Among some of the queries which were put, and in which Deputies had some interest, was one submitted by Deputy Norton in respect of a particular type of case. I think the type of case the Deputy had in mind was one where a man enlisted in the period prior to the emergency, and his time expired in the course of the emergency and he was compulsorily retained. That man would come in; we can deal with him through regulations, and he would be entitled from the period in which he was compulsorily held to the end of the emergency, or whatever period is decided upon, to whatever emoluments or gratuities will be available.
Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Bill, 1945—Second Stage (Resumed).
Will he have an opportunity of re-attesting and continuing?
He will. The Deputy was also anxious to know something about Section 7. Section 7 is mainly concerned with easing the administration within the Forces in respect of publishing matters which are purely domestic, if you like, or internal. For instance, they comprise such things as the promotion of a young 2nd Lieutenant to be 1st Lieutenant, or a young 1st Lieutenant to be Acting-Captain. These things are incidental to the services, and they are of no great public interest, except, perhaps, to the young man's friends or relatives.
Such things as commissioning, or a man beginning his Army career, or dismissals or retirements—these things will continue to be published in the ordinary way, as they have been published to date. By the adoption of the amendment, we will relieve ourselves of a task which is practically unnecessary. The promotions and reversions will be in future, as they have been in the past, published in the official Defence Forces Regulations, which are available to all sections of the Army, and which can also be made available to members of the public who are sufficiently interested to purchase them from the Stationery Office.
Deputy Norton very wisely suggested that the question of demobilisation was one in which we should display very great care and in which there should be no attempt to rush matters. Against that we had Deputy Larkin suggesting that demobilisation was of the utmost importance at the present time, and that men should be released whether they have work to go to or not. He said that some individuals to whom he was talking suggested to him that they were quite prepared to depend on good luck and their skill to secure employment if they were immediately released. We hope that, when the period arrives when we can demobilise, we will do so in the orderly fashion which Deputy Norton visualises rather than in the "hit and hope for the best" method of Deputy Larkin.
In that respect, I think it would be appropriate for me to make a very strong appeal to all the large companies operating in the Twenty-Six Counties, and to all employers of labour, even if they are only one-man employers, to give a preference to the young men who joined the Army in the very precarious days of the emergency. I think it will be found that the training they have received in the Army, the discipline which has been inculcated in them during their period in the Army, and their endurance and physical fitness, will be very valuable to any of these employers to whom I make this appeal. I want to appeal, too, to the Labour Party, and through the Labour Party to the trade unions, to deal more sympathetically with the young men who have been trained in trades in the Army and who are not being given the status of skilled tradesmen outside.
I can assure the trade unions that no man who has been given a trade in the Army and who has been graded as a skilled workman is any less efficient than the best trained man who comes out of private employment. The men on whose behalf I make this appeal are men who may have been trained in motor mechanics, carpentry, electricity, bricklaying or any of the very many crafts which are operated in the Army by highly skilled men. In the days which we shall face at the end of this emergency, we hope that a place will be found for these in the post-war operations in respect to building and whatever other operations may be carried out. I am in that respect making an appeal to both capital and labour, and instead of this House making an appeal, as it has to do continuously, to a Minister to do certain things, I am availing of the opportunity to appeal to these bodies which can do a large amount of very valuable post-war work in regard to helping to place men, both skilled and unskilled, in the way of earning a reasonable livelihood.
References have been made to allowing men out of the Army to take up employment. I can assure the House that on every occasion on which such a case has been brought to my attention I have speeded up the release of the individuals concerned. It takes a certain amount of time, and perhaps Deputies who are used to acting fairly quickly do not quite understand why it should take two or three weeks to do these things, but they will realise from their experience of Civil Service procedure, the various forms which have to be filled in and the records which have to be filed and preserved, that it is quite impossible to release these men as men might be released from ordinary private employment. So far as releasing individuals for whom work can be found is concerned, however, I think I can say with all honesty that no such individual for whom work is available has been held for any unduly long period.
Deputy Larkin raised the question of men on indefinite leave and asked if it would be possible to release from indefinite leave men who are already released from the Army. That may be possible later on, but the position at the moment is that for those forces of the duration type, there is no-reserve, and it is difficult to send men out on what we might regard as the reserve of the duration forces. If we release them as suggested by Deputy Larkin, in the event of a further emergency or anything necessitating a remobilisation arising, control of these individuals would pass out of our hands and it would be a question of their either re-enlisting or not taking any interest in the matter of rejoining the Army.
I want to assure Deputies, and especially Deputy Hughes, who allowed himself to become rather hot and bothered about Government secrecy in respect of the production of plans, that there is no question of secrecy about these plans. It is merely a matter of endeavouring to do what we think is best in the interests of these men. I can further assure the Deputy that it is not a simple problem. It is a very difficult and a very complex problem, and, as I have said, we have taken up more Government time in the last six months, although the matter was under consideration by myself and the Army authorities for six months prior to its even reaching the Government——
Can the Minister say if anything concrete has been done to help these men?
What does the Deputy mean by that?
The Minister has made an appeal to the Labour Party, the trade unions and employers. Has the Minister not set up any committee to get in contact with trade unions, employers and the Labour Party with regard to placing these men? The war may finish any day—this week, for all we know.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce is dealing with that side of the matter. There is no use in the Deputy shrugging his shoulders. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is the appropriate Minister for dealing with the re-employment of individuals and the securing of employment for them.
May I give an example as regards one Army man? A young man came to me on Sunday and told me that in the month of January he put down his name at a labour exchange in the city in order to qualify for temporary employment. He has not been called for interview since. Am I to take that as an example of what is being done for those men who have been serving this country and to whom the Minister paid an eloquent tribute to-day?
Certainly not. The Deputy has selected the case of one man. I am pretty sure there will be very many more than the one young man that the Deputy is interested in who will find himself in that position. What I am discussing now is the post-war plan for demobilisation and the putting into employment of the men who will be demobilised. What is happening at the present time is that, where employment is available, we release everyone who makes an appeal to be released. We are not releasing those for whom no employment can be found. Therefore, I would say that the matter which the Deputy has raised is not appropriate to this discussion.
I want to assure Deputy Hughes that everything that can be done is being done. As I have said, I doubt if we will be able to complete the discussions on these plans for another month or perhaps even longer. I want again to assure him and the House that everything that it is possible to do is being done to expedite the whole matter. Both the Army and the Government are deeply interested in this. We want to make certain, before we produce our plans, that they will be well considered plans and as satisfactory as it is possible to make them. From my own knowledge of what we are doing, I think I can say that the provision to be made will be reasonably generous, generous certainly when compared with the means at the disposal of our people. It is unfair to suggest that what we are doing should be comparable with what our neighbour across the water is doing, just as it was unfair to suggest that while that great nation was at war it was able to produce plans for the demobilisation of its army, while we are still in the position of not being able to produce our plans. It is hardly necessary for me to remind Deputies that our neighbour across the water had its plans pigeonholed from the last war, so that whatever readjustments were necessary were of a minor character. All that had to be done was to take them out of the pigeon hole, amend them, where necessary, and issue them. It is hardly fair, I think, to make a comparison between this country and a nation that has had perhaps centuries of experience in dealing with problems of that kind. This is the first time that an Irish Government had a problem of this kind to deal with. As I have said, I was glad to hear the views of Deputies expressed in the way they were expressed in respect to post-war problems and to the men who joined the Army and gave their services throughout the emergency. I can assure those Deputies that I am at one with them in their desires and hopes to do well by those men, and that every member of the Government shares those views.
Is the Minister able to give the House any idea of the number of those in the Volunteer force who are likely to avail of the provisions in the Bill by joining the regular Army?
I could not. If I were to give a figure it would simply be a guess. It has been suggested in the House that we may find great difficulty in securing the services of large numbers of those men. The suggestion made was that their great need was to get out of the Army. Personally, I doubt that very much. As I said in my opening statement, I feel pretty sure that a large number of the young men who joined the Army for the emergency have developed a taste for Army life and will probably re-enlist.
Surely the Minister would be better informed on that than any Deputy.
I could not attempt to give a figure of the number likely to accept the proposals which we are now putting forward. I have hopes that a large number will accept them.
I gathered from the Minister's statement that he contemplates issuing a White Paper on the Government's demobilisation plans——
If that is the proper way of dealing with the matter, but I do not know whether it is or not.
——and on the treatment to be accorded to those demobilised. Would the Minister give an assurance that the House will have an opportunity of discussing the White Paper so that the Government will be able to get the views of all Parties on the proposals contained in it? The Minister says that the Government wants to treat those who will be demobilised generously. If that view is shared by all Parties, and I think it is, then I think the Government might very well afford an opportunity to the House of hearing the views of all Parties before it finally comes to a decision on the proposals for compensation or maintenance which it intends to apply. Can we have an assurance from the Minister that the House will not be presented with a cut and dried scheme of an irrevocable character, and that we will get an opportunity of expressing our views to the Government on the treatment to be afforded to those who will be demobilised?
In the debate on the motion for the adjournment a few months ago, to which I have referred, when a question was raised by Deputy Cosgrave I told him on that occasion that when the proposals had reached the stage when the Government were satisfied that they were producing something that could be submitted to another body, it was the intention to submit them to the Defence Conference before putting them before the Dáil. I thought that was the better way of doing the thing at the time. Deputy Cosgrave had asked me to produce these proposals to the Dáil. That was the suggestion I made then, and it still stands. The proposals can be examined and the views of the members of the Defence Conference can be heard on them and can be submitted to the Government. As to whether the Government will accept or adjust the plans they have already made, the Deputy, I am sure, does not expect me here and now to give a "yes" or "no" answer. I can only speak for myself on that question. I think that what I have suggested is the better way of dealing with this matter: that when the proposals are ready they can be submitted to the Defence Conference. It can examine them in the same way that it examines the Defence Estimates. The Defence Conference represents the views of the whole House, and if the members of it are satisfied with the proposals, or if they feel that they have other proposals to make themselves, well that is the place to make them, and they can then be considered by the Government.
Lest anything should happen to prevent consideration of these proposals by the Defence Conference, will the Minister give the House an assurance that in any case the Dáil will have the opportunity, independently of the Defence Conference, of considering the matter?
I think I can give that assurance.
Question put and agreed to.
When is it proposed to take the Committee Stage of the Bill?
I would like to have all stages of the Bill now, if the House has no objection.
Agreed: That the remaining stages of the Bill be taken now.