Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 15 Dec 1965

Vol. 219 No. 7

Committee on Finance. - Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 1965: Second and Subsequent Stages.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. Blaney)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

This Bill proposes to alter the present basis of registration for electoral purposes of patients in hospitals, homes and similar institutions for persons suffering from mental disability. It provides that each such patient shall be registered in the place where he would be residing, but for his being a patient, and that where that place cannot be ascertained by the registration authority, he shall be registered at his last place of residence. The proposed change is on much the same lines as that intended under the Electoral Bill, 1965, which was introduced in the Dáil as a Private Member's Bill in July last, and which was debated here on 1st December.

Prior to the enactment of the Electoral Act, 1963, mental patients were specifically debarred from being registered in the hospitals and other institutions in which they were staying. Short-stay mental patients were registered at their home addresses and permanent or long-stay patients were not normally registered at all. The Joint Committee of the Dáil and Seanad on Electoral Law, which reported in 1960-61, recommended that "persons resident for long periods in county homes and similar institutions" should be registered there. The Joint Committee also expressed the following opinion that the distinction between physical and mental illness should cease to be a factor in the electoral Law:

The trend in recent legislation has been to do away with the distinction between physical and mental illhealth. A member suffering from a disease which prevents him for a long time from discharging his functions as a public representative is not thereby disqualified. If, however, the disorder is mental he is disqualified. The Joint Committee does not see any logic in this distinction. (Paragraph 102 of the Committee's Final Report).

Following the enactment of the Electoral Act, 1963, short-term patients or inmates in hospitals, sanatoria, county homes, homes for persons suffering from physical or mental disability or similar institutions are registered at their home addresses and long-stay patients or inmates are registered at the hospitals and other institutions.

Following the general election held earlier this year, criticism was voiced in this House and elsewhere regarding voting at the election by long-stay mental patients at polling booths situated in or adjacent to mental hospitals. The general concensus of opinion seemed to be that the new provisions regarding voting by such patients had proved to be unsatisfactory in practice and that it would be desirable to revert to the arrangements which operated prior to the Electoral Act, 1963. The present measure sets out to do this, but it avoids the danger of imposing, in effect, the statutory disfranchisement on long-stay patients which the Electoral Act, 1923, applied.

It is intended that the provisions of this Bill will apply to the 1966-67 Register of Electors, which will be used for the forthcoming local elections and which is at present in course of preparation.

I submit the Bill for the approval of the House.

Mr. Clinton

I want to thank the Minister for the expeditious manner in which he honoured his undertaking to implement what I regard as being the best part of the Bill introduced by us some weeks ago. As the Minister has said, the position following the 1963 legislation has been found to be unsatisfactory. We have gone over this point fairly fully in the course of the discussion on our Bill and it was generally accepted, and there were expressions of opinion from all sides of the House which indicated that there were abuses and undesirable practices arising from the 1963 legislation.

The Minister referred to the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Electoral Law. It was never the intention of the Joint Committee that these recommendations should have applied to patients in mental hospitals. Their concern at that time was with long-stay patients in county homes and other such institutions. I felt at the time we were discussing the Bill introduced by us that this effect could have been brought about by amending our Bill and deleting the latter portion but apparently the people better qualified to make decisions felt that the best way to deal with the matter was for the Minister to bring in a separate Bill. I am quite prepared to accept that that is the right way to do what we wish to be done. It is quite unnecessary to go over the ground again in any detail. I want just to welcome the measure and to see it through the House as quickly as possible.

Mr. James Tully

The Labour Party also support the terms of the Bill. It is rather a pity that the necessity arises to introduce this Bill because of the way in which the 1963 Act was framed. All of us dislike pinpointing persons suffering from mental illness as persons apart from the ordinary people but, unfortunately, that is the case and there is nothing we can do about it.

I suppose it would involve too much trouble to separate long-term patients from other patients. I am referring to a patient who may have been admitted to a mental hospital years ago and who has no relatives or, if he has relatives, they do not want to take him out. Such a person, though he may be quite sane, is condemned to remain in a mental hospital for the rest of his life. It is suggested that such persons can vote if they are brought to the place where they originally resided. The mental hospital serving County Meath and a number of other counties is in Mullingar, Westmeath, and I do not think any candidate would be mad enough to go to Mullingar to bring a patient home for the day in order to vote because the difficulty in returning him to the hospital would be very great.

When Deputy Clinton's Bill was before the House a couple of weeks ago, the Minister insisted that a Joint Committee recommended that mental hospital patients should be included in those who should be allowed to vote. While the Minister quoted a reference, I still feel that there was a misinterpretation on the part of the persons drawing up the 1963 Bill. I think the slip-up occurred where reference is made to the trend in recent legislation to do away with the distinction between physical and mental ill health. It is suggested that the Joint Committee did not see any logic in the distinction between mental and physical ill health.

Paragraph 22 of the Final Report of the Joint Committee on the Electoral Law—page 81—recommended:

A further amendment to section 1 of the Electoral Act, 1923, which the Joint Committee would like to see made is the deletion in subsection (9) of the words `workhouse, poor house'. This would enable persons resident for long periods in county homes and similar institutions to be registered there. The present wording of subsection (9) in effect disfranchises them and seems to be an anachronistic survival from old poor law attitudes.

I believe that this was where the misinterpretation occurred because the 1963 Act did not restrict the provision to county homes but extended it to mental hospitals. I would suggest that it was never intended to have them included.

The Minister even at this late stage is remedying the position. It is a good idea. While certainly people may tell patients of mental hospitals that this House is now taking punitive measures against them, I believe that, in their own interests and for their own protection, it is only right that this Bill should be before the House and should be passed as quickly as possible.

Mr. L'Estrange

I have little to say except to join in the thanks to the Minister for introducing this Bill. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that it had to be introduced but I should like to say that it is also unfortunate that one longstanding member of this House, General Seán MacEoin, is not today a member of the House because of the abuses that took place in Mullingar Mental Hospital where undue pressure was brought to bear on the unfortunate patients. The Minister may smile.

Mr. Blaney

I am thinking about the depredation the Deputy did in that regard, not in the mental hospital, but elsewhere.

Mr. L'Estrange

I can stand over anything I did.

Mr. Blaney

I am not saying the Deputy cannot stand over it but he should not lay it at the door of the mental hospital.

Mr. L'Estrange

We know what the Minister tried to do in Boyle, where there were thousands of letters and we heard what happened yesterday. Perhaps some of those who made the allegations should be in the mental hospital. Otherwise, they would hardly make the allegations made there at that time. We know those patients were herded in there like sheep to the slaughter and made to vote for a particular candidate. That is a well-known fact.

Mr. P. Brennan

For L'Estrange.

Mr. L'Estrange

It certainly was not for L'Estrange. It was for a Fianna Fáil candidate.

Mr. Coogan

It shows how weakminded they were to vote for them.

Mr. L'Estrange

We are sorry that a man who did so much to build up and maintain the institutions of this State should, through the malpractice in this particular institution, be now no longer a member of this House. It is unfortunate. The Minister may smile but had the boot been on the other foot, he would not be smiling. He would have taken immediate action at that time.

Mr. Blaney

I suppose it is no harm that Deputy L'Estrange should say what he has in his mind but it is a pity that he should use a matter of this kind as an excuse for getting rid of a very respected member of this House through his operations in the constituency in question.

Mr. L'Estrange

That is how he was got rid of.

Mr. Blaney

It is no reflection on anything done in that mental hospital or any other one.

Mr. L'Estrange

Everyone in Mullingar knows that it is.

Mr. Blaney

Everyone knows that you saw to it that you got there.

Mr. L'Estrange

General MacEoin made an agreement with us that we all stood by and General MacEoin was defeated there. It is a well-known fact that the patients were herded like sheep to the slaughter.

Mr. Blaney

If I am responsible for having the Deputy here rather than General MacEoin, that is the only regret I have in regard to this matter because, quite genuinely, I am sorry in a way——

Mr. L'Estrange

That the Taoiseach has a man like you as Minister is unfortunate.

Mr. Blaney

You did the poor man. What is the use of your talking now, attempting to put all the blame on the mental hospital patients?

Mr. L'Estrange

Many is the one you tried to do, and failed.

Mr. Blaney

If it comes to political "doing", I am a fair hand at it yet.

Mr. L'Estrange

You tried it with your Mafia but you were beaten.

Mr. Coogan

His brother tried it in Galway with a loudspeaker but I shut him up with my God-given voice.

Mr. Blaney

As I say, the Deputy now has a guilty conscience and is making excuses for himself.

Mr. L'Estrange

If the Minister's conscience and that of everybody belonging to him were as clear, everything would be all right.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. L'Estrange

If the Minister wants to talk about anybody's conscience being clear, he knows something that should affect his conscience, if he had a conscience.

An Ceann Comhairle

I want order, so that the matter before the House may be discussed.

Mr. Blaney

I stand over everything and the Deputy cannot deny the fact that what he has been saying was merely a cover-up.

Mr. L'Estrange

There is no cover-up.

An Ceann Comhairle

I must insist that interruptions cease.

Mr. L'Estrange

The Minister is inviting them.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am not saying who is interrupting and who is not. The Minister is concluding and I am saying that interruptions will have to cease and the Minister must be given an opportunity to conclude.

Mr. L'Estrange

Look both ways.

An Ceann Comhairle

I will not be directed by Deputy L'Estrange as to how to conduct the business of this House. I tell the Deputy that in all seriousness.

Mr. Blaney

Though sponsoring this Bill, I regret the fact that it will take away from mental patients the votes they got for the first time at the last election. The 1923 Act disfranchised these people completely. Even though we are now amending the 1963 Act, we are not disfranchising these people to the same degree to which they were disfranchised under the 1923 Act. I am not at all certain that there will not be people who may think it worth their while to take these mental patients out to vote in some other county. More luck to the patients if their mental state is such that they can be allowed out and good luck to anyone who takes them out, irrespective of Party affiliations.

With the progress made in mental treatment in recent years, there is no doubt that many of these patients who are registered on the electoral register will be quite capable of voting under their own steam. From that point of view, this amending legislation is an improvement on the 1923 Act, though it might be regarded as a disimprovement of the 1963 Act from the point of view of the mental hospital patient.

As far as the Committee's Report is concerned, if it was not their intention that we should do what was done by the 1963 Act, I certainly took it that it was their express intention that it should be done. However, the general opinion now seems to be that that was not the intention. This Bill represents, I think, the best compromise. It gives these people rights they did not have before 1963, even though it may be said to lessen to some extent those rights conferred by the 1963 Act.

Mr. Coogan

I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the possibility of introducing legislation to cover a very important group in the economy of this country, a group now deprived of voting. I refer to our fishermen.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy may not proceed on those lines.

Mr. Coogan

I am putting it to the Minister for consideration.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining Stages today.

Bill put through Committee, reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.