During the time that the two Ministers were here last night I said that while listening to Deputy Dillon, who is always very entertaining, I regretted that he apparently has decided to leave public life at the end of this Dáil session because one could listen to him for hours without agreeing to anything that he would say. However, I did agree with some of the things he said last night but when he related them to the Bill and referred to what I have described on many occasions as the "Reds under the bed" I could not agree. As far as I am aware, most of the trouble in this country is not started by Reds. If there are people getting Russian gold for the purpose of stirring up trouble here they certainly do not seem to be getting very much because people who have claimed to be Communists seem to be doing extremely badly no matter what standard is applied.
Earlier speakers said that this is a lawyers' Bill. While I agree that lawyers, of necessity, must know a lot more about the phraseology used in the Bill than the ordinary layman, ordinary Deputies who are not engaged in law are entitled to put forward their point of view. It would be too bad if only lawyers were entitled to comment on this legislation, because it is legislation which will affect very many sections of the community.
It is true that a number of the sections included in the Bill could more easily be understood by lawyers but it is also true that there is a very wide field covered on which those who are not engaged in law can make sensible comment. With regard to the repeal of old Acts, there is one point which often puzzles me. I do not know why this was not carried out earlier. Many of these Acts date back to 1297 and from that up to 1967. I cannot see that it should be necessary to repeal laws which have been passed as recently as 1967, but I wonder if the Minister has done a clean job of this. If my memory serves me correctly, there are in existence certain other laws which have not been wiped off the Statute Book. For instance, I think there is one still in existence which makes it illegal for a parish priest or a bishop of the Catholic Church so to describe himself. This does not appear to be included in the Act to be repealed. Whether there is any significance in that I do not know. Maybe it has been repealed and I have not noticed it. There are a number of others which, I understand, are still hanging around, and it might be a good idea if all those were removed from the Statute Book of Irish Law. They are a carryover from British Law and the only reason, I suppose, they were not dealt with earlier is that they were mostly forgotten. However, the fact that they are still there means they can be used. Occasionally these Acts going back a couple of hundred years are quoted in court cases where somebody is being prosecuted for doing something or other and, while it makes very little difference to the eventual decision, it does annoy people to find they are fined or otherwise punished under a law which was enacted more than a hundred years ago for an entirely different reason.
The question of the amendment of certain of the proposals which the Minister has mentioned makes discussion on this part of the Bill a little bit awkward, because we have not got the amendments down in black and white. The Minister has stated—and, according to the press, he has explained them more fully at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis than he did to the House —the proposed amendments to Part VI of the Bill and I would like to comment on some of the provisions contained in it and which he proposes to change.
The question of a public meeting or procession or demonstration is mentioned here. It would be a pity if any Government or any democracy introduced legislation to prevent peaceful processions, peaceful meetings or peaceful demonstrations. Having said that, I should like to say to Deputy Dillon that it is not right that he and many other prominent people in the country should try to compare the position in the Six Counties with the situation here. We change Governments through the ballot box. We do not change Governments by demonstrations in the streets. If we are a democracy— and we are a democracy—then that must always be borne in mind. To try to say that what happened in Derry when somebody, who according to Deputy Dillon, was unwittingly pushed against a police barrier and got a cut head for his pains, was the same as what could happen here is not a fair comparison at all.
I dislike intensely violent demonstrations on the street. The people who engage in them do no good to themselves, to the country or to anything else. I also disagree with Deputy Dillon, and other people who have spoken in the same vein over the past two weeks, that the general authority or responsibility for running the country is being taken away from this House. Whether we like the Government in power or not, we still have a Government which was democratically elected, which will be standing for election again within the next 12 months, and the ordinary sensible voters of the country have the right to return them or reject them. It does no good to the country to suggest that we are only a talking shop and that we no longer create any impression on the country or have anything to do with the day-to-day running of the country.
Unfortunately, over the last couple of years it has become popular for certain types of demonstration to take place in cities all over the world. Again, Deputy Dillon last night compared what happened in various cities in America and Central Europe with what has happened in this country. I do not think the comparison is fair except in so far as small people in this country who would be better engaged doing other things aped in a very small way what they saw happening elsewhere and thereby gained a certain amount of notoriety.
The trouble with us here is that we seem to blame students for an awful lot of things. The number of students involved in creating disturbances in this city over the past number of years has been very small. In fact, the percentage of students involved in this sort of thing is so small that they would hardly be worth noticing but for the publicity which their activities have got. It is rather odd to find, when one checks up, that the students who demonstrate and talk about improved social conditions, and about the necessity to have new housing for workers and better working conditions and all these things which are so desirable, are usually the sons and daughters of wealthy people, not the sons and daughters of workers. The reason for that is that workers' sons and daughters who are in the universities have only a limited time during which they must pass their examinations in order to get a better living for themselves and their children than was given to them because they came out of homes where, in many cases, want was well known.
I am speaking from experience. I know what the situation is. It is an unfortunate thing that these people give the impression, as I heard some of them say, that their cause is a common one with workers who are on strike. They are talking through their hats. These people are very noisy; they can afford to be absent from classes and to go around. It does not matter to them whether they pass their examinations or not because they will not starve. However, it is rather interesting to find where they go after they have taken their degrees, because these people do not appear on platforms looking for social justice for the workers of this country in the years afterwards.
I have no objection to young people working off their surplus energy in parades or demonstrations of any kind so long as it is realised what they are and so long as they do not cause damage or disturbance to public or private property or to individuals. I have been condemned for expressing these sentiments before, but people in my station in life are used to this sort of thing. It should be remembered that students have no fixed place in society. They are at college for the purpose of learning and qualifying for a trade or profession, and when they finish their studies they go their separate ways. I have been looking at some of them who some years ago were very radical in their views and talked about what should be done to change society. They fitted very snugly into the existing society as soon as they got their degrees and found they could think as adults and not as children. I do not want it to be understood by anybody that I think it is wrong for students to demonstrate. If they want to demonstrate peacefully, if they have time to do it and they can afford to do it, good luck to them. In fact, Deputy Dunne made a comment to the Minister which he resented but which I do not think, on reflection, he would resent. I was looking at a photograph taken in 1932 in which the Minister was found, complete with peak cap and muffler, in the front ranks of a group of students who were marching to take Arbour Hill. The Minister was marching to Arbour Hill. Arbour Hill is still there and the Minister is now the Minister for Justice. I do not think any the worse of him for that but I am using that demonstration as an example of how young people may think in a certain way but being grown up realise that their thinking as adolescents must change as years go on. Arbour Hill was not attacked and the only fellow who suffered must have been the fellow who had a good camera. The year was 1932 and the photograph was an excellent one. The camera was taken from him, the film was taken from it, and the camera thrown in the river. If he is alive now I am sure if he applied to the Minister and the other eminent gentlemen in that parade they would contribute to the purchase of a good modern camera for him.
I am not saying this to embarrass the Minister but I am using it as an example to those who try to make out that because students say something the world should stop and listen. I saw, and was also surprised to find, certain eminent people in this country and other countries saying that the youth had something to say and should be listened to. It is interesting to note that when the Americans and Russians were selecting people for their space flights they did not pick university students; they picked people who were adult and who could think properly and react properly. I am quite sure I will have a number of comments from my friends, the students, if they take the trouble to read what I am saying this morning. That does not alter the fact that students are students and should not be taken too seriously. So long as they parade and have their meetings in a reasonable way we should not object.
The Minister has a proposal in the Bill that it would be necessary to get permission from the Garda before a meeting or a procession would take place. He announced at the Ard Fheis and in this House that he proposed to amend this proposal in a certain way. The Minister said that the situation now is that the Garda can say that they do not think a certain way or place is appropriate for a parade, or that the time is not right. They will not stop the parade from going ahead but, if it subsequently happens that damage is caused, then the organisers of the parade, whoever they happen to be, can be prosecuted as being responsible for causing the disturbance.
Supposing some of the bright boys who have appeared in a number of parades in the city and who are uncontrollable brats who like causing trouble, and who have no responsibility to anybody except their own small group, get into a peaceful parade and then break windows and attack the gardaí, does the Minister consider it fair that the organisers of that meeting should be held responsible and could be prosecuted? I should like to have the Minister's comment on that. It appears from the Bill as it stands that that can be done.
Last night, Deputy Dillon referred to this question of the organised cry of police brutality. Let me, from my own experience of the Garda authorities in this country, say that I do not think it is right that people should make a cry about being brutally treated. On occasion it has been brought to my notice after a parade of a certain kind which did result in a row with the police, engineered in most cases by somebody who wanted fun, that somebody had got a cut head or more serious injuries. We are all human, and the gardaí are human, and if a group of people taunt and attack them in certain ways and they retaliate is it not to be expected that there would be certain inquiries? If one does not want to get a cut head when a parade of that kind is on and police are being attacked he should not be present. If not present, he cannot get a cut head. That surely is a reasonable approach to it.
Deputy Dillon, in my opinion, was wrong last night when he suggested that the incidents that occurred in Dublin and Derry were similar. Maybe he did not mean that. His remarks suggested to me that that was what he meant; that the police on both sides were being provoked. There is a big difference in what happens here in a democratic State and what happens in the Six Counties which, in my opinion, is not a democratic State. The reaction of the police in such cases in Northern Ireland under certain orders appears to be different from the reaction in Dublin. For that reason, I believe that the section of the Bill dealing with parades has got to be further amended, that the Minister's amendment will not cover the point. However, there should be under existing law authority for the police to single out the people they know and can see are causing trouble so that they can take them to court and deal adequately with them.
I would suggest also that to impose a fine of £5 on somebody whose father may have an income of £500,000 a year for creating a disturbance is not the same as fining some poor fellow who has not a light on his car and who perhaps has not got £5. This is one of the things that are continually causing trouble. The big trouble about it is that even jail sentences are not as big a punishment as an adequate fine for causing damage. I may be sticking my neck out here but I am all in favour of law and order. I will say that so long as we have in this city or anywhere else in this country people who give the impression that they are very much in favour of doing things in a wild way and who, when it suits themselves, switch round and say that that is not right.
I was watching an example of this recently. I happened to be at home and we are lucky or unlucky enough to get three or four stations on television there. I switched on UTV and found a gentleman from the south telling the people from the north how lucky they were and that they would have to come south to find out what civil rights were. He was using foreign TV to decry the situation in this country. When this is followed up by irresponsible little brats pointing out that when they have the civil rights in the north they are coming to the south to see what the gardaí will do. When they can find that type of thing coming on the air on our own station people should begin to think and should realise that people in certain positions have certain responsibilities.
This House has a responsibility and this House is standing up to and carrying out that responsibility. We have the other type, the people who feel that because they carry the badge of student they are entitled to do any damn thing they like and to get away with it. It should not be allowed to continue. As far as the general body of students are concerned, they are decent, respectable, hardworking young persons and nobody decries what the few "head cases" are doing as much as the general body of students.
We have in our universities here what is sometimes described as a hard core, mostly a few students who are not natives of this country. Occasionally we see these people going around, infiltrating various organisations including the various political Parties, and trying to stir up a bit of trouble. Some of them are still students at the age of 36 or 37 years. Some of them I know to be the sons and daughters of wealthy people who are waiting for their parents to pass on until they, too, become wealthy capitalists. They are enjoying Dublin life and enjoying telling people of the terrible injury being done to them because of the system obtaining in this country. A special watch should be kept on the activities of these people. There is no reason why they should be allowed to give a bad name to a student body which in the main is composed of decent, respectable young people.
I wish to refer to a few matters which the Minister may possibly have overlooked. One of them was referred to by Deputy L'Estrange a few minutes ago—the lack of uniformity in the matter of penalties. In one court a judge may impose a fine of 10/-whereas in another court for a similar offence the person might be sent to jail for two months. There is something wrong here. I submit that the amount of the fine should relate to the means of the person being fined. Ten shillings or £2 or £5 does not represent nearly as much hardship on one person as it would on another who might be existing on a weekly wage of only double that amount.
There has been reference to the question of arrest. Though most of what is suggested in this respect seems to be reasonable—I may be on my own on this—I should like to refer in particular to the question of fingerprinting. I do not see why everybody in the country should not, at some time, have their fingerprints taken and registered if only because it might save a lot of public time eventually. The suggestion that fingerprints be destroyed after a time if they are not needed is cod. For instance, when a big crime hunt is in progress, the gardaí have to go to the terrible trouble of fingerprinting numbers of people. I suggest that in the same way as names and addresses are registered, so should fingerprints be registered. Some purists may say this would have certain ill-effects, that there is some theoretical ethical objection to it. I do not know whether there is or not but I insist that this is something which should be dealt with in a reasonable way.
There is reference to the powers of arrest which the Garda are being given. In my opinion, the gardaí exercise their powers reasonably. However, one thing which annoys people endlessly and perhaps with reason is that when driving around at night sometimes they are stopped and their names and addresses taken and they are asked where they have come from and where they are going, apparently just to pass the time. If gardaí decide that a charge may be brought against somebody, they should make that charge and this matter should be completely covered by the law but, if there is no question of a charge, people should not be embarrassed unreasonably in this way. It is only a small point but it is one which should be covered carefully.
The Minister has told us that he intends to amend sections 30 and 31. When the Bill was introduced, I considered that these sections were deliberately pointed at certain organisations such as the NFA and the tenant associations. Meetings of such organisations need not necessarily be held outdoors: there could be indoor meetings as well and obviously they would be covered by this legislation. Perhaps that was not the idea at all but it appeared to me that was what was envisaged. I suggest the Minister made a mistake when he included penal clauses in respect of people who withhold rents or rates.
After all, there is a civil law which deals with this sort of thing and one thing which can cause trouble is that people are made to feel that repressive legislation is being aimed at them, particularly people living in the country who may be tenants of council cottages. Such a person may say his cottage is in bad repair, that he had asked the council to have it repaired again and again, that the council had not done anything about it and that unless they repair the cottage he will not pay the rent. This attitude does not do the tenants any good because it is usually easier to get a council to do repairs if the rent has been paid up to date. If tenants refuse to pay, the local authority can put them out on the road, family or not, without assigning any reasons.
When you come up against big groups of tenants like those in Ballymun or others among Dublin Corporation householders, it is a different matter when a number of tenants decide that they have a genuine grievance. Instead of writing into legislation repressive measures against such people, which would result in putting them into jail for refusing to pay their rents because they consider they have a genuine reason for not doing so, it would be much better if arrangements could be made to have much more dialogue between the people representing the owners of the houses and the tenants.
I have been a trade union official during the past 22 years and I have yet to meet a person who, if you talk reasonably to him, does not appreciate the fact that there are two sides to every problem. Most reasonable people can be persuaded that perhaps their grievance is not as bad as they thought it was. If it is, the authority concerned should have it rectified. Such a system of dealing with grievances would be much better than what is suggested in the Bill.
There will be numerous amendments for Committee Stage proposed by the Minister, Fine Gael and Labour. It would be wasting the time of the House at this stage to go into the many points which will be discussed in Committee and therefore I do not intend to delay the House any longer.
I should like to say, however, that the Bill now before the House is one which we on these benches could not vote for. It was suggested by several Deputies that the Minister might have taken the action, for which there is precedent, of withdrawing the Bill which has been hanging around for two years, and later perhaps could have introduced his own Bill. Then he would have been able to say: "This is my Bill. I am satisfied it is right". He cannot say that about this Bill because it is not his Bill. Had he done what I have suggested, he might have got a better reception here. For that reason, after this Stage of the Bill has been considered, the Minister might before Committee Stage decide to withdraw it, later introducing a more comprehensive measure to deal with the various matters in a more reasonable way.
Last night Deputy Dillon suggested that there should be two Bills, one for repeal and one for the general law. I do not think that is a good idea because the repeal Bill would mean very little to most people here. Might I suggest to the Department of Justice that when an Act is being repealed, while it would involve a little trouble, they should include a short note stating what the Act being repealed refers to, and particularly when a section is left out of an Act which is being repealed. Such a note, stating exactly what is being done, would help many of us who might not have the foggiest idea as to what was being repealed. While it would mean an increase in the size of the Bill it would nevertheless help the discussion very much. There may be points in the Acts which are being repealed which we might consider to be good points but which the draftsman might not so consider. It would be in the interests of having legislation which would be to the best advantage of the country.