I was dealing with the question of adoption when the reply to my Estimate was being dealt with in the House on the last occasion. I covered most of the points raised by Deputies on that issue. I do not propose to go into some of the other matters that have arisen on this issue about adoption societies. I have dealt with them by way of answers to parliamentary questions from time to time. The general feeling among our people, and particularly among those with practical experience is that adoption societies are doing a good job and deserve public commendation. They are doing very necessary charitable work and deserve the thanks of all for the very fine job they have done. Since they started their operations there has been just one unfortunate case. According to those who are most familiar with that case, it probably would have happened no matter what precautions were taken beforehand. The people chosen as adopters were well known to the man in charge of that society. He is a respected clergyman. His judgment at that time was that they were suitable people to adopt a child. Human nature being what it is, cases of this kind may occur, very rarely occur, without anybody concerned with the adoption being at fault. Taken as a whole, the system we have here is working very well and has been admired by outside observers.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 20—Office of the Minister for Justice (Resumed).
While appreciating the good work of the adoption societies, would the Minister concede that there are certain areas where a more normal system of inspection could improve the situation during the probationary period of placements?
The Deputy seems to be under a misapprehension about inspections. The Adoption Board uses the services of local authority officers. They co-operate fully with the board where the board feel there is a necessity for asking them—where they feel there may be any inadequacy in their own organisation.
Not in all areas.
There is complete harmony between the officers of local authorities concerned with this work and the Adoption Board. And it is of course unthinkable to have an inspection by a local authority of a child who has been adopted.
Nobody in this House has ever suggested that. Nobody on the Labour benches ever suggested it.
It has been suggested.
Not by me.
It has been alleged here and has been alleged by some people outside.
Nobody in the Labour Party ever suggested it.
I would resist that.
There is another aspect of my Estimate which I must return to because of a leading article in today's Irish Independent. It says:
Mr. Ó Moráin's charges in the Dáil on Tuesday against Serjeant Sullivan, for example, passed by with ominously little stir——
There is further criticism of me for an attack on a dead man who cannot answer for himself. I want to put on the record of this House that I did not attack Serjeant Sullivan. I quoted here his own words in public print in his own book. I was dealing with the strong balaclava of Deputy T. F. O'Higgins about what wonderful men the leaders of the Irish Bar were down through the years and how they stood up to the executive. This book is not by some author about Serjeant Sullivan. It is the written word of Serjeant Sullivan himself. Nobody can accuse me of quoting him at second-hand because these are his own words. Furthermore, the book was written by Serjeant Sullivan not in the heat of the troubles of 1916, but years afterwards in 1927. He was then a mature and certainly an old man. There was no excuse for him, if he changed any of his views, to set them forth in print. Instead of attacking him I have been quoting him. Serjeant Sullivan boasts of the stand he took in those days. He sheds tears here for the British Foresters and tells how he offered his services to Dublin Castle, and how he threw open his house to the British military at the time. He even went further at the end in 1919 by writing to the public press. I was dealing with what Deputy O'Higgins said about these men standing up to the executive. This is how Serjeant Sullivan stood up to the executive. This is his own plan of which he boasts. He sets it out at page 248 of his book.
(Cavan): Perhaps the Minister might go into the history of his own forebears.
I will deal with Deputy Fitzpatrick's forebears as well in so far as they are relevant to this Estimate. I have quoted the words of Serjeant Sullivan.
(Cavan): My forebears can stand up to the scrutiny of the Minister.
I am accused in a leading article in today's Irish Independent in relation to the words of this man and his plan in 1919. He said the emergency needed instant and drastic action. He said it was not a case for half measures. I quote:
I proposed the abolition of trials by public process. The information —the ample and conclusive information—at the command of the Crown, should be submitted in each case to judges...
He went on:
If the tribunal was satisfied that there was a case to be answered notice would be served to show cause why the accused should not stand convicted of the crime of which particulars would be given. If no good cause was shown conviction and sentence were to be recorded. Membership of the IRA was to be sufficient evidence of participation in IRA crimes in the place where the accused usually resided. It was not pleasant, but it was bound to be effective. In a short time a couple of hundred criminals would have been sentenced to death. There would have been no necessity to execute them. Upon the murder of a policeman, six condemned might be hanged, at the next shooting ten, at the next twenty. Murders could not be organised any longer. Those condemned on evidence of membership of the IRA might be released under sentence so long as their district remained free from bloodshed. If they failed to prevent outrage by their comrades they would suffer for it. Within three months the horrible reign of blood-sodden cowardice would be broken.
(Cavan): Tell us about the battering-ram evictions in County Mayo.
These words were written by Sullivan in 1919. Is it any wonder that, 49 years ago approximately this week, this plan was carried out? Another Executive pulled out four prisoners without trial, put them up against a wall and shot them under the plan laid down by Sullivan.
Will the Minister please give the reference.
It is Old Ireland: Reminiscences of an Irish K.C., by Serjeant A. M. Sullivan. I have been quoting from pages 284 and 285. That was Sullivan's view about the miscreants, as he called them, at a time when the Black and Tans were running through the streets of this city. He was entitled to that view and let not the Irish Independent, in a leading article of today's date, think that I am not also entitled to quote his written words. I will not bother the House about what Sullivan had to say about the other Irish leaders at that time, particularly Jim Larkin and Connolly. It is true he was a personal friend of William Martin Murphy and was his guest around 1916——
(Cavan): Tell us about Lord Leitrim.
——and that these articles were written about then. Perhaps he had a hand in writing the leading articles of that period, also. But when it is suggested to me that I am attacking somebody by quoting his written word I must reply. I will not have Deputy O'Higgins misrepresenting history about the Irish Bar and giving his version without me giving mine.
I shall go on to another matter raised here by Deputy Sweetman. First, let me say that when Deputy Sweetman told the House two nights ago that he had handed over his business to a partner when he was Minister for Finance, he was either misleading the House or, as the records show, he misled the Incorporated Law Society, because there is a register of solicitors and an official book known as the Solicitors' Calendar published by the Incorporated Law Society. I have looked in the register in that Calendar as revised up to 30th October, 1955, and as published by the Incorporated Law Society. The register shows a practising certificate from the Incorporated Law Society as having been issued to George D. Fottrell and Sons, 30 Lower Baggot Street, and it also gives the name of Deputy Sweetman——
Have you not looked at the current register?
Of course, but Deputy Sweetman denied——
(Cavan): He did not. He said he handed over his practice.
If Deputy Sweetman was not practising, if he handed over his practice when he was Minister for Finance, why is that not shown in the register under his firm's name? That is the rule of the Incorporated Law Society: if you have a partner you must, under their regulations, set it out in this register. Otherwise you are in breach of the Incorporated Law Society——
(Cavan): Will the Minister give the reference?
This is disorderly interruption. I am speaking from notes taken from a perusal of the register for the year I am talking about.
(Cavan): What is the year? I object to the Minister, unless he gives the year.
The Deputy wants to be named. I am giving the end of the directory year 1956——
(Cavan): Of course.
——which covers the year up to the beginning of that year. This record should show, if it were a fact, that Deputy Sweetman when Minister for Finance did have a partner and who the partner was, but the record does not show that: it shows Deputy Sweetman had paid his £25 for his practising certificate. The record shows that he was a practising solicitor, that he was listed as such under the firm of George D. Fottrell and Sons, 30 Lower Baggot Street, and that nobody else but he owned that firm at the time. Either he was withholding vital information against the rules of the Incorporated Law Society or he misled this House, because this is the official register. Where did he keep or why did he keep this partnership so quiet and secret; why did he keep this partnership under the bed or under the table and how is it that the public were led to believe otherwise?
According to the official publication of the Incorporated Law Society, Deputy Sweetman, Minister for Finance, was (1) a practising solicitor and (2) the sole owner of George D Fottrell and Sons. Let Deputy Sweetman explain his position to the Incorporated Law Society or let him withdraw the allegation he made in the House that he had nothing to do with George D. Fottrell and Sons when he was serving here as Minister for Finance. Indeed it is notorious as we all knew that from time to time he could slip up to his firm, and no blame to him so long as it did not interfere with his work as Minister.
However, we have this public crawthumping by Fine Gael and it is well we should put on record the fact that Deputy Sweetman was a practising solicitor, the fact that he owned and was sole owner of that firm, and that his good, decent colleague from Donegal, Deputy Patrick O'Donnell, opened a legal office convenient to the Custom House from which he could keep an eye on his clients. These are facts that were known to all and sundry at that time, and when Deputy O'Higgins can spare time, after drawing legal aid in the Four Courts, to come and see us here in the evenings he may tell us that he well knew of these facts because he was a colleague of their's. Deputy O'Higgins made a virtue of necessity saying that he could not practise in the Four Courts and talk here.