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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 8 Nov 1956

Vol. 160 No. 6

Committee on Finance. - Greyhound Industry Bill, 1955—Committee Stage (Resumed).

Debate resumed on amendment No. 38:—
Schedule:—
In article 12, page 32, paragraph (iii), line 34, before "A" to insert the following:—
", together with detailed accounts and balance sheets in respect of each undertaking carried on by the Club or on its behalf."—Deputy Briscoe.

When the Dáil adjourned on the last occasion, we were discussing amendment No. 38, and Deputy Briscoe was urging that the amendment should be accepted at least in principle by the Minister for Agriculture. I trust that Deputy Briscoe was not unduly optimistic in that regard. Indeed, I do not see how this amendment can be rejected in principle, since it seeks to give effect to the principle contained in paragraph 125——

To shorten the debate—if you want this, we can have it done on Report.

Thank you very much.

Would you care to put down your amendment again or would you prefer me to bring in another amendment?

It might be better for the Minister to put down an amendment.

Will you withdraw this and put down your amendment again in case you do not like my amendment? It is only for your convenience. I shall put something down but I am afraid it may not please you. Therefore, I am suggesting that you should withdraw this amendment and put it down again so that you will have your amendment to stand on, if mine does not meet you fully.

It would be quite a different matter if the Minister would be good enough to say that he was accepting this amendment and that so far as there may be any fault in the draftsmanship, arising from the fact that it was drafted by amateurs, he would put down an amendment on Report Stage——

The Deputy was in this business long enough and did he ever accept an amendment that the Parliamentary Draftsman did not find some fault with? All I am saying is that I am accepting that amendment, but I do not want to put it in now for fear the Parliamentary Draftsman would say: "Now I shall have to amend the whole thing." I want to get an amendment to give effect to what is proposed in Deputy Briscoe's amendment.

I fully appreciate the Minister's desire to meet our point of view. I think he is being quite reasonable, but the Minister will understand that there is a point of parliamentary procedure which puts us in rather a difficulty.

What is it?

There could be a great deal of argument upon the merits of the particular form of the amendment——

That is why I want you to put yours down again, for fear mine may not please you.

I should hate to be so pessimistic as to assume in advance that the Minister's amendment would not please us. The point I am going to make is that, in general, I think the proper procedure is—and I believe it has been the almost invariable procedure—when a Minister indicates that he is prepared to accept the principle of an amendment and to bring in an amendment on Report Stage, the Minister puts down the amendment and gives the Opposition or whoever is concerned—it is not necessarily a member of the Opposition—an opportunity of saying whether the Minister's proposal—which presumably will be acceptable to the Minister—will also be acceptable to the Deputy interested.

Certainly.

It would facilitate us if the Minister would bring in his amendment first——

Certainly.

——because our amendment will be down in this form and the Minister has some qualms as to whether, in this form, it can properly be embodied in the Bill.

Certainly. All I am anxious about is that the Deputy should have some amendment of his own down on Report, so that if mine does not please him, he can argue on his own.

That is all right.

Amendment No. 38, by leave, withdrawn.

I move amendment No. 39:—

In article 12, page 32, paragraph (ii), line 35, before "to" where it firstly occurs, to insert "to the Minister".

We have now reached what is, perhaps, the most difficult part of the Bill, that is, the Schedule. What we are suggesting here—I think it is purely formal—is that it would be proper to send the audited consolidated balance sheet and statement of accounts to the Minister.

I would ask the Deputy not to press that, for this reason: the Deputy will bear in mind, in regard to other sections of the Bill where amendments stood in his name, I reminded him we are now dealing with the affairs of the club and not the board. It probably occurs to the Deputy's mind that if there was an obligation in the Bill for the club to furnish me with certain statutory information, the question might be raised as to whether it would not be furnished to somebody else within whose jurisdiction the club will continue to function. Does the Deputy follow?

Yes. I see the point the Minister is hinting at, and I appreciate it, I ask the Minister to look at amendment No. 40, which proposes in article 12, page 32, to add a new paragraph as follows:—

"(iv) The Minister, as soon as may be after he has received them, shall lay copies of the balance sheets and accounts of the club before each House of the Oireachtas."

We are really concerned about that, and amendment No. 39 was a sort of preparatory amendment to enable amendment No. 40 to be made effective.

Does the Deputy not see immediately what flows from it?

I had no difficulty in meeting the Deputy's desires in matters relating to the board.

The board is the creature of this Parliament. The board effectively functions within our jurisdiction. We all attach value to the fact that it has been possible to maintain the club as a national institution, and if the Deputy looks at the whole Schedule, he will see that we have been manoeuvring all the time to avoid raising the question of the separate jurisdictions in so far as the club is concerned. The moment we put on the club a duty to the Minister or to this Parliament, if the club is to continue to function as the sole authority for the whole of the country, how can we resist representations that a similar duty must be put upon it to render the same account to a corresponding person or institution in the Six Counties? Or it will be pressed upon those who constitute the club in that area that they should dissociate themselves from their fellow-countrymen down here, lest it appear that they accept the jurisdiction which is not universally accepted there. You may say that is unreasonable; you may say it is irrational; but it is one of the facts we have to face. I do not want, if I can help it, to canvass it too energetically in public, but I think it is entitled to the sympathetic consideration of the House, in an effort to preserve the unity of a sporting association which has managed to avoid this question being raised up to now.

I appreciate everything the Minister has to say and I should not like to say anything which would make this a matter of public controversy between the two parts of our country; but, at the same time, the Minister, in view of the terms in which the report of the Advisory Committee refers to the practices of the existing club, will appreciate that we are very anxious that these things should not occur again. The old club has been a sort of closed borough. The standing committee of the old club, according to the report of the Advisory Committee, has been concerned with more or less keeping its proceedings within a sort of arcana of secrecy to withhold from the members of the club at large the information which they are properly entitled to. That is why we put down amendment No. 40.

On the point which the Minister is now putting to me, and to which I am anxious to give the utmost consideration, I must say I do not altogether see how a requirement such as we ask in amendment No. 40, if fulfilled, would indeed lead to the partitioning of the sport of greyhound coursing so that there would be two separate authorities governing and controlling the sport in Ireland. If the Minister looks at the Bill as a whole, he will find there certain sections which make the Coursing Club to some extent responsible or amenable to the Greyhound Advisory Board. There are interdependent functions, in regard to some of which I think the Advisory Board is the predominant authority. I am not making a debating point of this, but the Minister has not been able to give effect throughout the Bill in the sections which he himself has drafted to the argument which he is using in respect of amendment No. 40. Another thing occurs to me. There has gone through the House the Great Northern Railway Act and there, I think, the G.N.R. Board has to report to both sides.

I understand that the Minister does not want that situation to arise. Candidly, I do not think that it would be in any way prejudicial to the position of this part of the country in relation to its demand and desire for a unified Ireland. I do not see that. In fact it might be rather a good thing that both Administrations would have cognisance of what is being done. I say it might be; I will not say it will be a good thing, because one never knows how events may develop in the future.

If the Minister could suggest some way of ensuring that the information, which the Advisory Committee states should be made fully available to the membership of the club, would be made available also to the Minister and also to the members of Dáil Éireann by being tabled in this House, then we should be very grateful to him. I do not suppose that if these accounts were tabled they would ever become a matter of controversy in the House. There are many bodies, the Racing Board, the National Stud, and so on, the accounts of which are tabled, but I do not remember that they were ever discussed. Neither were the accounts of the E.S.B. What we on this side of the House are really anxious to ensure is that there will always be available to members of the House, if they so desire it, the material which will enable them to satisfy themselves that the affairs of the Coursing Club, which is to be reformed under the legislation of this House, will be conducted in a proper way.

I cannot meet the Deputy on this for the reasons I have stated. In regard to the desire of Deputies and others to inform themselves, there is, of course, always available to them the recourse of joining a club, attending the annual general meetings and exercising the rights provided for them under paragraph (3) of Section 12 of the Schedule. I think the Deputy fully understands, even if he may not sympathise with, the reservations I have on this matter. I feel that to meet the Deputy in respect of amendment No. 40 would put in jeopardy the unity of the organisation which I believe has successfully preserved that unity, in spite of the necessity for legislation of this kind. I understand the Deputy's view, but I energetically dissent from it, that, in a statute of this House, we should impose upon a sporting body of this kind an obligation to render an account of its stewardship to the jurisdiction of another authority, the general jurisdiction of which de jure we question and even deny. The analogy of the G.N.R. is not accurate.

A similar analogy might be attempted with the Lough Foyle Fishery. The Deputy overlooks that in both these cases the two Governments combined to purchase as a joint enterprise and, in pursuit of that joint purpose, made certain specific agreements for the subsequent management and control of what they jointly bought and paid for. In that case the terms of contract were annexed to the Bills and recognised in the Bills enacted in the two Parliaments. It is a very far cry from that, in my judgment, to require the Irish Coursing Club to render an account of its stewardship to a jurisdiction other than that of the Government of Ireland but I have deliberately forbore from raising that issue here lest we do injury to that which we seek to preserve.

The Deputy will discharge me, I hope, from any appearance of discourtesy if I say to him that, having said that much, I do not think I have anything that I could profitably add to the discussion of this amendment which, for the reasons I have given him, I must absolutely resist.

I just want to correct the Minister. I have not said that I would desire that the Club should send copies of its accounts to any person other than the Minister for Agriculture responsible to this House, that these accounts should be tabled anywhere else than in this House. It is necessary for me to say that, Sir, because the Minister, inadvertently, I am sure, has endeavoured to suggest that I was making quite a different proposition. I have not made that proposition. The business which is before the House is the amendment which asks:

"The Minister, as soon as may be after he has received them, shall lay copies of the balance sheets and accounts of the Club before each House of the Oireachtas."

I merely want to put it on record that that is what I have said and that is what I am standing over and not on the gloss which the Minister has put, inadvertently, I am sure, upon my remarks.

I would draw your attention, first of all, to the fact that we are getting drenched here.

Is the roof leaking?

It is, very badly. The Board of Works should get a cut in their grant.

Government economy.

I am sure, to restore Deputy MacEntee's confidence, the Government will be pleased to supply him with an umbrella.

We had better ask Deputy Sweetman to provide us with waterproofs.

To put the Chair right, are amendments Nos. 39 and 40 being discussed together?

Perhaps you would take them together. One is merely complementary to the other.

I should like to point out to the Minister that there is no analogy at all between the amendment and the legislation which was enacted jointly by the two Governments. If the Minister looks at the Racing Board Act, 1945, he will find a perfect analogy with the amendment moved by Deputy MacEntee. There we have the Turf Club composed of so many members of the Irish National Hunt and others. They then have representation on the Racing Board. In fact, they have a controlling interest. I would point out to the Minister that, as Deputy MacEntee has said, the accounts of the Racing Board and the National Stud are placed before both Houses of the Oireachtas, but the main point I would make is that the I.N.H.S. has complete jurisdiction in racing over the whole of Ireland.

They do not put their accounts before Dáil Éireann.

There is an analogy between the two because, under the Racing Board Act, 1945, they also have power to make regulations in certain matters of a disciplinary nature. The Minister will agree on that.

The I.N.H.S. does not put its accounts before Dáil Éireann.

I am trying to show the analogy. They are a body with complete jurisdiction for the whole of Ireland.

Yes, but they do not put their accounts before us.

The Irish Coursing Club are also in the same position.

The Turf Club have the right of nominating the controlling interest on the Racing Board, whose accounts are put before both Houses.

And the accounts of this board are controlled by the Oireachtas.

I submit that a very important constitutional issue is involved by the Minister's refusal to accept this amendment. I am appalled and amazed that the Minister should refuse, solely on the grounds mentioned by him. It has set a most amazing precedent for legislation. The Houses of the Oireachtas represent the whole of Ireland. It just happens, temporarily, that six of our counties are occupied. The grounds on which the Minister refuses to accept the amendment are ridiculous.

The Minister fobbed us off very lightly when he said that if anyone wants to get these accounts they should join a club. The advisory committee dealt very fully with that when they said that every member of the club should be entitled to full information about any and every activity of the club or its subsidiary companies and that they felt that much of the prevailing dissatisfaction originated because members felt that they had not been given sufficient details in this connection. This is the very same position. It will not be altered in any respect. We have no guarantee that the method of producing the balance sheet will be altered although we have gone a little further now that the Minister has intimated that he will accept amendment No. 38. There is no guarantee that every member of the club will get this information. I still say that the reasons given by the Minister for refusing this amendment are most amazing.

Is amendment No. 39 being withdrawn?

We will withdraw amendments Nos. 39 and 40 because I should like to give some consideration to what the Minister has said. In view of it, I am rather reluctant to press the amendment but I should like to have another opportunity of speaking on it.

I should prefer to have these amendments disposed of to-night in a positive or negative sense.

It is up to the House to permit me to withdraw them if I wish.

Yes. "Amendment, by leave, withdrawn" is not unusual.

Though I would be anxious to accommodate the Deputy I do not propose to give him——

The opportunity.

——leave.

We had better discuss this at some greater length.

I do not wish to prolong discussion.

Yes, the Deputy does.

The Government has no business if we shut up.

Keep going. You are very welcome.

The Minister is working himself up. After all he has been quiescent for the last quarter of an hour or 20 minutes and we do not want to have him erupting. We know he is very eloquent when he gets started but we have really come here to try to do business. I am sorry the Minister will not allow the House to have another opportunity to consider this. He says "no." Well I am going to ask the House to give me leave to withdraw the amendments.

I do not propose to agree to such a course. I would prefer to have these amendments disposed of definitively.

Amendment No. 39 has been moved. It can be withdrawn, but amendment No. 40 has not been moved.

I have moved amendment No. 39. The Minister can divide on amendment No. 39 if he wishes.

I respectfully submit that both amendments have been moved and both amendments have been discussed. You have ruled that both can be discussed together and you cannot discuss what has not been moved.

The two amendments have been taken together for the purpose of debate but in a case of that nature only one amendment is moved. The two can be debated; then the question can be put on the second, if necessary, but No. 40 has not been moved.

I merely rise to point out in relation to amendment No. 39 that in fact it was a precursor to amendment No. 40. However, the Minister has been so docile and gentle to-night that I would hate to annoy him by putting amendment No. 39. We will allow him to negative amendment No. 39 and refuse to accept the little preposition "to".

Amendment No. 39 put and negatived.

Amendment No. 40 not moved.
Question proposed: "That the Schedule, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

I could say a lot about the Schedule to the Bill. The only thing I want to say is that in the light of the Advisory Committee's Report the Irish Coursing Club was overdue for reform. I regret to say that in his attempt to reform the club the Minister appears to have been half-hearted. So far as we on this side of the House are concerned, we have been driven to the conclusion that the main purpose of the Minister in drafting the Schedule to the Bill and indeed in drafting the Bill itself was not to reform the club so much as to confirm in control of the sport of greyhound coursing and of greyhound racing the vested interests whose conduct was so strongly criticised and condemned by the Minister's own Advisory Committee.

It is regrettable that the Minister who set up this Advisory Committee did not see his way to hearken to their recommendations and to give effect to them. Fortunately for the time being the Minister has what were once his big battalions but are now his dwindling battalions to support him. We know that, like those who are collectively responsible for the invasion of Hungary, he is quite prepared to use these battalions to steam-roll this Schedule through the House if he feels it necessary. The country has other problems which are much more important to the people as a whole than those involved in the reformation of the Irish Coursing Club. We should have preferred that in the circumstances of the past six months the Government would have been addressing itself to these problems and that the Minister for Agriculture in particular would have been using the talents which he has to try to bring back to Irish agriculture the prosperity which it enjoyed under his predecessors.

The Deputy seems to be wandering somewhat from the Bill. The Schedule deals with the constitution of the Irish Coursing Club and that is all that is before the House.

I am merely——

Defying the Chair as he usually does.

No. Far from defying the Chair I am merely making my apologia to the public for the fact——

That is badly needed.

——that we are not proposing to fight this Schedule tooth and nail. We would prefer, rather than occupy the time of the House further in discussing this Bill, that the Minister would go back to his Department and try to do something to revivify Irish agriculture. We are giving him the time and the leisure. He has all the resources at his command which would enable him to do that.

This Bill has been ten months before the House. During every hour of the discussion I have been available and experienced Deputies in this House will wonder why a piece of legislation of this kind required ten months' consideration. It required it as a result of what Deputy MacEntee himself has described as the vicious opposition of those for whom he spoke. I think it is right the reason for the opposition should be recorded again. There are many in the country who will ask what interest Deputy MacEntee had in the greyhound industry.

That does not arise on the Schedule. I have already pointed out to Deputy MacEntee the Schedule deals with the constitution of the Irish Coursing Club and nothing else.

Nothing else. The people in this country are asking themselves what interest Deputy MacEntee has in the Irish Coursing Club, and the answer is quite simple. Throughout this Schedule and every section of this Bill he has been guided by his disedifying hatred of a dead man whose memory he has pursued with a vindictiveness that does him no credit. If he has no respect for himself, he should at least abstain from corrupting those younger than himself as he has done by his example in the course of this discussion, and he knows it and his colleagues know it. I believe that the Bill we are at present discussing and this Schedule which enshrines the constitution of the Irish Coursing Club serves a useful purpose in the promotion and expansion of a valuable industry. This Bill should have been disposed of and should have been in operation six months ago.

If the Minister had co-operated.

It would have been to the great advantage of the industry and, indeed, of the country if this constitution were now operating. The delay is to be deplored.

When Deputy MacEntee speaks with contempt of the significance of this industry, and says that the time of the Oireachtas is ill-spent in providing for its welfare, I think he reveals his own ignorance of the matters which he pretended to discuss on their merits for the past ten months in this House. This is potentially a most valuable industry in this country and, if it were not, it would be quite inappropriate to invite Oireachtas Éireann to enact legislation for its proper control and direction.

The only reason for submitting this Schedule to the House and asking the House to give it the status of statutory recognition is because the greyhound industry can be, and should be, of material value to the economic life of Ireland. If I did not believe that, I would never have submitted this Bill to this House. I believe that in that view I am supported by my predecessors in the office which I at present hold. I think I have heard the late Deputy Walsh record his opinion that this is a great and valuable industry in the economic life of Ireland. I believe that Deputy Smith and Deputy Dr. Ryan would share that view. I do not doubt that Deputy Hogan would, too, were he still with us.

I want to make perfectly clear that the suggestion that legislative time was wasted in the consideration of insignificant matters when we were deliberating on essential parts of this Bill is manifest evidence of the ignorance of Deputy MacEntee of the significance of the work we are trying to do. If that be his plea—if ignorance be his plea—in extenuation of his disgraceful and vindictive conduct in the debate on this Schedule and on every other part of this Bill, we will excuse him but I think his venerable status in this House imposes upon him an obligation to purge himself of such ignorance before he wastes the time of his colleagues with his mouthings again.

Arising out of the Minister's remarks on the Schedule, I want to make clear to the Minister and to the House—as the Minister has just left, perhaps his Parliamentary Secretary will convey these views to him— that at no time did this Party set out to waste the time of this House on this Bill. Would it not be a fantastic position that we, as an Opposition, should do so? Why should we do so?

This Bill was first introduced in December, 1955. Since then, almost 12 months have elapsed but, in all that time, it has been before the House on only 17 occasions. The Greyhound Industry Bill was looked upon by the Government as a stop-gap. They threw in that Bill at the tail end when they had nothing else to do. Here we are to-day in this House and in this country discussing the Schedule to this Bill—a comparatively trivial matter compared with the problems which face this House and the country as a whole. We have 61,000 unemployed.

I cannot allow the Deputy to continue in that strain.

With respect, a vile attack was allowed by the Chair to be made by the Minister on Deputy MacEntee.

I felt that Deputy MacEntee had strayed outside the bounds of discussion on the Schedule and I allowed the Minister to reply to remarks made by Deputy MacEntee. I will not allow Deputy O'Malley to reopen the discussion.

To-night, we have only reached the end of the Schedule. Due to lack of co-operation by the Minister for Agriculture, it would appear that this side of the House will have a very busy time indeed dealing with amendments, particularly to this Schedule, on the Report Stage. It was very significant, particularly when this Schedule was under discussion, that not one member of the Government side of the House spoke or supported the Minister.

What is the anxiety in the mind of the Minister for Agriculture to have this Bill passed in its present form and particularly with no major change, good, bad or indifferent, with regard to the Schedule? Is it not a known fact that when this Bill becomes law——

As it will.

Is it not a known fact that promises have been made to those who will be the chairman and members of the board?

It is not.

It does not arise on the Schedule.

The Minister states this House deliberately delayed the passing of this Bill. Is it not a fact that he stated that Deputy MacEntee used the Bill for ulterior motives to slander certain individuals in this House who are unable to defend themselves here? That is the suggestion made by the Minister.

Slander the dead.

The Minister has often referred in this House to the dead. This is the most important part of the Bill. In the main, all they did was to cite the relevant passages from the report of the Advisory Committee which was set up by the Minister. It is a great pity the recommendations of that committee were not carried out in full. If they had been, this Bill might long ago have become an Act. The Minister has given no reason why this Bill has taken so long to go through the House——

The length of time this Bill has taken to go through this House does not arise on the Schedule. Unless the Deputy comes to the Schedule, I shall have to ask him to resume his seat.

I want to point out that the Schedule deals with the whole constitution of the Irish Coursing Club and this club is the body which now, under this Bill, will have control of the new board. Would the Minister kindly let us know what purpose this side of the House would have in discussing at length particularly the various aspects referred to in the Schedule? Why should we go into the matter so energetically? Why should we have committee meetings of our Party and subcommittee meetings of the members of our Party who are interested in this Bill? Why the undue haste on the part of the Minister? Even though it has been on the Order Paper since December, 1955, it has been here only 17 days when the Government had nothing else to do.

It is up to us on this side of the House on Report Stage to try to amend this Schedule and convince the Minister finally that there are sections which are repugnant to the Constitution and which are dangerous in the effects they will have on the rights of the private individual, and particularly in regard to the administration of the whole greyhound industry.

This is a Bill which was introduced without sufficient thought being given to it, and one of the saddest features of the whole matter is that all the recommendations of the Advisory Committee have been ignored. I should also like to remind the House that if it is the Minister's anxiety to appoint former members of the Irish Coursing Club as chairman or members of the board——

That has nothing to do with the Schedule.

I do not know what promise or undertaking was given by the Minister, but it is freely rumoured that such is the case. If that is so, the sooner he tells us that, the better it will be for all concerned. It is up to him to appoint a new board when this——

There is not a scintilla of truth in the slander the Deputy is trying to perpetrate.

The appointment of the new board does not arise on the Schedule of the Bill.

I have already said that the board is composed in the main of the majority of this club. The whole Bill, and particularly this matter, is reeking with injustices and inaccuracies. I have already discovered certain sections which I brought to the attention of the Minister.

They cannot be discussed on the Schedule.

I am not discussing the Bill. I want to point out that there was a certain portion of this Bill which had already been repealed by previous legislation of this House. Let me give one small example of the manner in which it has been formulated. For instance, at paragraph 5 of the Schedule, it is stated:—

"The club shall in every year hold at least one general meeting which shall be known as the Annual General Meeting of the Club."

Paragraph 12 (iii) of the Schedule states:—

"The Secretary and Honorary Treasurer shall submit to every Annual General Meeting of the Club a duly audited Consolidated Statement of Revenue and Expenditure."

One does not need to have the assistance of lawyers in order to discover that these little inaccuracies exist.

The Deputy was too lazy to put down an amendment to correct them.

It was the Minister's job. The Minister is paid for bringing in a proper Bill.

If we were to put down all the correct amendments we would at least have another 46 in my estimation to put down. The Minister chided us on several occasions for being too lazy to put down amendments. The Minister will appreciate that if he accepted one amendment, then a lot of the others would follow automatically. I hope that on the Report Stage the Minister will be at least a little more co-operative than he has been up to now.

This Bill might have had a smooth and easy passage, were it not for the venomous attack delivered upon me by the Minister for Agriculture. He alleges that I was in some way animated by personal spleen against living and dead people. I have no spleen or animus against any person in this country—certainly none that I would carry to the stage of blackmailing him, abusing him and slandering him in the manner in which the Minister for Agriculture, as a Deputy of this House, slandered men who are dead, when he made unfounded accusations about the Locke Distillery.

We are dealing with the Schedule.

Arising out of that, the Minister was tried and condemned by three judges of this State. I do not wish to pursue that matter further except to put it on record that these things are not forgotten and that the Minister had better put a bridle on that tongue of his. Why are we concerned about this club? We are concerned about it because of the findings of the Minister's own investigating committee, among whom were Deputy Anthony Barry and several friends of the Minister, several political friends of the Minister, who severely criticised this club.

I have mentioned the name of a member of this House, Deputy Anthony Barry. I see also appended to this report the name of Mr. Peter P. Wilkinson who has been honoured by the Minister and the Government with appointments on various boards, the latest, I gather, being his appointment as another director of Bord na Móna. While they are making two jobs for their friends, 12 or 13 engineers of the board are under notice of dismissal.

The Deputy is going very wide of the Schedule.

Yes, Sir, and now I want to get back to the report. The Minister accused me of slandering him. Let us hear what Deputy Anthony Barry and Mr. Peter P. Wilkinson had to say about the gentleman whom the Minister is going to put in control of this club, the person to whom the Minister is going to give a statutory right to remain in control of the club and to enjoy the fruits of the vested interests which have been built up.

This club, as was pointed out in the course of the debate, has very valuable properties. It has the Greyhound and Sporting Press, valued, I think, at £60,000. It has Powerstown Park upon which enormous sums have been spent. It has the Irish Cup meeting in accommodating which £11,500 has been spent. These are very substantial sums. The committee has said that it is extraordinary how these valuable properties are being represented to the members of the club. They call attention, in the relative paragraphs of the report, to the fact that the Greyhound and Sporting Press is presented in the balance sheet of the club, as value for £1—a property worth £60,000.

I suppose one should not be optimistic and it is only right one should discount the present values in view of the fact that they may not survive future contingencies, but the idea of writing down property valued at £60,000, by £59,000, so that it figures in the balance sheet of the club at £1 certainly calls for criticism and comment. I think it imposes on the Legislature the duty of ensuring that that sort of thing will not continue. The Advisory Committee strongly advised that it should not continue and that whoever was bringing in legislation to deal with this matter should include in the legislation such provisions as would ensure that it could not possibly be done.

We had an amendment down to this section, amendment No. 40, which we thought would be the most effective way of ensuring that the sort of thing which had been happening up to the present with the coursing club could not recur. The amendment, in fact, was a simple one and merely asked that

"The Minister, as soon as may be after he has received them, shall lay copies of the balance sheets and accounts of the club before each House of the Oireachtas."

The Minister, upon grounds which I did not want to tear asunder because I did not want to have a discussion here about the relations of this Legislature and another part of Ireland, prevailed upon us not to move that amendment.

I begged you to move it.

The real concern of the Minister was not because he might divide the Irish Coursing Club's jurisdiction but to ensure that the gentlemen who have conducted the affairs of the club in the past, in a manner which has been animadverted to by the Advisory Committee, would be able to do the same thing in the future if they cared to do it. When it was pointed out by Deputy O'Malley that the Minister was contemptuous of this House, the Minister said that if Deputies who are legislating for this body wanted to know what the body was doing they could join a coursing club. That is no way for a Minister, responsible to this House, to address those who are as responsible as he is—Deputies to whose votes, for or against, he owes the portfolio which he holds.

Let the Minister remember we are not Fascists. We know he did support the Irish Fascists——

We are dealing with the Schedule.

Let him treat the Deputies of this Assembly with the respect due to them as representatives of the people. The Minister, even if he has four quarterings on his broken shield, is not any better than the lowliest member of this House and certainly not nearly so courteous or mannerly as most members of this House. The Advisory Committee pointed out that many of these properties which have been acquired by the Club were not being used on the whole for the benefit and advantage of the Club. What is much more serious, they pointed out in regard to these properties that no trustee deed had been executed. Here is what the Minister's own colleagues, supporters, friends and appointees, had to say in regard to the property of this Club, set out in paragraph 117, page 48, of the Report: "In regard to the assets of the I.C.C., other than Powerstown Park, Ltd., and the Greyhound and Sporting Press, Ltd., no instrument is in existence to show that these assets are vested in trustees for the Club."

The Minister said, on one occasion here, that the instrument had, since the Report of the Committee, been executed. I take leave to doubt that. The Minister has submitted no evidence to the House to show that that statement was correct and that that instrument, which did not exist at the date of the Advisory Committee's report, has since been brought into existence. We should be glad if the Minister will table, for the Report Stage, a copy of the instrument to which he referred.

In another part of this Report, a reference is made to an agreement entered into between certain parties and the Irish Coursing Club. I cannot at the moment put my hand on the reference but there is in the Report a statement to the effect that it should be made quite clear that each and every one of those who are entered in the register of shareholders in the Greyhound and Sporting Press and Powerstown Park hold the shares as trustees for the Irish Coursing Club. I do not know whether the recommendations of the Advisory Committee in relation to that matter have been carried out.

The Minister in putting this Bill before the House on Second Reading did not claim that they had been carried out. There is a proviso here which appears to cover the point, but I am doubtful as to whether or not it covers it effectively. Another thing about this body, possessing assets of almost £100,000, entered in its balance sheet as being worth £3, which the Advisory Committee had to criticise in regard to its conduct of affairs was this—Sir, if the Minister is not concerned to observe the ordinary courtesies of the House, I suppose I can wait until he feels ready to do so. The Minister rubs his hands. The Minister, no doubt, thinks he is getting away with it, thinks his friends are getting away with it; but let the Minister and his friends know now that this Bill will probably be subjected to very drastic revision, even if it ever reaches the Statute Book, and his friends, and the beneficiaries of his legislation, had better beware.

Now that the Minister is in a mood to listen, let me further refresh the Minister's memory about what his own Advisory Committee had to say in paragraph 124 of the report. They said:—

"Witnesses expressed themselves entirely dissatisfied with the present procedure of the club in these matters—

that is, in relation to the manner in which the club's accounts were presented,

... while full members of the club, they had been refused their right to see its balance sheet, although this was denied by representatives of the standing committee."

I do not want to weary the House. As has been said, we have been a long time on this Bill, but there are references in this committee's report to the manner in which the annual meetings of the club were conducted. I have said before, and I repeat it, that any member of the club who appeared to be too inquisitive, any member of the club who went to the annual general meeting seeking for information as to the proceedings of the club, and particularly of its officers, went there in peril of personal violence. The position we have reached is that, on the basis of that committee's report, we have criticised this Bill as being inadequate to root out the evils which were exposed by the committee. We have felt, as I have said, that the real purpose was to confirm the friends of the Minister in the possession of the vested interests which they have built up and, in addition, place them in a position of unchallengeable authority, able to dominate and control not only greyhound racing and greyhound coursing but the whole greyhound industry, from the breeding and the littering to the ultimate export of such dogs as we may be able to sell abroad. I think that is the sole purpose of this Bill and, because it is, this is the most audacious piece of graft that has ever been submitted to any legislature.

The Deputy is now discussing the entire Bill.

Is it in order to describe legislation submitted by the Government of this country as indecent graft? Is it in order for a Deputy to describe legislation submitted by the Government to the Oireachtas as indecent graft?

I feel it is a political charge that has been made very often in this House.

Made very often by the Minister himself. Now, Sir, he is getting a little of his own medicine, but he will get a bit more of it.

Deputy MacEntee on the Schedule.

We have sunk very low.

He will get more of it before this Bill becomes law and the people who are interested in this industry, the real people, the greyhound owners and breeders, are taking notice of what the Minister is doing. However, as I have said, we did not oppose this Bill on Second Reading because we had some hope that the Minister would be prepared to discuss the Bill in a reasonable way, would be prepared to take into consideration the report of his own Advisory Committee, and that the Bill would be amended in this House in such manner as would make it acceptable to both sides and to a majority of those interested in the greyhound industry. The Minister has not seen his way to do that and therefore we have, as the Minister has reminded us, fought this Bill tooth and nail in the hope that we might——

The Deputy is again referring to the provisions of the Bill. They do not arise on the Schedule.

We were prepared to meet the Minister and discuss the Schedule in a reasonable way, but, instead of our efforts being appreciated, the Minister has had the audacity to get up here and make a virulent personal attack upon the members of the Opposition who are only doing a public duty in order to ensure that the evils, which have vitiated this sport, will be rooted out and will not again be replanted by the Minister's nominees.

Question put and agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments.

When is it proposed to take the Report Stage?

I take it Deputies would like some time.

Shall we say the first sitting day next session?

Yes, but we should like the Minister to put in his amendments as soon as possible. We do not want to be cluttering up the Order Paper unnecessarily. We have a number of amendments which we might put down, but, if the Minister is disposed to meet us in regard to any of them, it would facilitate discussion and shorten matters if the Minister would put down his own views first.

I shall do my utmost to have the amendments in the hands of Deputies as soon as possible. I shall be grateful to Deputies, who are concerned to put down amendments of their own, if they will make them available to me as soon as convenient.

It is necessary to fix a date for the Report Stage.

Shall we say 13th February next?

Report Stage ordered for Wednesday, 13th February, 1957.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.10 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 14th November, 1956.
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