On behalf of Deputy McGilligan and Deputy Benson, I move:—
The Dáil views with concern the failure of the Government recently disclosed to provide protection for our people against possible attack from the air, and is of opinion that a select committee be set up immediately to inquire into, take evidence, and report on the causes of this failure.
That the committee consist of 12 Deputies to be nominated by the Committee of Selection, and that the quorum of the committee be four.
That the committee have power to send for persons, papers and records.
I may say that this motion was handed in in the early weeks of October, and the word "recently" refers to the situation as it existed in September and previous months. I propose to keep strictly to the terms of the motion, not to attempt to discuss conditions as they are now, or as they may be next month or next year. Everybody recollects the appalling condition this country was in last September. Nobody, I think, appreciated it more fully than the Taoiseach when he took over the charge of the Department of Defence. We had a world on the eve of war. We had a general impression amongst the people of this city, amongst the members of the Executive, and, above all, in the mind of the Taoiseach, that we were within hours or minutes of war, and that in that war, whether our attitude was neutral or not, we had got to expect and to prepare for air attacks on this country. We had a situation in which every Government in Europe, small and big, gave evidence to the public of the serious way in which defence had been taken by the responsible Minister. We had the armies at the pitch of efficiency, according to their means, and their armaments, stores, supplies of equipment and ammunition purchased and hoarded, as against the day of war. We had the various broadcasting stations of the world reassuring and allaying the anxiety of the people, and the anxiety of mothers for their children, advising them what to do in the event of this or of that happening. We had every defence department in Europe facing up to its responsibilities, and allaying the fears of the population, with the one exception of this country, that used its broadcasting station once, and once only, during those days of crisis, when it was used to broadcast for a missing officer from the North of Ireland, who was required for the defence of Ulster. With that one very conspicuous exception, there was no advice given to the people, no protection, no plan, no policy.
The Minister for Defence was absent on holidays, and there was no Taoiseach, as he was away in Geneva. The Army was left without a lead and without a plan, because there was no policy. It was left without a Minister, because he was absent. The soldiers were left there with empty rifles, the artillery was left without shells, the people without gas masks, and the public even without advice, and that eight years after a Minister was given an absolutely free hand with regard to the Army.
Remember, the last eight years cannot be confused with the previous five years, when the Army was a political subject, debated here with bitterness and vindictiveness. When we came to this side of the House, one of our earliest decisions was that we would not follow the bad example of our predecessors in opposition; that there were certain State services which would and should be left outside the political arena, and for eight long years there was never an Army Estimate challenged, criticised or voted against in this House. Considerably more money was asked for every year than was ever handled by the Government's predecessors. By our action here we did as far as example could go, educate the people to put the Army outside politics, and to have confidence in the Army, and the head of the Department.
Many things could have been criticised. Many excuses could have been made for voting against Army Estimates year after year. No such opportunity was ever availed of and no obstacles were ever placed in the way. For eight long years no obstacles were ever placed in the way of the Minister having an efficient, well-equipped Army with carefully devised plans for the protection of the people, if and when an emergency should come. Eight years after that, with more money being voted every day, we had panic-stricken mothers in the City of Dublin looking in vain to the Department of Defence for even advice as to what they should do. We had officers and soldiers openly saying that they were ashamed to wear the uniform in public because, when the testing time came, they were not there to stand between the people and danger.
I do not want anybody to take my view or my words for the conditions and the picture I am painting. Early in the weeks of October the most impartial bodies in this country were found expressing in the columns of the Press their disappointment with the scandalous unpreparedness of the Army to give either advice or protection to the people of this country. We had people, such as the chief of the St. John Ambulance Brigade, who had given a lifetime in the service of humanity and who could certainly not be accused of being a political partisan, anxious only for the welfare of the people, writing to the public Press in the early days of October to express his regret at the deplorable state of unpreparedness of Ireland's Army, to point out that there was no advice even to be given to the people and not a gas mask to be issued.
You had bodies like the Executive of the Irish Medical Union, which might be charged with many things but which could certainly never be charged with political partisanship or with being opposed to the Government politically, writing their editorial in their journal in the early days of November and they, like Sir John Lumsden, pointing out that the first approaches to them towards bringing into being even the beginnings of a scheme for the protection of the people or for the reassurance of the public was after the crisis of September was passed.
We have got to remember that an army in any country is not an expensive toy for individuals to play with or is not an expensive pedestal on which to erect any expensive figurehead. The Army is not an institution for 6,000 or 7,000 men to be well paid for looking after one another efficiently. The only justification for an army or a Department of Defence in any country, rich or poor, is that it is an expensive instrument maintained in days of peace to stand between the people and danger in times of war. If an army, here or elsewhere, is so badly equipped that it cannot fill that particular gap in times of danger then there is no justification for asking the taxpayer for as much as one penny for its maintenance. If the idea is allowed to get into the minds of army officers or soldiers that their job is merely to look after one another and that it is none of their jobs to look after the people, then that country would be better off without an army. But the money was voted freely year after year for eight years and, far from taking political advantage of a Minister who might be unprepared, when it became clear to us in the closing days of 1937 that danger was ahead and that apparently no steps were being taken to meet that danger, I put down a question here addressed to the Minister for Defence, in November, 1937, to know if he had taken any steps or proposed to take any steps to protect the people from the danger of invasion or attack from the air and his answer was that it was under consideration and would be done.
Twelve months later we had the crisis on top of us. We had the emergency. We had the uneasy and panicky people but we had no plan and no steps had been taken. There was casual disregard for the responsible office which was held and, clearly, I lay the responsibility at the door of the Minister for Defence but lest I might be wrong in that assumption I put down this motion asking for a committee from the whole House, a committee on which the Government would have a majority, to inquire into the matter and assess the blame.
The blame lies somewhere. It may be with the Minister. It may be with the Department of Finance. It may be elsewhere, but we will show a callous disregard for our responsibilities to the people and our functions as Deputies in a Parliament under which the Army functions, if we are to allow the situation as it existed last September to pass without the fullest and most thorough investigation. When we have assessed the blame and found the cause then we must remove the delinquent and remove the cause. What happened in countries that were much better prepared than we were but that had a small gap here and there in their defences, countries with a Parliament that was conscious of its responsibilities to the people and conscious of the people's helplessness if the Army was not at a high pitch of efficiency? In every second country where only a small gap was found the Minister was removed from office, not because of gross negligence but because a small gap existed. Practically everywhere Ministers were removed because there was not 100 per cent. efficiency. Here, where we had 100 per cent. deficiency, where there was no such thing as a gap, but where we were wide open, where soldiers had enough small arms ammunition to keep them firing for less than two minutes, where no piece of artillery could bark for 20 minutes, where we had one little nest of anti-aircraft guns that could only operate at one point, and where we had not a gas mask for any unfortunate in the whole country, the same Minister comes calmly back to ask for another half-million pounds to misspend like the previous £12,000,000, and, presumably, with the same result. But, he will get the money as he did in the past, and when the danger comes he will have nothing to show for it.
What is the biggest evidence that this Dáil could have as to the real gravity of the danger last September and the real deficiencies in the Army? That the Acting-Minister for Defence, when he came up against the bald unpleasant fact, felt bound to throw up the sponge and refused to take further responsibility. The Taoiseach took over. If the Taoiseach took over a fully-equipped machine, with an adequacy of stores, what was the explanation for every second officer and civil servant being sent over hot-foot to England, the officers going by rail and sea, and the civil servants going by air, with blank cheques in every hand, each of them hammering at the doors of the War Office and the Admiralty in a mad stampede to try to get some kind of stores at the eleventh hour, just before Hell would be let loose and bombs would begin to fall? Is it a fact that ammunition was practically non-existent and that stupendous purchases were put through by order of the Taoiseach, in the absence of the Minister, to replenish the stocks that should, according to the money voted, have been there to purchase artillery and planes, to purchase ammunition and air-craft?
If the Army was properly equipped and properly prepared, if Army stores were ample, then there was no justification whatsoever for those huge and panicky purchases of last September. But, if there was good, sound and sufficient reason for spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in order hastily to equip our defences here, then those responsible for the lack of equipment and ammunition should have resigned their offices after another man had come along to attempt to do in eight weeks what the Minister had failed to do in eight years. Hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of equipment, a completely new scheme of organisation, civilians, doctors, businessmen, workers and others called in in order to try to devise the beginning of a scheme of A.R.P. a month after the crises. Were people and persons, officers and civilians in the Department of Defence living in blissful ignorance of the world they lived in for 12 months before? Could they not see any of the danger signals? Must they wait while every other country organised? Must they wait to look for supplies when no country had supplies to spare? Must they wait until the enemy is knocking at the door before another man comes and takes over?
If Mr. Chamberlain had not saved this country last September, we would be in a pretty state by this. It is a very poor state of affairs, after the millions that have been thrown out, thrown into the Department of Defence pool, that when danger came our eyes had to be fixed abroad to protect us, and when we looked for protection here at home we found silence, absolute silence, failure to give a lead, failure to reassure, failure to put courage into the people, decent officers expressing their humiliation at finding themselves in an Army in such a state, and each one blaming somebody else. Is it unreasonable, in view of these facts that are known to every Deputy, to ask that the matter should be inquired into? Picture the situation last September if even a few planes came over Dublin. People were not even advised whether to go in or to seek the open spaces; no protection against gas or any other form of attack; one little nest of anti-aircraft guns to operate from this to Donegal and from this to Cork. If such a small group of guns could bring a plane down to land, it would be the greatest miracle since the whale landed Jonah.
That is the kind of instrument for which the people were paying for the last eight years; that is the result. To-day we have the same Administration and the same Head coming back to ask for more money. Because the job was not done, or because the position was not taken seriously for the last eight years, the taxpayers have got to put up more money now to make good the deficiency. For years past money went on every kind of expensive toy. We were not satisfied, with a little Army of 5,000 or 6,000 men, to have a common uniform for all. We had to squander hundreds of thousands of pounds so as to have one group of soldiers wearing different uniforms from the others, so as to differentiate the type of organisation that came into being under one Administration from those who were there before. In order to try to put a political stamp on one section of the Army, hundreds of thousands of pounds had to go; and because hundreds of thousands were spent in that direction obviously there was no money for the real work of the soldier.
If the danger had come,if the threatened danger had materialised, presumably the soldiers would fix bayonets to their empty rifles and the officers would draw their swords, and the public would pray to God—there was nothing between them and the danger. The tragedy of it is that there are in this country the best soldiers and the most highly-trained officers in the theory of war to be found anywhere in Europe. But no army can devise a plan except in accordance with a policy. If there is failure at the top to enunciate a policy, the best officers in the world cannot devise a plan. That was one of the riddles always set to Army officers—that Army policy would not be laid down. Therefore, a proper plan and an Army to fit into that plan could not be designed. Even when outside bodies were called in to co-operate in air-raid precautions there was the same bankruptcy of policy, or the same refusal to enunciate policy, so that no group of men could formulate a feasible plan.
We are asking in this motion that investigation should be carried out fully and thoroughly into the position. If the position was bad, as stated by dozens of impartial pens, as found, and clearly found, by the Taoiseach when he took over, as evidenced in the memory of every impartial Deputy, then we should find out the causes of its badness and the responsibility for its badness, and then try to make the best of what is left.
But I, for one, must say this clearly, that after the disillusionment and rude awakening of last September, speaking as a person who has never refused one penny to the Army since I came into the Dáil, and never voted against an Army Estimate, if it is the desire of Parliament to provide more money for the Army, if it is the desire of all over here and all over there to have the most efficient type of Army that can be got within our means, if more money is wanted, public money cannot be given where there is neither trust nor confidence, and that after an Administration has been tried and found wanting, someone else in whom the country has more reason to have confidence should be put in charge if you are to come and ask for more money.
