an oath or a declaration will prevent that coming up in the future, I stand very strongly for the inclusion of such words.
The Deputy must be aware that the first things taught to a recruit and to a cadet officer are the regulations—what is prohibited by them and what is to be his standard of conduct as a soldier and as a future officer. To meet the Deputy's point I am having what he wants prohibited put into the Bill, which will be taught to all recruits and all cadet officers in the usual way.
Would the Minister say how many regulations there are in the Army at the moment?
I do not know.
There are some hundreds, all consisting of several pages, and the raw recruit is to digest and understand all these.
No, the general gist of them.
That is the Minister's answer.
I think that the Minister's amendment and the oath are inconsistent. The oath to be taken reads:—
"I .......... do solemnly swear (or declare) that I will be faithful to Ireland ... and I will not join or be a member of or subscribe to any organisation without due permission."
Under that, he can get permission; but the Minister says, on the other hand, that by the new section which he proposes, he cannot be a member. That is an inconsistency, surely. I think that, to make the thing complete, you want both the Minister's amendment and Deputy O'Higgins's amendment. I hold that the section is inconsistent with the Minister's amendment, and that if you do not put in both his and Deputy O'Higgins's amendment, you will not have consistency.
I am not in the least particular about the oath so far as Parliament is concerned, because I am perfectly satisfied that when the officers, noncommissioned officers and men take an oath of loyalty to the country, and to obey the officers set over them according to law, they will observe it. I have not any doubt about that. Parliament has the voting of the moneys which keep the Army there at all, and I think it has an effective and satisfactory control. I am, however, annoyed by the fact that somebody can give permission to a soldier to be a member of a political organisation. Who is that somebody and why insert that in the oath unless it is for the purpose of drawing the soldier's attention to it? I said earlier that the value of the oath was that it was planted immediately in the soldier's mind, but now you are planting in his mind the knowledge that he can be a member of a political organisation with due permission. That is a very important matter, and I think the Minister would do well to explain to us who is the authority who will give the permission and does it override the section of the Bill further down? I think that is the kernel of the situation.
If the amendments which I propose here in Section 13 are adopted, it will not be lawful for anyone to give such permission and no soldier or officer will have permission to join or be a member of the organisations prohibited. I think the Deputy's point with regard to the phrase "without due permission" is contained in clauses 6 and 11, and Section 13 prohibits anybody from giving permission to a soldier to be, or a soldier from being, a member of these organisations.
Why put the enabling power in?
It is not in the oath.
I think the House is entitled to know what exactly we are doing in adopting this Bill, and I think that, even more than this House, the soldier of the Regular forces, or of the Reserve, is entitled to know what he is subscribing to when he subscribes to an oath. I am not very much enamoured either of the Bill or of Deputy O'Higgins' amendment. I am concerned more with having the ordinary soldier of the Regular forces, or of the Reserve, know what he is subscribing to, when he subscribes to an oath. I asked the Minister for a definition of the term "secret society."
It is not in the oath.
It is in the Minister's amendment.
It is, yes.
And it is in the suggested amended oath.
No.
It is in Deputy O'Higgins' amendment and in the amendment by the Minister to Section 13. There is no use in asking a soldier or a reservist to subscribe to an oath unless he knows what he is subscribing to. I submit that the term "secret society" is very vague and the House at least should get some indication of what is in the Minister's mind when he proscribes secret societies for members of the Forces. The Defence forces in this country are divided into two main sections—the Regular force and the Reserve. The Reserve, I take it, includes the Volunteers, and the volunteer also, I take it, is supposed to have all the rights of citizenship, without restriction. The volunteer is a soldier while actually undergoing training, but at all other times, he has all the rights which any other citizen has, and I should like to know why members of the Volunteer force should be prevented from being members of an organisation which other citizens can belong to. I could understand it if it referred to a secret illegal organisation.
What does this term "secret organisation" mean? Would the Masonic organisation or the Knights of Columbanus come within the term? These are two fairly well-known organisations and some people call them secret societies. I do not know what the Minister's definition of a secret society is, and I do not know further whether these two I have mentioned are secret societies or not, but I suggest there is no point in putting upon the member of the Reserve, a citizen force, a prohibition which is not put on every other member of society. I further suggest that if you require the officers and men of either the Regular or the Reserve forces to make a certain declaration, or to take a certain oath, these men are entitled to know what they are subscribing to. It is no use asking them to refrain from membership of a secret society if they, the Minister, or anybody else, do not know what a secret society is. What is a secret society? Does it mean an oath, bound society or merely an organisation which holds its meetings in secret? I must confess that I do not know. I do not belong to any of these organisations and I should prefer, as I said before, to see them all prescribed for everybody, because I think they are an unhealthy thing in the life of the community. I should, however, like to know what bodies soldiers are prevented from being members of under this Act.
The Deputy is confused about the whole position regarding the new clause. I think the oath, at any rate, is in the simplest possible language, and that any person who has been able to get through the first book in a national school would be able to understand it.
"I ... do solemnly swear (or declare) that I will be faithful to Ireland and loyal to the Constitution, and that while I am a soldier in Oglaigh na h-Eireann I will obey all orders issued to me by my superior officers according to law, and I will not join or be a member of or subscribe to any organisation without due permission."
That is simple enough.
Yes.
I propose to put something in to satisfy Deputy O'Higgins, if I can, prohibiting officers or soldiers of the forces—that is the Regular Army—being members either of political organisations or of secret societies. I will come to the definition afterwards. We will also prohibit members of the Reserve from being members of secret societies. We are not prohibiting members of the Reserve from being members of political organisations while at their ordinary avocations.
Will the Minister tell us what he is preventing them being members of? What is a secret society?
In my opinion, a secret society is an organisation the members of which pledge themselves not to disclose the activities of the society.
So that, actually, the organisations I mentioned are included?
I do not know whether they are or not. I will go this far and say that neither of the organisations mentioned are proper organisations for officers or soldiers in the Army.
Or for anyone else?
The Deputy can go that length if he likes.
What about anyone who is a member of both?
I think the matter is perfectly clear, and that if a soldier can make himself acquainted with the standard of conduct generally in regard to the keeping of regulations, he will be able to acquaint himself with the law in regard to political or secret organisations.
In fact, the Minister is not putting anything into the Act that is not there already. What he is doing is putting out the oath and putting it in elsewhere, so that there is nothing new here.
That is so.
I suggest that this is a very important consideration. Does the Minister take the line that a member of the Reserve, and particularly a member of the Volunteer force, should be subject to limitations and restrictions to which other citizens are not subject?
I do. I believe they should not be members of secret organisations.
But they may be members of political organisations?
Yes.
I move amendment No. 3:—
Before Section 13, to insert a new section as follows:—
(1) No officer or soldier of the Forces shall join or be a member of or subscribe to any political society or organisation.
(2) No officer or soldier of the Forces or the Reserve shall join or be a member of or subscribe to any secret society.
I do not like this amendment. I think it is worded in a very clumsy fashion. In my opinion the oath must be read into it, and be regarded as overriding it. While the amendment purports to prohibit members of the Forces belonging to certain organisations, the provision in the oath will have to be read in conjunction with that. On an earlier amendment, the Minister said that permission can be given to members of the Forces to belong to certain organisations, but that he is prescribing in the Act that they shall not be members of organisations of any kind. It is clear that the provisions of the oath will override this amendment, leaving it to the Minister, or to somebody in the Army, to give permission to members of the Forces to belong to certain organisations prohibited by law.
I am not a lawyer, but I understand the Deputy is. Will he tell me where, in the oath, there is anything prohibited by law, or admitted by law? There is simply a declaration by the soldier that he will obey orders.
What is the meaning of the oath then?
The oath is simply a declaration, which it has been the custom——
And what is the meaning of "due permission"?
That the soldier swears that he will not join any of these organisations without due permission.
And permission can be given to him.
Permission can be given to him where it is not prohibited by law. We are prohibiting by law under this clause membership of certain organisations.
And giving power to somebody to grant permission.
Not in regard to these organisations.
The thing is far too clumsy. It is a clumsy piece of handiwork.
I would like the advice of somebody other than the Deputy on that.
Are we not back again at Deputy Heron's argument on the question of secret societies? In order to discuss what we have before us, should we not be told, first what a secret society is? The Minister said that recruits to the Army will be educated and instructed in the rules and regulations: that from now on they will be instructed with regard to the provisions of this measure. When this Bill becomes an Act the soldier will be told, I presume, that he is not to be a member of a secret society. Will he be further instructed as to what secret societies are? Would the Minister not think it well to inform the House now as to the instructions he proposes to give the recruits, and, further, what in fact secret societies are? Otherwise, we are going to have a very ludicrous position. Are we going to have the Froth Blowers' Association, the Three Pigs' Association, the O'Dearest Mattress Association construed as secret societies simply because the members do not tell their business to those outside their organisations? I think that the Minister's definition of a secret society was that they kept their business to themselves. Well, of course, you could extend that further and I think you will find that, under that definition, every limited company would be included, since they are all supposed to keep things to themselves.
And Executive Councils.
Will the Minister consider whether or not he should bring in a definition of the phrase "secret society"? Are we to take it that it is to be as defined, let us say, by the Catholic Church, or what is it to be? I think that the Minister is treating this matter too lightly and that he ought to give the matter further consideration and bring in some definition of what is meant by a secret society.
I strongly support the Minister, as I have supported other Ministers of this House in the past, in insisting that servants of the State should not be members of a secret society. My Colleague, Deputy O'Brien, seems to think that the Executive Council, when they sit, are to a certain extent a secret society because they do their business in secret; but everybody can understand that the Executive Council, or the Government, of a country, have to keep certain matters that they discuss to themselves. Now, is far as I am concerned in regard to this matter—I speak for myself—I do not acknowledge the right of anybody in this country except the Hierarchy to define what a secret society is. If I understand the definition correctly, it means a body of people who are bound together by oath not to disclose the business they discuss. I may be wrong in that, but if I am wrong, then let me be corrected. The Minister has given a definition, but I am not sure from whom he got the advice as to that definition. If his definition means a body or group of people gathered together and bound by oath not to disclose the matters they are discussing, then I am with the Minister in saying that members of the Army or members of the State service generally should not be allowed to join such bodies or such secret associations.
In this connection, Sir, I should like to say that there is no use in burking facts. There are two classes of secret societies. There is the secret society with a political tinge and with political objects, and there is also the type of secret society the object of which is commercial advancement. Both of these kinds of societies have their representatives pretty active in this country here, as we all know. I need not go into the names of the secret societies that are organised for political reasons or social reasons, but it must be remembered that there are also the secret societies formed for purposes of commercial advancement.
And they are more immoral still.
For instance, we have such societies as the Knights of Columbanus and the Freemasons. These are secret societies, the object of which is to procure commercial advantage and special privileges for their members, and all of them are getting special privileges. I hold that all such societies should be put down by the State. I do not care who likes it or not, I think they should be put down.
I move amendment No. 4:—
In page 4, line 50, to delete the word "to" and substitute the word "of".
When shall we take the Report Stage?
Perhaps we could have the remaining stages now, Sir.
Agreed that the Final Stages should now be taken.
