I am afraid that Deputy Coburn, in conjunction with most of his colleagues, is not acquainted with the facts either if this case or of the 1934 Act. I want to point out to the Deputy, however, that under the 1934 Act every individual had his case examined and in a very large number of cases they were examined personally. A White Paper has been circulated to-day showing the methods by which application forms were examined and cases brought to a conclusion one way or the other. We are not turning down any decision of the Supreme Court. We have in fact accepted that decision to the extent of having every case in respect of which a conditional order was granted and any cases that may have come in up to the 1st February, reheard. That, surely, is not turning down the decision of the Supreme Court. That, surely, is not denying the right of justice to any person who made application under this Act. Every applicant has been examined personally or has had his application form thoroughly examined and I do not see that we are doing anything that is depriving any applicant, to the total 60,000 of any right to which he was entitled.
I do not propose to accept the amendment which is down in the names of Deputy Norton and Deputy Keyes and which, in fact, was seconded by Deputy Davin because, in my opinion, it is based on three false assumptions. The first assumption which is false, in my opinion, is where they assume that there is still a number of cases outstanding. At the present moment practically every case has been dealt with by the Referee. I mentioned in my opening statement that, with the exception, I think, of 74 cases which were referred to the Referee as a result of the Supreme Court decision, and perhaps a few cases of appeal which came in under the clause which asks for additional evidence which had not been already available, the work of the Referee has been finished. I said it was completed, or would have been completed, at the latest, this month.
The second false assumption in the amendment is the suggestion that cases were not dealt with equitably. Again I must refer Deputies to the White Paper which has been circulated to-day and which shows the manner in which every applicant was enabled to have his case heard or examined. There again, as I have already stated, I maintain that the machinery was over-weighted in favour of the applicant, and I do not see that there is anything that we can do, or that any committee set up by this House could do, that would produce a method which would be more equitable than the one we have had operating for quite a long period of time.
The third claim that is being made is that our method of dealing with cases was not expeditious. I doubt that. As far as I can see, some of the complaints that have reached me are to the effect that we were too expeditious, that we dealt with these cases so fast that we did not give them the proper consideration which they required. That, of course, is a mis-statement. The cases received ample consideration and I think that the case made for the amendment by Deputies Norton and Davin falls to the ground.
In the course of the Taoiseach's address the other evening on this matter, he referred to the case of the deputy-registrar in bankruptcy in Cork. I want to refer to it also, because I think the case is so similar to the case with which we are now dealing that it is desirable that I should cite it. In that particular case the Circuit Court judge who was dealing with the matter had delegated certain functions to his registrar. The registrar, in the course of time, became ill and the deputy-registrar took over these functions. The deputy-registrar, I think, was the clerk of the court, a highly efficient officer and a man quite capable of carrying out the functions which the registrar had been carrying out and who did, in fact, carry them out effectively and efficiently. But some enterprising lawyer discovered, as others discovered in the case under discussion—the Military Service Pensions Act—that somebody was not acting in conformity with the Act and he decided that perhaps this might be a good field for striking into. He struck into it and was successful, as were the lawyers in this case. He was successful because it was not strictly in conformity with the Act. Nobody gave any consideration as to whether it was a good practical method or not. There was a literal translation, as there was in this case, of the Act, and that was what decided it.
When it was found that the position was such, the Government of that day decided that they would take steps to put the matter right and the then Minister of Justice, the late Kevin O'Higgins, introducing a Bill on that occasion, used these words:—
"I move for leave to introduce and to have printed and circulated a Bill entitled the Deputy-Registrar in Bankruptcy (Cork) Bill, 1926. In Cork for many years past there has been a local Bankruptcy Court which is within the jurisdiction of the circuit judge of that area. The Clerk of the Crown and Peace for Cork City and the East Riding of the County was registrar to the court. For some time past he has been in failing health, but, pending the reorganisation of the court staff, which is now being achieved under the Court Officers Bill, it was not convenient to relieve him of his duties and appoint a successor. He was permitted to act through the deputy-registrar. It was recently decided by the court that there were certain things which could lawfully be done only by the registrar himself and which could not be delegated to the deputy-registrar. It becomes necessary, therefore, to validate certain acts performed by the deputy-registrar. We consider it is in the public interest that should be done and this Bill is brought forward to that end."
Now, that is what the Minister for Justice of the former Government had to say on that occasion and, if we paraphrase the words which were used then, this is what we can say in respect of the present Bill:—
"It was recently decided by the courts that there were certain things which could be lawfully done only by the Referee himself and which could not be delegated to the members of the Advisory Committee or to the interviewing officers. It becomes necessary, therefore, to validate certain acts performed by those members and officers. We consider it in the public interest that this should be done and this Bill will be brought forward to this end."
That is paraphrasing the statement made by the Minister for Justice of another administration and I would like to point this out, that on the occasion of the introduction of that measure in this House there were present in the House Deputy Norton, Deputy Davin and Deputy Corish. I have looked through the records to see what protest they made on that occasion and I failed to find a solitary word of protest from any of the three Deputies. It may be that they were, in the words of Deputy MacEoin when he was referring to certain members of the Advisory Committee, mute of malice or, perhaps, they were stupefied by the array of front benchers. Whatever may have been the reason, there is no record to be found in the Official Debates, on the First Stage, Second Stage, Committee Stage, Report Stage or Final Stage, of any protest good, bad or indifferent, raised on that occasion by those Deputies. One wonders why they have become so voluble on this particular occasion. Is it because they have a very special interest in the Old I.R.A., or is it that they see something of very special propaganda value? Whatever it may be, I think I can say that on this occasion it will not have any more effect than their attempt to use the Transport Bill on another occasion. If there is any effect, I believe it will be a reactionary one. I leave it at that.
Deputy O'Higgins, for some reason of which I am not aware, made a violent and vitriolic attack on me. I am not worrying about that, knowing the Deputy's technique. It was, however, entirely irrelevant to the measure which we are discussing and why it was brought in, I am at a loss to know. But, I certainly cannot allow some of the grossly exaggerated statements which he made to go unanswered. When he makes these grossly exaggerated statements I must reply. He said:—
"The Minister tells us that the only way that he can handle a Pensions Act inside 71 years is to give him authority to appoint a nominee who will sit in a back room and give pensions to whoever he likes, without hearing any evidence and without consulting anybody, a nominee who will deprive anybody else he likes of a pension".
Now, Deputies know that I did not make any statement of that kind. I want to ask Deputy O'Higgins who, unfortunately, is not here, if that is the opinion he holds of the professional men of the courts? Is that the opinion he holds of a judge of the Circuit Court, a district justice or a lawyer of not less than ten years' standing, because these are the ranks necessary before any of these professional gentlemen can accept the post of Referee? Does he suggest that any of these individuals is prepared to sell or to prostitute his professional honour and his profession for some imaginary mess of pottage, because that is what it means? I can only attribute the statement, made in a somewhat violent fashion—on occasions he appeared to be almost incoherent—to the fact that he was violently agitated at the moment of making it, and I leave it at that.
I am afraid that even Deputy MacEoin, who is usually very reasonable in debate, lost his sense of proportion in the course of this debate, because, when he set out to deal with the verifying officers and the interviewing officers, of whom I am sure he has had a large amount of experience, he went out of his way to describe, I presume, the interviewing officers as "young whipper-snappers." I am pretty certain that the Deputy knew he was grossly exaggerating when he described them as "young whipper-snappers." I have made inquiries and I find that the least service any of these interviewing officers has in the Civil Service is 25 years, and that two of these "young whipper-snappers" were former colleagues of Deputy MacEoin.
He then went on to describe the members of the Advisory Committee as men who had become either mute of malice or stupefied — I suppose he meant "stunned"—by the presence of the Referee and the senior civil servants. I think it is the experience of every verifying officer who has appeared before the Advisory Committee and the Referee that the most highly competent men on that body, the men who were as competent as the highly trained civil servants, were the two representatives of the I.R.A. I have since found out that there have been many occasions on which the I.R.A. officer differed from his I.R.A. colleague and agreed with the civil servant, and vice versa, so that there is no truth whatever in the statement that these men were either stunned by the presence of these people or were mute of malice.
Deputy Flanagan in the course of his speech read a document, and, I rather imagine, through inadvertence, because I doubt if he wished to do it deliberately, read out the name of a verifying officer. It was quite a wrong thing to do. It was an abuse of the privileges of this House, but I suggest that he may have done it inadvertently. As it was heard here, however, it was a most slanderous statement on a man who, as an Old I.R.A. man, gave excellent service. He is a man of the highest possible character who is at the present moment held in very high respect in the Defence Forces where he is serving. I have been given a list of the names of the people which the man named was supposed to have given to the Advisory Committee and which he was in some way or other alleged to be responsible for having passed through. I have also here a letter from the company officers in respect of the list in question which makes it very clear that the person named by Deputy Flanagan had nothing whatever to do with the list of which he is alleged to have made some wrong use. I do not know that anything can be done in the House to rectify the wrong done to the gentleman concerned, other than perhaps the making of an apology by the Deputy, if he is manly enough to make it.
Deputy Norton also held that this Bill gives arbitrary powers to the Referee to grant or refuse pensions, but that has been the position all along. This Bill does not give him any greater powers in that respect than he has. The position is indentically as it was. The Referee has been acting in the same manner over a number of years, and it is because he has been acting in that manner that we have brought this Bill in to validate whatever actions he may have taken during the course of the various proceedings in respect of the examination of these claims. This Bill does not add one iota of power to the power he already possesses.
We heard a tremendous amount of talk during the debate about the 1924 Act. I think that even Deputy MacEoin went out of his way to tell us how expeditiously the Board of Assessors under the 1924 Act dealt with these cases in comparison with the people who were dealing with the 1934 Act. I was left under the impression that the people who were dealing with the 1924 Act were a group of Titans and that the people who were dealing with the 1934 Act were a group of bunglers. It is no harm to examine the particular statements that were made to see how, in fact, they compare with the actual position as we know it. I think I can say that the statements made in regard to the Board of Assessors under the 1924 Act and the general statements made in this House in regard to this Bill are comparable, that one is just as accurate as the other and no more. Deputy Coogan, who was also very anxious about this matter of the 1924 Act, almost suggested that we could take up the 1924 Act people and let them deal with this Bill. They were so expeditious, he told us, that there were 21,147 cases disposed of by the board under the 1924 Act in four years. What he very modestly did not tell us was that 7,854 of the 21,147 cases were shovelled out by the Department itself, and had never reached even an examining officer, much less an interviewing officer. They were looked on as something unworthy of consideration and out they went. That left 13,293 persons to be actually heard, and, I presume, they were heard. Among the 13,293 persons, 3,890 were successful in securing awards. That left 9,403 persons with nil awards. If we add to the 9,403 nil awards the 7,854 departmental discards, we get a total of 17,257 nil awards. Yet we were told very innocently by Deputy Coogan that there was not a single complaint and that everybody was satisfied with the administration of the 1924 Act.
I doubt if there were no complaints from the 17,257 persons who received no awards. I would be amazed if that were so. The Deputy then, unfortunately for himself, said, in trying to make a good case, that the figure of 21,147—he said this in order to show the number of cases that the Board of Assessors had dealt with—should have added to it, the 1,066 appeals. That figure also reveals the fact that everybody must not have been satisfied because here we find, according to the Deputy himself, that there were appeals against decisions in 1,066 cases. The Deputy then tried to make out that that meant that the Board of Assessors got through 22,213 cases in four years. Deputies may be surprised to know that under the 1934 Act we heard 60,131 people in ten years or 6,000 cases per year. Figures indicate that the speed in dealing with 1934 Act cases was double that shown by the Board of Assessors of which we heard so much. In addition, we also dealt with a very large number of appeals. Therefore, when Deputy Norton and Deputy Keyes in their amendment ask for greater expendition, I wonder do they believe that they could improve on the expedition which these figures indicate? Out of that total of 60,131 persons, 30,245 were actually heard and examined individually. They were allowed to make their case in whatever fashion they deemed suitable.
The method by which the applicants were allowed to develop their cases is shown in the White Paper which was circulated amongst Deputies to-day. First of all the applicant had his claim examined. If it contained prima facie evidence that he was not a person to whom the Act was likely to apply, his case was not shovelled out as it was under the 1924 Act. The examining officer, having examined the form carefully, inscribed his opinion on it that the applicant was not a person to whom the Act applied. He then sent it to the Advisory Committee, two members of which examined it individually and expressed their opinions on the matter contained in the form. If it was still a nil case they said so. If there was a difference of opinion between them, the other members of the Advisory Committee were brought in, a consultation was held and a decision arrived at. But even then the case was not ended. When the Referee made his decision, based, I suppose, on the reports made by these officers, and he decided that this was a man to whom the Act did not apply, he gave notice to his secretary to inform the brigade committee accordingly, and the brigade committee had 28 days in which to bring to his attention whether or not they were satisfied with his decision or whether they wanted the case to be held for further hearing. In accordance with the brigade committee's opinion, the case was either decided there and then, or it was held for a further period. If the brigade committee had no further interest in the case, it was not even finished then. The Referee then issued a notification to his secretary to inform the applicant that he was a person to whom the Act did not apply. If the applicant decided that he was going to make an appeal against that decision, he could notify the secretary to the Referee that he was dissatisfied with the decision and could make an appeal against it within 21 days. The case was then deferred for further hearing and the applicant could produce whatever evidence he could secure which he thought likely to convince the Referee and again he had another examination. Now, when the Labour Party, through the medium of this amendment, talk of finding a more equitable way of dealing with these cases, I must confess that I do not know what they are talking about, any more than I do when they also ask to have the cases dealt with more expeditiously.
I have given, as well as it is possible to do so, the manner in which these cases have been dealt with both from the point of equity and from the point of expedition. In the course of the debate, many Deputies who, no doubt, are deeply concerned with the complaints of applicants in their various areas, made appeals to me, to the Taoiseach and to the Government to find ways or means to bring in certain individuals who, in their opinion, were as good as other individuals who had got pensions. In respect to the various statements made in regard to those cases, I can only say that I am just as deeply concerned about a large number of those men as any Deputy in the House. I think it will be agreed that Dublin was as active an area as any area in the country. In Dublin there were men out both night and day looking for ways and means to contact the enemy. Some may have been lucky in being able to make that contact often; others were unfortunate in that they never made that contact. It all depended upon the areas in which they were operating. It may have been a busy area or may have been one of the back streets through which the enemy perhaps but seldom came. Whatever may be the reason, there are large numbers of men who were members of the Dublin Brigade who, to my own regret, were unable to prove to the Referee that they had the standard of service which would secure for them a service certificate. I know that there is a very large number of men—the estimates given in the House ranged from 3,000 to 5,000 men—throughout the country in a very similar position and still outside the Act.
I have to make this confession that, for a very long time, I have been trying to find ways and means by which individuals of that type could be brought within the Act, and I must confess that I have failed up to the present to find a method. The Taoiseach, in an appeal to the House the other evening, asked Deputies on any side of the House to produce a solution if they could do so and said we would have it examined to see if there were any possible way in which it could be used. I have had many suggestions from Deputies and from people outside the House, and again I must confess that, having given them careful examination, I have come to the conclusion that there is no way in which these people can be brought in unless we amend the section which deals specifically with appeals. In my opinion, there is no way in which we can bring in a limited number of individuals and leave out a larger number of individuals. If anyone can find any way, we shall be glad to hear of it, provided it does not ask us to rehear every case. As far as I can see, that is what any amendment that is likely to be successful will mean; it will mean the admission of practically every applicant who would desire to have his case reheard.
We are only on the Second Stage of this Bill. We will be taking the Committee Stage in due course, and if anyone can suggest a solution, I will be very happy to hear of it, as it will affect me just as much as Deputies throughout the country. I know, and I am sure every Deputy knows, that there are very many excellent Old I.R.A. men outside this Act and outside of it probably because they have not reached the standard required by the Referee and the Advisory Committee.
Several statements were made in respect to the threat supposed to have been made by me or by someone else as to what would occur if we did not get this Bill through—that large numbers of Old I.R.A. men would have their payments made invalid. I do not think I said anything of that kind. What I did say was that serious doubt existed as to the legality of all pensions under payment, because we did not know the exact cases in which the correct procedure was followed. I further said that we must either suspend payment of pensions or remove that doubt by some such Bill as this. I do not think anyone can suggest that there was any intimidation in that. I still believe that the position is that the Supreme Court was asked to give a verdict on a certain aspect of the 1934 Act and that what they actually did was to give a very literal interpretation of the words contained in the Act, without any regard to whether the procedure outlined was practicable or otherwise.
What they apparently said to themselves was: "We have got to examine these words ‘before the Referee' and a literal interpretation of ‘before the Referee' can only mean one thing, that is, that the case is to be heard before the Referee". Now, if the men who failed to secure pensions and who did not appear before the Referee were declared to have been not heard within the meaning of the Act—in other words, that the decision of the Referee in those cases did not hold and was illegal—surely the cases of the men who did receive pensions were just as illegal, if they appeared only before the members of the Advisory Committee and never reached the Referee? Surely those cases where the pension was awarded arising out of the examination by the Advisory Committee, were in the same category as those of the individuals who did not receive pensions? Surely some action was required to ensure that these pensions would not be voidable and this action which we are taking, through the medium of this Bill, is to ensure that, so far as we are concerned anyhow, these pensions will continue and that there will be no possibility whatever of their being voided. That is one of the objects of the Bill.
I think I have dealt with most of the questions raised. Largely the questions raised by various Deputies appeared to me to be almost a complete repetition and I think that, in general, I have more or less answered them. Deputy Bennett asked me to extend the date; I think the date he was referring to is the 1st February. I cannot do that. We have fixed a date, which is several days or weeks beyond the time of the Supreme Court's decision, and I think that was fair enough. Deputy Davin raised the question of the difference between the scales of allowances of those who received pensions under the 1924 Act and those who received pensions under the 1934 Act. That is easily explained. Under the 1924 Act, pensions were granted on the Army ranks, not on the ranks that men had in the I.R.A. It is a well-known fact that men who may have been private soldiers in the I.R.A. became captains later on in the Army and that men who may have been captains became commandants, majors, and so on. That is the explanation of how the scales of allowances under the 1924 Act are, in fact, higher than those under the 1934 Act.
The Deputy also asked me if, at any time, there was a doubt in my mind as to the procedure carried out. I must confess that there was not. The matter was being dealt with by a judge of the Circuit Court. He was fortified by a regulation, under the Statutory Rules and Regulations, which was made at his request by the Minister and that gave him the power to settle his own procedure. He settled his own procedure. Apparently he was satisfied that he was entitled to do that, and two other Circuit Court judges who followed the original judge apparently were satisfied also. So far as I was concerned, it was never brought to my attention that the matter was causing concern. As I have mentioned in connection with the Cork bankruptcy case, it was not until some enterprising lawyer saw a great field for his endeavours and for enriching himself that the matter was raised, and we know what the result of raising it was.
I should have mentioned that Deputy Davin was one of the Deputies who certainly took a very active and continuous interest in the expenditing of the issue of service certificates. I was looking up the records to-day and I saw that in the year 1941 he was urging me to take any possible steps I could take—it did not matter what the steps were—to expedite the ending of these military service pension claims. On that occasion he even went to the extent of saying that it did not matter whether a man got an award or whether he did not get an award; that we should bring the matter to a conclusion so that we could be all satisfied and get away from this continual harassing which was going on arising out of these pensions claims. While we expedited the hearing of the claims so far as was possible, we did that carefully and meticulously. I am pretty certain that every case which was examined was examined with all the meticulous care necessary in cases so important as they were, and that wherever there have been cases of hardship they are due, in the main, to the fact that the men did not reach the standard required.
Deputies from all sides of the House, not particularly from this side, made statements to the effect that they knew men who were getting pensions and also men who were not getting pensions and that the individuals who were not getting pensions were just as good as the men who were getting pensions. When we talk about trying to bring these men in we must keep this in mind. If we take a circle and take the centre as representing those of the highest grade, coming out to the edge we will find the lower grades. We will find that close up to the edge of that circle there is a number of people in contact with people who are just outside it. I suggest to Deputies who have been raising this matter that these are the type of people whom they have in mind when they say that men got pensions who are no better than men who did not; that the dividing line is so thin that the people inside are very little better, but that they have made that grade which the Referee required in order to bring them in and that the people who are barely outside are the people who failed to make the grade. The solution then is to extend the circle a little. If we extend the circle, say, an inch, there will then be pressing against the inside of the line probably a large number of people, because the radius of the circle has become larger. There will be a number of people pressing against the outside of the circle, possibly a greater number because of the radius being enlarged. What we have to ask ourselves is, are we to go on extending the circle until we have embraced practically everyone who made an application? I do not think that we can.
That is why I ask for a solution, if it can be found, and that is why I say that up to the present I have failed to find a solution, which I am so keen to find, outside giving a complete rehearing, and I do not know whether the House would be anxious for that, considering the expenses and so on that have already been entailed in the examining of these cases over ten years. But, outside of the complete rehearing of these cases, I am afraid I cannot see any solution to the difficulties. Deputy Maguire, I think it was, asked me if I was in contact with the committee which was working inside our Party. I can be in contact with a committee of any Party on any side of the House. The committee of our Party which has been examining this question has been in contact with me on several occasions. They, like myself, have been endeavouring to find ways and means. I should be glad if other Parties took the same interest, if they thought they could help. Deputy Mulcahy made a suggestion here which, to my mind, would not be a solution. He suggested that the matter should be handed over to the Defence Conference. I do not think that this question has anything whatever to do with the Defence Conference or that the Defence Conference has any outstanding qualities that any group of individuals in this House does not possess. From that point of view, I do not think that we need pursue that suggestion.
As a matter of interest to the House, the two cases recently decided in the Supreme Court have cost the State, in plaintiffs' costs alone, £1,060 11s. 5d. Two other cases in the High Court have cost £240 4s. 3d. That is £1,300 approximately. We have not yet been billed with the costs of the other 70 cases, but it is estimated that they will cost the taxpayer between £3,000 and £4,000. There are large numbers of other cases and there is a number of lawyers who are jumping in to see if there is anything useful to be got out of this. We have had demands to the extent of, I think, about 400 and odd cases. The estimated law costs of these cases, if we were to accept them and allow them to go through the courts, would be over £20,000. Apart from whatever Deputies may think of this Bill— and they have thought a lot about it and they have thought a lot that was wrong about it—I think it is their duty to protect the taxpayers of this country against that sort of attack, because that is, in fact, what it is. I would strongly ask the House to support this Bill, not alone from the point of view that we are anxious to see that the whole pensions question is brought to an end quickly—it would be at an end were it not for the introduction of these 74 odd cases—but also from the point of view of ensuring that this continual and perpetual discussion will cease.
