I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "offence" in page 2, line 10, down to the end of the section.
Might I explain with regard to this amendment, and certain other amendments standing in my name, that I regard all these amendments as standing together. As far as I am concerned, the only one I want to discuss is the first of these amendments. I move this amendment for the purpose of enabling the Dáil to discuss and, if necessary, to decide and vote on the question of the total abolition of capital punishment. I expressed the view on Second Reading that, while I was prepared to support this Bill as far as it went, I did not think it was going far enough. I thought the Bill was to some extent illogical. I thought the principles which the Government were apparently acting upon in bringing in the Bill in the first place did not run completely through the Bill. While the principles were accepted as far as certain portions of the Bill were concerned, they were not accepted as far as other portions were concerned.
The first section is the section which provides that capital punishment will be abolished for murder except for certain categories of murder. The suggestion I am making is that this should be a simple, three section Bill, in which we should provide that a person shall not be liable to suffer death for any offence. We should then provide that a person who, but for this Bill would have been liable to suffer death, shall be liable to penal servitude for life, and we should simply leave the Bill at that.
I do not know that it is necessary at this stage to go through all the arguments discussed here on Second Reading as to the general pros and cons of capital punishment. I feel, as I said on Second Reading, that when this matter is brought before the Dáil, every Deputy is entitled to make up his own mind with regard to it. For that reason, the Fine Gael Party decided that this was not a measure in respect of which it would be proper to apply the whip. We felt it was right that every individual Deputy should be entitled to express his own point of view, governed by his own conscience and his own convictions. I am very glad to note that the Labour Party came to a similar decision with regard to the Bill.
The Bill as introduced by the Minister goes part of the way but does not go the whole way towards the abolition of capital punishment. There are certain categories of murders which are to become what are to be known under the Bill as capital murders and in those cases, the punishment of hanging is to be preserved. It is also to be preserved in certain cases under the Offences against the State Act and the Defence Forces Act of 1954.
One of the anomalies in the Bill as it stands at the moment—and this is a matter that was referred to here on Second Reading also—is that you can have under the Bill a situation arising whereby the occupation of the person murdered rather than the motive of the murderer will determine whether or not the punishment to be inflicted for the murder is to be capital punishment. That seems, certainly, to create a very anomalous and very undesirable position. It seems to me that if we have arrived at a stage in this country where capital punishment can be abolished for any class of murder then that we have arrived at a stage where capital punshment can be abolished for all sorts of murder.
The Minister, in reply to the Second Reading discussion, did concede that the arguments which weighed with the Government were not entirely logical and that as a consequence the Bill as it stands is not an entirely logical Bill.
I know that there is a point of view —and I appreciate it is a point of view that must carry a great deal of weight —that we have arrived at a position in Ireland where what I described on Second Reading as a kind of accidental compromise has been reached in that while preserving the death penalty, it is very seldom used and the Government almost invariably exercise the prerogative of mercy vested in them to remit the death penalty and to have the offender imprisoned for life instead.
While I fully appreciate the soundness of the point of view of those who feel that, that being the position, it is just as well to let it rest there, nevertheless, I feel that once this Bill is introduced, it is necessary for individual Deputies to make up their minds with regard to the Bill, with regard to what the Bill proposes to do and with regard to the general question of whether in the year 1963 and going into the year 1964, we should still retain the death penalty at all, having regard to the fact that we have before us the example of so many countries which have abolished the death penalty and have abolished it without any of the repercussions which those who argued down through the years in favour of the retention of the death penalty felt would occur once it was abolished.
I gave my own views on Second Reading as to why I was in favour of the total abolition of the death penalty and I do not feel it necessary on Committee to go into these again in detail, but I should like to say that one of the arguments which influenced me is the fact that the carrying out of the death penalty is an irrevocable act and there is strong reason for saying that any penalty which is irrevocable should be imposed only by a tribunal which is in itself infallible and that we cannot have that, no matter what precautions are taken, and I know the utmost precautions are taken against a miscarriage of justice. No matter what precautions are taken, none of us can claim that the tribunals which impose the death penalty or which are authorised to impose it are infallible.
That argument holds good, no matter what type of murder it is, whether it is what is to be described as capital murder under this Bill, whether it is to be what is described as political murder or whether it may be described as an individual murder. The argument holds good whether it is murder done impulsively on the spur of the moment or whether it is a calculated, planned murder. The argument that the death penalty is irrevocable and nothing can be done to remedy the situation if a mistake is made is the same, no matter to what type of murder the death penalty is applied.
I feel that this amendment, which is also put down, although independently of me, by Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy McQuillan, does give Deputies an opportunity of making up their minds and taking a decision on the important question of the abolition or retention of the death penalty in this country.