Molaim go dtoghfar an Teachta Eamonn de Bhalera mar Thaoiseach. Ní gádh dhom cur síos go mion ar a chailidheacht mar duine fheileamhnach leis an onóir mór seo a bhronnadh air. Tá a fhios ag 'chuile dhuine annseo chomh chrodha calma is a sheas sé san mbearnain baoghail aimsear an Eirghe Amach i Seachthmhain na Cásga i 1916. Ba toil Dé go dtáinig sé slán o bhéal an bháis an tam udan le tuille chruadhtain a fhulaingt ar son na h-Éireann. Chonnaic sé an drochshaoghal sa tír seo le os cionn fiche bliadhain anuas agus má fheicheann sé anois saoghal nios fearr ag muinntir na h-Éireann is dhó fhéin, thar duine ar bith eile sa tír seo, a bhuidheacas san. Níor chlis sé i 1916. Níor chlis sé aimsear na ndubhchronach, níor chlis sé i gcogadh na gcáineach le sé bliadain anuas agus táim lán-chinnte nac gclisfidh sé gan am atá le tigheacht agus gurab é an fear is fearr é le cur i mbun na hoibre arist. Sé san tuairim muinntear na hEireann freisín. Molaim go láidir é.
Election of Taoiseach.
Gearóid Mac Partoláin
It is with very great pleasure that I avail of this opportunity of seconding the proposal made by Deputy Bartley, that Eamon de Valera be elected as Taoiseach. There are very many reasons that could be advanced why he should be elected to that position on this occasion, but I do not think it is necessary for me to enumerate them. I think that, merely as a compliment to the achievements of Eamon de Valera as the leader of the Government during the last six years, primarily for that reason it is due to him that his election to this position should be ratified unanimously by the Dáil. I feel that on this occasion there should be unanimous agreement upon the election. His accomplishments have been great; they have been very marked and they have definitely been appreciated in the country. There is, of course, also this fact, that it is practically mandatory on the Party of which he has been the leader, and is now the leader as a result of the last general election, to select the Taoiseach. The Party has the onus of filling this important office. There is the other consideration, and it is a consideration that I would advance as a reason why this election should have the distinction of having the unanimous approval of Deputies of all Parties. There is every indication that world conditions to-day, disturbed as they are, are causing quite a lot of annoyance generally, and it is essential that we should have in this country, in the responsible office of leader of our people, a man who has proved himself, in difficult positions in the past, national and international positions, and who has served his country well and saved it from very serious consequences. For that reason I feel that the proposal before the House should find no dissenting voice here.
There are very many matters that will confront us and that will require very able statesmanship. I think everybody here will admit that Eamon de Valera has in public life given such attention and devotion to matters relating to the welfare of the nation and to individuals in the nation that he is fully entitled to occupy this distinguished post. I feel sure that he will carry into this office the confidence of every person in the country. We have every reason to think that a continuation of such attention as he has given to national matters will bring as good results in the future as it has brought us in the past. In seconding the proposal, I should like to make the suggestion that as a gesture of goodwill it should receive unanimous approval. There should be some indication on the part of Deputies here that they realise the wishes of the public as expressed so vigorously in the last general election, and for that reason they should unanimously approve that Eamon de Valera should occupy the premier place in this country. It is earnestly hoped that for many years he will continue in the service of the country and will occupy a premier place in the affections of the Irish people both at home and abroad. The last election was a clear indication that he occupies a higher place in the affections of the people than probably any other Irishman in our time. I hope that this proposal will meet with unanimity and that Eamon de Valera will be elected with an enthusiasm becoming Deputies of this House.
We shall oppose this motion, and on it we propose to divide the House. It is true that the nominee to-day has been Prime Minister of this country, or President of the Executive Council, for the past six years. It is far from true to suggest that the policy for which he was responsible during those six years has brought benefits upon this country. In our judgment that policy brought nothing but disaster. Fortunately, the Prime Minister changed his policy last January, and, in so far as he substituted for the policy he advocated up to that time, the policy advocated by this Party, and went to London in pursuit thereof, and settled by negotiation the economic war for which he and his Party were responsible, the external difficulties of this country have been largely overcome. They had not been overcome and could not be overcome until that dramatic change of policy took place.
We understand from the leaders of the Fianna Fáil Party now that all outstanding matters of difference between this country and Great Britain are settled in so far as they are concerned, with the exception of Partition, and the leader of the Fianna Fáil Party says he is now satisfied that in Great Britain or outside this country no substantial opposition to the abolition of Partition will be found if the people of Northern Ireland can be convinced of the desirability of abolishing it. I think it would be wrong on the auspicious occasion of that declaration to face the new era it creates without realising that all these objectives so dear to the heart of the leader of the Fianna Fáil Party were achieved from this Parliament that was established on the foundation of the Treaty negotiated by Mr. Griffith, Mr. Collins and their colleagues in Great Britain. We cannot look back on the past without some regret that the journey to the realisation of those objectives, which the Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party now rejoices that he has reached, was not undertaken within this Parliament from the first day that it sat, and not——
I think the Deputy ought not to reopen that question now.
——and not some 16 years after that Parliament was established. They might have undertaken that work when the Parliament was established 16 years ago.
The carrion crow!
Despite these interruptions, I shall say here what I please to say. We have now opened a new epoch.
No thanks to you.
Let us hope that in that epoch that has passed we have learned a lesson. Let us hope that the leader who established this Parliament, of which we are all proud to be members——(Interruptions).
Deputies over there should be prepared to take their medicine now.
There is no doctor to administer it.
Let us now remember that there still remains before this country the achievement of one great objective, which will require the co-operation of every Party in this State.
What about the Feetham Commission?
And the blood of 77 murdered Irishmen?
It is not the cross roads you are at now.
I refer to the abolition of Partition. May we hope that in this new epoch the members of all Parties in this State will realise that the solution of that problem can be found along the lines of the policy laid down by this Party and by the exercise of our constitutional rights within this Parliament and within this State of our own? If we use the powers we have got to make of this country what we might make of it, then, and by that means only, can we shorten the distance that lies between us and the end of Partition.
You are going a good way about it.
I hope that lesson will be present to the minds of all, and I hope the day is gone when the issue of Partition will be made the plaything of Party politics in this part of the country and that we will face together the abolition of that great national evil and turn our backs forever on the reduction of great national issues of that kind to the level of cheap Party politics as they have been so reduced in the past. It is not easy, Sir, to ascertain what exactly the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party is, but let us be clear on this: that up to now they have nailed to their mast the flag of economic self-sufficiency. Let it be equally clear that this Party regards the policy of economic self-sufficiency as a fraudulent chimera that can only result in the destruction of our people's standard of living——
The people turned you down on it.
——and that can only materially injure the prospects of this country. I am not without hope that there are men in the Fianna Fáil Party who will awaken to that fact in the early future. I am not without hope that, although the Minister for Finance had not time to read the Banking Commission Report before the general election, he has made time to do so since. I am not without hope that, just as we showed the Fianna Fáil Party the right road to travel in international affairs, we shall be able to teach them the right road to travel in economic affairs. Our conviction is that the development and salvation of this country, and its ultimate unity, must be materially affected by the efficiency with which we develop our own natural resources here and by the efficiency and effectiveness with which we raise the standard of our people's living here. It is because we are convinced that the policy of Fianna Fáil, in so far as it can be ascertained at all, is calculated to jeopardise those things, that we shall divide the House on this motion. Let it be quite clear, as our leader has already put it in a statement issued after the general election, that we hold ourselves prepared to assist the Government with all the co-operation that we can make available in this House in legislating for the people's good; but let us, here and now, destroy definitely the eminently dangerous doctrine that there is something wrong in a Parliamentary Opposition speaking its mind in the National Parliament. In so far as we believe the proposals of the Government to serve the common good, we will help to carry them out. In so far as we believe the proposals of the Government to be unsound and contrary to the national welfare, we shall oppose them in this Parliament to the full limit of our constitutional right. That is what we conceive to be our duty. We hope to see the Government travelling along sound lines, and so long as they do so they can look to us in the future, as they have done in the past, for support and help, when they badly wanted it, in the certain knowledge that they will get from us in the future the same support and help that they so badly needed and so freely got not so very long ago. Let it be quite clear, however, that, representing as we do here a great number of the electors of this country who could be neither bought nor bribed nor intimidated to vote against us——
We are glad you know it now.
—that, as their representatives, we are neither to be bought nor bribed nor intimidated——
Nor educated.
—and that we will continue to represent the people who elected us and that we will continue to do our best to bring this Government, if it be elected, to a realisation of what the real interests of this country demand. While doing that, I believe there will be a possibility which I hope to see realised of useful co-operation between us all on matters of common interest for the people; and, hoping for that and praying for it, we now deliberately, and because we believe it to be our duty, exercise our constitutional right of challenging this motion, and will shortly vote against it because the man who is proposed to-day for the position of Prime Minister at present holds up a policy which we believe to be economically unsound. If and when he changes, I suppose he will let us know. Then wider ground for co-operation will be available. In the meantime, however, we shall oppose this motion and vote against it.
In our view, Sir, the Fianna Fáil Party, being the largest Party in the House, is entitled and has thrown upon it the responsibility to form a Government. In the recent election that Party sought a mandate for what is described as a progressive, social and economic policy, unencumbered by the possibility of defeat in this House. It now has a clear majority over all other Parties in this House, and its duty in that respect and following from that position is obvious to us. We shall await with considerable interest the proposals made by the Government to implement what is described as a progressive, social and economic policy, and we shall await with particular interest the proposals for dealing with such grave problems as unemployment, from which over 100,000 of our people are suffering to-day, the proposals for dealing with the tidal wave of emigration to Britain, and the proposals for dealing with the wide stratum of poverty which abounds in this country to-day. So far as that legislation is of a progressive character, it will have the warm support of the Labour Party; so far as it is of a non-progressive or restrictive character, it will beget the uncompromising opposition of the Labour Party. We do not propose to vote against the motion that Deputy de Valera be elected as Taoiseach; but, as a protest against the deliberate misrepresentation and scurrilous attacks on the Labour Party by the Fianna Fáil Party in the recent election——
We deny that.
—we do not propose to vote for the motion.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Dowdall, Thomas P.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Fogarty, Patrick J.
- Friel, John.
- Fuller, Stephen.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Hannigan, Joseph.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Daniel.
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Kelly, James P.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Loughman, Francis.
- Lynch, James B.
- McDevitt, Henry A.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Brennan, Martin.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Carty, Frank.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Cleary, Michael.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Fred Hugh.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Meaney, Cornelius.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moran, Michael.
- Morrissey, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Mullen, Thomas.
- Munnelly, John.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Loghlen, Peter J.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Rice, Brigid M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Tubridy, Seán.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Laurence J.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Conn.
Níl
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George C.
- Benson, Ernest E.
- Brasier, Brooke.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred (Junior).
- Coburn, James.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John A.
- Curran, Richard.
- Daly, Patrick.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry M.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, John L.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Kitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Gorey, Denis J.
- Hughes, James.
- Keating, John.
- Linehan, Timothy.
- Lynch, Finian.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McGovern, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Donovan, Timothy J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, John M.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Rogers, Patrick J.
- Ryan, Jeremiah.
Táim ana-bhuidheach den Dáil mar gheall ar mé do thogha mar Thaoiseach. Ní dóich liom gurb é seo an ocáid cheart chun nithe a bhainneas le beatha an náisiúin do phlé. Ní gá dhom níos mó a rá ná go ndéanfad mo dhícheall chun mo dhualgaisí do chólíonadh mar is ceart.
Molaim go stopfaí d'obair na Dála go dtí n-a cúig a chlog.