In my day, they were not included and maybe that was the unfortunate reason. We have also heard reference to-day to Cumann na mBan but if I were an I.R.A. man, an I.C.A. man or a member of Cumann na mBan, and had to seek assistance and sympathy from certain Deputies, I would be ashamed to be associated with the application for that reason alone. The Minister knows the background of this matter, and I submit that he should not allow himself to be misled by certain appeals on this issue. Nobody will challenge the deep sense of sympathy of the Minister with all the groups associated with this movement—the I.R.A., the I.C.A., Cumann na mBan and American Alliance.
What is the issue? Certain men and women went out and risked everything —position, preferment and even the ordinary chance of life. Some have been treated partially and some impartially, and there is a deep feeling of dissatisfaction amongst the men who had any connection with that period. I do not know why it is limited to 1916. The 1916 period could not have taken place, were it not for 1915, 1914 and 1913. I was in Ottawa when word came across that the men had gone out in Dublin. I went to New York as fast as I could and got in touch with those associated with headquarters. I saw there an exhibition of incompetence and lack of knowledge of the people here. I saw in an official paper three photographs of men who were said to be out in the Rising in Dublin. I would forgive the ignorance of those in the movement in New York because many of them were using the movement for political reasons for themselves, but there were men in the movement in America who knew intimately the men at home, and when one saw Sheehy-Skeffington with two foul beasts that cursed the world for too long and put forward as two of the revolutionaries who were out in 1916, it made one pause to think. I do not want to mention the names. They were put with men of great purpose, high-souled men, because of this lack of knowledge of the movement.
The same thing occurs to-day. There are people trying to use this movement to-day, trying to use the needs of these men and women, and we know what they were doing in 1916, 1915, 1914 and 1913, and what they were doing up to 1922, if the truth is found in the places where it can be found. Now we get a certain sympathy for these men and women which is being utilised by mischievous elements who pretend that they have the right to speak. There are many sections of the I.R.A. movement, and I suggest that they might get together on this issue, and go with other men and women who do not forget the historical truth and who know the things that happened and the services rendered, to the Government and say: "Let us set up a court of qualification, a court of inquiry, and finish this matter." I do not care whether you put Mr. Cremin, Deputy Moylan and my friend, Deputy Lynch, on that body. Everybody knows that these men have records. They have had their differences of opinion, and I hope they have settled them.
Let these men sit down and let these other men come before them and say: "This is my position and this is where I was." If that body says: "We cannot recognise your claim", that finishes it. Let us get this thing finished in this generation. I remember seeing a woman in America who was getting a pension from the American Government in respect of a man who fought in 1776. We now have people claiming that they were associated with the movement here, and I see some of them getting pensions whose attitude in the years before I left for America we knew. We also knew what their attitude was when I came home and when the two sections here were at death grips with each other. But they have pensions.
I mentioned to the Minister on the last occasion the name of a man whom he knew when he was a boy running around the North Circular Road. He knows his son who was in his own brigade. That man had a British Army pension which he gave up when he went out in 1916. He was out before that, and I suppose he took more arms over Portobello wall than possibly any man in Dublin. His pension was taken from him as soon as he was tried by the British, and he afterwards was an applicant for a pension here. He would not apply for a pension under the 1924 Act, but when the later Act came into force, he applied and got a pension. For all his years of service—in jail, on hunger strike and getting ammunition—he got a pension of 5/- per week. He lived for two months afterwards. The treatment he got after all his appeals broke his heart. That man was Patrick Kavanagh, one of the first members of the Citizen Army in Dublin.
There was also the man I spoke of previously, John Cooper, who lay for 11 years in hospital in Dublin, as a result of injuries sustained in 1916. Not a soul ever went near him to give him a drink of water and it was only by accident that he was discovered. He got a pension of 5/- and, when he died, he had not a soul in the world to bury him. No Tricolour was put over his coffin and there was not a penny came from those who were his comrades. I was glad when I saw him in the earth. I could mention thousands of others like him. I meet them in the streets of Dublin— men who were wounded and men who developed organic diseases. I remember my own sister treating a man for four years for wounds he had received. He could get no doctor to treat him at that time, and when he went to get his pension, he was not even considered. I knew that man when he was only a boy of 16 in Fianna Eireann.
I suggest that you set up a body of men like Mr. Cremin and one or two others associated with him to which these doubtful cases could be referred. Let the men be told when going into that board that they will get every help in filling up their papers. In that connection, what Deputy Lynch and Deputy MacEoin has said is true. It must have been some lawyer who drafted these forms for the purpose of disqualifying people. Surely the issue is: were you in the service of the nation; with whom were you associated; and is there anybody who can verify your statement? Take my own case. I have been asked in a number of cases to act as verifying officer and to state in writing that I know the men involved in the particular application. My statement was accepted. I had occasion, not because I wanted a pension—whether I deserve it or not is another matter—to put in an application under the 1934 Act. I need not tell the House that I would not have put in an application under the 1924 Act. If that Government had remained in office to the day of judgment, I would not have moved, but I thought I would put in the application when a Government was in power with which I had a sort of sympathy. To this day, I have not received even an acknowledgment of my application.
Whether I was giving service in 1916, 1917 and 1918 is a matter which will have to be justified in some way, but the peculiar thing is that the Government of 1921 and 1922 paid people to defend me against charges arising out of my actions on behalf of this country. I must have been doing something, although I do not, like many people, tell everybody about what I am doing. I suggest that there may be a lot more men and women here who have as good a right to having their cases heard and giving them an opportunity to justify their position. I remember that when I came back here from America—there had been a deputation of I.R.A.-men and officers, waiting for me in New York, who told me what was the position here at home, and I was still on active service—and I saw men here who were claiming that they were carrying on the fight in 1922 and who afterwards claimed that they carried it on up to the cease fire order, but it did not seem to me at that time that they were interested in anything. I knew everything about them, and it appeared to me that all they were interested in at that time was going to race-meetings and getting all the drink they could. Yet I saw applications for pensions made by some of these men, and they are getting pensions, although, of course, some of their pensions are an insult to anybody.
With regard, to the abatement of pensions, I think it is only right that there should be some abatement in the pension of a man who is already receiving a salary of £400 or £500 a year from the State, but I cannot understand why there should be no abatement in the case of a man engaged in an industry, let us say, and earning a salary of £5,000 or £6,000 a year. As I have said, I can understand an abatement of pension in the case of officials of the State who are drawing large salaries from the State, but I do not think there should be any abatement in the case of the lower ranks, where a man is earning only £2 a week. Yet that man has to suffer an abatement in his pension also. Worse than that, if he applies for work on the rotational system under the Dublin Corporation or any other such body, the fact that he has a small pension comes up against him, and indeed, for a few years, until I broke it down, preference for ordinary labouring work, in one case, would not be given to Old I.R.A. men. I think it would be agreed that preference should be given to a man who had served in the field, and eventually it was agreed that an Old I.R.A. man should get 25 per cent. preference in regard to ordinary street work, ordinary labouring work. As soon as he gets that job, however, he loses the few shillings that he gets by way of a pension, and if he goes to the Labour Exchange to get his turn in rotational work, when he states that he has a pension he is cut off and cannot even get a term of rotational work. If that is not unfairness and absolute victimisation, I should like to know what it is. What is the good of giving a man 5/-, 10/- or 12/- a week, and then depriving him of his ordinary chances of life? I could quote dozens, even hundreds, of cases of that kind. Here you have men on the point of starvation, and just because they have these few shillings they are to be deprived of getting their ordinary chance in life. I do not think that there is any man on those benches over there who could venture to justify that, and if there is any such man then I do not know what type of man he is.
I would not mind so much if this were going to cost some enormous amount of money, but actually it would only cost the country a few pounds. You all have heard the indictment that was made to-day by Deputy General MacEoin. It is time that somebody called attention to the matter. Here you had an organised gang of bloody murderers, in half uniforms, brought over here to attack our people. These people gave 12 or 15 months' service against the men on our side here, the men who are now lying dead. You crucify the dead, belie the living and deny them the right to live, while these foul beasts who came over here to murder our people— people who have had no equal in the annals of any country in the world— are getting in pensions over £1,000,000 a year. Some of them are getting pensions of £1,000 a year after giving about one month's service in fighting our people, and yet you refuse to your own men, some of whom have developed all kinds of organic diseases as a result of their service to this country, a decent pension or even the right to live, just because it might offend the Minister for Finance; it might worry him; there may not be enough in this country to pay it, and so on and so forth. Why did you put your hand to the plough at all if you were not prepared to go ahead with it?
The Government that was in power at the time of the 1924 Act, of course, had men in uniform serving under it, and they could clearly point out that they were serving in the Army and could easily get the records, as has been stated. They had had four years in which to get these records. Then you had a hiatus of ten years, and after the lapse of that period, men had lost touch; they had lost documents, some of those who could have verified for them had died in the meantime, and so on, and it was difficult to get the records in the cases of these men after ten years. You had a statement here to-day, however, about two brothers who took part in an ambush, and when I was listening to that I was reminded of how it coincided with the case of men that I know of. Two men had gone with a certain man, who had rendered a great measure of service to this country—he carried the stamp of it on his face and on his body—and these two brothers were to keep open the avenues of approach to the place of ambush. They were to hold up anybody who might come along. One brother got a pension while the other, who, in my opinion, had given more service, never even got a chance to put up his case. Yet both of them had been in the fighting. One had been in the British Army, came over here, threw off his uniform and stepped in to take part in the fight for this country. These are the kind of cases we meet with every day. You listen to these men or to deputations on their behalf. You get letters from them, but what is the use of all that if you cannot open the eyes of the Government to the facts as they exist, and get them to agree to grant even a measure of justice to these people?
That is all we are asking for. We are not asking to give pensions to people who do not deserve them. If I thought that a fellow was a humbug— and I can damn quickly reckon a fellow up—if I knew in my heart and soul that he was a humbug and was only playing a game, I can assure you that he would not get away with it so far as I am concerned. I know Mr. Cremin. He is an intelligent man, who has given great service to this country, and nobody would dare to attack his position or reputation personally. If I had a grievance, I would go straight up to Mr. Cremin and put it to him. I would say: "What do you think of this position, or do you think that this is just?" I remember Deputy General MacEoin in former days. We all know what he has done, and do you mean to say that I would not go straight up to him and ask him: "What is your opinion with regard to this case?" and I would accept his decision, just as I would accept the decision of Mr. Cremin. If he decided against me, then I would accept it.
Now I do not think it is the desire of anybody here to press this matter to a division, and I think that the Government ought to agree to set up a committee of inquiry such as has been suggested. Let it be a committee of this House, if you like. Let there be two members from one side and two members from the other, even though they may have differed from one another in the past, appointed to sit on that committee and inquire as to the credentials of the individual applicants so as to determine whether an applicant would be justified in going any further with his case. Is not that a reasonable proposition? In that case, it seems to me that a man would have no grievance, but so long as he has a grievance, he feels hurt, and I think we are all hurt —hurt as regards citizenship and as regards comradeship—and we do not want to feel when we go home at night that some comrade has been earmarked for unfair treatment or has been victimised in any shape or form. I think that that ought not be permitted to remain in the minds of anybody and I am quite sure that my comrades in the Labour Movement would stand for no kind of jobbery or corruption or for any man trying to get away with something to which he was not entitled.
Instances have been cited from every side of the House of hard cases of men who have been waiting for years to have this matter considered. Is that fair and proper? We know how we in this country have differences of political views. A man may be approached to verify on behalf of a certain applicant that he had given service and, because of his political views, he may refuse to do so. That has been done openly. I have heard that stated by such men to applicants. I saw a man present a document for signature to another man, and, because of his political views, he refused to sign. Deputy Lynch pointed out that he knew of cases where certain people, because of political animus, refused to verify. Does not the House know that that is true? We have that attitude. It is not a proper attitude. I would not care who the man was. One particular man came to me to verify that he had given service in a particular organisation. I did not like that man. I would not like to live in the same country with him if I could help it, but I appended my signature because I knew the facts. Why should not I do so? Why should not any other man do it?
There were other matters with which I wanted to deal at some length. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle has been very good to me, and I think he was also very good to the Deputy who preceded me. I should like to make this appeal to the Government: Because of old associations, and because of the appeal made by men who were associated with them in very perilous periods, who afterwards differed from them, now that they have come to realise one another's imperfections and, perhaps, lack of vision, and have come to work and associate together in order to carry this nation to what we all believe is its destiny, they should get this cancer out of the body politic, get rid of this disease, bring in some social doctors of the type I suggest to investigate the claims of the men and women who gave service to this country.
