I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The Bill requires very little explanation. When the Red Cross Act was passed in 1939, it empowered the Government to make Orders, and in these Orders there was a section empowering the Government to appoint the President of the Red Cross Society every five years. As Deputies are aware, it became necessary for the Government to make an appointment under that Order twice, and on each occasion the President was appointed President of the Red Cross Society. This Bill provides that, for the future, the President will automatically become President of the Irish Red Cross Society, and it is thought by the Government that it is better that should be done by an Act of the House rather than that the President should be appointed, every time there is a vacancy, by an Order of the Government.
Red Cross Bill, 1944—Second Stage.
It is a matter of regret that there has not been some consultation with the other Parties in the House with regard to this matter, because it does seem to me to be a pity that, when we have societies of this kind, service in these societies would not be recognised, as you might say, and rewarded after the considerable amount of public service that anybody who takes the Red Cross work seriously must inevitably give. I do not see why the Red Cross Society should be regarded as a separate kind of society from others. After all, this suggests that there may very well be a tendency to take a lot of these societies and ultimately put An Uachtarán as the official president of these societies. There are enough of things in the world killing public spirit and the tendency to give public service without taking additional steps like this. There are very many people who are giving service in one way or another in very fine voluntary societies in the country and the only reward to give them is to appoint them later on, when their active work in a society is finished, president of the society. You will also be retaining in that way, not only their patronage, but that particular kind of influence in helping to do the work of the society or to harmonise the work of the society which can come only from very long experience and from a person who commands the respect of the people working in the society. Therefore, I think this Bill is a mistake.
Is it not a flatfooted kind of thing, if you want to make the President of Éire President of the Irish Red Cross Society, not to summon the Parliamentary Leaders in this House into private discussion and see would a proposal of this kind meet with the unanimous approval of Dáil Éireann? It is quite true that the Government have the power at present to nominate anyone they like to be President of the Red Cross. I do not see why they should have the power, but they have it. They could go on nominating anyone they liked. Surely a gesture of this kind is utterly worthless unless it comes from a united Dáil and the only way to secure as a certainty that you will have a united Dáil in a proposal of this character is to consult the leaders of the various sections of the Dáil before it is brought out in public. No case has been made to this House for the desirability of this proposal. The present occupant of the office would naturally be a suitable person to be President of the Red Cross. But what guarantee have we that, when he retires from the office, we will not have a raging, tearing campaign through the country and some Fianna Fáil hack put up for the position of President? If my knowledge of the Fianna Fáil record is anything like correct, some hack who cannot get employment at anything else will be started as presidential candidate and the Party machine will be operated so that he will be pushed into the Viceregal Lodge. Why should we saddle the Red Cross Society with the faded flowers of the Fianna Fáil Party? That is certainly one facet of the situation.
I remember that at the last election for President here an old friend of mine, Deputy Seán T. O Ceallaigh, was the candidate in petto of the Fianna Fáil Party for the Presidency. He would have made a very respectable President of the Red Cross Society or anything else, but he would scarcely be a non-partisan figure at the head of a big national organisation. He would be Taoiseach de Valera's right-hand man transferred to a sinecure and blossoming forth as the President of the Red Cross Society; respectable certainly, but as to being non-partisan, I doubt it. Have we any reason to believe that at the next election we may not have a seasoned old warrior of the political battlefield thrust into Arus an Uachtarán? If one were to listen to dame rumour we might be astonished to wake up one day to discover Taoiseach de Valera transmogrified into President of the Red Cross Society. Would that be a desirable eventuality if this body is to be kept as a strictly non-partisan national activity? I do not know who will succeed Dr. Hyde as President. The people can choose anyone they like, nominally. But, in fact, if the Fianna Fáil Party retain a majority in the country, it will be whoever the Fianna Fáil Party nominate.
Has the Minister turned his attention to these factors? What particular reason has he in suggesting at this stage that we should be bound for evermore to choose that individual who happens to be for the time being President of the State as head of the Irish Red Cross? What objection has he to the existing system? If he has an objection to the existing system, which, I believe, vests the right of nomination in the Government, why does he not transfer the right of nomination of president of the society to the membership of the society? Why should not the Red Cross Society choose their own president? Why should they have a president thrust upon them?
It is manifest from what the Leader of the Opposition said that this Bill does not commend itself to him. Possibly the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures has some secret reasons in the back of his mind which he has not revealed and which he could have revealed at a conference with the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Labour Party and the Leader of Clann na Talmhan, and the Bill could have passed through with the unanimous wish of the House. In the absence of some better reason than the Minister has seen fit to advance so far, the possibility of having President de Valera, or President O Ceallaigh, or President Cormac Breathnach, or President Denis Allen——
We will never have Deputy Dillon as president.
I can assure you that I do not require a sinecure and I will never look for one to the Deputy or anyone else. But any of these may emerge as the President of the Irish Red Cross Society.
One cannot have anything but contempt for the Deputy. You are a rat.
Order!
I could not hear what the Deputy said.
Perhaps it is just as well.
I do not know what is going to eventuate, but whatever does, I do not see why, in anticipation, we should have fixed on the Red Cross Society any particular blight, as we may be doing now. If there is to be a change made, let the members of the Red Cross Society choose their own president; but whatever we do, let us not determine for all time that whatever political "chancer" may land in the Phoenix Park may also land in the presidency of the Irish Red Cross Society.
I can understand the fears expressed by Deputy Dillon and Deputy Mulcahy as to the future occupant of the position of President of this country not being suitable for the presidency of the Irish Red Cross.
I expressed no such fear. My objection was entirely on other grounds.
Deputy Dillon asked why should not the Red Cross Society appoint their own president. The Irish Red Cross Society is a society that appeals to the unstinted support of every section of the community, both in its national and its international outlook. I believe it is no more than a fitting gesture that the person who occupies the highest position in this country should be associated with the Red Cross Society as its president. I believe that the person who has been elected to the highest position in this country is the person who should be appointed as President of the Irish Red Cross Society. I have been actively interested in the work of the Red Cross and I fully appreciate the gesture of offering the President of this country the presidency of the Irish Red Cross Society. I do not think it will suffer in its prestige either nationally or internationally. Whoever may be the President of this country will never, I feel sure, demean his position as President or as President of the Irish Red Cross Society by stooping to political intrigue.
I am rather embarrassed by Deputy Dillon's insistence that the Government should keep certain powers which the Dáil bestowed upon it. I do agree with Deputy Mulcahy that consultation between Parties would have been necessary if the proposition was that the Government should take some powers from the Dáil which it had not already got in regard to the position of President. The situation at the moment is that the Government of the day which, thank God, is a Fianna Fáil Government, a good Fianna Fáil Government, can appoint anybody it likes as President of the Irish Red Cross Society. We feel we are giving the opportunity to the Dáil to make the nomination and to declare that for the future we shall have the President of this country also the President of the Irish Red Cross Society. The Irish Red Cross Society is important in its way, but it is of very much less importance than the presidency of the country. Whoever the people appoint will be the President of the country and not somebody whom Deputy Dillon would like to see in the position, and whoever is the President of the country, no matter what Party he belongs to, will be entitled to all the respect that is due to his office.
As regards other countries, so far as I have had time to go through the names of the presidents of the various national Red Cross Societies, I find that where it is a kingdom the King is the President of the Red Cross Society. Where there is a President, he is also the President of the Red Cross Society. It is largely an honorary position, the position of patron, who has one function and that is to nominate the Chairman of the Red Cross Society, who is the chairman of the executive committee and who is really the active head of the Red Cross organisation.
I do not think that anybody objects to this proposition, although he may make certain debating points upon it. I feel the Dáil will not be doing anything wrong in taking the power from the Government to appoint the president of the Irish Red Cross Society and giving it into the hands of the people to appoint the president of the Red Cross Society when they elect or appoint the President of the country.
The Minister, in referring to other countries, spoke of the head of the State being the president or the patron of the society. Will he be good enough to indicate the other countries where the head of the State is a patron and where there is a president of the society as well? For instance, what is the practice in the United States of America and Great Britain? I imagine that in Great Britain the King is patron and you also have a president of the society.
Yes.
What is the position in the United States?
According to the 1944 Red Cross Book, President Roosevelt is the President of the American Red Cross. The President en exercice—the effective working President —is Mr. Basil O'Connor. It used to be the Hon. Norman H. Davis.
The President of the United States is president of the society and Mr. Davis was, and now Mr. O'Connor is, the effective president.
It is the same situation as here, with the Hon. Justice Maguire as the effective working president of the society and the President as the president or patron.
There is a distinction between president and patron, is there not?
There is. He is more than a patron; he is the president.
Our proposal is that he should be more than a patron, more intimately identified with the organisation. The practice in some places is that the president is the patron and there is an active president.
I think they all have the nomination of the active chairman.
You could have settled all that in a ten-minute conference with the leaders of the Parties.
I agree. I did not think there would be any disagreement about it — and I do not think there is.
I still disagree that An Uachtarán should be the president of the society.
When is it proposed to take the Committee Stage?
If there is no objection, we could take it now.
I would be glad if the other stages were taken to-morrow. I would not wish the impression to be conveyed that the Bill had universal consent.
All right.