Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 27 Mar 1962

Vol. 194 No. 4

Committee on Finance. - Vote 18—Law Charges.

Minister for Finance (Dr. Ryan)

I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £32,750 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1962, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Attorney General, etc., and for the Expenses of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges, including a Grant in Relief of certain Expenses payable by Statute out of Local Rates.

The net additional sum required in this Estimate is made up as follows: on subhead A.2, £4,000 is required for extra remuneration for State solicitors.

Mr. McQuillan

I do not know what the Minister is saying.

Mr. McGilligan

It is hard to hear.

Dr. Ryan

On A.2, there is an additional sum of £4,000 required for the increased remuneration of State solicitors. On subhead B., Witnesses' Expenses, an additional sum of £3,200 is required due to the fact that the State Solicitors' Office got extra staff to clear up the arrears of expenses due to witnesses. On subhead C., Fees to Counsel, an additional £18,000 is required. There are two items I might mention, Shanahan's Stamps, £10,560, and O'Donovan v. the Attorney-General, £2,560. On subhead D., General Law Expenses, an additional £8,000 is required. The main item in the excess here is costs of £6,920 awarded against the State in O'Donovan v. the Attorney-General. Another item is Cowan v. the Attorney-General, £1,500. In subhead E., Defence of Public Servants, the additional sum required is £1,200. That is due to the joining of Mr. Herrick, Official Assignee in Bankruptcy, Cork, in a civil action. His costs amounted to approximately £1,500.

Mr. Sweetman

What about the question I asked the Minister at Question Time?

Dr. Ryan

No counsel were employed in the district court.

Mr. Sweetman

No counsel were employed in the district court. I wanted confirmation of that. I move:

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.

As the House is aware, we had on the Order Paper, in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, a motion dealing with some of the matters which are taken in this Supplementary Estimate. As the Minister has indicated, the Supplementary Estimate deals largely with the Singer case and the ramifications arising out of it. Our motion dealt solely with that case and called upon the Dáil to condemn the Government for their failure to bring charges against Dr. Singer before the courts in such appropriate legal form as would enable the courts to give effective judgment on such charges.

You, Sir, as Ceann Comhairle, have ruled in your wisdom that such a motion goes beyond what Standing Orders permit. While we might differ with you on that ruling, I want to make it clear that we in this Party have always accepted the rulings of the Chair as being final. One of the matters about which, all through the years, we have been very careful has been to ensure that the rulings of the Chair are supported, by our votes in the lobby, if necessary. That is a course which we, I am glad to say, have always followed but which other Parties in the House have not always followed if it did not suit their convenience. Indeed, I well remember one case in which the Taoiseach himself was prepared to subordinate his principles for temporary petty expedients, and to walk into what I am sure he now realises was the wrong Division Lobby.

Be that as it may, you having ruled in this fashion, we bring the matter about which we and the country as a whole have such reason to complain before the House in this motion to refer back for reconsideration Vote 18 in respect of Law Charges, which the Minister for Finance has now introduced. The question of Shanahan Stamp Auctions and Dr. Singer and the charges that are made against him were considered somewhat by the House on the Estimate for Law Charges last year on 20th July, 1961. Some things were said then which I must now repeat so that everyone can understand clearly and beyond question that the same observations apply.

I want to make clear that in condemning the Government—for of course a motion to refer back an Estimate is tantamount to that—we are not in any way casting any reflection or aspersion in any shape or form on any judgment of any court. The courts have given their verdict on the evidence that was brought before them and on the evidence that was brought according to the forms in which the Executive brought it. Our complaint is not against the courts, and nothing that I shall say can in any possible circumstances be construed, or could or should be construed, as in any way a criticism of the courts or of their decisions.

What we complain of, and what we accuse the Government of, is their failure as the Executive to bring before the courts the proper legal form of the charges which should have been brought. We all understand, whether we are lay people or whether we are lawyers, that matters being brought before any court on any subject, be it criminal or civil, have to be brought before them in the appropriate and proper form. So far as criminal law is concerned I am in just the same position as many other Deputies in the House. I know nothing of criminal law; I have never practised in criminal law; and I do not propose to pose as an expert in any way in criminal law.

It is an undoubted fact that the constitutional position which we have here, as in most other democratic States, lays upon the Executive, for the time being, the duty and the obligation of bringing to the Judiciary those charges and that evidence which the Executive feel are relevant and proper, if any person—I was going to use the word "citizen" but it is not necessary that it be a citizen—has contravened the law of the land.

Equally, it would be quite disastrous to our good name here if we were to attempt to decide in Dáil Éireann whether or not Dr. Singer was or was not guilty of any charges. I do not propose to do so. I do not propose to ask the Dáil to make any comment whatsoever in that respect. The people can come to their own conclusions from such evidence as would be available, if it were put in appropriate and proper form before the courts. According to the question answered today, question No. 82, this case was before the courts in one form or another for 240 days, not all of the day perhaps, in certain cases, but on no fewer than 240 days the time of a court was taken up in connection with it.

We are all aware that there was involved in the complaints made a sum of at least £750,000. Some would put the figure a little higher but certainly no one can gainsay that the charges in all covered at least £750,000. It transpired in the course of the hearing of these charges that some 30,000 people were involved; that 30,000 people, the vast majority of whom were Irish citizens resident in Ireland, had invested money in Shanahan's Stamp Auctions. The germ of the case by the Executive was that these people had not got a fair run for their money, putting it in non-legal terms. This case, as I say, involving that sum of money and that number of our people, was one in which it clearly behoved the Executive to take every possible precaution to ensure that it succeeded in bringing to the courts all the surrounding circumstances and facts in such a way that the most exacting court could take no possible objection.

We all subscribe to the view that according to the law, a person is innocent until he is proved guilty. As I say, without going into the question of guilt or innocence, the very magnitude of the case, both as to the amount of money involved and the number of our people involved, laid a very much heavier and more stringent burden on the Executive to ensure that everything possible that could be done was done to give the courts a free and unfettered opportunity of judging on the merits the facts surrounding this case.

Under the Constitution, there is a clear and express duty imposed upon the Taoiseach to ensure that as head of the Executive, he brings those facts to the notice of the courts in the appropriate way because to him and him alone—not to the Government as a whole, but to him and him alone— is left the duty of choosing the first law officer of the Executive. It is with the Taoiseach and no one else is left the job and the task of selecting an Attorney General, just as it is the task of the Attorney General to ensure, as the guardian of the public interest, that he brings the facts and the evidence to the court in proper legal form.

It is therefore no excuse for any member of the Government or for the Taoiseach himself to say that it is not in any way connected with their functions as an Executive. It is the head of the Government, because he is the head of the Government, who has the responsibility and the task of choosing the first law officer of the State, and if the first law officer of the State does not fulfil the task with which he is entrusted, it is the duty of the Taoiseach to ensure that such failure is made good and to make certain that the public weal cannot be disturbed thereby.

In this case, the Executive brought to the court in the initial instance a series of charges. I shall not weary the House by going over all the charges or by going over the various periods and dates involved. Suffice it to say that it took no fewer than 63 days for the taking of the first depositions, before those depositions were concluded.

One of my charges against the Government in respect of that is that they did not take adequate care at all to ensure that during those 63 difficult days, adequate precautions would be taken to present the charges in proper form before the courts. The Minister for Finance has, at the instance of the Minister for Justice, agreed that the ordinary precaution in a case of this size in that respect was not taken, that the Attorney General did not instruct any counsel to act for him in the district court and that is one of the reasons why the indictments that followed were not followed in due and proper order.

Having, as I said, taken 63 days and wasted and taken up the time and the expense of the district court, quite apart from the cost otherwise for that hearing, a trial followed after a considerable delay. The Taoiseach was naive enough to expect the House and the people, apparently, to believe that the delay between January and May for the hearing of the indictments following that district court hearing was due solely to the difficulty of typing copies of the depositions. No matter how long they might be, anybody knows that it would have been perfectly simple to get photostatic copies in a very short time, perhaps, admittedly, at the expense of deferring other matters that were required. Perhaps it would have meant taking over one of the machines from one of the other courts, but in a case of this size, it was not merely desirable but essential that proper steps should have been taken to ensure that there would be no complaint of delay. There was that delay.

There was then a trial. At that trial, there was a conviction by the court, and that went on appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal. Anyone who has read the judgment in respect of the Court of Criminal Appeal, as, I am sure, many members of the House have read it when it was placed in the Library, can only come, from reading that with a clear view, to the conclusion that the court was passing stricture on the law officers of the State for the manner in which they drew their indictments and for the manner in which they, by so doing, prevented the courts from passing judgment on the merits of the case.

In the early part of the judgment, the judge himself remarked how essential it was in a case of that magnitude to make sure that more than usual care was taken, but in fact, as appears from this judgment, no charge of false pretences was laid at all: in fact, as appears from this judgment and from the statement made by the Taoiseach the other day, no effort was made to inform the court in open court that one of the jurymen was an investor in Shanahan's Stamps; and, in fact, as appears from the judgment, no effort was made to frame an indictment applicable to the case of a person dealing with money which had not come into his own hands but had come into the hands of a company with which he himself was dealing.

The judgment that has been written on these three items alone makes it clear that the court in passing judgment not merely passed judgment on the conviction as such but passed critical judgment on the manner in which the charges had been framed, and the Taoiseach himself accepted last Tuesday that the ultimate responsibility for the framing of the charges must and did lie with the Attorney General. Without going into details or further technicalities, there are the facts that the Executive considered there were charges involving £750,000 and that there were charges in respect of which no fewer than 30,000 people felt they had a complaint, and yet according to the verdict of the court, the indictments were not so drawn as to enable the courts to pass judgment on the merits of the facts before it.

That failure can be laid in one place and one place only—on the Government. If people here cannot now categorically say that, according to a court judgment, they were defrauded, cannot say that, according to a court judgment, their case had merits, then the failure can only be laid and must be laid at the door of the Government, who failed to bring those charges before the courts in the proper and accepted legal form.

The Taoiseach

I can understand very well the desire of the Fine Gael Party to make all the party political capital they can out of the unsatisfactory outcome of this trial. I gather that the suggestion which Deputy Sweetman wants to put before the House is that either because of lack of enthusiasm in the prosecution of Singer and his accomplices by the Government or lack of professional competence on the part of the Attorney General the unexpected and unforeseen results of which we are aware came about.

Singer came to Ireland about 1954, at a time when another Government were in office and Deputy Sweetman was a member of it. During that time, he set up with those Irish associates of his, this stamp auctioneering business, which developed on a considerable scale and attracted a great deal of public attention at that time. It was not until after the change of Government, indeed some time after it, that suspicions began to develop that the business was not being conducted in a straightforward way. I want to say that the first person with public responsibilities who began to develop those suspicions was the present Attorney General, and it was he who requested an investigation by the Garda Síochána into the manner in which this business was being conducted prior to the robbery, or the alleged robbery, which put the business into liquidation. It was the Attorney General who decided that proceedings should be instituted against those who participated in the conduct of that company, and who took steps to secure the arrest of Singer and the others at a time when the investigations by the Garda Síochána, although they had produced prima facie evidence of fraud, had not yet turned up sufficient evidence to sustain a prosecution, fearing as he did that Singer might abscond; and the long delay to which Deputy Sweetman refers was partly attributable to that fact, that an arrest to prevent an abscondment had been made, although inquiries had not been completed or all the depositions of witnesses recorded.

The Attorney General is, of course, although not a member of the Government, in much the position of a Minister, in that he has to take ultimate responsibility for all acts done in his name, whether or not he directly participated in them or was even in fact aware of them at the time of their commitment. It is the normal practice for the Attorney General when a criminal case arises for prosecution to designate counsel to act in the case and to leave to the counsel whom he so designates the preparation of the indictment. The normal practice was followed in this case. When questions were asked in this House last week, Deputy Sweetman said that it was common knowledge that the indictment in this case was drawn up by the Attorney General personally. I notice he did not repeat that this afternoon. Possibly he has learned some of the facts since. That statement was untrue.

Mr. Sweetman

I still say it is common knowledge and, let me add, if the Attorney-General did not examine a case involving £750,000, in my view, he was even more criminally negligent in not doing so. A Minister would do so in the case of his Department.

The Taoiseach

The Attorney General, quite properly, left the drawing of the indictment to the very competent senior counsel he had engaged to conduct the State case. That is, as I say, the normal practice. The Attorney General is available for consultation with the counsel whom he engages, if they desire it. But, the attempt to attack the Attorney General purely on the suggestion that the preparation of the indictment in this case was something he did—and the implication is that he did it in a way different from that which the counsel whom he engaged would have done it—is completely without foundation.

Let me be quite clear in this matter. I do not accept that there was anything wrong, and I hope indeed to convince the House there was nothing wrong with the indictment and certainly there is no foundation for the suggestion that it was so drawn that a conviction could not be secured. It is true, as Deputy Sweetman said, that in our system of law a person is assumed to be innocent until convicted in accordance with the law. It would, I agree, also be undesirable that we should use the privilege we have here to make statements about the guilt of individuals which had not been established in any court, but in this particular case I think the Ceann Comhairle can allow us a certain discretion because we are aware of the fact that Singer was indeed convicted of the majority of the charges which were made against him, even though that conviction was ultimately set aside on technical grounds by the Court of Criminal Appeal.

Mr. Dillon

Exactly. That is the whole burden of our complaint.

The Taoiseach

Deputy Sweetman was inclined to gloss over the details of what happened during and subsequent to the trial of Singer. I presume he has read the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal. I urged him and his leader, Deputy Dillon, to do so. Singer was indicted on 21 counts. Three of these were counts of criminal conspiracy and 16 were counts of fraudulent conversion. I may say here that from the beginning the counsel acting for the State in the matter had serious doubts about the possibility of obtaining enough evidence to secure convictions on the fraudulent conversion counts. In our system of law, it is not enough merely to suspect a person is guilty; that guilt must be established in a court by evidence of a kind which is admissible in law. To prove fraudulent conversion it is necessary to establish that money received by a person for one purpose was used by him improperly for a different purpose.

In this particular case of Shanahan's Stamp Auctions, it was necessary to establish that money received by the company or its directors from the investors, as they were called, from persons who had advanced or loaned money to them for the purchase of stamps to be subsequently auctioned, was used instead to make payments in the form of alleged profits earned by previous investors. It is believed that is what happened, but the difficulties of proving it are obvious when it is realised that all the moneys received by the company, whether in the form of investments or loans or profits, were held in one fund from which all payments were made. I mention this fact now because it will become relevant in the general survey of the case I am going to give.

I may say, however, that in the first trial of Singer convictions were recorded on all the counts of fraudulent conversion. It was clear, however, from the beginning that the State would have to rely mainly on the possibility of securing conviction on one or other of the three counts of conspiracy. I may perhaps refer to these briefly because again there is an aspect of them which will later be seen to be important. Each of the three counts alleged conspiracy to defraud over a period of time ending on the 23rd May, 1959. The first count alleged conspiracy in the period beginning on the 1st January, 1958; the second count alleged conspiracy in the period beginning on the 1st January, 1959; and the third count in the period beginning 12th October, 1954. When the trial was over and the issues were being put to the jury, counsel for the State asked the jury to convict Singer on the first and second of these counts, to convict him in respect of the period beginning on 1st January, 1958, and ending in May, 1959, or in respect of the period beginning on 1st January, 1959, and ending in May, 1959, and not to convict on count No. 3 in respect of the period beginning on 12th October, 1954. But the trial judge directed the jury to find Singer not guilty on counts one and two and left it open to them to convict him on the third count, which they did.

It is, Sir, against the practice of this House to express here any criticism of the decisions of our courts and of the judiciary and you have, in fact, advised me that these rules, which apply on all occasions, will apply equally during this debate. I therefore will not express any personal view upon that decision of the trial judge, but I will direct the attention of Deputies to what the Court of Criminal Appeal said about it. They held that in so directing the jury the trial judge went wrong. In the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal, it was pointed out that the jury could not, on the evidence which was produced, have found conspiracy to exist before 1958. They said the jury should have been told that the evidence did not warrant an inference of conspiracy charged earlier than 1958. They should have been advised that their verdict should have been on count No. 1 and that the other counts should have been ignored. In fact, as I mentioned, the trial judge directed the jury to find the accused not guilty on these first two counts of conspiracy and in respect of them a verdict of not guilty was returned.

Mr. McGilligan

Was returned on direction.

The Taoiseach

By direction. There was then an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal by the accused on three grounds. Two of those grounds were rejected by the court and therefore are not relevant here. On the third ground, the court held that the trial should be set aside and a new trial ordered. That was because it was found that the foreman of the jury was an investor in Shanahan's Stamp Auction Company. That is a fact which was not known before the trial concluded. Deputy Sweetman seemed to imply differently in the course of his remarks. It was not in fact known by anybody—I mentioned this here in reply to a Parliamentary Question—and if we are to accept the affidavit of the accused it was not known to Singer.

Mr. Sweetman

He said so himself.

The Taoiseach

What I said was that the foreman of the jury was employed by a firm of auditors and one member of that firm had been appointed Liquidator for the auctioneering company but that had no relevance to the appeal. That particular fact was known to the trial judge who regarded it as of no importance. The appeal was on the ground that the foreman was an investor in the stamp company and therefore presumed to be a claimant on the assets of the company. I do not know why that fact did not become known before that. It is, I think, a common experience of all of us that people who invested money in this company are not disposed to talk about it. The Court of Criminal Appeal said:

The juror should have informed the court of his position as investor and claimant...

and then went on to say:

It is very desirable that in a case of this kind the trial judge should remind members of the jury panel of their duty to disclose any interest they may have in the prosecution.

May I say as a layman—I am not in this expressing any criticism of the court—that I find it difficult to understand how it is that a person who is charged with a criminal offence and who has a right to challenge members of the jury empanelled to try him— to challenge, I understand, five of them peremptorily and any number without limit for cause shown—and does not exercise that right of challenge though the trial judge reminds him that he has it, can nevertheless, when the trial is over, seek to upset the verdict because of the composition of the jury. That has been held however to be the law and there is probably good legal theory why it should be so.

Mr. Corish

Is there not an equal responsibility on the prosecution to examine the bona fides——

The Taoiseach

Certainly a prosecution has that right. The jury members are selected from a panel of the jurors' list by the county registrar and brought to the court where the prosecution and the defence can challenge them and where the supervision of the proceedings is the responsibility of the trial judge. Let me deal with the precise allegation in Deputy Sweetman's statement that the indictment of Singer was so drawn that the courts could not in fact have brought in a conviction. As I have said, there was in fact a conviction recorded— on one conspiracy count and on the fraudulent conversion counts—and that would have stood but for the Court of Criminal Appeal deciding to set the trial aside because of this fact that a member of the jury was found to have this personal interest in the case.

Mr. Sweetman

The Taoiseach would be well advised to read further down the page.

The Taoiseach

I am leaving nothing out. I have no desire to leave anything out.

Mr. Sweetman

Very definitely.

The Taoiseach

When ordering a new trial—and that was the only question that arose by reason of this defect in the composition of the jury —the Court of Criminal Appeal turned to consider the charges that should apply in a new trial and here they came up against this outcome of the previous trial to which I have referred—the acquittal of the accused on the direction of the judge on two of the conspiracy charges, the count in respect of the period from January, 1958, to May, 1959, and from January, 1959, to May, 1959. They adverted to the fact that no evidence of conspiracy prior to 1958 had been produced and therefore decided not merely that the conviction in respect of the longer period—from October, 1954 to October, 1959—could not stand but that in fact Singer could not be put on trial again on the conspiracy count.

Again let me say as a layman, that I cannot make sense out of it. I suppose I do not have to, but I ask why, if a trial is upset because of a defect in the composition of a jury and a verdict of guilty set aside, a verdict of not guilty should stand? No doubt there is a legal explanation but as a layman with some commonsense, I cannot see why it should be so. The Court of Criminal Appeal set aside also another charge which related to the general deficiency in the funds of the company. I am not going to try to give a simple explanation of what is involved here. I gather that in cases of fraudulent conversion it is considered that charges should relate to specific sums of money and that it is only in very rare cases that a charge of general deficiency is accepted.

If I could attempt to put that in plain, layman's language, it would mean that if a person received money for a particular purpose and did not use it for that purpose he could still be convicted of fraudulent conversion if it could be proved that he just had not got the money anyway. It is rare that courts permit a general deficiency charge of that kind. There are numerous legal rules and precedents in the matter and the courts prefer to have specific charges relating to exact sums of money, improperly diverted to purposes other than those for which they were made available.

The Court of Criminal Appeal then ordered the re-trial of Singer on three specific charges of fraudulent conversion. In the first trial of Singer the indictment drawn by State Counsel not only stood but it procured a conviction. At the second trial that indictment did not matter. He was tried on the specific charges contained in the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal. As I said, there was, from the beginning, serious doubts in the minds of State Counsel whether in fact sufficient evidence to make these charges stand could be produced in court and, as we now know, during the course of the trial the judge, a different trial judge, stopped the proceedings and ordered the acquittal of the accused on the ground that the State could not succeed by reason of the inadequacy of the evidence available.

I suppose everybody in this House and probably most of the people in the country, believes that because of these unforeseeable complications and legal technicalities, a criminal has escaped his due deserts. The question which I have asked myself and which I have discussed with the legal advisers of the Government—and it seems to me to be really the only relevant question that arises at this stage—is whether, arising out of our experience in this case, there is a need to carry out a general review of the practice in our courts in the trial of criminal cases of this character. I do not think so.

That procedure for the trial of criminals in such cases is the outcome of long practice and a great deal of thought. It is, of course, designed, and very deliberately designed, to protect the interests of accused persons. It is based upon the belief that it is far better to take the risk of a criminal escaping justice than the risk of an innocent man being wrongly convicted.

Deputy Sweetman made it clear that this matter is being raised here by him, and this reflection made upon the professional competence of the Attorney General, for Party motives. So far as I know, there is no precedent for a question of this kind being raised in this House. I think it would be highly undesirable that such a precedent should be established now.

There have been instances before, and I am sure there will be again, of criminals escaping punishment by reasons of court decisions that their indictment was wrongly prepared. I recollect one such case, which aroused a great deal of publicity at the time, during the lifetime of the first Coalition Government. Certain people, charged with fraud—in connection, I think, with the running of greyhounds— escaped trial by reason of a court's decision that the indictment was wrongly drawn.

Mr. Coughlan

Did they find another Treasure Island?

The Taoiseach

The matter was not raised here. There was a feeling that even if the incident could be turned to political advantage, no attempt to do so should be made. If cases of this kind are to be made the subject of Party political debates in the Dáil or if, worse still, some attempt should be made here to re-try cases of which the courts have disposed it could create very great difficulty for law enforcement in this country.

In the United States of America they have developed a practice of trying criminals in the newspapers before they ever get to the courts. That is bad and it will never be allowed to develop here. But, to re-try cases by politicians after the courts have dealt with them, would be a great deal worse.

So far, therefore, as Deputy Sweetman has made suggestions against the Government—or, through the Government, against the Attorney General— I want to say this and only this: We instituted the proceedings in this case. These proceedings were pursued vigorously and persistently. I make no apology for the length of time involved. That indicates the persistence with which the State sought to secure the penalties we thought appropriate to the offences.

We entrusted the conduct of this case in the courts to very highly competent counsel who used every legitimate legal device and every argument open to them to secure conviction. There is no foundation for the suggestion that, by reason of any defect in the indictment or any lack of vigour in the manner in which the case was prosecuted, the courts were prevented from arriving at an effective verdict.

Mr. Sweetman

Read the judgment.

The Taoiseach

I have read the judgment very carefully.

Mr. Sweetman

The indictment was not drawn on the basis——

The Taoiseach

I want to say only one thing further. There was a suggestion here during the course of our exchanges at Question Time last week that there should be some sympathy for the one member of this conspiracy who was convicted. I think that is just maudlin sentimentality. That person who is now in jail, having been convicted of being in this conspiracy, is properly there. The fact that another person involved in the conspiracy succeeded by legal technicalities in avoiding his punishment is no reason whatever why the other person's punishment should be mitigated.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

Had the Government a dossier from Interpol on Dr. Singer prior to the institution of the proceedings?

The Taoiseach

So far as I know, the answer is in the negative. I must not, however, profess to a knowledge I have not got. It was in 1958 that the Attorney General, by reason of certain letters he had received, asked the Civic Guards to undertake an investigation of the circumstances of this company.

Mr. Dillon

The Taoiseach has chosen to travel all over the countryside in his effort to cover up a fact— a fact which, I suggest, he confirmed in the course of his speech. I took a note when the Taoiseach was speaking. I believe I quote him correctly when I say that he stated categorically: "Dr. Singer was in fact convicted but his conviction was set aside on technical grounds." That is the burden of our complaint.

The Taoiseach

Because of the juryman complication.

Mr. Dillon

I do not want and I do not believe any Deputy in this House wants to re-try a defendant in Dáil Éireann. We interpreted the Ceann Comhairle's ruling on this matter in the narrowest possible sense. Perhaps Deputy Sweetman might have had more to say if we did not accept the Ceann Comhairle's ruling in its most literal and restrictive sense. But we certainly think that no useful purpose is to be served by any attempt to re-try a person charged before the criminal courts, either before or after his conviction, whether he is acquitted or convicted, in Dáil Éireann.

The Taoiseach, I think, unbecomingly, has chosen to speak of a desire to raise this matter for base political Party purposes. If I have any reason to blame myself, it is for the excessive reluctance with which we brought this matter before Dáil Éireann and the consequent delay which would be inexplicable on any grounds other than that we fully appreciated the gravity of this situation and very carefully weighed the public duty that devolved upon us to embark on this inquiry which is certainly not agreeable to me nor to any member on this side of the House. But the fact that the public duty may be disagreeable does not acquit the Opposition of responsibility for discharging it. When the Taoiseach says that "Singer was in fact convicted but his conviction was set aside on technical grounds," I conceive it to be the duty of the Opposition to call those facts in question in Dáil Éireann and to say: "How is it that the law officers of the State failed to bring a case to the courts in a form that would make it impossible for a convicted criminal to have his conviction set aside on technical grounds?"

The Taoiseach

That was not the technical ground. The technical ground was the presence on the jury of this investor in the company.

Mr. Dillon

The full gravity of the matter is borne out by the protestation on the Taoiseach's part of the effect it has had on his mind when he said that when he came to read the story of the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal, his first reaction was: "If this is the law, we ought to change it." If that is the reaction of the Taoiseach who I have no reason to believe was a subscriber to these funds, how much more might that be the reaction of thousands of defrauded people up and down the country. Lest the whole administration of law in this country should be brought into disrepute by failure to understand where responsibility in this matter truly lies, we have, with profound reluctance, decided that the proper thing was to bring the facts before Dáil Éireann and seek full clarification; but I think the Taoiseach has inadvertently provided this when he says: "Singer was in fact convicted but his conviction was set aside on technical grounds."

He asks: "Do the Opposition suggest a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Government or a lack of competence on the part of the Attorney General?" Something was lacking in the way this matter was brought to the courts because this is certain, that Singer is now disporting himself in Spanish sunshine at a time when thousands of poor people here have been defrauded and the facts of Singer's conduct of Shanahans' Stamp Auctions have never been passed upon by any court of criminal law on their merits. The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal—which the Taoiseach has enunciated—was: "On technical grounds, we must set aside the conviction," and Singer is in Spain.

I do not feel the Taoiseach's righteous indignation that anyone should demur to the fact that Singer is cavorting in Spain in conditions of great affluence, while Shanahan, his innocent tool, is doing 15 months hard labour in Mountjoy is justified. Perhaps that is incomprehensible sentimentality on my part, but I do not think so. I should like to see equal justice done to everybody but I think it is a cruel joke that the servant of a principal should serve a term in jail and that, because the conviction of the principal was set aside on technical grounds, he should be honeymooning in Spain. I think there is a contrast between these two things which calls for indignation at the lack of that which would have enabled the criminal courts of this country to pass on the merits of the charges brought against Singer in respect of what he did in connection with Shanahans' Stamp Auctions.

I agree with the Taoiseach that it is a good system of law, one that I love, that a man is deemed in this country to be innocent, unless and until the State can prove him guilty. I should have no complaint, no matter how deeply I felt, or 1,000 others felt that a criminal was guilty, if a jury of 12 citizens of this State, having heard the evidence, decided he was innocent. If he put himself upon the country and had been acquitted by 12 fellow countrymen, that would satisfy me whether I agreed with the verdict or not. What I object to, and what I think a great many people in the country legitimately object to, is that in the words of the Taoiseach, "Singer was, in fact, convicted but his conviction was set aside on technical grounds."

Now the Taoiseach has sought to say that the Attorney-General chose counsel and left to counsel the drawing of the indictments. It is not my job or the job of any other member of Dáil Éireann to dictate to the Attorney General how he does his business, how he discharges the duty of his office any more than the Taoiseach has a right to say: "I told a principal officer in my department to do that and he did not do it." That is no defence. In many ways, it makes the discharge of our duty in this matter all the more onerous and disagreeable that the Attorney General is not a member of Dáil Éireann. It would be very much easier if he were present and in a position to answer for himself, but he is the nominee and, in constitutional terms, the creature—that is a word I employ with no intention of personal disrespect—of the Taoiseach and it is the Taoiseach who must answer for the due performance of his duties to this House.

It is not open to the Attorney General to say: "These indictments were drawn by somebody else; I knew nothing about them." It was his duty when he was charging a man with fraudulent conversion and conspiracy relating to over £1,000,000 of our people's money—and that very largely drawn from poor people—to concern himself at every stage that all the facts would be brought before the criminal courts in a form which would give a jury of 12 men and women unbreakable seisin of those facts to give a verdict on them. That is where the Attorney General failed because he brought the facts—by himself or by another—before the court in a form which resulted in Singer being convicted but his conviction being set aside on technical grounds.

I do not want to follow the Taoiseach all over the lot; I do not think any very useful purpose would be served by that. The Taoiseach admits that he is not a lawyer. I am a member of the Bar but I have never practised; therefore I am in identical circumstances with the Taoiseach, having no theoretical or practical experience of the administration of the criminal law. But, when the Taoiseach says to-day that the long delay between the district court proceedings and the presentation of the case to the Central Criminal Court was due to the necessity of typing an infinity of documents, that does not seem to correspond with what he told me before. What he said today was that the delay was largely due—I think I quote him correctly—to the fact that the Attorney General, knowing or believing there was a criminal at work in the country, directed what might be described as his premature arrest in order to prevent the possibility of his decamping before the Attorney General could bring him to justice and that the delay between the district court proceedings and the proceedings in the higher court was due to the fact that the case was not complete, that the Attorney General was still urging the Gardaí to gather up all the information so that the case could be fully brought before the court.

Mr. Haughey

That was the delay in taking the depositions.

Mr. Dillon

That is what I understood the Taoiseach to say and I must meet the Taoiseach when he makes this affirmation and advances this additional evidence of diligence and competence on the part of the Attorney General. His case to-day was that the Attorney General in dealing with this situation had Singer prematurely arrested and was embarrassed by that because he could not proceed from the district court to the Central Criminal Court as promptly as he otherwise would because he really had arrested Singer before all the evidence was in the hands of the Gardaí. He told me on a previous occasion that the reason for the delay was the excessive quantity of documents that required to be typed and copied. Either story is true but both cannot be true.

Mr. Haughey

The premature arrest was responsible for a lengthening of the time taken to take the depositions.

Mr. McGilligan

Why?

Mr. Haughey

Because evidence was still coming in when depositions were being taken.

Mr. Dillon

It is a pity that, instead of allowing this undue delay which arose between the proceedings in the district court and the court above, adjournment of the district court proceedings had not been resorted to until the full mass of evidence which the Attorney General proposed to deploy had been ready for deployment.

I do not want to go into an extensive criticism of all the faults that might be found in the conduct of these proceedings because I think the heart and kernel of them has been conceded by the Taoiseach when he said: "Singer was, in fact, convicted but his conviction was set aside on technical grounds." That is the fault of the Attorney General and he cannot escape it but I do feel bound, in view of the road that has been travelled by the Taoiseach, to go this far: Here were criminal proceedings the introduction to which required 60 days in the district court taking depositions. The fruit of those 60 days' depositions was a collection of documents, materials and exhibits so vast that to copy them produced an unprecedented delay. The Attorney General is charged with the responsibility of the prosecution of the criminal law. The proceedings in the district court were conducted without counsel. At the end of 60 days of depositions with many exhibits counsel are presented, when they are nominated by the Attorney General for the prosecution in this matter in the Central Criminal Court, with a mountain of material no line or paragraph of which they have ever seen before, all of which has been extracted over a period of 60 days' proceedings in the district court. Having no knowledge whatever of the atmosphere in which they were extracted and having no opportunity of acquiring that familiarity with the story as it unfolded in the course of evidence given, counsel were required to digest this mass of documents and exhibits, never having sat a single day in the district court where these proceedings were going on.

I am prepared to say this as Leader of the principal Opposition Party in this House. I would bear with a great deal of left handedness on the part of the Attorney General before I would think of bringing such a matter as this before the House. I can conceive of any man making a mistake. If in a minor case it appeared to me that a slip-up by the Attorney General had resulted in a guilty man going free, I would argue very strongly with my colleagues that it was the last resort to which we should not have recourse unless the matter was one of the utmost gravity.

Let us not disguise it. We have discussed this matter between us with the gravest sense of responsibility before deciding on the course which we deem it our duty to adopt. We took that decision because we believe: (1) that this case was one of outstanding gravity, that there had been a grievous bungling of the whole business; and (2) that so grave a confusion as has here arisen, resulting in the Taoiseach's statement that Singer was, in fact, convicted but that his conviction was set aside on technical grounds, was calculated to create in the minds of our people a wholly undesirable attitude to the administration of law in this country.

I think the Taoiseach is all wrong when he tries to shuffle off responsibility for this mess from the Attorney General on to the judge or the Court of Criminal Appeal. I think he admits by his own affirmation that the fault lies with whoever is ultimately responsible for the indictment upon which this man was brought before the criminal court, that is, the Attorney General. From every point of view, it is infinitely more desirable that we should face the disagreeable duty of fixing responsibility where it belongs rather than leave it in the minds of people that there is something radically wrong with the judicial system of this country. I do not think there is; I think the courts function well. I think the guilty are made to answer and the innocent are set free. We have every reason to be glad of the judiciary and the standards they maintain in the administration of the law.

We saw how dangerous the facts of this case are to the whole judicial system. We felt that the proper remedy was to use Parliament for the purpose for which it is designed, to ventilate a public evil, fix responsibility clearly and invite whoever was responsible, however exalted, to take the appropriate course which, I think, the acceptance of responsibility involves—an acknowledgement that his error has been so great that he conceives it his duty to withdraw into the honourable practice of a profession which he has adorned but in the practice of which his experience manifestly does not fit him for the responsibility of the Attorney General's office.

We charge the Taoiseach, as head of the Government and as the nominator of the present Attorney General, to inform the Attorney General of what has passed here. We say this, as we are bound to say it. Just as we repudiate the right of the Attorney General to shuffle off his responsibility saying he employed counsel to represent him, we say to the Taoiseach: "You have no right to shuffle off your responsibility." It is for the Taoiseach to answer to Dáil Éireann for what has happened here. We say that if Singer was, in fact, convicted and his conviction was set aside on technical grounds, in the last analysis, responsibility for that situation is the Taoiseach's and it is the duty of Dáil Éireann to ensure him for his failure to discharge that responsibility efficiently.

Mr. Sherwin

I should like to say a few words not so much on the question of Singer's guilt as upon the question of law costs. In my opinion, law costs are to some extent extortion. I cannot see how the costs of the Singer trial can amount to £800,000 or thereabouts, unless some people are getting money for jam. In regard to this whole question of law, there are too many people trying to include others in order to have a "cut" out of what is going on.

There are too many counsel engaged where there is no need for counsel at all. It is my experience that often counsel are engaged where a solicitor could do the job. The cost of counsel is such that you would imagine this country was the United States. The Government, the State, is taken for a ride, so to speak, in these excessive demands by counsel for services rendered. It is the excessive costs which counsel receive that inspire them and induce them to ask for similar costs in private cases. It is no wonder that big monopolies who engage counsel frighten and blackmail poor prople into taking no action to secure justice in the courts. Something ought to be done about the whole question of excessive law costs.

I confess it is a calamity that a man who caused so much distress among people should get away with it. In Russia, they are shooting people for considerably less. If I thought I were going to be shot and knew there was a juryman there I could use later, I would let him stay there. I am not so certain that Singer and those who represented him had not some knowledge of the existence of this juryman. It is terrible to think that a man could "get away with murder" on technical grounds as Singer did.

I would say this much about the Government. While it is not their fault, I think it a shame that they should have allowed Singer out of the country. Their espionage system was not functioning well enough to let them know that if this fellow got out, he would never come back. Something should have been done to hold Singer. He could have been brought to justice in some other roundabout way. I am more concerned about this matter of fabulous costs and I have put a question down with regard to it. I shall be very anxious to know who is getting all the "dough".

Mr. Barron

With regard to costs, is there not a Taxing Master or two who decide?

Mr. McGilligan

There are two.

Mr. Corish

I want to say just a few brief words on what is now known as the "Singer case". I think it is my duty to give what appears to me to be the reaction of the ordinary people towards the Singer case. The confidence of the people has undoubtedly been shaken in this whole affair. I do not think there can be any doubt about that. They are not so much concerned as to where specific blame should lie, whether it is on the Attorney General, the law, or those who sit in the courts of justice.

It is not for us to attempt to criticise the Bench. The Taoiseach, by innuendo, if I interpret him correctly, without making any specific criticism, apportioned some blame to the Bench. He qualified some of his remarks by saying that we should not, of course, criticise the courts of justice.

The Taoiseach

I do not know what the Deputy means by blame. A judge gave a ruling which the Court of Criminal Appeal subsequently said was not a correct ruling. The ruling was given quite honestly.

Mr. Corish

In any case, the Taoiseach did not agree with some of the rulings. Now, what I am concerned about is that the confidence of the people has been shaken and people are saying to themselves that, the bigger the crime, the better the chance of being acquitted by the courts. That may seem childish. It may seem simple, but the ordinary mother down the country, whose son is sent away for six months for doing away with £5, or £10, or for falsification of accounts, is beginning to ask herself whether or not there was a fiddle in the Singer case. I do not believe there was. I do not believe there was a fiddle to the extent that there was any pulling by this person, that person, or the other person, but I am bound to tell the Taoiseach that a great number of ordinary people believe there was either something phony about the Singer case or the Attorney General did not do his job properly.

I am inclined to think the Attorney General did not do his job properly. He did not make the case stick. The fact is 30,000 people invested something like £750,000 in this concern and the gentleman who was accused of being party to the misappropriation of those funds was acquitted, and has now left the country. It is as simple as that where ordinary people are concerned. They just cannot understand it.

The Taoiseach said he did not see any case for changing the law. I am not competent to say whether or not there should be a change in the law, but it is insufficient for the Taoiseach to say to the people that Dr. Paul Singer was acquitted by the courts on some legal technicality. They do not know what legal technicalities are; they do not even understand the phrase. All they know about Dr. Paul Singer is that he was accused—they believe, rightly so—of being party to the misappropriation of £750,000. They cannot understand why he is not, like Mr. Shanahan, in gaol. It is a serious business not alone for the Taoiseach and his Government but for the whole judicial system, the law office, the Bench, and all of us public representatives in Dáil Éireann.

If the confidence of the people is shaken to the extent I believe it is, some drastic changes will have to be made. Whether it is the resignation of the Attorney General or a change in the law, I do not know, but the Taoiseach ought to be aware that the explanation he gave here this evening, whilst given by him in all sincerity, will just not be accepted by the people. They believe justice was not done. It was not done in that Dr. Paul Singer is now over in Canada or Spain. That is the only point that occurs to them and, if we are to have any more cases like this, there will be nothing but utter contempt for the decisions given in our courts.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Haughey)

I do not want to say very much, but I should, I think, reply to the case put forward by Deputy Dillon in support of the original argument advanced by Deputy Sweetman. I want to deal with one particular aspect only of that argument. We can sum up the case made here as being that the Government have been guilty of a dereliction of duty because they did not ensure that the Attorney General ensured that Dr. Singer would be found guilty.

If we examine that case and the arguments put forward by Deputy Sweetman, they harden down to two particular grounds. There is, on the one hand, the suggestion that the Attorney General was lax or incompetent at the district court level and, on the other hand, that the indictment as framed was ineffective and bad. No further arguments were advanced by either of the two principal Opposition speakers in favour of referring back this Estimate.

It is a fair summary of the case put forward that it stands or falls on these two grounds. The reason counsel was not employed at the district court level is understandable. The Attorney General took the sensible, logical course at that stage. The normal rule is not to be represented by counsel at the taking of depositions. It is only in murder cases, or cases of very unusual character, that counsel are brought in at the deposition stage. Normally, the matter is left, in Dublin to a member of the Chief State Solicitor's staff, and in the country, to the local State Solicitor's Office.

Mr. S. Collins

Surely this was the most unusual case ever.

Mr. Haughey

I am coming to that. When the Attorney General began to entertain suspicions, when the Garda began to make investigations, and when the case began to form, the Attorney General had a conference with his advisors, and others, in this matter. It was decided that the best way to handle the case was for an experienced member of the Chief State Solicitor's office to take the case at the deposition stage. That was done. Right through the long period of taking depositions, the case was conducted by this skilful and experienced member of the Chief State Solicitor's office and I think there is agreement that the whole process of taking depositions was excellently conducted and the Attorney General's decision in that regard was amply borne out and vindicated.

When the depositions were ultimately lodged and the accused was returned for trial, the Attorney General again did what was normally logical, reasonable and sound: he saw that the case would be long, difficult and complicated, and he brought in not one senior counsel but two to conduct the proceedings from that point forward. There was no error of judgment on the part of the Attorney General. He took exactly the right decisions at both points.

The drafting of the indictment has been dealt with at some length. Nobody in this House can argue that it is the Attorney General's job to draft indictments.

Mr. Sweetman

Of course it is.

Mr. S. Collins

The responsibility is his.

Mr. McGilligan

He takes the responsibility.

Mr. Haughey

There is no question that he takes responsibility, and the Government ultimately take responsibility for whatever the Attorney General does.

Mr. McGilligan

And, if there is a choice or alternative in regard to prosecutions, he directs which is to be taken.

Mr. Haughey

Quite. I am concerned with the competence or otherwise of the Attorney General, and whether or not he did everything he could reasonably be expected to do in this situation. I want to make it absolutely clear to the House that it is not the practice for the Attorney General to draft these indictments.

Mr. McGilligan

He directs them.

Mr. Haughey

The Attorney General selects counsel to conduct the proceedings——

Mr. McGilligan

More than that.

Mr. Haughey

——and, if you like, gives general directions as to how the case is to be conducted. The drafting of the indictment is a matter simply and solely for counsel appointed to the case. I have asked myself was the Attorney General correct in this matter of leaving the drafting of the indictment to the counsel concerned. I immediately ascertained that that was the unfailing practice down through the years. Not only that, but I checked the position in Great Britain and found that there it is exactly the same. The person appointed to a particular case is in sole charge of the case from the point of view of the technical proceedings, of which, of course, the drafting of the indictment is the principal one.

As I say, I want to make it absolutely clear that not only did the Attorney General not draft the indictment but he had no duty to draft it. It has never been the practice for him to do so. Therefore, at any point in this case that you look at where any individual action of the Attorney General is brought to bear upon it, any decision he took was the correct one, and any action he took was in accordance with the usual practice, and no accusation whatever can be made against him in regard to any of these matters.

Mr. S. Collins

But the bird has flown.

Mr. Haughey

That is a different matter. We are not concerned, as Deputy Dillon pointed out, with whether or not the bird has flown or was guilty. We are concerned only with whether or not the Attorney General did everything he should have done and whether he did it competently.

Mr. McGilligan

Did he not give directions on the amounts?

Mr. Haughey

The Attorney General does not give directions on the costs.

Mr. McGilligan

He did in this case.

The Taoiseach

No.

Mr. McGilligan

Drafting an indictment is one thing and directing the charges to be brought is another. Surely the Attorney General has a function in that ?

Mr. Haughey

The accusations levelled here against the Attorney General by Deputy Sweetman and Deputy Dillon have been on two grounds: first, the conduct of the proceedings in the district court, and secondly, on the merit of the indictment.

Mr. McGilligan

Certainly.

Mr. Sweetman

The form of the indictment.

Mr. Haughey

I have indicated that the Attorney General's duty or obligation with regard to the indictment ceased when he appointed competent counsel to do that job.

Mr. Sweetman

It is the Attorney General who decides on a charge of conspiracy, fraudulent conversion, false pretences, and aider or abettor of a company. He might not give all the wording but he decides on the principle, or he should decide.

The Taoiseach

That is decided on the evidence available.

Mr. McGilligan

That is part of the Attorney General's function.

Mr. Haughey

I will not be shouted down on this issue. I want to make it absolutely clear that in this case the normal practice and procedure were adhered to in the Attorney General's office, and that the form of the indictment and the charges preferred were decided by counsel appointed by the Attorney General and not by the Attorney General himself. Apart from consultations with counsel and general discussions with them on the lines on which the case would be conducted, he accepted, as the Attorney General normally does, the decision of the expert counsel he had appointed to take the case, and any self-respecting counsel at the Bar would resent it if it were otherwise.

Mr. McGilligan

Nonsense.

Mr. S. Collins

How is it that in an ordinary criminal case, if you want to make a plea, counsel will ring the Attorney General and get his decision.

The Taoiseach

That is an entirely different matter.

Mr. S. Collins

It is the same.

Mr. Haughey

I do not accept that. However, we are concerned only with the Singer case.

Mr. S. Collins

If it had happened, he might not be in Canada now.

Mr. Haughey

Not only did the Attorney General not draft the indictment himself, but he had the wisdom at that stage to see that it would be a difficult and complicated case, and he took the precaution of employing a second senior. He went to the Bar for the best senior counsel available and briefed him in the case, so that whatever the outcome of the case may be, and however unfortunate it may be for those who presume that Dr. Singer was guilty, blame cannot be laid at the door of the Attorney General.

Mr. S. Collins

There is no presumption in the minds of the Irish people. They are convinced.

Mr. Haughey

I cannot help that. I am here concerned to prove——

Mr. Sweetman

To pass the buck.

Mr. Haughey

——and demonstrate that at any stage where a decision had to be taken or a judgment made, the decision or judgment of the Attorney General was the sound, reasonable and logical one which he could be expected to take in the circumstances of the time.

There is a further point. Whereas I argued that the Attorney General was competent, it may be said that he was dilatory and did not pursue the case as energetically as he should have. Surely the very complicated and long drawn out processes through which the case went before it reached a final conclusion are as good an indication as any that the Attorney General was energetic, active, persistent and determined to see that everything possible was done to ensure that justice was done in this case.

Question—"That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration"— put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 49; Níl, 63.

Tá

• Barrett, Stephen D.
• Barry, Richard.
• Belton, Jack.
• Blowick, Joseph.
• Burke, James J.
• Burton, Philip.
• Byrne, Patrick.
• Clinton, Mark A.
• Collins, Seán.
• Coogan, Fintan.
• Corish, Brendan.
• Cosgrave, Liam.
• Costello, Declan D.
• Coughlan, Stephen.
• Crotty, Patrick J.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Henry P.
• Dockrell, Maurice E.
• Donegan, Patrick S.
• Donnellan, Michael.
• Dunne, Seán.
• Dunne, Thomas.
• Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
• Everett, James.
• Farrelly, Denis.
• Flanagan, Oliver J.
• Governey, Desmond.
• Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
• Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
• Jones, Denis F.
• Lynch, Thaddeus.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McLaughlin, Joseph.
• McQuillan, John.
• Murphy, William.
• Norton, William.
• O'Donnell, Patrick.
• O'Donnell, Thomas G.
• O'Higgins, Michael J.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F.K.
• O'Keeffe, James.
• O'Reilly, Patrick.
• O'Sullivan, Denis J.
• Pattison, Séamus.
• Reynolds, Patrick J.
• Rooney, Eamonn.
• Ryan, Richie.
• Sweetman, Gerard.
• Tully, James.

Níl

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Lorcan.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Blaney, Neil T.
• Boland, Kevin.
• Booth, Lionel.
• Brady, Philip A.
• Brady, Seán.
• Brennan, Joseph.
• Brennan, Paudge.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Burke, Patrick J.
• Carter, Frank.
• Carty, Michael.
• Childers, Erskine.
• Clohessy, Patrick.
• Colley, George.
• Collins, James J.
• Cotter, Edward.
• Crinion, Brendan.
• Crowley, Honor M.
• Cummins, Patrick J.
• Davern, Mick.
• de Valera, Vivion.
• Dolan, Séamus.
• Dooley, Patrick.
• Egan, Kieran P.
• Egan, Nicholas.
• Fanning, John.
• Faulkner, Padraig.
• Flanagan, Seán.
• Gallagher, James.
• Geoghegan, John.
• Gibbons, James M.
• Gilbride, Eugene.
• Gogan, Richard P.
• Haughey, Charles.
• Hillery, Patrick.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Kennedy, Michael J.
• Kitt, Michael F.
• Lalor, Patrick J.
• Lemass, Noel T.
• Lemass, Seán.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• Lynch, Celia.
• Lynch, Jack.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Meaney, Con.
• Medlar, Martin.
• Millar, Anthony G.
• Moher, John W.
• Moran, Michael.
• Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
• Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
• O'Connor, Timothy.
• O'Malley, Donogh.
• Ormonde, John.
• Ryan, James.
• Sherwin, Frank.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Timmons, Eugene.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Níl: Deputies O'Sullivan and Crotty.

Question declared lost.

Vote put and agreed to.