I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £61,812 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for External Affairs, and of certain Services administered by that Office (No. 16 of 1924).
This Vote shows a net increase of £2,921 as compared with last year. There are more or less normal increases under some sub-heads, offset to some extent by decreases under others; but, generally speaking, the net increase is more than accounted for, firstly, by the new Legation at Lisbon, for which provision is now made for the first time in the annual Vote and, secondly, by the increased provision made under sub-heads A (4) and B (3)—Telegrams and Telephones. Postal communications have become so uncertain, and subject to such lengthy delays, that it is necessary to use telegrams for communicating with the representatives abroad about matters which would normally be dealt with by ordinary correspondence. I do not think there is anything more I need say at this stage on the details of the Vote. If Deputies have any points to raise, I will try to deal with them when I am replying.
The work of this Department has so many different aspects that I am never quite sure which of them I ought to refer to when I am moving the Vote. I suppose the principal function of the Department, apart from the conduct of negotiations and correspondence with other Governments and work of that kind, might be said to be the protection of our citizens abroad—looking after their interests and helping them when they are in difficulty and in need of advice or assistance. So far as this aspect of the Department's functions is concerned, the war has, of course, created an entirely new situation. Things which the Department would never be asked or expected to do in peace-time have to be done now. I might, perhaps, refer to some of these new activities, partly because Deputies showed some interest in them during the debate last year and partly because, as these services are there for the benefit of the public if they require them, it is useful to draw attention to them from time to time.
We all know, of course, that there are very few countries in which you will not find at least some of our own people. That is true of Europe as of other parts of the world, though not to so large an extent. For example, there are over 600 of our citizens registered at the Legation in France, over 450 registered at the Legation in Italy, and so on. As I think I mentioned last year, we have had news of nearly 200 Irish people in the Channel Islands alone. We may forget sometimes that, if we living in this country have so far been mercifully spared immediate experience of war and its sufferings, many of our people living abroad have not been so fortunate. They share the difficulties and hardships of war and invasion with the populations of the countries in which they are living. Many of them have lost their employment. If they were dependent on annuities or on income from investments in belligerent countries, their means of livelihood are cut off. Even if they wish to return home, it is in most cases impossible for them to do so. For most of them, the ordinary means of communicating with their families and friends in this country no longer exist. By themselves, they cannot get news of their families or their families of them; so that, in addition to the other difficulties they have to face, there is the element of constant anxiety.
I am afraid that anything the Department and our representatives abroad can do to help in such cases is small in relation to the degree of hardship usually involved. If anything can be done, they try to do it. Take, for example, the question of news. Anybody who has a relative in a war area abroad of whom he has lost track, owing to evacuation or some other reason, or about whom he is anxious owing to lack of news, has only to get in touch with the Department and the Department tries, through our representatives in the country concerned, to trace the missing relative and get news of his health and welfare. Similarly, as regards Irish citizens living abroad. If, for example, they have had to evacuate their homes, or if the places where they reside have been the scene of hostilities, and they want to let their families here know where and how they are, they get in touch with the local representative and their families are informed of their whereabouts and safety through the Department. Advantage is taken of this arrangement to quite a large extent. Over 3,000 inquiries have been dealt with since the outbreak of war. For reasons which I explained in the debate last year, it takes a long time to get replies to some of the inquiries but, as against that, the number of cases in which it has been impossible to get any news at all is comparatively small.
In regard to the question of financial support, the effect of the war has been to leave many of our citizens living abroad, particularly in European countries, without money or the means of getting it. Very often it is a case of loss of employment. In other cases, it is a result of the breakdown of ordinary communications and the interruption of banking and financial relations. Many of our citizens in Belgium, France and elsewhere, who had been living abroad on pensions or the income from trust funds or investments in Britain, found themselves almost overnight without a penny. Patients in clinics and sanatoria were left without means of paying for their treatment, and students in colleges could not pay their fees. A procedure has been provided to cover such cases. The arrangement is that the Department receives or collects the pension or income or remittance, or whatever the nature of the payment may be, at this end, and, subject to a fixed monthly maximum, adopted to conserve foreign exchange and secure uniformity of treatment, the amount is paid out to the recipient by our representative in the currency of the country concerned. The same procedure is used to enable people here to meet payments, such as rent and rates, necessary to preserve their right to property abroad.
If any of our citizens abroad are found to be wholly destitute—with no means of their own and no relatives able to contribute to their support— then, unless repatriation arrangements can be made, recourse is had to sub-head B5 of the Vote and a grant sufficient to prevent total destitution is made by the local representative. Judging by the extent to which use has been made of it, the procedure I have just described has also, I think, been of some advantage. It is in more or less regular operation in 275 cases. Over 1,350 individual payments have been made through the machinery provided, involving in all more than £25,000.
Before leaving the question of the position of our citizens in those places abroad involved in the war, I might perhaps refer to two other points. First, as regards repatriation. The Department receives many inquiries as to the possibility of arranging the return to this country of Irish people living on the continent and elsewhere. Now, wherever the circumstances of the case admit, the Department and the offices abroad do what they can to arrange repatriation by trying to obtain the necessary travel reservations—which are often very difficult to get nowadays—approaching the authorities of the countries on the route for transit visas, and so on. During the year, Irish citizens have been repatriated in this way from North Africa, France, Sweden, Italy and other continental countries. In fact, arrangements have just been completed for the return, within the next month or six weeks, of about 45 of our priests and clerical students from Rome, and most of them are already on their way.
But the repatriation solution is not always possible. Many of the people concerned, mostly governesses and people in posts of that kind, have been living abroad so long that to leave the places in which they are living now would be tantamount to leaving their homes. Most of these people were warned by our representatives before the present situation developed at all, to return to Ireland if they could possibly do so, but they preferred to remain where they were and that is still their feeling. In other cases, the difficulty is the lack of the necessary means of transport. In time of war, accommodation for passenger travel is not only extremely limited, but subject to all kinds of priorities in the grant of which the authorities concerned give their own citizens first preference. In the majority of cases we are dependent on what the authorities of other countries are willing to do to help. What I would like Deputies and others interested in cases of this kind to appreciate is that, if the circumstances of the case admit of it, the Department does its best to arrange repatriation, and that, where repatriation cannot be arranged, the difficulty is usually some factor outside our own control, such as inability to obtain the necessary visas or travel reservations.
The second point is this. I think I may say that, generally speaking, the treatment of our citizens abroad by the local authorities has been in accordance with what we are entitled to expect, and that the rights of our people as citizens of a neutral state have been generally recognised and respected. There have, of course, been cases in which the representative has had to intervene with the authorities. In time of war, strangers easily become an object of suspicion, and carelessness in talk or behaviour, or even indiscreet associations, may soon lead to an expulsion order, if not something more serious. Our representatives abroad are expected to see that the rights of our citizens are properly respected, and from time to time they have had to make representations in cases of this kind. By and large, however, we have had little cause to complain, and, where representations have had to be made in particular cases, they have been satisfactorily met. I think I may say the same as regards property and contract rights. For example, at the outbreak of war a number of Irish firms had outstanding debts due to them from firms on the continent. The Department undertook the collection of these debts and, generally speaking, no difficulty has been experienced in collecting them.
What I have been saying, of course, applies only to countries in which we have a representative. Where we have no representative, things are more difficult. I was asked last year about the possibility of repatriating some of our citizens, principally seamen, who were stranded in Sweden. Mainly owing to the good offices of the Swedish and British authorities, some of these have since returned home and others are due to leave shortly, if they have not already actually arrived. In that particular case, however, I think it is true to say that the long delay which occurred might have been avoided if we had had a representative on the spot.
That is a handicap with which we are faced now as regards the Far East. We all know that China and the Far East generally are a great field of missionary endeavour and that, wherever there is missionary work to be done, you are likely to find Irish nuns and priests. We do not know exactly the number of our citizens in the Far East. As Deputies may have seen by a recent announcement, we are taking steps to get the information. But the number must be appreciable, and in relation to these people we are facing all the difficulties to which I have referred as applying to our people on the continent, with the difference that in the case of the Far East we have no representative on the spot to assist in dealing with them. I am not arguing, now, that we ought to have had representatives in all these places. What I am saying is that the absence of a representative is a great handicap in trying to look after the interests of our people in places like the Far East, and that people should bear that circumstance in mind if, for example, it takes along time to get replies to the inquiries which the Department is asked to make. Then there is the extent of the territory involved. For example, there are Irish missionary houses not only in widely-separated areas of China, but in Burma, Hong Kong, the Philippine Islands, Rabaul in New Guinea, and other places which nowadays are much in the news.
Naturally, we have been trying every possible way of getting news of our people in these areas. There seem to have been some initial difficulties and a few of the earlier reports I received gave ground for some anxiety; I am glad to say, however, that the latest information I have speaks of the people concerned as being in good health and carrying on their work as well as the circumstances permit. One report I received through an official source was to the effect that about 45 of our citizens in Hong Kong—lay citizens, not religious—were in urgent need of funds. In this case, I had an approach made at once to the Irish Red Cross Society. The society, with its usual prompt generosity, made a grant of £1,000. We have already transferred this fund to Hong Kong and made arrangements, under Irish control, for its administration on the spot. For the reasons I have referred to, the case of our citizens in the Far East presents special difficulties; but Deputies may be assured that no effort will be spared to maintain communication with them and to do whatever is possible to help them.
I should like to refer to another of the Department's current activities about which Deputies will probably wish to know—that connected with war graves on our territory. Deputies know, of course, that in a number of cases aircraft belonging to the belligerents have crashed on our territory and their occupants have been killed. From time to time also, the bodies of members of the armed forces of other countries who have met their death at sea are washed ashore on our coasts. The Government decided some time ago to make itself responsible for the burial arrangements in such cases, for maintaining the graves in a neat and scemly condition and placing on them a temporary cross indicating the name and nationality of the deceased. The appropriate financial provision is made under item 97 of the Vote for Works and Buildings. The work of maintaining the graves and erecting the temporary crosses is done by the Office of Public Works. The work of establishing the identity of the deceased, recording the location of the graves, settling the particulars to be inscribed on them and informing the relatives, is done by the Department of External Affairs in co-operation with the proper authorities of the countries concerned. Any personal property found on the remains is handed over by the Department to the diplomatic representative concerned for eventual return to the relatives. I am sure that Deputies will agree that it is fitting that the State should undertake this responsibility and that these graves throughout the country will command the respect due to men who die in the service of their country.
The questions and activities about which I have been speaking arise more or less directly out of the emergency. But, of course, much of the ordinary work of the Department is carried on unaffected by the war conditions. One example is the work in connection with the estates of deceased persons which is so frequently referred to here in the annual debates on this Vote. During the year, our consular representatives handled over 1,800 estates, and the amount of money which accrued to Irish beneficiaries was considerably more than 600,000 dollars of which over 133,000 dollars was distributed through the representatives and the Department. It is interesting to note that the total amount distributed to Irish beneficiaries from estates handled by the Department in the five years 1937-1942 was over 2,000,000 dollars, and the amount distributed by the Department was 606,000 dollars odd. The total number of estates handled was over 9,000.
