The Minister expressed himself in agreement with me last year when I suggested that the form of hearing criminal charges against juveniles should be altered, that instead of being heard in court it would be preferable to hear them in a room analogous to a headmaster's study, and with the least possible formality. The Minister then stated that these were matters largely within the discretion of the presiding district justice. I agree. But I think the Minister might use his influence with the district justices to expedite the effecting of these improvements. I do not want to go at length into the changes I advocated 12 months ago. The Minister can find them in the Official Debates, but I press urgently on him that no time should be lost in carrying out that reform. I want to advocate another reform now. We are in this difficulty in the matter of the treatment of juveniles, that after they leave court they are handed over to the Department of Education, and that Department has virtually said that it will not do away with Summerhill as a place of detention for juveniles in Dublin. Well, if they will not do away with Summerhill, we cannot make them. But Summerhill is a public scandal. I want to make a suggestion to the Minister. At present, when a child is brought before the District Court, the district justice may dismiss the charge, or he may remand the child in the parents' custody, or in the custody of the State. If he adopts the third method the child is transferred to the Summerhill place of detention and placed in charge of the Minister for Education.
I want to suggest to the Minister for Justice that he should establish a place of remand for children, and that that place should be a clinic presided over by a qualified matron, and having on its staff a qualified psychologist skilled in dealing with juvenile delinquency and juvenile eccentricity. The present situation is this, that if a district justice makes up his mind that a child ought to be taken out of its parents' custody, Deputies may assume that the district justice is determined, either that it is incorrigible or that the parents are incompetent to give it the training of which it stands in need. If a child is really incorrigible, in nine cases out of ten I should say that that child is suffering from some psychological derangement and requires skilled treatment, as the incorrigibility arises from a psychological defect. If Deputies interested themselves in the proceedings of children's courts, they would be astonished at the high percentage of incorrigible children who on investigation reveal profound psychological disturbances. A child suffering from psychological disturbances of that kind that has to make a sojourn at Summerhill might be very materially improved if put into a good clinic, where it could be watched by skilled persons and properly looked after. There would be this additional advantage, that when a district justice came finally to determine whether a child should be permanently removed from its parents' custody, put into a reformatory or industrial school, or wherever appeared to be suitable, he would be able to make that decision, not only in the light of the Guard's evidence, but of the extra evidence of the psychologist, or of a doctor fully trained in the treatment of children, and in the interpretation of their symptoms, physical and psychological.
Many district justices find themselves in immense difficulty when they finally come to decide what to do with these children, because they have not the vital information they want as to whether they are dealing with normal children or mentally sick children. It is so grave a thing to take away a child from its parents, and from family surroundings by force, and for the State to accept responsibility, that it is a course that should not be adopted, unless and until the district justice is fully informed of every fact of the case, and unless we are satisfied, once a child has been taken into the custody of the State, that it will get all the attention that it is humanly possible to confer upon it, in fact, that it will get the same treatment as the child of the wealthiest parents in this State. That may sound quixotic or unreasonable, but I make the suggestion because the State has no right to take a child from its parents unless the State is satisfied that it is the only way to secure the child's welfare. No matter what the State does for the child after it is taken out of the family circle, it cannot provide anything which will be as good as the care of a good father and mother. Circumstances may, however, require its removal and, in that event, the State should give the child the best it possibly can give. That is not being done.
Bear in mind the position of a poor person's child from Dorset Street who is guilty of some act of naughtiness and is brought before the justice. Normally that child would be let out, remanded back to the parents, or put on probation. If he is guilty again and again, and eventually comes before the district justice as a child over whom control has been lost by its parents, the child may be put into an institution. If a child of well-to-do parents continually misbehaves, no one would suggest that it should be brought to the police court to be dealt with. It would be dealt with by the child's parents, friends or relatives but no one would put it into the dock in the police court. Therefore, we should be extremely circumspect when circumstances arise that make it necessary for the State to deal with the children of poor people. Otherwise grave injustice might be done.
May I direct the Minister's attention to another aspect of the question that I witnessed many times. I do not want to appear sentimental when dealing with these children, because many of them are extremely precocious and one has to harden one's heart when making up one's mind that some kind of order must be maintained. If you take such a child to court and it is the first time that it leaves its mother's charge, that child is undergoing terrific mental stress. I believe we should take every precaution to mitigate that stress at the earliest possible moment. Whether it is intended to detain the child for a short time or a long time, we should remember that while the child suffers greatly so do the parents, who are immensely distressed at the idea of a little creature ten or 11 years being taken, whither they do not know, and kept in the charge of the police. They are usually poor people. I suggest we should be in the position to say to these people that something is being done, and that the child will be taken from the court and placed in a good school where it will be as well looked after as children of well off people. If they want to go to see it they should be able to do so, as there were no restrictions, and they were welcome to visit it while on remand. I would like to have an establishment so that when parents went to see children they would recognise that they were being looked after solicitously, and that everything possible was being done for their welfare.
In addition to the clinical side of it, I submit that some educational facilities should be provided. It is quite true that if you have a child in your charge only for a week or a fortnight you cannot give it much education. I know that, but, even if a child does not derive much educational benefit from its classes during this week or fortnight of detention, it does provide the child with a normal kind of occupation, and it does maintain a normal kind of life for the child. At present, in the Summerhill establishment, as far as I can find out, they sit and twiddle their thumbs. I remember the Minister for Education congratulating himself that there were practically no children in the Summerhill establishment. Why? Because the district justice had made up his mind it was such a rotten institution that he would not send a child there if he could possibly send him anywhere else. I do not want to see that attitude adopted at all. I should like to have an excellent clinic established, and I would send practically every child who is brought into the police court there for a week, because if I did not find it necessary to advise the magistrate at the end of the week there might be some excellent advice for the parent as to how the child should be treated. This is going to cost a comparatively trivial sum. It is going to alter the whole attitude of people who have to bring their children to the Children's Court, and it will bring peace to the minds of everybody who is interested in this problem. Nobody who is concerned with the question of juvenile delinquency in this country at the present time can rest easy at night. It is a horrible thing and a shocking thing to think that at this moment there may be two or three unfortunate children down in that semi-jail at Summerhill. It is an abomination. If one of our children were in it we would be sitting on the doorstep trying to bring him some form of comfort or solace. The children of the poor may be there, and they should not be there.
There is ample goodwill on all sides to remedy this matter if somebody would only take the initiative. Everybody says it is somebody else's job. I suggest to the Minister that he should accept responsibility for it, and show example in this matter not only to the rest of the country but to other countries in the world. Unfortunately, it is true that in America and in England the treatment of juvenile delinquents is far ahead of the system that obtains here. I think the time has come when we ought not only to catch up on the methods in Great Britain and America but surpass them. We have a much smaller problem to deal with here, and we ought to be able to do it much more easily than they. Before I pass from that, I would commend to the Minister's attention the experiments of Mayor Haid of New Jersey, United States of America. I am not at all sure that there is much else in Mayor Haid's administration that I would recommend to the Minister. Mayor Haid began his career in New Jersey as a delinquent child. He found himself in the police courts as a small boy. When he subsequently became Mayor of New Jersey his first concern was to set up an ideal administration for the treatment of such children. His first step in that direction was to establish a central clinic where every delinquent was sent for examination with a view to remedying any defect that might exist.
The clinic has been an unqualified success, and in the majority of the cases of children brought there it has been discovered that, instead of curative or corrective treatment, what they really wanted was medical treatment of one sort or another. Many children who would have been started on the ghastly road to jail have been made decent citizens, instead of being hopelessly lost, as they would have been if some kind of clinic had not been in existence. I cannot too strongly impress on the Minister the urgency of this matter. I may assure him that, so far as the Department of Education is concerned, he may despair of co-operation. They are dead from the neck up in the matter of juvenile delinquents. They convey the idea that it is the Minister for Justice's funeral and that they are not going to break their hearts about it. I would urge on the Minister for Justice to take it on his shoulders to deal with this matter as it ought to be dealt with.
There is a matter in connection with the Gárda Síochána to which I wish to direct the attention of the House. It emerged during the consideration of the Public Accounts that since 1932 no less than 396 Gárdaí were enrolled in the Gárda Síochána in flagrant violation of the regulations. So flagrant was the violation that it became necessary to introduce a Bill, which was passed in the last Dáil, to regulate the position. The position has now been regularised. I want the Minister to tell us the circumstances under which those Guards were brought into the force, and why he thought it expedient to stand by while the Chief Commissioner set at defiance the regulations laid down by his Department and by this House for the proper recruitment of the Gárda. The House will remember that the Public Accounts Committee have no opportunity of examining the Chief Commissioner of the Gárda Síochána, who is the officer responsible for the recruitment of the Guards, with the result that we found considerable difficulty, despite the assistance given us by the Accounting Officer of the Department, in getting to the bottom of the facts. I think the Minister should tell us now what were the circumstances in which he permitted those gross irregularities to take place; that he is prepared to give the House an undertaking that in future such a flagrant departure from the regulations will not be permitted; and that if he desires a wider discretion in recruiting a large number of Guards at a given time, he will come before the House and tell the House what it is he wants.
I now touch on a matter which I approach with profound reluctance. It is for me a matter of great difficulty. I have always been a great admirer of the Gárda Síochána. I have always thought they reflected great credit on this country, and I am now with extreme reluctance forced to say here with a full sense of responsibility that as a citizen observing the force I am not satisfied that the discipline and morale of the Guards is being maintained at the high standard which obtained two or three years ago. I believe that this is partially due to the fact that the Guards are not sure in their own minds that if they do their duty without fear or favour they will be adequately supported. I believe now that the remonstrances of interested local politicians play altogether too great a part in the attitude of the Chief Commissioner to the individual members of the Gárda. I believe that many members of that force are under the impression that if they conduct a licensing prosecution, or if they take to task some local light of the Fianna Fáil Party, an early opportunity will be taken of complaining about them to the Chief Commissioner, and securing their public humiliation either by transfer or by rebuke. Now, I fully recognise that it is not only the right but the duty of a member of this House—or indeed of any other citizen —if he believes any irregularity to be taking place, to come to the Minister, make his complaint and invite an inquiry, but that is a very different thing from bringing covert influence to bear with a view to injuring a man in his profession.
I am not satisfied—I know that this is a very grave thing to say—that promotion in the Gárda Síochána at the present time is being carried out strictly in accord with merit. I think that is a matter about which the Minister should concern himself at once. In my opinion, it is not right for the Minister to wash his hands of all responsibility in this matter, and to say that it is entirely one for the Chief Commissioner. The Minister is ultimately responsible to this House and must make himself responsible for the proper discharge of the Chief Commissioner's duties.
I am not myself certain whether the matter of promotion is exclusively in the hands of the Chief Commissioner or in the hands of the Executive Council, but I am not satisfied, and I do not believe the members of the force are satisfied, that that same impartiality which used to obtain in the force until comparatively recently—that is, up to the last two or three years— is being maintained now. I think it would be a disaster if the impression were allowed to grow that men in the Gárda Síochána would not receive the reward of promotion as the result of earnest and honest discharge of their duty, but rather as a mark of favouritism or nepotism from the superior officers of the force. No body of police will act unless they are assured that their officers will support them, and no body of officers will support the Guards unless they are satisfied that the Minister is prepared to support them, too. It is a deplorable thing to have to say the things I have just said, but I believe that it would be no service to a force, of which I am very proud, to cover these things up and to pretend to ignore them. I believe that the best service we can do the force is to face these things and remedy them at the earliest possible moment. I am convinced that the Minister knows this just as well as I do, and I believe he is at present in a difficulty trying to devise a means of remedying these evils. I do not think he should hesitate to institute such an inquiry as will command the confidence of all the officers of the force into the general question of discipline, and I can assure him, and I give him this assurance on behalf of the Opposition, that if he will put his hand to that task, we undertake to make no capital out of it and no reflections upon the Minister or suggestions that the indiscipline or failing morale is exclusively due to those recruits for which he himself and the present Minister for Posts and Telegraphs were primarily responsible for recruiting. I think we could make a very controversial case, but I do not think it would be in the service of the State or of the force that we should. On the contrary, I want to assure the Minister that, if these general questions are taken under impartial review, he will receive the sympathetic assistance of all parts of the House.
We know that a dry-rot of this kind can suddenly manifest itself and that it may be extremely difficult to check. It may be very difficult to find the exact causes for it. It may be extremely unpopular to tackle it really effectively. Nevertheless, it is one of the most solemn duties of the Minister for Justice to undertake that task fearlessly. It might be suggested to him that, politically, it would be vastly inexpedient to do so, as constituting some kind of an admission that through his Government's administration this dry-rot had manifested itself. I give him the assurance that no attempt will be made to make capital out of it. We are prepared to accept that these difficulties arise in a force from time to time — in the British police force and in police forces abroad — and if the responsible Minister tackles the evil firmly it can be made an end of and we can get back on to the rails where all of us wish the force to be.
Now, there has been trenchant and, I think, fully justified criticism to-day of the Minister's reaction to this matter of the officers who were condemned by the Supreme Court of this State for their conduct in Marsh's yard. Of course, we all know that that sort of thing is bound to have some effect upon the morale of the force, but before concluding I should like to advert to one of those skilful Parliamentary gestures of the Minister for Justice. The Minister is an extremely quiet and retiring man, but he is probably the most skilful parliamentarian in this House. Many men have the gift of making mountains out of molehills, but I know of no man who is more skilful than the Minister in the art of making molehills out of mountains. His blandness in the face of the present howling scandal, and it is a howling scandal, is a sight for the gods, and I think his attempt to defend it is soothing in the last extreme. I remember, last year, just as his Estimate was coming to a conclusion, the Minister had one final flourish, and said that there was one thing that could be said in connection with that debate on the Justice Estimate, and that was that there had been less criticism or violent comment than in any year before that. Now, I want to point the moral of that. That is quite true. When Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney was Minister for Justice, every ragamuffin in this country who had to be disciplined had sixty defenders in the Fianna Fáil Party, led by the Minister for Justice. He got up and delivered a loud and thunderous oration about these patriotic lads who stood for Cathleen Ní Houlihan. The Prime Minister followed and wept bitterly, and said that they were brave fellows in any case, and they all went up in a corroboree as soon as they got into office, and let these people out on their first day of office, and they had not them well out when they had to put them back again. Did we then hold protest meetings and make thunderous orations about the savage oppression of these gallant heroes who were fighting for Ireland? Not at all. We never said a word. We knew perfectly well that these people were where they ought to be and that the Minister had no alternative but to put them there if he wanted to preserve the public peace. We knew that ten years ago, and we knew it all along, but the difference between the debate on his Estimate when he is Minister and the debate when he was in Opposition on the same Estimate was that he happened to be Minister now and we were in Opposition. If we were on the Government Benches and had to do the things the Minister had to do, and which he very properly did, the welkin would have rung and everything short of the harp that once through Tara's halls would ring through these benches, and two or three of the Fianna Fáil Deputies would have been carried out screaming. Deputy Ruttledge, as he then would be, would have wept, and his heart would have bled all over the floor. That gag is done, and I am happy to think that this extremely shrewd parliamentarian has learned in this House not only skill as a debater but responsibility as a Minister. That is a good thing, both from the point of view of the Minister himself and from the point of view of the country as a whole, and I can assure him that, if he will put his hand to the task of restoring the Gárda Síochána to the state that every Deputy of this House would wish to see it in and to the state which, I believe, 99 per cent. of the Gárda themselves would wish to see it in, he will be assured of the same forbearance and the same discreet silence as he enjoyed while he had to do certain unpopular things during the last two or three years for the preservation of the public peace. If the Minister will attend to those two matters — the proper care of children on remand and the re-establishment of the splendid spirit of the Gárda Síochána and the making certain that promotion will be the reward of efficiency and zeal and not of ulterior motives — then I think this debate will have served a useful purpose.
