My train of thought has not been interrupted because I keep thinking of this word "stability". Mind you, it has been one of the great foundations on which Fianna Fáil sought to build their case for closing out of this Parliament any dissentient voice. What did they mean by stability? There is no authoritarian Government in the world at the present time, which is not most touchy lest they be described as anything but the democratic Government of the country in which they exercise that control. Chou En-lai in Pekin is insisting that the Government at present acting in China should be described as the Popular Democratic Government of the Chinese People. Bonn is described as the Government of Western Germany and Herr Ulbricht of Eastern Germany is cast into dismay if his Government is not described as the democratic Government of the German people. Czechoslovakia is the democratic Government of the people and the more bloody the tyranny becomes in Eastern Europe, the more emphasis is the word "democratic" in that title given.
It is a modern method of propaganda to take words of well-established meaning and give an entirely different meaning to them and then make them part of the vernacular in the special meaning you chose to attach to them. There is nobody outside Eastern Germany who looks upon that as a democratic Government. There is nobody outside China who looks on the bloody tyranny there as a democratic Government. There is nobody outside Czechoslovakia who believes that the Czechs are living under a democratic institution. There are few people even behind the Iron Curtain who believe that the Hungarians are enjoying what we understand as democratic institutions under Mr. Kadar, but all these gentlemen are eager to describe themselves as democrats.
That is the way in which they have prostituted the word "democracy". Are we travelling the same road with the word "stability"? What I am concerned to have in this country are stable democratic institutions. By that, I mean that the life and liberty of every citizen of this State shall be sacrosanct under the law, whatever Government is in office in Ireland. What I mean by stability is that Parliament shall truly function as a citadel of individual liberty for all sections of our people, whatever Party is in power. What I mean by stability is that our political institutions will be so well organised that the disappearance of any one of us or any group of us will make no difference to the continued functioning of a free Parliament.
I direct the attention of Deputies and the people to the avowal of the Leader of Fianna Fáil. His idea is that stability in this country means that the Fianna Fáil Party shall be the Government of this country and if there is any departure such as happened in 1948 and 1954, that is evidence of instability. Whatever constitutional reforms may be required to prevent the possibility of that event occurring again must be made to ensure what they call stability, but what, in fact, means the impossibility of anything displacing a Fianna Fáil Government in this country.
What will happen in this country if the electoral machine is so rigged that there never can be in the future anything but a Fianna Fáil Government? Suppose the present Government realise their dream, achieve what they want and wipe out of the mind of the people the belief that there could ever be a change. Does anybody seriously believe that the kind of parliamentary institutions which we have grown up in this country to revere would long survive? Does anybody want a Parliament in this country in which it is unthinkable and impossible for a Government to be formed except from one Party? I do not.
I think it is a healthy part of normal political democratic parliamentary government that there should always be present to the people and available to them, when they want it, an alternative to any Government and I think that is what the Fianna Fáil Government seek to take away. I call in evidence their own words as uttered in the course of this debate.
I welcome the fact that Fianna Fáil are beginning to get cold feet on the issue of the referendum. It does not surprise me for I know Fianna Fáil too well. When the cold breath of possible defeat blew upon them, they throw in the Taoiseach as they would throw in anything else, in the hope of averting defeat. I acknowledge the danger that the warm sympathy of our people might mislead them if the Presidential election and the referendum are held on the same day, but I earnestly hope and pray that our people will be awake to the true nature of the decision set before them.
Will they vindicate the electoral system which has given this country three Prime Ministers in 30 years, the political system which has given us Governments with clear majorities in this House, the system which has given us Governments from Fianna Fáil and inter-Party, the average of which has been, down through the years, three years longer than the period of election to the American House of Representatives, longer than the statutory period for a Government to survive in the Commonwealth of Australia? Will they vindicate that system by their vote or will they deliberately sweep all that away and launch out into the unknown to be characterised by this sinister picture—this is what Fianna Fáil hope for and this is what the people must give them if they are to accept the counsel and advice of the Fianna Fáil Party—the Taoiseach in the Park as President, himself and his son as controlling directors of three national newspapers and his nominee and henchmen constituting the Government and the Executive of this country, all at the same time?
If that is not the picture of a power megalomania in one man, I do not know what it is and it is between that megalomania for power and the continuance of a free Parliament in our country that the people are to be asked to choose. It is a choice that they should never have been asked to take. It is a disgrace to the Government that proposed it. I trust and pray that our people, demoralised as they have been over the past 20 years by all that Fianna Fáil stand for, will recall their great traditions in their long struggle for freedom, as we understand the word, and their passionate attachment to democratic parliamentary institutions as we understand those words in Ireland and by their votes on this referendum declare, unequivocably and emphatically, that they will not have a dictatorship in the Park, a dictatorship in the newspapers or a dictatorship in Parliament.
Bear in mind that the true stability of this nation which rests on Parliament and the faithful allegiance of our people to the institutions we now operate will be gravely prejudiced if in this referendum the verdict is by a narrow margin. Fianna Fáil may glory if the verdict goes in their favour, but let them remember that if they take from our people through a handful of votes representative of a microscopic majority in a referendum, a fundamental constitutional right precious to every section of the minorities at present in Dáil Éireann, they will strike a more deadly blow at the stability of the institutions of this State than anyone has ever done before. If we hold these institutions only by a narrow majority, and Fianna Fáil declare their intention of returning again and again to the charge for the purpose of destroying them, they will strike a deadly blow at the stability of the institutions of this State.
Fianna Fáil never should have put this matter in issue. They should never have claimed the right or avowed the desire to satisfy the megalomania for power of one man, but, to do it by forcing this Bill through the Oireachtas, is to do this community and this State a grave wrong. It is possible they may change their tune yet. I hope they may yet be defeated in the Seanad and that this matter may be prevented from presentation by an Irish Government. I hope that such a defeat would make this Government think again. It is true that even though this Bill were defeated in the Seanad, it would result in no more than 90 days' delay, but it would give time to a Government to think and think again before taking a step, no matter what the issue is, that will shake and gravely shake true stability in Ireland.
This Fianna Fáil Government may claim to be the servants of Ireland, but they are in fact its executioners. History will pass verdict on the man who shakes the foundation of this State so painfully built up in his despite and without his help, but all the resources of which were gladly committed to his hands, once he secured a parliamentary majority in this country. If he is maddened by the fact that the people exercised their sovereign right in passing that authority from him to others twice in the past ten years, he should remember that those who went before and handed it on to him bore no malice towards the people who made their decision but were able to carry on the opposition in this House until the people gave them the authority to take back from Fianna Fáil what they had so scandalously misused.
That was the true tradition of parliamentary democracy which I hope will be forever served by those of us who sit on this side of the House. I have sufficient confidence in the people of this country to believe that they will ultimately vindicate our attitude and reject the proposals submitted in this referendum by voting "no" and, at the next general election which I hope will come before 1961—it could not come too soon for me; to-night, if possible—will put an end to a Government who, by their conduct in this matter, have so utterly disgraced themselves.