Committee on Finance. - Adjournment Debate—British Nationality Bill. – Dáil Éireann (13th Dáil) – Wednesday, 30 Jun 1948

Mr. Lemass

I gave notice to raise this question of the British Nationality Bill on the Adjournment because I object to the atmosphere of secrecy and mystery with which the Minister for External Affairs is endeavouring to surround it. I think that all that secrecy is entirely unnecessary and bad national policy. The issues which arise out of the British Nationality Bill are of a character which arouse deep-felt feelings amongst our people, feelings which, I think, transcend the boundaries of Party organisations. Our viewpoint on these matters cannot be expressed by merely legal arguments and diplomatic representations, but by demonstrations of Irish public opinion. The Minister, in reply to my question, said that he did not wish to make a statement on the Bill while it was before the British Parliament. I am completely unable to understand that viewpoint. If the Minister is to make a statement at any time, surely it is while the Bill is in process of enactment he should make it and not wait until the Bill, with all its objectionable features, has passed into British law.

The issue of this Bill entered into a new phase when the details of the Bill were published on February 18th. Deputies will remember that date. The Fianna Fáil Government vacated office and the present Coalition Government came into office. Whatever might have been said in favour of keeping private the discussions and representations which were proceeding between the two Governments concerning the Bill before that date, before the publication of the Bill—and something could be said for it, because it might be thought that by following that line the Irish viewpoint on it would have better prospects of being accepted and the Bill when it was produced would not be objectionable—subsequent to that date, when the details of the Bill were published, it became the right of any individual to say what he wished about it and neither I nor any other individual will be prevented from saying what we think by any childish threats which the Minister for External Affairs made this afternoon. It is not merely our right as citizens, but it is our duty as members of the Opposition, to see that the Government is kept on the right road regarding it. It is our duty as members of the Dáil to ensure that by no blunder, by no act or omission of theirs will they fail to protect the national interests. The Minister's attitude here this evening, with his obvious resentment of discussion on the matter, of criticism or of any reference to it in the newspapers, only tends to create in our minds a suspicion that he has not been as active as he should have been, that he has allowed the position to be lost by his default. I do not know if the Minister resents being urged to do his duty, but whether he resents it or not, I want to tell him that the Deputies on this side of the House will keep stepping on his heels to see that he moves when he should.

Minister for External Affairs (Mr. MacBride)

How has the Minister been in default? Will the Deputy explain?

Mr. Lemass

I will speak in my own way and I will deal with the points in whatever order I choose. I do not want to be interrupted by the Minister. I have 20 minutes to speak and I want to speak for those 20 minutes. The knowledge which we have as former members of the Government of events relating to this Bill is confined to the period which preceded its introduction in the British Parliament on the 18th February. From that date we have no knowledge of anything concerning it except from what we have seen in the newspapers.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Morrissey)

I doubt it.

Mr. Lemass

I do not care what Deputies doubt.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Will the Deputy say who wrote the article in the Irish Press?

Mr. Lemass

Will the Deputy sit down? This matter came to a head at the end of 1946 when the British Government made known its intention of introducing legislation to amend the British Nationality Act of 1914 and it was proposed that a conference should be held on the matter. It is public knowledge that Irish delegates attended that conference. It is public knowledge that their views were conveyed to the British Government through one channel or another. It is also public knowledge that the Minister for External Affairs as an Opposition Deputy in the previous Dáil asked Dáil questions concerning the matter and got replies about it. There was no difficulty on anybody's part in understanding that this matter was a live issue in discussions between the two Governments leading up, as it obviously did, to the introduction of proposals for legislation in the British Parliament. The Minister said to-day:—

"I think it is a completely wrong practice that confidential documents on diplomatic matters should be referred to in newspaper articles."

I questioned the Minister as to what confidential documents he referred to and he told me that he referred to the aide memoire and said that the writer of that article could not have made that statement regarding the aide memoire unless he had access to private and secret information. If the Minister for External Affairs had read the article in the Irish Press with a little more care, he would be something the wiser. This article in the Irish Press contains the following paragraph: “On 1st June, he”—that is, Deputy Lemass—“asked the Minister for External Affairs what steps had been taken by the present Government to ensure that the objectionable features of the Bill as indicated in Mr. de Valera's aide memoire to the British Government would be removed.”

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What is the date of the article?

Mr. Lemass

30th June. "The answer was a request to repeat the question at a later date." There was a reference in that question to the existence of the aide memoire. There was certainly no objection on behalf of the Minister then to the reference in the question to the aide memoire. Nothing appeared in that article in the Irish Press which was not available to any person who read the newspapers. In the course of the debate in the British House of Lords on the Committee Stage of this Bill a communication from the Irish Government—the Fianna Fáil Government—was read by the British Government spokesman. The article in the Irish Press stated that the aide memoire had not been published and it did not purport to quote from any document, confidential or otherwise.

Mr. C. Lehane

Will Deputy Lemass answer one question?

Mr. Lemass

When the Minister for External Affairs goes to the Attorney-General with his childish and nonsensical threat, I hope that the Attorney-General will have something better to do than to listen to him.

Mr. C. Lehane

Is the author of that article an ex-Attorney-General?

Mr. Lemass

What does that matter? I say that that article could have been written by anybody who read the newspapers. There was no use of any-confidential information. The statement made by the Minister that the knowledge that the aide memoire existed was secret and confidential information is not true. In this House reference was made to the aide memoire and in the House of Lords reference was made to it.

Mr. C. Lehane

Does it quote the ipsissima verba?

Mr. Lemass

It does not. Does the Minister expect that ex-Ministers are going to forget what happened when they were in office and make no reference to it even when he uses their silence for the purpose of misrepresenting their actions in the past? To-day, the Minister took full advantage of the fact that we have been meticulous in observance of our duties as former Ministers in the use of confidential information to try to score a mean political point, to misrepresent our position. He said that there was an amendment carried in the House of Lords. He said, I am quoting from the Official Debates, that these provisions were amended in the House of Lords on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor and as a result of representations made, not before the 18th February, but since. Will the Minister stand over that? Has he read the aide memoire? Is he trying to suggest that there was nothing done in the aide memoire or on many other occasions to convey to the British the strongest possible representations concerning that Clause 3 of the British Nationality Bill? Will he publish the aide memoire now to see which of us is telling the truth? I say the Minister made a false statement and he made that false statement hoping to get away with it in the knowledge that we would not quote confidential official documents to prove him wrong. I say, in consequence of the Minister's assertion, that in the aide memoire the most emphatic representations were made and strong objections expressed to that particular clause of the British Nationality Bill. I say that similar representations were made on other occasions, verbally and in writing, to the British Government concerning that clause in the Bill before the 18th February; that the statement made by the Minister this afternoon is untrue, and I challenge him to put that issue to the test by publishing the aide memoire now. Its publication can do no harm now.

Mr. C. Lehane

Why the mystery about the identity of the author of the article?

Mr. Lemass

I am trying to find out the mystery behind the attitude of your colleague, the Minister for External Affairs. I repeat that I and my colleagues, who were members of the former Government, have been most careful not to use any confidential information which we have in a manner which would do national damage. There is no recognised code of practice in the matter; there is no law; there is no precedent. We have established our own code. We are certainly not going to be put in the position of listening to our actions being misrepresented and falsehoods being disseminated without taking measures to correct them.

The attitude of our people to this British Nationality Bill need not be a secret. It is not necessary to keep it secret. Any member of this Dáil, any man in the street, could have prepared the aide memoire that went to the British Government. He would at least have used the very same arguments against the objectionable provisions of the Bill, because it is a matter upon which there is no difference of opinion amongst us. Our objection to that Bill was threefold. As stated in the article, first of all, we objected to any citizens of this nation resident in any part of the national territory, in the Six Counties or the Twenty-Six Counties, being denied the legal right to describe themselves as Irish citizens and being compelled to give any allegiance other than to this country. We objected to the provisions of the Bill as it was introduced which provided that Irish citizens can become —the term in the Bill is “can remain”—British subjects by merely expressing the wish to or claiming to remain British subjects. That particular provision of the Bill was amended in the House of Lords. It was amended by the Opposition to the present British Government in a manner which makes it much more objectionable, because it is no longer necessary for an Irish citizen to go through the formality of making a claim before being described as a British subject under this British measure.

Captain Cowan

A subject of his Majesty.

Mr. Lemass

As I said, in the debate on that particular section of the Bill the representations and the written communications sent by the previous Government to the British Government were quoted by British spokesmen. We objected to Section 3 of the Bill, the section which proposed to bind Irish citizens everywhere by the law at that time in force in Great Britain. We regarded that as a flagrant infringement of our sovereignty. That section was amended. May I say that no reference to any amendment of that section appeared in the very full report of the debates on the Bill in Committee and on Report in the House of Lords? I have, however, seen the official report of the debate in the House of Lords and the amendment which was inserted to the section.

I want to know from the Minister does he accept that amendment as adequately meeting the Irish objections to the section as introduced. It is true that it no longer makes Irish citizens liable to penalties under British law for offences committed in Ireland or outside Great Britain. It does make them when in England legally subject to British law. If the Bill as now framed containing the British Government amendment had been law during the recent war, Irish citizens in Great Britain would have been liable to conscription in the British military forces. They are now liable to be called upon to give service under the British National Service Act. An Irish citizen going to Great Britain to visit a sick brother could, as the law now stands, be called on under British law to give service in the British forces or in any other way in which British law requires service from a British subject. Has the Minister accepted that amendment as meeting the objections to Clause 3 of the Bill and, if not, what does he propose to do about it? I know what the Minister, if he had been an Opposition Deputy, would have said about that section if this Bill had been presented to the British Parliament with or without this amendment when there was a Fianna Fáil Government in office. It is in relation to that particular section that he implied that no representations were made to the British Government before February 18th. I mark that as a plain falsehood.

Mr. MacBride

I never said that no representations had been made before 18th February.

Mr. Lemass

What the Minister stated was that these provisions were amended in the House of Lords on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor and as a result of representations made, not before the 18th February but since.

Mr. MacBride

I stand over that.

Mr. Lemass

The Minister can stand over that, but I say that in doing so he is standing over a falsehood. That statement is in every particular untrue, and I challenge him to put it to the test in every particular by publishing the aide memoire.

Mr. MacBride

Will the Deputy apologise for calling me a liar if I prove him to be wrong?

Mr. Lemass

I will apologise if the Minister can produce the aide memoire without reference to that clause in it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Lemass did not call the Minister a liar. The Chair was particularly careful to see that he did not. He described the statement as a falsehood. If he had followed that up in a certain fashion, I would have asked him to withdraw.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

On a point of order. I beg to call the attention of the Chair——

Mr. Lemass

I want to say——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Lemass must give way on a point of order.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I suggest to the Chair that in an earlier statement Deputy Lemass referred to it as a falsehood knowingly made.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

No. I was careful to see that Deputy Lemass did not qualify the word "falsehood". The Chair would not allow any Deputy to say that another Deputy, Minister or otherwise, had uttered a deliberate falsehood.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I accept that. I may have misheard the Deputy.

Mr. Lemass

I have said before and I repeat now that if the Minister intended by these words to convey to the House that representations were not made to the British Government before February 18th concerning the objectionable provisions of Clause 3 of the British Nationality Bill that statement is false. There is an easy way of putting that matter to the test. The article in the Irish Press, with the one exception of the reference to an amendment in Clause 3 concerning which nobody could have got information from the newspapers, was accurate and reliable in every possible respect. The Minister's statement that the article contained a number of inaccurate and misleading statements was equally wrong.

Mr. C. Lehane

Tell us who wrote it.

Mr. MacBride

Before dealing with the various irresponsible charges made by the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition I should like to state in one or two sentences what the attitude of this Government is in relation to the British Nationality Bill and any amendments that have been introduced to it, lest anything that Deputy Lemass said might mislead those on the other side of the water who are dealing with this Bill. This Government does not accept this Bill as a satisfactory Bill nor does this Government accept the amendment to Section 3 as a satisfactory amendment. It is merely an improvement on the position that has existed, because, I do not know whether Deputies of this House are aware of it, until now under British law each and every single citizen of this country was looked upon as a British subject.

Captain Cowan

There is no doubt about it.

Mr. MacBride

That had never been challenged by the last Government until this Bill came up.

Mr. Lemass

It was.

Deputies

Order. Order.

Mr. Morrissey

Keep cool.

Mr. MacBride

The matter came up for discussion in December, 1946, for the first time.

Mr. de Valera

The matter was challenged when our Nationality Bill was going through. Tell the truth.

Mr. MacBride

Let me pass from that to the charges made by Deputy Lemass. As regards the amendments to Section 3 of the Bill that were introduced, representations were made by the last Government. These representations were rejected on the 6th February last and, as pointed out by the Irish Press, the Bill was introduced with Section 3 unamended on the 18th February last. I took the matter up on behalf of the Government and, as a result of the representations I made to the British Government, an amendment was introduced which was an improvement on the position that existed—an improvement which, apparently, the last Government had failed to obtain. I never said that the last Government had not made representations. They had written an aide memoire and they had left it at that.

With regard to a more serious matter, because I think it affects fundamentally the privileges of members of this House and members of a Government not merely in this country but in any country, I say with the utmost deliberation and with a full sense of responsibility that whoever wrote the article that I referred to in the Irish Press to-day had at his elbow, at the time of writing that article, a secret official document from which he quoted. Portions of that article are, comma for comma, taken from a confidential memorandum handed to the British Government. The only four sources from which that secret diplomatic memorandum can have been obtained are (1) from the Leader of the Opposition who was Minister for External Affairs when it was written; (2) from the ex-Attorney-General who was consulted and who drafted portions of it; (3) from the British Diplomatic Representative in Dublin or (4) from some dishonest official of my Department. I now ask the Leader of the Opposition whether he abstracted a copy of that memorandum when he left office.

Mr. MacEntee

Which he drafted.

Mr. de Valera

Is it suggested that ex-members are not entitled to keep Cabinet papers?

Deputies

Oh.

Mr. de Valera

I am standing over that.

Deputies

Oh.

Mr. de Valera

There is no question about it. I want to know what circumstances——

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Morrissey)

Now we know where the Irish Press is getting its information.

Mr. MacBride

May I teach Deputy de Valera the law he should have known when in office? Under the Official Secrets Acts to which he had recourse on a number of occasions it is a criminal offence for any Minister or any official to make use of information that they obtained in the course of their duties.

Mr. de Valera

Nonsense.

Mr. MacEntee

Sheer Nonsense.

Mr. MacBride

Let me quote:—

"Any person is guilty of a misdemeanour, punishable by imprisonment, or fine, or both, who having in his possession or control any article, note, document, secret code word, sketch (including photograph), plan, model or information which he has obtained, or to which he has access, owing to his official position communicates the same to any person other than a person to whom he is authorised or it is his duty to communicate it, or retains it when he has no right to retain it...."

Does Deputy de Valera claim in this House that he is entitled to abstract official State documents and retain them and make whatever use he wishes to make of them?

Mr. de Valera

I do not, but I say that I am entitled to keep the documents which were circulated to me as a Cabinet Minister, and that that is the practice. I am not entitled to publish them or to use them as such——

Mr. MacBride

"As such."

Mr. de Valera

Let us have a debate on it.

Mr. Morrissey

Let the Minister finish. That is your old game.

Mr. MacBride

Having carefully compared the memorandum with the article written in the Irish Press, that article written in the Irish Press quotes word for word sections of that memorandum. I now challenge Deputy de Valera to say whether, as one of the directors of the Irish Press and as ex-Minister for External Affairs, he abstracted that document and made it available to his newspaper.

Mr. de Valera

I did not.

Mr. MacBride

Does he deny that? Very well, I accept Deputy de Valera's denial. If he says he did not do it, I accept his word.

Mr. de Valera

There is a big question——

Mr. MacBride

I turn next and I challenge Deputy Lemass to deny that that article was written by the ex-Attorney-General, Mr. Carroll O'Daly, and that he had at his elbow when writing it a secret confidential document.

Mr. de Valera

Is a person who writes a document——

Deputies

Oh!

Mr. MacBride

Is the Deputy rising on a point of order?

Mr. de Valera

I am rising——

Deputies

Let the Minister finish.

Mr. de Valera

Let us have a full discussion on the matter.

Mr. MacEntee

Publish the document.

Captain Cowan

Leave it to the Military Court.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 30 Jun 1948