Deputy Costello.
Public Health Bill, 1945—Second Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
I thought Deputy Cosgrave was in possession.
The Chair had ruled in my favour.
I have not the slightest objection; the ordeal will not be mine.
Because, I suppose, you will scuttle out of the House.
I have to go to the Seanad. I have more business to do there.
The extent to which opposition has developed to some of the fundamental provisions in this Bill and, indeed, the extent to which public indignation has been aroused is the measure of the failure which faces this Bill, which ought, from its subject matter, be a non-controversial measure. To any reasonable proposals designed to secure the public health, framed for the purpose of preventing infectious diseases and dissemination, to any measures which would secure the clean handling of food in this country and in particular in this city, Deputies, on this side of the House at all events, would give complete support. But, when we find introduced into this House a measure which has been framed and designed without any consultation with any of the medical societies or medical authorities whose opinions would have been of the greatest weight in the public interest, we look with extreme suspicion upon such a measure. When the measure itself is examined in detail and when we find that the provisions in their general tendency are fraught with possible public danger and that in particular instances in the Bill the dignity of the human person is insulted and the liberty of the individual set aside, we can regard this Bill as nothing less than a monstrosity.
If I had any illusions left as to the practical application of the high-sounding principles in the Constitution, I would venture to add my voice to that of the Deputies who have already suggested in the course of this debate that many of the provisions in this Bill are unconstitutional. If I thought that any limit could be set to the reach of bureaucracy, I would have thought that this Bill had attained the ultimate extreme. This Bill has 113 sections and five schedules, but that is only a very small part of what the legislation of this country will be if this measure ever becomes law and ever comes into operation in full force and effect in accordance with the provisions contained throughout the Bill providing for the passing of rules and regulations, statutory Orders and bye-laws. Anybody who has practice in public health or who had to advise on public health matters will be familiar with the well-known text book, Vanston on Public Health. There are over 1,100 pages in that book on one statute alone. That statute still remains on the Statute Book and this measure provides, almost in every section, for the Minister or for some authority to make rules and regulations, statutory Orders and bye-laws to carry the provisions into effect. The real provisions underlying this Bill will not be given practical effect to by the 113 clauses or the five schedules in this Bill: they will be given effect to by the multiplicity, I would say almost the infinity, of statutory rules, Orders and regulations which would be necessary in order to give effect to this measure if it ever comes into practical operation.
In the course of the lengthy speech read by the Parliamentary Secretary, so far as I know he never adverted once to the question of the cost of the practical application of this Bill. No indication was given as to what the cost on the public, on the taxpayer or the ratepayer, would be when these provisions are put into effect. On this side of the House, at all events, we have never shrunk, and never will shrink, from supporting any measure, whatever its reasonable cost may be, provided it is in the public interest, but what we object to is the squandering of public moneys and failing to make economies where economies can be made.
In the course of this Bill it is provided or envisaged that people suffering from vermin or people suffering from tuberculosis may be imprisoned and detained, their livelihood taken away from them, their persons insulted and their dignity as human beings taken away from them. In the course of the last fortnight I drew attention in this House to two cases that came within my own experience within the last few weeks. In one case, a family was living in one room, overridden by cockroaches, walked upon by rats, and threatened with vermin. The one object that these people had was to get a house. Under this Bill, instead of getting a house, they will be put in an asylum, or a prison, or a concentration camp, or an isolation camp. Is it any wonder that I say that the principles underlying this Bill insult the dignity of the human person and threaten individual liberty? This Bill, if it is to have any measure of success, ought to have been so framed and thought-out as to command the confidence of the public and to have behind it the strong force of public opinion. What public opinion will there be in a case of that kind?
Deputy Hughes said here this afternoon that you must start on the fundamental, that you must start by taking away the cause of disease, that you must cure unemployment, and that you must provide proper houses. You must give decent conditions of living, which will prevent, far more than any police methods, the cause or spreading of infectious diseases. You must see that people are properly paid, and that, from the money they earn with the sweat of their brow, they will be able to maintain their families in decent comfort which will enable them to withstand the attack of disease. That is the way that the problem of public health has to be attacked in this country. It is not by imprisoning or isolating people who happen, unfortunately, to be afflicted with tuberculosis or any other infectious disease, that you will either cure the illness or cut out the cancer in the public health of this country, or command the confidence of the people in a measure of this kind; it is not by doing what is being done in this Bill, or is threatened to be done in this Bill, by treating the unfortunate humans afflicted not merely as lepers, but as if they were chattels to be moved about at the whim or opinion of every Minister or medical doctor or civic guard, acting either on his own initiative or by the direction of an offical carrying out the dictates of the bureaucrats under this Bill.
Some of the provisions of this Bill are startling in themselves. The general principle supposed to be underlying the Bill is set out in paragraph 3 of the explanatory memorandum circulated with the measure. "The Bill", it is stated, "is intended to make the law conform more closely to modern ideas and practice as to procedure for the prevention and treatment of disease." In the course of the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary was there a single word showing on whose authority that statement was made, or what is the authority for saying that the provisions of the Bill, the monstrous provisions of the Bill, conform to modern ideas and practice as to procedure for the prevention and treatment of disease? Is it a pagan procedure and practice, or who is the authority behind it? It is easy for the Parliamentary Secretary to say in his explanatory memorandum that he is carrying out modern ideas and practice without saying whose ideas they are, where the practice emanates from, and on what it is based.
In Section 29 of the Bill provision is made for giving a permanent place on the statute law of this country to an Emergency Powers Order brought in by the Government in 1940. Under that Order, framed in an emergency period, very drastic powers were given, but it is proposed as part of the permanent statute law of this country that there should be a power of permanent imprisonment for any single individual, based upon the opinion of a medical doctor. I do not care who he is, I say that that particular provision is fraught with danger to the public interest. I make no allegation against individual medical doctors, but I do say that it would strike terror into my heart to know that my life and my livelihood and the life and livelihood of my children were dependent on the opinion of some medical doctor, whether it was professional or anything else. But the life and livelihood and all that is dear to a person—his personal liberty, his personal pride—is to be taken away without appeal to the courts, without appeal to anybody, on the opinion of a doctor. What is the justification for that?
Let me give Deputies an experience of my own that occurred in the last few months and let them pause before they vote for a provision of that kind. Deputies are aware that an epidemic of typhoid occurred in the last 18 months which was attributed to a restaurant car on a train. One unfortunate employee, a young lady who had become by her own skill and industry in attending technical schools a skilled cook, had the misfortune to catch the germ in the course of her employment on that particular train. She was certified as having recovered by the people who had been attending on her in the fever hospital and she came out, having been certified completely free from the disease and a non-carrier. She went out to earn her daily bread and she obtained a position. The medical officer of health went to her employer and said: "Sack that lady at once; dismiss her from her employment". She was dismissed there and then, and it is impossible for her to earn her living, although the fact was that at that time she had been certified by the people who had been attending on her in the fever hospital as being free from the disease and had been examined by the leading pathologist in this city subsequently and certified as not being a carrier.
Does the Deputy know that she could become a carrier again?
I have as wide a knowledge of matters connected with carriers of typhoid as any layman. I knew this much before the Parliamentary Secretary knew it, because it was only found out as a result of that case and the industry of the people who were defending the Great Northern Railway in that case, who found one man in this country, a man from the North, and who found it was possible to be an intermittent carrier without having it again. The Parliamentary Secretary's Department did not know it. She cannot become a carrier again. I challenge the Parliamentary Secretary to tell me as a matter of scientific knowledge or experience that she could become a carrier again. The Parliamentary Secretary will not be able to tell me—and if he does I will not believe him — that he has any grounds for his statement that she could become a carrier again.
What is the difference between an intermittent carrier and a person who becomes a carrier again?
The Parliamentary Secretary will not divert me from the task I am at.
No, but the Deputy is going to teach us on typhoid.
I will say, in answer to the Parliamentary Secretary, that neither he nor very many of his colleagues in this country can answer the question he has put to me. If the Parliamentary Secretary's statement to me is correct, then our fears are more than justified, because if a person with the mentality of the Parliamentary Secretary goes to examine an unfortunate person who has had the misfortune to have had typhoid and though every leading pathologist in this country says he is free from the disease and from being a carrier, then, possibly for political purposes, possibly for other reasons that may be found in the course of history, even medical history alone, he may be incarcerated and deprived of his position. And if he is deprived of his position, what is his family to do? It depends again upon the Minister's opinion. That may be carried out, in accordance with the provisions of this Bill, by force. Section 29 says:—
"(1) Where the chief medical officer of a county or county borough or the medical officer of a port sanitary authority, is of opinion, either consequent upon his own observations or consequent upon information furnished to him by a registered medical practitioner, that a person in the area for which such medical officer acts is a probable source of infection with an infectious disease and that his isolation is necessary or expedient in the interests of public health, such medical officer may order in writing the detention and isolation of such person in a specified hospital or other place until such medical officer gives a certificate (for which no charge shall be made) that such person is no longer a probable source of infection".
He may be arrested and confined for the rest of his life. Under another provision of the Bill, his organs may be taken out forcibly. It is no wonder some Deputy from Fianna Fáil Benches, Deputy Dr. Brennan, I think, welcomed the provisions of this Bill, as it will operate as a human dissecting-table for some medical doctors.
I think that would be rather a reflection on the Deputy professionally.
There is no question about the Deputy professionally. I want to underline and emphasise the dangers of this to Deputies before they cast their votes for this measure— which ought to be an agreed measure but it is not—a measure that has not been submitted to professional bodies representing the medical profession as a whole in this country. Is that a Christian proposal? I do not care whether, in the course of my duties, I reflect upon any particular profession or not, provided I do what I believe to be my public duty. That may cause great amusement to the Parliamentary Secretary. His reputation is well known and so is mine, and the public can choose between them. Are Deputies going to accept this particular provision, that a person who is afflicted by Providence with a disease may be put into the hands of particular individuals, isolated and imprisoned, possibly for the rest of his life, without appeal? Letters of cachet are not in it, compared with that particular provision.
Deputy Hughes referred to paragraph 11 of the Second Schedule:—
"The requiring of adult persons to submit themselves, or the parents of children to submit such children, to examinations by medical officers of health to find out whether such adult persons or children are probable sources of infection and the requiring of such adult persons or parents to afford to such officers all reasonable facilities for such examinations, including the permission to take blood or other specimens for bacteriological or protozoological examinations or tests."
There is no appeal from that. However great the crank, however outrageous the requirement may be, it must be complied with. Anybody who has even a superficial knowledge of the history of medical education will know the vital differences which have arisen between various schools of thought and various views in the medical profession in the course of the years. Ideas change and views differ. Pasteur was decried publicly. The very fact that there is a change in medical outlook appears in this Bill itself, as vaccination is being dropped —I do not know why. For many years, we were told it was absolutely essential to have compulsory vaccination. People were prosecuted and protests were made, notably from Wexford, in recent years. There are people in England who object to vaccination. Now it is being dropped here except in cases of grave emergency—when it cannot effectively be put into operation. The only time we are to have vaccination against smallpox is when the need arises, where the risk of smallpox is regarded as serious. Apparently, the Department has not heard what occurred in England during the war, in areas where the risk of smallpox was serious and where the whole strength of the available medical force was mobilised to deal with the risk. It was quite unavailing. That is an actual experience in England in the last few years.
As regards vaccination—against smallpox, presumably—we are to wait until there is an actual risk—and then there will not be vaccine, nurses or doctors sufficient to cope with the threat. In spite of the experience in England, we are not bothering about that, but we are dropping vaccination and adding on all sorts of other things instead. Apparently, the medical fashion has changed in the Department. We are going to have other sorts of vaccination, as that appears to be more fashionable now. In the meantime, the vaccination against smallpox is to be dropped, for no apparent reason, to be taken up again when it will be too late to save people from the risk of very serious infection, which occurs suddenly in the case of epidemics.
Section 19 contains another remarkable provision. It imposes on each individual citizen who knows that he is a probable source of infection the obligation to take the precautions specifically provided under this part of the Bill, that is to say, whatever precautions the Minister's regulations may set out to order. He is also to take every other reasonable precaution and, if he does not, he is guilty of an offence. Who is to prescribe what is every other reasonable precaution? In the course of my professional duties, I heard two doctors giving evidence as to how you would prevent the spread of the typhoid germ. There is a duty being imposed on people here to take "other reasonable precautions," without the Minister or his advisers saying what they are. I cross-examined one gentleman in the box myself and he gave evidence that you can prevent infection in a fever hospital merely by ordinary washing of hands—"social washing of hands" were the words my colleague used in the case. He said all you had to do was to wash them and you need not bother about anything else. His colleague from another hospital said, on the same case and on the same side, that every house should have a soapy water, clean towels every few minutes of the day, and the nail brush immersed permanently in a bath of lysol. You can have your choice of those two. They direct you to take every reasonable precaution without telling you what it is. You will have one doctor saying you ought to have done this, and another telling you it is all nonsense; one saying that you must wash your hands and another saying that you should go into the kitchen every day, provide the servant with ten or 12 towels each day, have soap available and a nail brush immersed in a bath of lysol.
There is another provision to which attention has been called. Under Section 21, parents are prohibited from sending their children to school or to Mass if they are suffering from, or are a probable source of infection with, an infectious disease. Under certain provisions that we find in this Bill, which ought to be a non-controversial Bill and which emanates from the Department without consultation with anybody, a person shall be deemed conclusively—you cannot get out of it, whether you know about it or not—to have reason to believe a child is a probable source of infection—and again the burden of proof is placed conclusively upon the people as in other sections.
If Deputies will look at Section 36 they will find that if one person gets an infectious disease from another, that person has a right of action, and there are circumstances set out in Section 36 from which one can draw the natural conclusion that the courts shall presume that such infection was the direct result of failure to take precautions. If a Deputy has a common cold, which is an infectious disease, and if he gets into a bus with that cold and another person gets into the bus beside him and that person gets his cold, there is an action against him and the presumption there, if you cannot rebut it, is that you are the probable source of infection.
Deputies will have to realise that this Bill affronts the human dignity and interferes with the liberty of the person. It ranges from permanent waves to cremation. I have been told recently by a medical gentleman that the practice of young ladies having permanent waves has led to nits and other little insects of that kind coming in ladies' hair, because they want to keep the waves so long that they will not wash it sufficiently often. A medical gentleman told me in all seriousness that that was his experience. The Parliamentary Secretary will take power under these regulations to stop ladies from having permanent waves.
In addition, he will see what bathing costumes they will wear. I wonder what official of his Department will be appointed as the arbiter of fashion of ladies' bathing costumes, and the extent of their bodies which they will be allowed to expose to the sun when sun-bathing. That is in the Bill. We have permanent waves, bathing costumes, sun-bathing, imprisonment, cremation, lice, vermin and everything else.
That is the Bill that is supposed to command public respect. It is a Bill that creates a multiplicity of offences. It is a Bill which cannot be enforced. It is a Bill which will be evaded largely by the public, and it is a Bill which will bring the law—this particular law —into contempt. The only way that a Bill of this kind could command respect would be if it commanded the confidence of the public and had public opinion behind it. With such provisions as those to which I have very briefly adverted in the time at my disposal, no person could have confidence, and there could be no public opinion behind a Bill of this kind. This Bill is doomed to failure. It could not be the climax, because there is no limit to the reach of bureaucracy, but it is the latest example of the attitude of the Government towards the problems of this country.
Instead of dealing with the fundamentals, providing decent food, proper wages, decent houses, employment for the people, giving them education in washing themselves, and providing them with baths and a proper water supply with which to wash themselves, teaching them that the simplest precautions will be far better than any number of prosecutions, you are bringing in a measure the cost of which to put into operation will be colossal. Such a Bill cannot command respect, and can do nothing else but bring the law into complete contempt.
In Part VI of the Bill on page 26, I have more than a passing interest. I am on the water wagon again. There does not seem to be much regard for rural life at all— it is all urban and city life. I do not object to that. I am one who has lived for 25 years in the city and I am rather interested in it. But it seems to be more for urban and city people. This Part of the Bill is most important and I must congratulate the Minister on it. I hope it will not be honoured more in the breach than in the observance. In Part VI there are nine sections and 41 sub-sections. It starts off with Section 47, but Section 48 gives the gist of the whole thing, because it deals with a provisional water supply Order. Section 48 (1) says:—
"Where any building in a sanitary district appears to the sanitary authority of that district not to be provided with a satisfactory supply of water for domestic purposes, the authority may, by Order, require such building to be connected, in a specified manner and within a specified time after the coming into force of the Order, with the public water supply or with an existing pipe which is itself connected with a public water supply."
I will not labour the point very much. I notice in Section 49 (2)—this section seems to be all "wheres" because there are about 12 "wheres" in it— that other interesting matters are dealt with. How many farmhouses in Ireland have the water more than half a mile away? The Suir runs in my native district in South Tipperary, and we have the best water supply in Ireland there. In the wireless Question Time recently the question was asked which county in Ireland has most counties surrounding it and the answer was Tipperary. There are seven counties surrounding it.
I have asked the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary, and will continue asking them questions, concerning one very important matter. There is a certain amount of sympathy for it on the part of the Government and the Parliamentary Secretary and they will have to admit it sooner or later. It was approved by 12 county councils in Ireland. I refer to the snow-ball resolution sent from Tipperary. I was the proposer of it. Several counties marked it "read" and a few did not reply. The resolution proposes that a national survey of the water tables of Ireland be made with a view to getting an adequate supply of pure water into every home in rural Ireland. Some things were mentioned here to-day and I do not want to be misunderstood. We are called the dirty Irish. We do not deserve it and many a fight has been made by Irishmen, in England particularly, where it emanated from. It has very often been said there—"the dirty Irish". It is a favourite expression there and, to the honour of our nation, it may be said that be he big or little, an Irishman will fight on his back against it whether he comes from Derry, Antrim, Cork, Tipperary or Wexford. "The dirty Irish"—we always resented it. Deputy Morrissey was, I think, misunderstood by another Deputy, and I did not like it either. We were called hewers of wood and drawers of water. We deserved it if we were the dirty Irish. We have not got water even to wash ourselves with, and, in my native county, the people have to go two miles for water. I move the adjournment of the debate.
Debate adjourned.
The Dáil adjourned at 9 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on friday, 14th December, 1945.