asked the Taoiseach if he is aware that in the Six Northern Counties people in many towns and villages, whose population seek reunion with the Motherland, are left without industries or work and forced to emigrate; and if he will make a strong protest to the Six County Government to secure equal justice and rights to all its citizens particularly in view of the action of the Irish delegation in the United Nations in defending the rights of oppressed peoples in other lands.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Rights of Six County Citizens.
4.
I have seen press and other reports concerning the economic situation existing in the Six Counties. I am aware that the economic development problems of the stronger competition in the British area as a whole are felt particularly in many towns and villages where the population is predominantly nationalist, and also by nationalists in other areas, and that this section of the population has been subjected to various forms of discrimination. I gravely deplore this fact, and, if any action of mine could lead to the cessation of such discrimination, I would most willingly take it. However, I do not think that protests to the Northern Ireland Government would do any good. At the same time, there is, I believe, a large and increasingly influential volume of public opinion in the North which likewise deplores the present discriminatory practices, both as wrong in themselves and as likely to bring discredit on those responsible for them. It is by encouraging this more enlightened tendency within the Six Counties that prospects of an improvement in the situation can best be assisted.
Is the Taoiseach aware that industrialists themselves will not employ Catholics and that there was a recent report of two Catholics who were employed but whose services were dispensed with because the Orange element organised against them? Surely the Taoiseach should protest to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland against this organised discrimination?
I have seen the press report——
Where they were engaged and sacked——
The Deputy asked the Taoiseach a question and he should allow the Taoiseach to reply.
The Taoiseach should protest. He has admitted that he saw what I saw.