The people of the country and the representatives of the people were very grateful to the men who had been in the R.I.C. prior to 1916 and who, when the revolution started, resigned their posts in thatBritish organisation and helped the people to get rid of foreign occupation in this part of the country. Round 1919 an appeal was made to them by the Dáil or the Sinn Féin organisation to throw off their uniforms and to go out and join the forces of the country fighting for freedom at that time. In 1922 a committee was set up consisting of three men who were sympathetic to any of the applicants who could prove to their satisfaction that they had resigned from political motives or motives of sympathy with the national cause. They were also sympathetic, of course, to such members of the R.I.C. as were dismissed by the British Government because they displayed sympathy with the national cause. The first committee, the committee of 1922, which went into this matter had before them in all 1,136 applications and they recommended awards to 631 of these applicants. Their terms of reference were to go into all these applications and make a recommendation to the Minister for Finance of the time. The recommendations they made were accepted by the Minister and pensions were granted.
In 1934 another committee was set up to review the cases of those who had been turned down by the 1922 committee. Again that committee was manned by people who were sympathetic to any member of the R.I.C. who had resigned or who was dismissed for political reasons. They examined each case very thoroughly. They had before them 330 applications. The original committee had 1,136 and they recommended awards to 631. About half of those who had been turned down in 1922 appealed to the 1934 committee. Going into these 330 cases, the 1934 committee found that 115 were outside their terms of reference—I shall explain that term shortly—and they gave awards to an extra 50. So we have the situation that of all the members of the R.I.C. who had resigned during the Black and Tan War or who were dismissed and who came before the committees about half of them had their applications accepted and got pensions.
In 1934 the present Minister forFinance was Minister for Finance also, and he included in the terms of reference to the committee a direction that no claim should be entertained in respect of any ex-member of the R.I.C. who had completed less than three years' service before his resignation or dismissal. Now, we can see the reason for that; Deputy Allen alluded to it. When the 1916 revolution occurred, most of the people of the country revolted against the action the British Government took to suppress that revolution and to punish the leaders, and it was felt that if a man joined the R.I.C. after 1916 it would be very hard to prove that his resignation within a few years was due to political motives. That was the reason for imposing a limit of three years. The 1934 committee when presenting their report to the Minister for Finance said:—
"In a case where an applicant has joined the Constabulary after Easter Week, 1916 and had little more than the minimum three years' service, the committee required the clearest evidence of the applicant's national sympathy before deciding to report favourably."
The fact is that no Minister for Finance has been prepared over all these years to issue the necessary certificate for the grant of a pension to men who served in the constabulary for less than three years. Deputy Allen pointed out that there are large numbers of people all over the country, indeed the majority in one way or another, who gave service to the cause at that time. Very few of them gave service of the nature required to qualify for a pension under the Military Service Pensions Act.
In 1946 or thereabouts the present Minister for Defence introduced legislation to secure that men who had given service in the Volunteers of a type that did not qualify for an active service medal, even though they had not the active service required for a pension, would be taken care of if they fell ill if they could prove that they had such service. No one can say that was ungenerous. Indeed, I do not know of any country after a revolution or a war which has made such provisionfor those who fought in the revolution or in the war, or who served without having been on active service, as this country has.
Over the years, we have paid many millions of pounds. Governments always find it hard to get money. They incur certain opposition when they propose taxation, but no Government here has refused to take the responsibility of proposing the taxes necessary to provide for the military service pensions, or the special provision made for the members who fall ill and who are unable to work, or for those members of the R.I.C. who proved their case either to the committee in 1922 or to the committee in 1934.
It is not because of the money involved that any Government refused to grant those pensions. All the Governments were anxious to make provision for those members of the R.I.C. who were able to convince either of these committees that they had a case. The Governments were sympathetic to the applicants and were prepared to make the money available.
Deputy Cowan stated that we are inclined as the years go on to put a very favourable construction on the services rendered in those days. That is true. But we cannot allow our sympathy for the case of any individual at the moment to draw us back to reopening and rehearing the cases 30 years after the events, when evidence is becoming difficult to collect and when recollections of the events of these times are getting somewhat dim in the memory of any possible witnesses.
The committee in 1922 held their sessions, made their inquiries and examined the witnesses within a few years after the applicants had resigned or been dismissed. They were in a position at that time to collect evidence from people who could be depended upon reasonably to remember the events of those days. It would be very difficult at the present time, even if we were convinced that there was some merit in Deputy Cowan's proposition, to get reliable evidence. I agree with what Deputy Cowan said, that very valuable service was rendered by anumber of the men who were in the R.I.C. in those days and who resigned or were dismissed and that has been recognised by the State in the provisions made for the pensioners who proved their cases.
Deputy Cowan's motion asks that legislation be introduced to deal with this matter. He requests the Government to consider the introduction of proposals for legislation to enable pensions to be paid to all these applicants. The fact is that, if the matter were to be reopened, no legislation would be necessary.
Legislation was passed in 1923 which enabled the Minister for Finance in 1934 to review these cases. All these applications were dealt with both in 1923 and again in 1934 under Section 5, sub-section (1), of the Superannuation and Pensions Act, 1923, and that subsection reads as follows:—
"The Minister for Finance may from time to time by Order authorise the grant of pensions, allowances or gratuities to persons who resigned or were dismissed from the R.I.C. on or after the 1st day of April, 1916, and before the 6th day of December, 1921, and whose resignations or dismissals from that force are certified under the hands of the Ministers for Home Affairs and Finance to have been caused by their national sympathies, and may by any such Order regulate and appoint the rates and scales of such pensions, allowances, or gratuities, and the conditions under which the same are to be payable, and may by any such Order prescribe the penalties for any fraudulent conduct in relation to an application for any such pension, allowance, or gratuity."
The Orders that have been made under that section from time to time do not specify any minimum period of service for a pension. The refusal of pensions has been the result of Ministerial policy. I have pointed out that the two committees of inquiry, one appointed in 1922 and the other in 1934, were asked to report favourably in cases in which they considered the resignations and dismissals were caused by the national sympathies ofthe resigned or dismissed men. There were no instructions issued to the committee in 1922 that any differentiation should be made in their report based on the length of service of the applicants, but when their report came to the Department of Finance at that time it was decided that no pension would be awarded to a former member of the R.I.C. who resigned between 1919 and 1921, the years of the Black and Tan war, whose service amounted to less than four years, and no former members, with less than three and a half years' service, were granted a pension.
The differentiation that was made by the Minister at that time was made on the basis of the discretion which was allowed to him under the Act, and he was not obliged to grant a pension in any case, but he did take a decision to grant a pension where a favourable report was made and the applicant had more than four years' service in the R.I.C. Four years, of course, would have meant that the applicant concerned had joined before 1916 and before the revolution at that time started.
When it came to 1934, when there was a great deal of agitation to review these cases, the Minister for Finance of that time appointed another sympathetic committee to go into the matter, but he did give them as terms of reference that they were not to consider the case of any man who had less than three years' service in the R.I.C. It was, as a result of that direction to the committee, that they turned down as being outside their terms of reference 115 of the 330 applicants, but they did grant awards to a further 50 applicants. When one takes into account the circumstances of the time in which these men resigned and when one takes into consideration that the group of which this motion speaks joined tht R.I.C. after 1916, I think no one can say that either of the committees approached their work other than with sympathy or that they had any bias against the applicants who had asked to have their cases looked into. Indeed, I think that in all the circumstances any person from outside who examines this matter willsay that the members of both these committees must have been extremely sympathetic when they granted pensions to more than half the applicants.
Deputy Cowan seems to be basing the case in this particular motion on a wrong assumption, and that is that legislation would be required in order to review these pensions. Legislation would not be required. I do not think that any Minister for Finance could be more sympathetic than the present Minister for Finance, and in what he would regard as legitimate cases I do not think that any Minister for Finance would be more generous in a directive to a new committee, if it were set up, than the present Minister for Finance was in his terms of reference to the committee in 1934 when he reduced the standards and the period of service from four years, as it had been under the committee of 1922, to three years.
Indeed, I doubt if we went to the rounds of appointing another committee 30 years after the event and nearly 20 years after the appointment of the committee that reviewed the cases in 1934—if we picked at random, from all sides of the House, a committee of three or six or any other number—that their report would be in any way different from the reports of the two committees that reviewed the cases in 1922 and 1934. I think that Deputy Cowan introduced this motion because he thought that legislation would be necessary. It would not be necessary.
I think it would we unwise for the Dáil, if another motion were put down, a motion asking the Minister for Finance to set up a new committee, to vote for such a motion. The present motion, in any event, is unnecessary. If a motion to set up a new committee were before the Dáil, I feel that most members would feel like myself about it, and that is that there must be finality to these reviews at some time or another, and that we here, so long after the event, are not in a position to deal any more generously or to give any more favourable consideration to these cases than that which was given to them by the two committees in 1922 and 1934.