I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £67,800 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Justice, including certain other Services administered by that Office.
I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle and if it is agreeable to the House, to follow the practice of previous years and to deal with the Votes for which the Minister for Justice is responsible, namely Nos. 26 to 34, as a group so that there may be one general discussion, without, of course, prejudicing the right of any Deputy to raise any particular point on a particular Vote.
Taking the group of Estimates together, they show an increase of about £185,000 of which £151,000 is accounted for by the increase in the provision that has had to be made for police pensions. The upward trend in the expenditure on such pensions is likely to continue for some years to come as there are over 3,000 members of the Force with sufficient service to enable them to retire on pension whenever they wish. The remaining £34,000 is accounted for almost entirely by increases in remuneration.
As regards Vote 26, that is to say, the Vote for my own Office, practically all of the amount asked for is required to meet the salaries of the staff. There is little or nothing else in the Vote. The estimated expenditure is much the same as last year, but I have had to ask for a little more because of the general increase in Civil Service remuneration and because there are some normal incremental increases that have to be met. The Department of Justice is responsible for the administration and business generally of the public services in connection with law, justice, public order and police and has, besides, to administer miscellaneous statutes of great importance to the public such as those which deal with nationality and citizenship, aliens, betting, censorship, the licensing laws, adoption and so on. In what follows I shall touch very briefly on some of these matters.
To begin with the matter of adoption, during 1958 the Board made 592 adoption orders, 273 in respect of boys and 319 in respect of girls. I cannot speak too highly of the voluntary, unpaid services of the members of this Board. I feel sure the House would wish to share with me in this commendation.
The number of aliens registered with the police as permanent residents is 3,028, an increase of about 200 over the previous year. Deputies are aware, of course, that British subjects, generally, are exempt from registration and there are no immigration barriers between this country and Britain and Northern Ireland. At our ports some 35,000 foreign visitors landed for holiday or business purposes and close on 10,000 more came to us via British ports. As far as possible, consistent with the requirements of the aliens laws, the policy has been to facilitate the admission of foreigners and the immigration restrictions are gradually being reduced to a minimum.
The Film Censor's return of films dealt with during 1958 was circulated to the press last January. It shows that 1,085 films were certified as fit for exhibition in public, 239 films were passed with cuts and 55 films were rejected; of 32 appeals against the Censor's refusal to grant a certificate, the Appeal Board upheld his decision in 29 cases and varied his decision in two cases by allowing the film to be exhibited with cuts.
Then there is censorship of publications. During 1958 the Censorship of Publications Board examined 1,072 publications and made 624 prohibition orders; 127 of these Orders were in respect of periodical publications and 497 were in respect of books but 177 of the latter figure were in respect of books already prohibited that had been reissued under new titles or in different editions. The Censorship of Publications Appeal Board heard eight appeals. They granted one appeal in respect of a book and one in respect of a periodical publication.
As regards citizenship, Irish citizenship was conferred on 59 persons during 1958 by the grant of certificates of naturalisation. This brings the total number of persons naturalised under the 1935 and 1956 statutes to 1,754.
As Deputies are aware, I receive, in the course of every year, a great number of petitions for the remission or mitigation of the punishment imposed in particular cases by courts exercising criminal jurisdiction. All of these have got to be examined, reports obtained and the advice of the trial judge or justice sought; and this involves a great mass of work. In most cases the petitions have to be rejected in the end, but this is not done without the most careful consideration.
There is one class of petition that, in the absence of any evidence of a miscarriage of justice, I have normally no hesitation in rejecting and that is a petition for the removal of driving disqualification that has been imposed for drunken driving. There were 115 such petitions last year all of which were rejected. It may be that there is no connection between drunken driving and road accidents but, in any case, it is gratifying to be able to record that the number of deaths in road accidents in 1958 was lower than the number in 1957 which, in turn, was lower than that of the year before. Still, there were no fewer than 268 deaths on the roads last year, some of which, it is safe to say, might have been avoided by the exercise of reasonable care. I can only hope that one day the public conscience will be so shocked by this unnecessary loss of life that every one of us who has reached the age of reason will make it a point of honour so to use the roads as not to be a danger to himself or others.
I may add that during the year my Department was engaged on the examination and the formulation of proposals for legislation in relation to the licensing laws, rent control, adoption of children, penal reform, charities, administration of estates, solicitors and the Courts of Justice.
The foregoing remarks in relation to the Vote for my own Office concern its routine activities but before I pass on to the next Vote I have a word to say about the activities of unlawful organisations. In July, 1957, it became necessary to invoke the powers of Part II of the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act, 1940, and to intern a number of persons who were engaged in activities that were injurious to the security of the State. The detention of persons without trial is a step to be justified only by the existence of a grave emergency and for so long as the emergency exists.
As Deputies know, all of those who have been detained have now been released but it should not be supposed that this is because of any change in the Government's position with respect to the organisations in question. Rather is it the result of their considered view that, for the time being, the measures taken in 1957 and 1958 have served their purpose. Speaking for myself, I have no doubt at all that the temporary detention of those concerned has effectively prevented them from endangering the lives of others and risking their own in the pursuit of activities that are no less futile than unlawful. But I should like to repeat what the Taoiseach said a few weeks ago; that the Government will not hesitate to use all the means at their disposal to ensure that there is no usurpation of their authority and to prevent unlawful activities of a kind which, if they were allowed to go on unchecked, would be likely to lead to a situation here which must be avoided at all costs.
The Garda Síochána Vote, No. 27, is, from the financial point of view, the most important of those for which I am responsible and this year I have had to ask for £155,000 more than last year. As I have already explained, the bulk of this is due to the additional provision that has had to be made for Police Pensions but the fact that extra police have had to be provided for service on the Border has contributed to the increase in costs.
In my remarks on this Vote you will expect me to say something about the prevalence of crime in the country but before I refer to the figures for last year, I should like to explain that the Annual Crime Report of the Commissioner, Garda Síochána, will in future—beginning with the Report for 1958—show a number of changes in the presentation of crime statistics. These changes have been introduced, with my approval, as a result of a critical examination by the Commissioner of the various crime-tables heretofore compiled. This examination showed that in many cases there was excessive classification of crimes, which served no useful purpose, whereas in a few cases additional classifications could, with advantage, be introduced. The revised form of Annual Report is being compiled on the basis of a twelve-month period ending on 30th September instead of on the basis of a calendar year. The principal reason for this is to enable the Report to be prepared before the Estimate for the Garda Síochána is introduced each year. Heretofore, only provisional figures of crime for the preceding year were available to the House when discussing the Estimate, and indeed there used to be an unavoidable delay of up to a year in the preparation and publishing of the final Report.
With regard to the most recent crime figures, I would first of all repeat that they relate to the twelve-month period ending on 30th September, and the three months' overlap must be borne in mind in the comparison with the crime figures for the calendar year 1957.
The 1958 figures, I regret to say, show that the upward trend in indictable crime that has been manifest since 1955 has continued. Indictable crimes for the year numbered 16,567, which was an increase of 2,530 or 18 per cent. over 1957. Most of the increase was under the head of larceny, the figure for which increased from 9,842 to 11,766, an increase of 1,924 or 20 per cent. As in 1957, the most striking single figure in the analysis of this increase in larceny is the figure for larcenies of pedal cycles, which increased from 2,467 to 3,524— an increase of 1,057 or 43 per cent. This increase is all the more striking for the fact that the 1957 figure was itself over 800 higher than the figure for 1955 when the upward trend in crime began.
Unfortunately, it is almost inevitable that when larcenies increase, and particularly larcenies of pedal cycles, the general detection rate will drop, for of all the common crimes none is more difficult to detect than the larceny of a bicycle. It is, pre-eminently, a case where prevention is better than cure and where the preventive measures must necessarily depend on the owners rather than on the Garda Síochána. The Gardaí have been endeavouring, by various means, to ensure a greater awareness among the public of the need for preventive measures against larcenies generally. If, for instance, we could prevail on cyclists to lock their bicycles as a matter of course when leaving them unattended, the number of larcenies would drop substantially. To illustrate the casual attitude of a great many cyclists, I would mention that, in the Dublin Metropolitan Division alone, approximately 3,000 missing bicycles have been taken into Garda stations in each of the last few years, and that of these no fewer than one in three were not claimed by the owners. In their efforts to bring these points home to the public, the Gardaí have been greatly assisted by publicity given in newspapers to the need for such measures, and I am glad to take this opportunity to express my appreciation of this assistance.
Though the increase in larcenies accounts for over five-sixths of the total increase in crime, there have also been increases in other kinds of offences against property, which, though numerically much smaller, cannot be ignored. For instance burglaries and housebreakings and kindred offences increased by 19 per cent. from 2,895 to 3,459.
Deputies may well ask: why this increase in the various classes of crime? There is no single or easy answer. The increase seems to be part of a world-wide crime wave. Several causes, no doubt, contribute to the increase in crime and most of them are probably outside the scope of the preventive operations of the police. One thing that cannot be said is that the increase is due to the reduction in Garda strength which has been taking place in recent years. It is in Dublin that there has been the greatest increase and in Dublin the Garda strength has not been reduced at all; on the contrary, it has been increased. Nor have I heard that, taking one area with another, there has been any increase in crime in the localities where rural stations have been closed or reduced in strength as I certainly would have heard if this had happened.
There is, however, one aspect of crime which has caused the public some concern. I refer to the question of unsolved murders. In the past few years there have been three murders that have not so far been cleared up. That this is disturbing is not to be denied, and I can assure the House that it is not a matter that is being taken lightly by the Garda authorities who are not only making sure that all three cases are still and will continue to be the subject of close and active attention, but also subjecting to critical examination all aspects of the investigation machinery.
Having said that, I must also say, and emphasise, that there is no justification for suggestions that have been made that there is something radically wrong either with the Garda machine or with the policy of closing stations in certain areas that has been adopted in recent years, with the concurrence of my predecessor and myself. Apart from those three cases which occurred in 1957 and 1958, the Garda record in the solution of murder cases has been exceptional. In the ten years immediately preceding 1957, the record has been 100 per cent. Whatever may be the reason for the interruption of this impressive sequence of successes, I am satisfied to leave it to the Garda authorities knowing, as I do, that it is a matter which is engaging their constant attention, to determine whether and in what way the methods of detection can be improved.
I cannot dismiss the subject of crime without saying something about juvenile crime. I should explain that this year I am not in a position to make an exact comparison between last year's figures and those of earlier years because the figures are no longer compiled by reference to an upper age limit of 18 as in former years but by reference to the age of 17. For a number of years, there has been little or no change in the volume of juvenile crime from year to year but I am sorry to say that, last year, there was a very sharp increase in juvenile crime of all kinds but, particularly, in the number of larcenies. What the reason for this is I cannot say, but I have no doubt that it begins from lack of parental control; bad example and insufficient occupation are also no doubt contributory factors. We can at least hope that the deterioration that has been evident in the past year will prove to be a passing phase.
On the question of police establishments, the present strength of the Force, all ranks, is 6,479. During the year 1958/59 400 recruits were enrolled in the Garda Síochána but notwithstanding this, the overall strength is still 1,000 less than it was about ten years ago. The reduction in manpower and the closing of rural stations or their reduction in status have been counterbalanced by the greater use of motor cars and motor cycles and the use of radio equipment and it is intended to pursue this policy for some time to come. It is hoped, eventually, to reduce the Force to about five and a half thousand men. It is expected that vacancies will occur during the year from the usual causes—deaths, resignations and dismissals—to the number of 430 and it is proposed that recruits to the number of 450, including 18 women, be appointed. A competition for the appointment of women police has been held by the Civil Service Commissioners and it is expected that, having completed their period of training, our first women police will take up duty in Dublin and Cork towards the end of the year.
The increase in the Vote for Prisons, apart from remuneration, is due to the increased cost of feeding the prisoners and maintenance of prison buildings and to expenditure on the prison cottages at Portlaoise. It will be observed that provision is being made for a daily average of 385 prisoners or slightly fewer than last year. Since the Estimate was framed, the daily average of the prison population has gone up and averaged 423 in the first quarter of this year. This, perhaps, is hardly surprising in view of the crime situation and the remarkable thing is that, notwithstanding the upward trend in crime since 1955, the daily average population has been so low.
Some Deputies may ask what we have been doing in the field of penal reform. Our resources do not permit of experimentation to any large degree and the numbers of prisoners under sentence are too limited to permit of diverse classifications. Moreover, most prisoners are not long enough in custody for any training or rehabilitation measures to take effect. Last year only fifteen prisoners were committed to serve sentences of over two years; in each of the preceding two years the figure was only nine. Last year there were, on average, only eight young offenders serving sentences of Borstal detention. Sixty per cent of the prisoners committed receive sentences of less than three months, from which a remission of one-quarter is allowed in most cases. However, the House will shortly have an opportunity of discussing the question of penal reform on a Bill dealing with certain limited aspects of the problem which I expect to introduce shortly.
Votes 29, 30 and 31 are concerned with the services of the Courts. There has been little change in any of these Estimates. In the case of the District Court increased provision has had to be made for the salaries of the Justices who have been appointed on a temporary basis to obviate the necessity for making permanent appointments pending a reduction by five in the number of District Court Districts —and a consequential reduction in the number of Justices—which it is hoped to effect before the end of the year. In the case of the Circuit Court, there has been practically no change at all and the increased provision for the Supreme Court and High Court is mainly due to increased remuneration.
The increase in the Vote for the Land Registry is due, apart from remuneration, to the necessity for creating four additional posts in the mapping branch to tackle the problem of the maps that have become worn out as a result of constant handling and require to be renewed.
Vote 33, Public Record Office, calls for no comment and with regard to Vote 34, I need say no more about the Office of Charitable Donations and Bequests than that both the Minister for Justice and the public are under great obligations to the Commissioners for doing unpaid work of the greatest value to the community and that, speaking for myself, I am glad to take this opportunity to acknowledge that debt.
