Deputy Vivion de Valera has given notice that he wishes to raise the subject matter of Question No. 23 asked yesterday.
Committee on Finance. - Adjournment Debate—Army Strength
Major de Valera
Apart from the question of the Minister's incivility yesterday when I raised this matter, I think I should have asked you to permit me to raise this for two reasons. One is the importance of reliability in ministerial statements and the second is the importance of maintaining the strength of the Defence Forces. It is hardly necessary to expand on the desirability of having some standard of accuracy and reliability from Ministers.
The Deputy must take the individual case, not the general question.
Major de Valera
This is merely introductory. One can understand mistakes, but in this event the matters which I am raising have happened too frequently to pass without comment. The second point is that the present situation is such that, in the opinion of many of us, we should devote some attention to building up the Defence Forces. That is by way of preliminary remark.
On the 28th February last, the Minister made a statement in respect of the Defence Forces. I do not want to go back over the Minister's mistake. I accept that it was a mistake. I have already commented that it was a surprising mistake. I want to point out that that mistake tended in the direction of representing that we had a stronger Defence Force than we had and that we were building it up. The questions were then prompted by a report appearing in the daily papers of June 30th, which reported the Taoiseach as saying at Mullingar:
"For the present financial year, the strength of the Army is over 12,000 men, costing almost £4,000,000."
It is patently clear that that statement, like the Minister's previous statement, is not true. The strength is very considerably below 12,000. Taking those statements in conjunction with the fact that in the Seanad the Minister slightly exaggerated the number of recruits which he got according to his later figures on one occasion, and slightly exaggerated here in the House the number of cadets he had on another occasion, I submit that this poses a serious question—is the Government trying to pretend or represent that the numbers in the Defence Force are growing, when in fact they are not? The Taoiseach went on to make a comparison with 1939. What was the factual position? It is true that the establishments in 1939 were 10,000, just as the establishments to-day are 12,000, but it is also true that when war broke out in 1939 the strength of the Regular Army was in the vicinity of 7,500 men, a very respectable percentage of 10,000, and that the strength of the Regular Army at the present moment is in the vicinity of 8,000, which is a much smaller percentage of the present establishment of 12,000. The suggestion in these statements is that we are in a better position than in 1939. Are we? In 1939 there were approximately, between Regular Army and Reserve, 20,000 First Line men available, of which approximately 19,000 were mobilised in 1939. On the present figures, as given by the Minister over the past few months, the First Line strength has remained generally in the neighbourhood of 14,000.
Consequently, our First Line strength is considerably below the 1939 figure. It is true that the F.C.A., the Second Line, is there and that was dealt with on another debate; but the strength of the Second Line, of the F.C.A., has also been falling. It is for these reasons that we have urged the Minister to devote some attention to trying to build up the numbers of the Defence Forces. It is for these reasons that we were very glad to see that, from December last up to March, the Minister was able to get over 1,000 recruits. I think it was a very good thing. The disappointing thing is that since March the strength has remained approximately static. If I wanted to be pernickety about numbers I could say there was a slight decrease. The fairer thing is to say that the position is static, that is to say, that when the recruiting drive stopped the strength remained as it was. In view of the statement by the Taoiseach on the date I have mentioned, it is well worth remarking that the strength of the Regular Army in December of last year was below— though not very much below—the strength of the Regular Army on mobilisation in 1939 and the First Line Reserve was very much below that figure. Those are the true facts and when publicity has been given to erroneous statements I think it only right that the true state of affairs should be told to the country.
The Deputy asked for information. He got that information. The question was not formed on general Government policy but on the numbers in the Army.
Major de Valera
The Taoiseach made a statement in which he represented that the strength was 12,000 now and that it was more than it was in 1939. My answer is that the strength is not 12,000 and that it is not very appreciably more than the strength in 1939. That is the net point, as far as that part of the picture is concerned.
The Minister, no doubt, will say that the Taoiseach was referring to establishment. I accept that, if it was. Unfortunately, the statement which appeared in the papers, that the strength was 12,000, was misleading and erroneous. One would imagine that in such a serious matter the impression would be corrected. The Government Information Bureau, which is being used so frequently to correct information when the Government so desires, might very well have elucidated this.
The Minister chose, of his own accord, when I mentioned this matter yesterday, to make a charge of sabotage. I think I am entitled to deal with that, too. The Minister accused some of us of sabotaging the Defence Forces. What is the truth? The truth is that, from the time the Minister came into office, we pressed him not to reduce the strength of the Defence Forces but to go on building it up. When he assumed office, admittedly the strength was below establishment but there was a recruiting drive on and every preparation was being made to continue it and build up to establishment. That the Minister stopped. We tried to dissuade him.
That I deny.
Major de Valera
If the Minister goes back over the speeches made at that time he will find that there were reasonably constructive arguments put up to him as to why he should not take that course. I do not know what the Minister is denying. The strength when the Minister took over was greater than it is to-day at the figure of 8,672, according to the Minister's own calculations. It was below establishment. There had been a recruiting drive. Another was in process of organisation. That was stopped by the Minister and the Minister said in debate on that occasion that he was going to aim, for his first year in office, at 8,500, slightly less than the figure at which he took over. That was his object, but he did not maintain it. He let it drop below that figure. The Minister has accused us of sabotaging the Army. I think it is a good job there were some people prepared to face the problem because, judging by what the Minister and his Party said before they came into office on the question of defence, the situation to-day might be very much worse than it is.
The Deputy might resume his seat. The Deputy put a question down yesterday and that question was answered. In a supplementary question, the Deputy referred to a statement made by the Taoiseach. I have doubts as to whether it is legitimate on the adjournment to combine the two. The Deputy may, of course, at any time raise the second point as a special matter on the adjournment. But matters of general Government policy are not to be raised and at the moment the Deputy is opening the whole question of the defence policy of the Government, which is far too wide.
Major de Valera
I bow to your ruling. Frankly, I would not have pursued that matter but, in answer to my supplementary question yesterday and references to fact, the Minister chose to indulge in his usual retort of "sabotage." If there is any accusation of sabotage in the matter, I merely wish to answer the Minister with the facts. I agree that the point in issue here is that erroneous, incorrect and untrue information has been given and the answers to the questions elicited information to prove that. I shall not go any further than draw attention to that matter. I do not know in how far, however, the figure given by the Minister yesterday is a subject for discussion. I think it is unsatisfactory that the strength should be at that figure.
The Deputy just asked for the figures and got them. To elicit further information on that is the purpose of the adjournment debate, not to discuss policy.
Major de Valera
I bow to your ruling, but I was wondering whether or not I could, in the course of my remarks on this figure, deal with the inadequacy of the position in regard to these figures.
That is quite a different matter. That is not to elicit any information. It is discussing policy.
Major de Valera
I bow to the Chair's ruling.
The Deputy knows the meaning of policy.
The Deputy will get a crick in his neck after a bit.
Major de Valera
The facts are as stated. There is another statement of the Taoiseach's to which I am entitled to refer as it arose on the supplementaries and I gave notice that I wished to deal with the supplementaries as well. The Taoiseach made a reference to the comparative position in 1939. The people who were in charge at that time are only too ready to-day to acknowledge the lessons that were learned at that time. We are only too ready to admit the actual inadequacy of the then position, but we got by on it. The point is that we are now dealing with this particular year and this particular moment. We have to face the problem as we find it. The inadequacy, or otherwise, of our Defence Forces is a serious matter. As I have said, I can understand that the Taoiseach misread establishment for strength; but the Taoiseach is in a very responsible position and should not misread one thing for something else when he is making a public pronouncement for the scrutiny of the entire country. He should have been properly informed just as the Minister should have been properly informed on a prior occasion.
Going back over the period of these errors, one notices that they have all been in the one direction. I think that is a dangerous thing. The Chair has ruled that I am precluded from discussing policy. We shall do that on another occasion. All we ask now is that the Minister should give prudent attention to these matters and do what can be done. Misleading the public, whether accidentally or otherwise, does not help.
Having listened to that little lecture from the Deputy, both to the Taoiseach and myself, perhaps it will be permissible for me to deal in the first place with the ordinary normal parliamentary courtesies, which the Deputy does not seem either to appreciate or understand. Any time the Deputy wants to get absolute accuracy in figures, he is quite long enough in the House to know that the way to get absolute accuracy in figures is to put down a specific question and get a specific reply. The figure used in replying to a supplementary question or in debate is generally a figure that springs from a man's recollection. As everybody knows, the strength of an army based on short time at a station and voluntary recruiting does, of course, vary from day to day and month to month, upwards and downwards. Any Minister replying from recollection will give some recent return he has seen.
With regard to recruiting figures being higher on one date than on another, the system in the Army is that so many men go in through the barrack gate and are accepted. These are recruits taken on to the Army strength that night. There is then what is called an auditing of those recruits and, as a result of that auditing, subsequent examination and subsequent reports, the numbers drop; so many go out again. That is the explanation of the two figures given for recruiting. In this House or outside it, no one who claims to be an honest man is entitled to have two heads on the penny he proposes to toss. The Deputy seems to take unto himself the unique right to toss this two-headed penny. It is criminal and of the utmost gravity if the Taoiseach happens to quote the established strength of the Army, the approved established strength as the strength.
It is an error that no man in a responsible position should be guilty of making and repeating; but when the Leader of the Deputy's own Party in a reference to the year 1948-49 uses and repeatedly uses the establishment strength of that Army and repeats it as late as Sunday-week, it is no crime and it is no mistake for a man in a responsible position. Every year for three years in the Estimates debate here, the Leader of the Deputy's Party, the ex-Minister for Defence and the ex-Minister for Finance, have claimed they left to me an Army of 12,500 men.
Major de Valera
Oh, they have not.
In Ennis on Sunday or Saturday week the ex-Taoiseach made use of the same expression, that the minimum Army which they stood for was 12,500 men.
Major de Valera
Will the Minister please give the extract? The statement was that "we regarded as the minimum 12,000 men."
Well, "We regarded as the minimum an Army of 12,500 men." The Deputy told us a few moments ago that, in 1948, they had an establishment of 12,500 which they aimed at filling.
Major de Valera
Yes.
But, in their Book of Estimates presented to the Dáil in 1948, was a demand for money to pay so many men, and they reduced in their Book of Estimates the demand by a quarter, so actually, far from aiming at 12,500 you aimed at that less 25 per cent.
Major de Valera
The difference was we aimed at an increase for the existing figure and you aimed at a decrease.
Now we are getting the quibbling. I did not interrupt the Deputy. The establishment was that your 12,000 odd was to cost £3,000,000. In the next page of the Book of Estimates there is the figure "deduct 25 per cent"; that leaves three quarters or 8,000 odd, and that is the army that you asked the Dáil to pay for in 1948-49.
The Book of Estimates this year is made out in exactly the same way. The establishment is 12,000 odd and on the next page "deduct by 25 per cent." I come to the Dáil and I say honestly that that is what I am looking for—only 8,000 and not for the 12,000 odd. The position is exactly the same except that I am honest enough to tell the public in simple language the number of soldiers I am asking the public to pay for.
Major de Valera
And you are asking for 8,000. Is that the position?
The Deputy can work his pencil as well as his tongue.
Major de Valera
The Taoiseach said the strength is over 12,000.
For the year, just as the Leader of the Deputy's Party claims that the strength for 1948 was 12,500. Each of them was referring to the established strength.
Major de Valera
He did not claim that; he said the target was that.
One was corrected half a dozen times and I accepted the correction but repeated the mistake. The other was only corrected once, and I take it will not repeat the mistake.
The other thing the Deputy referred to was that recruiting, and when the Deputy's Leader said that here in the House and when I told him that I had never stopped recruiting, he accepted that, and said he was very pleased to hear it, but he repeated that charge in Ennis.
Major de Valera
I say that the recruiting drive was stopped.
The Deputy is merely a small boy playing a part in a big campaign, and that campaign is to discredit this Army in the eyes of people at home and abroad. He gets quite hot under the collar if anybody might think that the Army is slightly larger than it is, or that it might enjoy a little bit of increased prestige if people for a second believed that it was larger than it is. He must tear that little bit of prestige from it and he must minimise it. He must tell people not only at home but abroad, and keep repeating, that we are unprepared, that we are defenceless and that we are not preparing for our job, and he claims that that is in the national interest.
I am standing for the same Army that my predecessor stood for, and I am standing for it more honestly than my predecessor did because I am prepared to say what strength in men I am looking for and I am not sheltering behind the intricacies of a paper establishment. A paper establishment is not a defence force. Even men in uniform do not constitute an army, but if the things inside the uniform are trained and, in addition, equipped then you have an army. In my time there is not going to be a sham army either inside or outside barracks.
The Deputy says that the strength of the F.C.A. was reduced. It was not reduced, but it was watered down to effectives, so that we would know our real strength any time if taking the field. I could claim that the strength of the F.C.A. on paper is greater than it was three years ago, whereas the figure that was there was for lobbying around three years ago, a figure in the neighbourhood of 48,000. I got the officers of the General Staff, Sunday after Sunday, for two years to go out and find out how many of those in fact were effectives, and to write off so many every week of ineffectives so as to get the real strength and so as to have a real force and not a paper force. If it is a crime to be honest I plead guilty; if it is a crime to make a defence force a reality, I plead guilty, and I have no apologies to offer to those who are not only trying to humbug the Dáil but to humbug the electorate outside.
The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 11th July, 1950.