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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 13 May 1970

Vol. 246 No. 8

Confidence in Government: Motion.

I move: "That Dáil Éireann re-affirms its confidence in the Government".

This debate takes place because the Opposition Parties are anxious to press home any political advantage they might see accruing to them out of the events of the past week. Confidence or no confidence motions are part of political life and, though their outcome can decide the fate of a Government, their main purpose, when precipitated by an Opposition, is to provide a vehicle for debate on topics from which they might expect to get some political advantage. I am glad to note that the debate will not follow the marathon lines of the debate we had last week because there are many things the Government are anxious to get on with, many important issues, many important functions but, important and urgent though this work before us might be, we as a Government welcome a debate on this issue, the issue whether we as a Fianna Fáil Government will continue to do the work of the nation or whether the Opposition, who claim they can do it better, will be permitted to do so.

Within the past year the electorate emphatically decided that the Opposition could not do the work of the nation better than Fianna Fáil. In that election the people gave the Fianna Fáil Government a firm mandate, as it had done on so many occasions since 1932. I do not propose to dwell on the history of Fianna Fáil but it is necessary to emphasise why this party enjoy the confidence of the country over so many years since then.

The Fianna Fáil Party were founded in 1926. They had the specific task of restoring national confidence following the tragedy of the Treaty and set out clearly their fundamental aims and objectives which have continued to be the basis of Fianna Fáil policies up to the present day. In order to achieve those aims it was not sufficient just to provide an Opposition at that time, as it did, but as quickly as possible to provide an alternative Government to Cumann na nGaedheal. This was the only effective way in which the republican ideal could be restored, our aspirations to reunify the country could be fulfilled and a distinctive way of life in accordance with Irish traditions, culture and ideals could be developed.

On first assuming Government in 1932 Fianna Fáil resolutely set about achieving those aims and, recognising that political strength was dependent on economic growth, realistic and appropriate economic policies were pursued. It was especially recognised in those early days that the strengthening of our industrial arm was essential if we were to have balanced progress. It was because Fianna Fáil then had, and still have, a realistic and farsighted industrial policy that we can now face with confidence entry to the European Community which will provide the strongest test so far for our industrial skills and expertise.

There have been many difficulties, obstacles and frustrations in the way in coming thus far, but Fianna Fáil always had the will, the determination and the ability to overcome those. The shaking off of the shackles imposed on us by the Treaty was also foremost in Fianna Fáil policy and this, as we all know, led to the economic war in the middle 1930s. The fight was won mainly through the steadfastness of the Fianna Fáil Government, backed by the loyalty and support of the ordinary people, especially the small farmers of Ireland. The settlement terms of that so called economic war ensured that our Government and Parliament could take independent, democratic decisions on many matters, economic and otherwise, but more particularly about our involvement in the second World War. Therefore, after being only seven years in office, we find Fianna Fáil leading Ireland at three critical periods in recent history—in the early 1930s, when our policies were able to pull the country out of the economic depression and political degradation of the previous decade in the middle 1930s when it needed a Government of courage and firmness of purpose to preserve our national dignity and to defend our economic independence against the might of Britain; and on the outbreak of World War II when as a sovereign nation we took our own decisions to stay out of that conflict.

It was inevitable that unpalatable decisions had to be made in the years of the war and immediately following but hard decisions then, as at present, are not conducive to popularity, so in some by-elections in the years shortly after the war and in the 1948 General Election Fianna Fáil lost some ground and enabled the first Coalition Government to come to office. When that Government broke up after three years they left in their wake not only a political shambles but a critical economic situation as well. Fianna Fáil were at the ready to answer the call of the Irish people once again. On assuming office in 1951 they were again faced with serious financial problems, which again required drastic remedies for their solution. Again, many unpopular decisions had to be taken to restore economic sanity to the affairs of this country. The major one was the partial removal of the food subsidies in the 1952 Budget. Although those were introduced during the war as a temperary measure, and were never intended to be permanent, their withdrawal was naturally unpopular. It was a courageous decision to take at that time but a most necessary one in the light of the grave financial position the country was left in by the 1951 Budget of the Coalition Government.

The people's reaction was predictable again, the reaction to unpopular decisions, and again the results of subsequent by-elections indicated they were influenced by the tactics of the Opposition who were quick to exploit the inevitable increase in food prices. It was powerful propaganda and it influenced not only the by-elections at that time but the general election of 1954 as well. This brought back a second Coalition Government. Most of us know only too well the sorry mess they left behind them when an element of that Government, realising the economic difficulties which faced them, pulled out and in the words of one of the former members of a Coalition Government, "pulled the carpet from under them."

In a period that should have been one of growth, with the influence of a burgeoning and buoyant economy in Europe, the 1954-57 Coalition Government recklessly neglected to earn for us even a place at the bottom of that European league of economic upsurge. On the contrary, alone among the nations of the world our country failed to make any economic progress whatever. Indeed, in the last year of that Coalition Government our economic state began to retard.

Again, the Irish people turned to Fianna Fáil in their hour of need and again Fianna Fáil did not fail them. In 1957, having been restored to Government, the first task was literally to lift the Irish people off their knees, to restore in them not just morale but simple confidence in themselves and in the future of their country. It was not easy to do this; it was not easy to pull the country back again from the downhill slide of despair and despondency for the second time in the space of three years; to reverse the trend of emigration that had then been reached, the appallingly high total of 40,000 annually; to pull down the number of unemployed, which had climbed to a record level of some 96,000 weekly in the winter of 1956-57.

The Fianna Fáil Government did this. The results of the three general elections since 1957 give proof that the people understand, appreciate and continue to support the intelligent policies of Fianna Fáil that made this possible. In 1957 everybody knows that we took over an ailing economy. It was debilitated by emigration, there was mass unemployment; population was declining; living standards lagged behind those of Western Europe; employment, industrial production and national output were all falling. In the face of these trends the country's economic viability was questioned openly and there seemed to be meagre hope of proving the pessimists wrong.

However, Fianna Fáil proved the pessimists wrong. They proved there was just as much potential, just as much enterprise and as great a will to succeed as existed in other countries in Europe. Fianna Fáil proved that these qualities and our natural assets need not go to waste or be employed outside our country. We proved these qualities could be used to advance the Irish economy and for the betterment of the Irish people. The Fianna Fáil Government harnessed these qualities, applied them to the solution of our economic and social problems and thereby initiated more than a decade of development that bears comparison with anything achieved in Europe in that same period.

The Government's achievement is on record; it cannot be gainsaid and no criticism can diminish it. Since 1958 agricultural output has risen by more than one-fifth, industrial production has more than doubled and gross national product is more than half as high again as it was at the beginning of that period. Perhaps that might not be regarded as tremendous progress over a period of 50 years but one must take account of the many years of occupation, when we were deprived of the right to self-determination, and when one compares the years prior to 1958 or 1959 one can only have admiration for the achievements of the past decade.

Since then the drastic decline in overall employment has been arrested. It has been possible to lower the rate of emigration from the figure of the 40,000 in the 1950's to approximately 15,000 in 1969. However, this is only part of the story. The quality of employment has also been improved; many of our workers have been able to move from underpaid jobs, where their talents and capacities were to a large extent under-used, to well-paid work in the progressive and modern sections of our economy. More workers and young people are being trained to make the same transition and new job opportunities are being provided for them. In the past year some 16,000 new job opportunities were created in industry. For the first time in this century there has been a sustained rise in our population. This has been going on for some years past and we may expect in a few years time to have a population in this part of our country exceeding three million persons.

No less worthwhile than the growth in development that has been achieved are the uses to which this has been put. In the period I have reviewed, private consumption of goods and services has risen by 45 per cent and there has been a substantial advance in our living standards. The volume of growth of fixed capital formation has almost trebled. Whereas in 1958 we were investing little more than 13 per cent of our gross national product the corresponding figure now is between 22-23 per cent. In this way, the rising living standards to which we have been accustomed have been underpinned. More than that, their continuance in the future has been ensured.

The other main support of future progress—export potential—has been equally well developed. The volume of exports, visible and invisible, has risen by 120 per cent since 1958. In value the rise has been even more spectacular; it has been 190 per cent, representing an increase from £170 million to £500 million in that period. This remarkable advance has meant that the import demands of our growing economy have, to a large degree, been matched by the growth of our exports. External balance has been broadly maintained and what was lacking has been more than made up by the inflow of capital from foreign investors who are confident of the future of our economy.

With increasing dividends arising from economic growth, the Government have continued their policy of improving the general welfare of the community over a wide range of services. No one can deny that our people are much better off, better housed and better educated. This progress was brought about by successive Fianna Fáil Governments and it was part of their deliberate policy of devoting a greater share of our resources to the betterment of the community. Expenditure on social services including education, health, housing and income maintenance rose from a figure of 15 per cent of gross national product in 1959-60 to 20 per cent of a much bigger national output in 1969-70. The current Government programme has been appropriately designated the Third Programme for Economic and Social Development of 1969 to 1972. In this programme the increase in public expenditure on social services is projected at the annual rate of 5.8 per cent—which is greater than the projected rate of 4 per cent for gross national product. The attainment of this target will depend on the continued growth of the economy in an orderly way but our confidence in the future is well based on our attainments of the past.

Fianna Fáil have a proud record of achievement in the social field. In the area of education tremendous strides —and I say this deliberately—have been made. Public expenditure jumped from £19 million in 1959-60 to £70 million in 1969-70. While the number of pupils attending primary schools has remained fairly static at about 500,000, there has been a large increase in the numbers availing of secondary, vocational and technical education. This number has doubled from 100,000 a decade ago to about 200,000 today. The provision made for universities and colleges has involved an increase of 70 per cent in the number of students which is now at the 19,000 mark.

Special attention has been given to improving conditions of primary education. New schools and better facilities have been made available and school life generally has become more attractive. To this should be added the free transport scheme which means the elimination of hardship in travelling long distances, especially in remote rural areas. We should recall that many of our citizens, even many people in our own generation, were unable to progress beyond primary education due to economic circumstances. All this has been eliminated by the provisions we have made for post-primary education since 1966.

Greater opportunities are now available for all our children to develop their potential. More attention has been concentrated on gearing the school curricula to accord with modern requirements. A career guidance service for second level schools was introduced in 1968 and this will be extended to provide maximum benefit to our young people to enable them to prepare for their chosen roles in society.

Health expenditure has risen in the last ten years from £19 million to £61 million in the last financial year. This reflects the improvements in the health services generally. Curative and preventive measures during the years have greatly reduced the incidence of certain diseases and infant mortality rates have been very substantially reduced as well. Unfortunately other illnesses, notably cancer, heart disease and some psychiatric ailments are now posing problems, but I am convinced that with the energy and the study done and the application to the task of the Minister for Health we shall have in these fields equal success. The Health Act enacted this year provides for the abolition of the dispensary service and for the introduction of a choice of doctor scheme for eligible persons. The Government will continue to ensure that improvement in health services will not only be kept under attention but will be put into effect.

Tremendous strides have occurred between 1959-60 and 1969-70 in our housing programme, no matter what people say about it. The number of new dwellings more than doubled, rising annually from 6,300 to over 13,800. During the sixties more than 98,000 new dwellings were completed at a total cost to the State and to the local authorities of £284 million in capital and subsidies.

However, we are not content to rest on our oars. With the economy expanding in the seventies we can expect a rising demand for new houses because of more marriages and an increasing population. In the White Paper "Housing in the Seventies" the Government have stressed their basic objectives for housing, namely, to ensure that as far as the resources of the economy will permit every family can obtain a house of good standard at a price or at a rent they can afford. We are confident that having regard to our past performances we can and will meet the challenge of providing the 15,000 to 17,000 houses annually which the White Paper considers would represent the country's needs during the 1970s.

Total expenditure on income maintenance, that is, the social welfare payments, including unemployment benefit, has trebled in the ten years to which I am referring, that is from £33 million to £97 million, taking unemployment contributions into account. The Government contribution in this period rose from £25 million to £59 million. Over the period the payments made to the social welfare beneficiaries, that is to say, the sick, the unemployed, the old, the widowed and the other disadvantaged members of our community, far exceeded the rise in the cost of living, so that in real terms these beneficiaries are relatively better off, but we believe we can make them relatively still better off by pursuing the policy in which we are engaged.

The Budgets in recent years have, as everybody knows, devoted considerable expenditure to the social welfare classes, and big increases have been made in many spheres, particularly in children's allowances and in old age pensions. In this respect the Government have clearly shown their concern for the poor of the community and the disadvantaged members of our society. The current Budget is a further illustration of that social concern. I believe, too, that the people will have full regard for the manner in which these successive Fianna Fáil Governments have come to the aid of the underprivileged.

The Third Programme stated the Government's intention of formulating a comprehensive social development programme. Already steps have been taken among the social Departments to study means of assessing the effectiveness of existing social services, identifying existing and emerging needs, making provision for them and establishing principles and criteria that will help to guide the evolution of these services in the future. This study will, in view of the complex issues, take some considerable time to arrive at conclusions and much research will be involved to assist in this task. The Government, with their record of social progress, are confident that we can formulate decisions on these measures in the best interest of our people. Indeed, the fruits of the past years are indicators of the harvest that can be gleaned in the future.

I have no more than outlined the bare bones of the Government's social and economic achievements. These have been real and tangible and progress has been equally real and tangible throughout the country. It is in this that the transformation of our economy is most apparent, in the greater number of families that are now finding a satisfying livelihood in Ireland, in the prosperity of our countryside, in modern factories, in the progressive approach to the further development of our agriculture, industry and commerce, in the readiness to reduce trade barriers and face international competition, in the eagerness to seek new opportunities and to turn them to the advantage of Irish people working and living in Ireland. Where we had a depopulated economy, stagnant and inward-looking, we now have vigorous growth and a confident people. The transformation has been the result, not of a happy accident, but of a careful analysis of our problems and of determination, imagination and consistent effort in finding solutions for them.

The Fianna Fáil Government have looked to the areas where change was needed, to our agriculture and our industry, tourism and transport, to our education and manpower policies, to our investment needs and our social needs. In all these areas the Government, having sought the changes they saw necessary, have implemented those changes. We have planned all these changes and consistently applied the policies to make our plans become achievements.

I do not deny there are still difficulties to be overcome. Our very progress has brought its own problems. The year 1969, although another year of progress, manifested many signs of danger, and these dangers are still with us. They are to be seen in sharply rising prices, in industrial strife, in the shortsighted pursuit of excessive increases in money incomes, in the falling off of our savings, in the weakening of our export competitiveness, and the unacceptable size of our current balance of payments deficit. The problems posed are as great as any that have faced us in the past, but we the Fianna Fáil Government are aware of them. We faced them with a stronger economy and the confidence born of progress. As well we have the confident knowledge that we have overcome, too, similar problems in the past, and I have no doubt we shall overcome, too, those that now lie before us.

I do not want to go over again the same ground as I covered in replying to last week's debate. I outlined the investigation by me of the events that led up to that debate, and I outlined the reasons for the actions I took. Whatever further action requires to be taken will be taken by the appropriate authority. I assure the people of this part of our country of our vigilance to ensure that our territory will not be used as a base from which to precipitate further strife in the North. I assure them especially that no effort will be spared to frustrate any attempted, unauthorised importation of arms. Indeed, the action that was taken in respect of the recent attempt and the vigilance that was exercised then will continue. I think that is an earnest of our determination in this respect and an assurance that further attempts will not succeed.

We know the problems of the minority in the North but to turn a blind eye on the terrible prospect of armed conflict in Northern Ireland, to facilitate or to condone in the slightest degree a situation that could lead to Irishmen shooting Irishmen would, in my opinion, not serve the minority in the North but, on the contrary, would be a tragedy for them and for their neighbours in the Six Counties and indeed for the entire country.

We have helped them as much as we could in the past. We have tried to do everything in as practical a way as we could. We will use our influence to ensure that the forces needed for their protection, for the protection of the minority who have genuine fears, will be adequate for the purpose—that their rights as citizens will be fully protected and that the reforms necessary to ensure those rights will be implemented speedily and fully. We will continue to give every help in every legitimate and practicable way we can.

At the same time, this will not in any way diminish our desire to take action that is conducive to the coming together of peoples of all faiths and persuasions in a re-unified Ireland, in a healthy democracy in which account will be taken of all political affiliations and religious beliefs.

On the basis, then, of our economic progress, of our concern for the citizens in the North, of our determination to find solutions for Partition by peaceful means, there is no reason for anything but confidence in the Fianna Fáil Government. As I have said, there are problems ahead, but we are confident of our ability to tackle these problems and not only to tackle them but successfully to overcome them.

One of these will be the negotiations for entry to the European Community. Can anyone—I ask this question deliberately—contemplate the terrible dilemma that would face this country in this context if the only alternative to Fianna Fáil Government were—and the only alternative appears to be—a coalition? What a terrible dilemma we would be in if such a Government were charged with negotiating our application for entry to the EEC, Fine Gael, presumably, in favour but the Labour Party opposed utterly to it? As a nation, we would be going into these negotiations as a boxer going into a ring with one of his arms tied behind him. Deputy FitzGerald can smile, but I have seen him earnestly pleading with his colleagues in the Labour benches for heaven's sake to change their minds on the matter of EEC entry. I know his pleading will not succeed. The Deputy has heard them pronouncing as loudly and as solemnly as I am now their total opposition to our entry to the EEC. Such a coalition would not only have to persuade me but the countries of Europe of the genuineness of any application for membership by a Fine Gael and Labour coalition.

The Fianna Fáil Party are utterly divided.

Wishful thinking.

The Taoiseach is only shadow boxing.

I am not. Deputy O'Donovan has been most vocal in his denunciation of our application.

I have said it is not reality. I was right the previous time and I will say it again and I will be right again.

Let the Deputy tell us in the course of the debate whether he is in favour of or against our application. This is only one of the policy aspects in which the views of Fine Gael and Labour are diametrically opposed.

The Taoiseach is not being serious about policy unity in his party. We have heard the first of his speech, ranging from 1916 to 1990.

That is one of the problems we would have to face as a nation if we had a Fine Gael-Labour coalition Government. It serves as a pertinent example of how such a coalition would operate—how again it would drag us down economically, bring us tumbling down the slope of depression as it did on two previous occasions. Let there be no laughing about it. The people of the country have had two tastes of this unnatural association.

Playing for an election.

We would have again the woeful economic depression——

What kind of queer coalition is there over there now?

I stress again that the people of this country can continue to have full confidence in the Fianna Fáil Government——

——and party.

Which party?

The whole party.

Where is the Letterkenny parliament? Where are its members?

We are anxious to get cracking with the job, with this new rejuvenated Government, to face the tasks that we know lie ahead, the difficulties that we know need solutions. We know that any combination opposite would not have the same unity of purpose, the same resolution to overcome them. I can assure the Deputies opposite that they will not get the opportunity——

——again to disrupt our economy as they did on two previous occasions. We are facing a difficult period. We are anxious to get down to the task of overcoming the immediate difficulties. We know the inflationary pressures are serious and we are anxious to do our best to produce a better industrial climate. We know there are serious disputes affecting the progress of our economy. We know these difficulties and we are facing them. We are facing the crucial negotiations to give us membership of the European Community. We know that by successful negotiations we can expand our economic horizons and ensure greater well-being for our people which will bring about an increase in our poulation and a rise in our standard of living so that, as a nation, we can contribute to the strengthening of Europe into a force which will make for peace in the world and better lives for the people of this and other countries.

We know the people will be behind us, that we will get the support of the vast majority of the people, and thus ensure that we will face the future with confidence, as Fianna Fáil have always done. They have always faced challenges in the past; they have even welcomed challenges of this nature. The present rejuvenated Fianna Fáil Government face them with justified assurance, confidence, energy and enthusiasm.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

The speech we have just heard has never been surpassed for by-passing the real issue.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

I do not know where it was composed but it seems to me as though it were drafted somewhere between the Phoenix Park, Upper Mount Street and Government Buildings.

I can give the Deputy my own manuscript.

There was too much of the old jargon in it. I could see bits of Upper Mount Street, a little touch from the Phoenix Park and a little bit from Government Buildings.

(Interruptions.)

The only thing the Taoiseach did not say was that Brian Boru was last heard saving his prayers in Clontarf. This motion is down because of what has been described by the press as a crisis. The speech which the Taoiseach has just delivered was carefully designed and prepared to be presented to the most guillible Fianna Fáil cumann with the enthusiasm, energy and conviction that the Minister for Transport and Power applies when he is giving an answer either "Yes" or "No" to the same question. The expressions on the faces of the members of the Fianna Fáil Party indicate that it was too much for them to swallow. Look at the position; look at the House the Taoiseach has just spoken to. The five people—allowing for the fact that two of them are ill—who, according to the Minister for Health, were purged, are absent from the House. Some of the Deputies who clapped the Taoiseach today, including one new Minister and one new Parliamentary Secretary, clapped Deputy Boland and Deputy Blaney last week. Fianna Fáil men are brought up to clap no matter what is said by a member of the Party.

The following is an excerpt from the Sunday Independent of 10th May, 1970:

The Minister for Health, Mr. Childers, described the sacking of Ministers and the resignations as "a purge". He took pride in the fact that the Fianna Fáil Party could have such a purge. What is a purge?

The dictionary definition is: to make pure, to carry off whatever is impure or superfluous; to evacuate, as the bowels; to clarify, as liquors.

Mr. J. Lenehan

I think the Deputy could do with all of them.

The Irish Press stated that the Opposition was not out to make political capital as the Taoiseach has said—and God knows his tongue was in his cheek when he said that. Never in the history of any country or any democracy, modern or ancient, did an Opposition show such consideration and such responsibility as this one did in this crisis. On the 7th May the Irish Press stated:

It is no exaggeration to say that yesterday's proceedings in the Dáil, following on the dismissal of two Ministers marked a decisive stage in the illumination of a crisis more serious than anything we have known in our politics since the ending of the Civil War.

Where was the crisis? The crisis was in the Fianna Fáil Party and what did the Fianna Fáil Party do to deal with it? It met and after what the Minister for Health has described as a "purge" it said that everything was perfect. One Minister is particularly noticeable for the energy with which he has been engaged in keeping the lines of communication open between the Taoiseach and those Ministers who have been sacked. Deputy Flanagan, the Minister for Lands, returned from abroad and reiterated what the Taoiseach had said, that there was no crisis, but the Minister for External Affairs, Dr. Hillery, went on the radio on Sunday and said there was no crisis and that Fianna Fáil had always surmounted these crises. He recalled the incident of my old friend Dan Breen who left the Party but did not succeed without the Party. I was sorry to see his name mentioned although it is in fact a tribute to him. Dan Breen was the first Fianna Fáil Deputy who tried to operate in what another Deputy described as a slightly constitutional manner. Dan Breen came into the Dáil but was beaten at the second general election in 1927. When mentioning Dan Breen the Minister for External Affairs should have mentioned two other cases, one is the late Deputy Ben Maguire from Sligo-Leitrim who was removed from the Fianna Fáil Party for undisclosed reasons and succeeded in spite of the Fianna Fáil Party in getting back into the House and the other Deputy to succeed was the late Deputy Jack Flynn from South-Kerry. No doubt, some of the young Fianna Fáil Deputies have never heard of either of them, but Deputy Jack Flynn came into this House as an Independent and was subsequently brought back into the Fianna Fáil Party. Why was he brought back into the Fianna Fáil Party? He was brought back into the Fianna Fáil Party because his vote was valued.

The real conclusion to be drawn from the remark made by the Minister for External Affairs, as he forgot to mention these two cases, is that Fianna Fáil will pay any price for a vote. Both Deputies I have mentioned came back into this House as Independents and Jack Flynn was subsequently brought back into the Fianna Fáil Party because his vote was vital to save the Fianna Fáil Government.

I have digressed slightly because I have been affected by the Taoiseach's historical review.

What about the late Deputy Paddy Belton?

I think Fianna Fáil put him out too but he had the good sense to come over here. Look at the offspring. We now have two Deputies, one a direct descendant and another a cousin and we have yet another in the Seanad. The late Deputy Paddy Belton certainly did not do badly.

The Irish Press of the 7th May, 1970, also stated:

In a fundamentally healthy democracy such as ours there can be only one answer. Henceforth let us have no more cloak and dagger manipulations——

I do not think a single Deputy on this side of the House used such language about this situation.

——however well intentioned, with the interests and possibly the lives of the Irish people on both sides of the Border which unfortunately divides our country and against which all Parties are united.

The Irish Press of the 9th May, 1970, in a leading article entitled “Rumour and Confusion”, states:

Rarely in history has a country been subjected to such a series of political shocks as we have experienced. Any government, any party, must be weakened, particularly if we are to give credence to revelations made in an article in a Dublin magazine said to be based on material supplied by a Government Minister. On top of this there were the comments of former Capt. Kelly criticising the former Minister for Defence before the mass media. His were serious allegations.

I want the House, and particularly the country, to realise that these are not the comments of an Opposition anxious to make capital out of the situation. These are not the comments of political opponents. Every comment that I have quoted has been written and produced in Burgh Quay. Every comment I have read, with the exception of the re-statement of the Minister for Health—which I read from the Sunday Independent. and I do not think he will quarrel with the accuracy of the report—every other comment and every reference that expressed the gravity of the situation and voiced concern has come from Burgh Quay. I need not remind the House or even the Fianna Fáil Party of the contacts between Burgh Quay and that organisation.

The position is that the speech the Taoiseach has just delivered did not get to the kernel of the matter. The Taoiseach went on to talk about the importance of the EEC negotiations and the importance of presenting to the world a country that has a stable Government and proper democratic institutions. We are entitled to know the truth—and this was expressed in a heading of the Irish Times on Saturday when it said “Come Clean”. This House has not heard the whole truth——

Deputies

Hear, hear.

The Taoiseach implied, in his winding up speech on Saturday, that he was not obliged to answer my questions and he shifted around a bit the point put to him by Deputy Boland, but it does not matter whether or not he answers me, it is the House he must answer to and it is the people he must answer to. I want to come back to the extraordinary assertion by the Taoiseach that this was a united party and a united Government. I want to refer him to a circular issued under his name at the last general election which said that the main question to be settled in the election was whether the national progress taking place under Fianna Fáil was to be continued or whether it was to be jeopardised by a period of weakness and confusion at the top.

The Government depend on and cannot survive without the support of five Deputies. Deputy Blaney bracketed them together. The Taoiseach made some differentiation between Deputy Moran and Deputy Haughey and Deputy Blaney. Deputy Boland went his own way and, as a result, he brought Deputy Paudge Brennan with him. The fact is that the Government cannot survive except with the support of the five Deputies I have mentioned. That is an extraordinary position. That is the position. References to past events are now irrelevant, because we cannot deal with the present or the future on a history or on a litany of past events, whether they were good or bad, whether they were in favour of Fianna Fáil, or Fine Gael, or Labour or somebody else. We are dealing with the gravest crisis, according to the Irish Press, that has hit this country since the Civil War. In this crisis the Government did not seek a mandate from the people. Governments sought mandates from the people for far less. Governments sought mandates from the people when they lost a single by-election or when a single by-election was, or certainly two by-elections were in the offing. However, on this occasion Fianna Fáil have now compromised and compounded with low standards in high places.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

It is no wonder that the Irish Times heading said “Come Clean”. This effort to cloak the facts by refusing to deal with the issues and instead moving a motion and supporting it with a speech that is totally irrelevant, totally unconnected with the present crisis—a speech that might have been made 12 or 18 months ago or two years ago, if you revise the dates and revise a few figures. That is not the situation with which we are dealing. We are dealing with the situation described by the Irish Press and by every responsible paper and every other paper not connected with the Government.

Here is what the Cork Examiner said on Monday, May 11th under the heading “Aftermath of Crisis”:

The Government, with some justification, has not been let down lightly. Wherever individual sympathies lie, there cannot be anything but concern about the overall situation, and this concern for the national well-being is something that must be in the forefront in the days and weeks ahead. The experience of the last week has been shattering:

the hope must be that it will prove salutary.

The Government continue and can only continue with the support of the five people concerned. They were described by the Minister for Health as "conspirators". Conspirators to do what—to involve this country contrary to Article 15 of the Constitution which lays down that the State cannot be committed to war or cannot be involved in it save with the assent of Dáil Éireann? It ill becomes any Deputy particularly members of Fianna Fáil, to criticise or cast aspersions on the Army and the Garda as was done in last week's debate. This is particularly so because at great risk— indeed, having laid down their lives —the Army and Garda protected Fianna Fáil Ministers for many years, went around in squad cars behind them to ensure that their lives were safe and their security guaranteed. These people protected all Governments since the State was established irrespective of political affiliations. They protected and defended them because they were the appointed servants of the people. That should not be forgotten and no aspersion should be cast on their character.

As I said, this debate is a charade. No one in this country except the Dáil has authority to make war or to involve the country except with the authority of the people. It has been said in the course of the Taoiseach's speech and it has been repeated on many occasions by Fianna Fáil spokesmen that this party or other parties were divided. We know of no party in this country that was so divided on such a grave issue as the Fianna Fáil Party, at least two or three of the members of which want to involve the country in war——

Deputies

Hear, hear.

——and not war with a section of a majority of the electorate responsible for this Dáil but to take illegal action to involve it to such an extent that the Minister for Health said they had to be purged, that they were conspirators. This situation that now develops indicates that the Government can only retain themselves in office by the votes of these five.

Incidentally, there are three ways by which Ministers, under the Constitution, can leave office. They can resign voluntarily. Deputy Boland did that and Deputy Paudge Brennan, the Parliamentary Secretary, did likewise. Deputy Moran apparently was requested to resign and did so. The other two had to be fired. That is the extraordinary situation that in this crisis every known method of getting rid of a Minister had to be employed. It is an extraordinary comment on the situation.

This country cannot become involved in a war because of the irresponsible, reckless behaviour of any person, or persons, however, emotionally disturbed. Emotional disturbance is no substitute for realistic appraisal and decision. The Taoiseach has endeavoured by a litany of past events to bemuse the public and to restore and revive confidence amongst his own party. What is needed on this occasion is not a vote of confidence in the Fianna Fáil Party; they have decided to come together, to compromise, and to compound low standards in high places.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

What is wanted here is a responsible decision by the electorate——

Deputies

Hear, hear.

——the only people who have the authority to send us here, whom we are elected to serve and to whom we have the responsibility and the duty of rendering an account of our stewardship. So far as this motion is concerned the ultimate effect of it is obviously a foregone conclusion. It is of no significance whatsoever. It does not even carry conviction to the Fianna Fáil Party. A clap from the Fianna Fáil Party is of no significance and I want now to name certain people: the new Minister for Posts and Telegraphs—I hope I have them right; there have been so many changes it is not easy to remember— clapped Deputy Blaney and the Taoiseach, Deputy Lynch; the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach clapped Deputy Blaney and clapped Deputy Lynch, the Taoiseach. The most gullible Fianna Fáil cumann could not accept that sort of behaviour. There is the greatest confusion. Many other Fianna Fáil Deputies clapped, but I watched certain ones. So did others. What I have said is fact. It is something that should never have happened. It is a convention in the British House of Commons that, when a Minister resigns and makes a personal explanation, he is afforded certain facilities and courtesies, and he is normally given a clap. But what happened here is not comparable. This is a case in which Ministers who were dismissed refused to assent to the Taoiseach's request to retire and left the Taoiseach with no option, under the Constitution, except to fire them. This situation politically, constitutionally and, if the Taoiseach likes it, historically, beggars description.

The only people who can decide whether there is or is not confidence in this Government are not within this House. They are outside it. We ask now, in the name of the Irish people and, if you want history, in the name of the dead generations, but particularly in the name of those who live north and south, Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter, whether they voted Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour or anyone else, that they be given the chance to exert the authority that this party, above all, won and maintained for them and they will elect a Government which will govern this country impartially, justly, fairly and honourably.

One could not but admire the audacity of the Taoiseach in the way in which he introduced this Motion of Confidence in the Government. More than 95 per cent of his address was related to a recital of events in the distant and not so distant past, as if nothing had happened in the last ten days. I suppose the history of the Fianna Fáil Party from 1932 onwards is very interesting to those who want to hear it. The Taoiseach picked out what he considered to be the favourable points for the party in order to illustrate what he regarded as the immense sacrifices made by the party in order to promote the well-being of the country. Very interesting, but absolutely irrelevant.

What Fianna Fáil's role was in the Second World War, or in the early thirties, or in the economic war has no relevance whatsoever to the crisis there has been during the last seven or eight days, a crisis that still exists. If it was meant to be a rally-round-the-flag-boys speech I do not think it can have impressed any of the members even of his own party whether they were in the front bench or in the back benches. We are not talking about the Government of Mr. de Valera in 1932 or Seán Lemass in 1959—aye, or even of Jack Lynch up to the 19th of June last year. We are talking about this Dáil and we are opposed, and will be by our votes later, to the motion introduced by the Taoiseach here this afternoon.

There are very many by-ways into which we could follow the Taoiseach but, as far as I am concerned and as far as the members of my party are concerned, we are not going to be diverted from this crisis in the way in which the Taoiseach believes, I am sure, judging by his speech, that we would be diverted. There are the problems to which he did not refer, problems to which I shall refer later on briefly. There is, however, one particular matter which I should mention now lest I might forget to do so later. I refer to the attitude of the Labour Party towards the European Economic Community.

From the very beginning we have said that we are against the concept of the European Economic Community. We have given our reasons for that attitude and we will continue to give our reasons for it. The Taoiseach is dishonest when he says we are absolutely against going into the European Economic Community. We recognise what Fianna Fáil may not recognise—the inevitability of our approach to the EEC should Great Britain become a member, remembering that successive Fianna Fáil Governments have bound us more and more closely as the years went by to Great Britain. We find ourselves in the position, due to the failure of the Fianna Fáil Party, that we must unfortunately have regard, and very high regard, to what the attitude of Great Britain is in her appllication to the European Economic Community.

We differ with the Fianna Fáil Government and the Fianna Fáil Party in one very important respect: we are not prepared to go in with our hands up. What we are trying to do, what we will continue to try to do, is to get Deputy Jack Lynch, the Taoiseach, his negotiating Ministers and the Fianna Fáil Government to go in with a different attitude from the attitude they appeared to have when they negotiated the disastrous Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

We want them to recognise the weaknesses in the country. We want them to put their cards on the table and not to go in pretending we are a big power, pretending we can compete with the other three, or the other six, recognising we have problems in housing, in industry, a massive flight from the land, that we are not fully industrialised, that we have an unemployment problem. We want them to insist on these things and get the best bargain that can be got from these six countries which appear to be floating in wealth. That is the differnce between the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil.

According to the Minister for External Affairs, no later than today, he is prepared to give away practically everything on defence and, I suspect, if the present attitude is maintained, practically everything on agriculture. As far as agriculture and industry are concerned our problems will be swept aside, or swept under the carpet, because it seems the only goal of the Fianna Fáil Government is to get in at any price. We say "No". We say there must be though bargaining. If there is not tough bargaining we will have a repetition of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement which, in our view, and in the view of the newly converted few of the Fine Gael Party, was a disastrous agreement.

May I ask the Taoiseach a question? He talks about our being against the European Economic Community. My question is: if Britain is not admitted to the European Community what then will his attitude be towards it? Will he still be in full flight for membership of the European Economic Community or will he, as we believe he will, have to discard any ideas he has about it?

I should like to remind the House that it was the members of the Labour Party who first questioned confidence in this Government. I am not too concerned about procedure. I am not too concerned as to why our motion was not taken first. The Taoiseach has that privilege, I suppose, even though our motion of no confidence was put in on Thursday night while the Taoiseach's was issued on Monday. On reflection, I think my party would have decided, not so much to put down a motion of no confidence in the Government but in the Taoiseach. It would have been, I think, far better and more direct if our motion of no confidence was a motion of no confidence in the Taoiseach.

In view of what has happened over the past week I think the Taoiseach himself should not have confined his motion to confidence in the Government but should have asked this House to express confidence or otherwise in him again. He is the boss. He is the man who appoints the Ministers or sacks them. The sort of decision that is made in this House after a general election, the first vote—apart from the election of the Ceann Comhairle—is not on the election of a Government: it is on the election of a Taoiseach. I suppose that is tantamount to electing a Government because the Taoiseach appoints the various members of his Cabinet, usually numbering 12 or 13.

Last June or July this House was asked to elect the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil majority elected Deputy Jack Lynch. Therefore, the motion should now be related to confidence or otherwise in Deputy Jack Lynch. Taoiseach, and not so much in the Government. Of course, the Taoiseach shies away from this. He knows that no matter what the damage or the crisis members of his party are determined to keep power within the Fianna Fáil Party, irrespective of who is Taoiseach. The Taoiseach is the person responsible for Deputy Blaney, Deputy Haughey, Deputy Ó Móráin and Deputy Boland. At this stage one can say—it is well to be wise after the event—that no Taoiseach ever made such an incompetent choice, as he now knows to his sorrow, as in the appointment of these four Deputies as Ministers.

As this is a motion of confidence proposed by the Taoiseach in the Government, is it now certain that the newly-appointed Members of the Cabinet are more trustworthy or otherwise than the four who have gone? Others in the Cabinet have not publicly expressed loyalty to the Taoiseach. One or two, perhaps, Deputy Hillery and Deputy Childers, have done so on radio or TV but there are others in the Cabinet who have not expressed this loyalty to the Taoiseach which is so much boasted about by the party. Silence does not and cannot exonerate them in present circumstances. Their votes of support last week and again, I suppose, tomorrow have no meaning. Their silence on the north has no meaning, particularly when we recall the record of the ex-Minister for Finance, Deputy Haughey, and I suppose one can compare or ally him with Deputy Blaney. Deputy Haughey, as far as I can gather, has not expressed loyalty to the Taoiseach himself though possibly he has done so to the Fianna Fáil Party.

One of the outstanding things about Deputy Haughey is that while Deputies Blaney and Boland have waxed eloquent at times on the situation in the North of Ireland we have never had an utterance from Deputy Haughey save his denials in the past week or so of the allegations that he was engaged in gun running. I do not think the Taoiseach can be exonerated to any extent in this dastardly business. These views of Deputy Blaney regarding the north have been well known to the Taoiseach for a long time. Let us date it in any case from August, 1969. The Taoiseach will remember the concern on this side of the House about the inflammatory speeches that were being made by Deputy Blaney. The Taoiseach did not seem to bother. As Taoiseach I think he is guilty of gross neglect as far as one of his Cabinet members was concerned in that. He described them, I think, on one occasion, in excusing him when questioned by Members on this side of the House about a speech Deputy Blaney made as being personal views.

Deputy Blaney was exonerated. On another occasion—perhaps, not in this House—he said that the reprimand which he gave to Deputy Blaney was administered while both of them were proceeding down some corridor to this House to answer questions at Question Time. The matter cannot be taken too lightly when one remembers not only the power of Deputy Blaney in the Fianna Fáil organisation but also that he was a senior Minister and was, I am sure, a confidant of the Taoiseach. We must remember that he cannot be dismissed as just an ordinary Minister as might Deputy Ó Móráin or somebody of his standing. Deputy Blaney is a Deputy who a short time ago was a contender for the post of Taoiseach in the Fianna Fáil Party. It is not for me to speculate as to who might be leader of Fianna Fáil; what I am trying to do is to emphasise what appears to be the strength of character, whether one agrees with him or not, of Deputy Blaney who was included in the Cabinet according to the Taoiseach up to 20th April when the Taoiseach decided some action had to be taken.

Deputy Haughey was always silent on the north. I do not think he was reported in any of the newspapers nor was he heard on television or radio giving any views on the Six County situation. Deputy Haughey is now sacked. One wonders how many others there are. The Taoiseach would have done well if, last Thursday or Friday morning, he had made his contribution after the speeches of Deputy Boland and Deputy Blaney, when he would have had a better idea of the type of party the Fianna Fáil Party was and the type of support he might expect or that Deputies Blaney and Boland might expect in their own capacities. He would have seen— whether they were carried away with the oratory of Deputy Boland or Deputy Blaney I do not know—that there were very many people in the Fianna Fáil Party who appeared to me to support particularly the bull-in-the-china-shop approach of Deputy Blaney, ex-Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

There was a crisis last week and there still is and I do not think anything that can be said from the Fianna Fáil benches or by the Taoiseach will resolve that crisis. We can well reflect now on what happened here on Friday and Saturday particularly, apart from the relatively short 4½-hour debate we had on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. On Friday the Taoiseach moved a motion to the effect that three Deputies be appointed members of the Government. He said nothing; he could have said quite a lot. He was complaining about filibustering and repetition in speeches. If there appeared to be a filibuster my party did not contribute to it. If it appeared to the Taoiseach that it was an unduly long session there was nobody responsible but the Taoiseach himself because of his silence on this matter when he rose to speak at 10.30 last Friday morning. He could have said quite a lot that might have shortened the debate and, more important, he might have stopped some of the rumours or counter-rumours circulating not only in the House but in the country and which are still circulating there. I think the Taoiseach could be accused of irresponsibility in such a major debate in that his initial contribution could have contained much of what I suppose he was forced to say when he concluded at 10.30 p.m., or so, last Saturday night.

In this long debate questions were asked which so far have not been answered. Questions were posed to the Taoiseach which he evaded, whether deliberately or not I do not know. He will know that himself. In this debate Deputy Boland, the ex-Minister for Local Government, castigated the Taoiseach. There was no expression of loyalty to the Taoiseach in any word or any sentence he uttered. As a matter of fact, as I said last Friday night, he made very serious accusations against the Taoiseach about phone tapping, execution by trial, being followed by a super-special branch and being dogged for quite a long time.

The Taoiseach has given us an assurance that our phones are not tapped. I do not want to be too rough when I say this but, in view of the Taoiseach's ignorance of the behaviour of his Ministers up to 20th April, I am not yet quite sure whether some other Minister in that Cabinet has made an order for phone tapping, whether of the phones of Ministers, or ex-Ministers, or members of the Opposition I do not know. In any case, while Deputy Boland said all this and gave some expression of loyalty to the Fianna Fáil Party, there was no expression of loyalty to Deputy Jack Lynch, the Taoiseach, but only one of accusation and castigation.

Deputy Blaney denied that he was involved and we wonder now, because we did not get any response from the Taoiseach. Deputy Haughey said he was not involved. Deputy Boland said he was not involved. Deputy Blaney said he was not involved. They made what they might regard as frank statements to the House. When the Taoiseach spoke here on Saturday night he never referred to these denials. He never said: "I will not accept them." As a matter of fact, during that whole speech not a name was mentioned except the assurance to Deputy Boland —and then the Taoiseach mentioned his name—to the effect that his phone was not being tapped; in the case of Deputy Haughey, to the fact that he was sick and, in the case of Deputy Ó Móráin, to the fact that he too was incapacitated, had resigned and was not dismissed. So far as the denials were concerned we do not yet know what the Taoiseach's attitude is.

Deputy Blaney, in what is now being recognised and described as an extraordinary speech, appeared to justify his emotional utterances by reference to his family background. All of us can well be proud of our family backgrounds no matter what they may be. No doubt these things happened to Deputy Blaney. No doubt he had to suffer very many things when he was a youngster, and so too had his father and mother. These are events of 50 years ago. As Deputy FitzGerald said, these experiences are not peculiar to Deputy Blaney. They are not peculiar to the Republican movement either. Members of the trade union movement had those experiences. The fact of having had those experiences does not give any of us—and it certainly does not give Deputy Blaney—any licence in 1970 to hint at violence or force of arms as a solution to the northern situation. Nor do they give any licence to any of those whose families experienced similar persecution in the trade union movement to preach violence, hate and disorder.

Deputy Blaney cannot be excused on that emotional outburst. He cannot be excused—this appears to be his justification for making that type of speech —because his family were subjected to certain treatment and certain persecution 45 or 50 years ago. The important feature in Deputy Blaney's speech is that he denied the Taoiseach's allegation and, as I said, the Taoiseach did not advert to or reply to this when concluding his speech in public. I should like to ask, as the country is asking, what the truth is. Have no doubt about this: this was not resolved by the vote on last Saturday night nor will it be resolved, unless the Taoiseach speaks out, by the vote at 10.30 tomorrow night.

I want to say this without any bias. If the Taoiseach had time to go around the country—and I am sure the members of his party can tell him what I am telling him now—he would know that people are asking where does the truth lie: with the Taoiseach or with these three or four Ministers who are now out of office because of allegations of gun running. I believe the Taoiseach did anything but clear the air on last Saturday night. As a matter of fact, to my mind and to the minds of most of the people of this country, he caused greater confusion and doubt.

I want to refer to the Taoiseach's concluding speech on Wednesday night or should I say early on Thursday morning. He made a very short contribution between 2 a.m. and 2.30 a.m. and said—and this is a paraphrase of what he said—that he had no legal proof of the involvement of Deputy Blaney and Deputy Haughey in arms smuggling. This is reported at column 716 of the Official Report of 6th May, 1970. He went on:

That is the reason I took the action I did take last night because I believed I had what did not amount to legal proof—and I have some knowledge about what amounts to legal proof—of the alleged involvement of two members of the Government in attempted—and I repeat attempted—arms importation.

The Taoiseach suggests—and I do not question this at all—that as a barrister he knew what amounted to legal proof. On Saturday when he replied, as if to show his impartiality and honesty, he said he had passed on the relevant documents to the Attorney General.

We have never seen these documents. We do not know their contents. We have not even a vague idea of what they contain. The Taoiseach said he is handing them to the Attorney General. I do not know the Attorney General but I know he must be a man of integrity if he is appointed as Attorney General. I wonder is this a smoke-screen? Will anything happen as a result of these documents and papers being placed in the hands of the Attorney General? If the Attorney General decides that no action is to be taken—and I do not know what he will do—the documents will not have to be read out to Dáil Éireann.

I believe also that this is an excuse on the part of the Taoiseach and his colleagues in the Government for not establishing a Select Committee of this House which I proposed on Friday last. In any case—and I think this is the most important part of the argument—why pass on to the Attorney General evidence, that in the Taoiseach's own words, is not legal proof? The Taoiseach is a barrister and he says the documents may not stand up, and that the evidence has no legal proof. Still he hands the documents over to the Attorney General hoping, may I suggest, that nothing will be done and that these documents will never be made available to Dáil Éireann or the public.

I am sure the Taoiseach does not treat these matters lightly. I am sure that, as Taoiseach, he must have obtained another legal opinion at least within his own Department, if not in consultation with other Departments as well. May I ask did the Taoiseach between his speech on Thursday morning and Saturday night receive more evidence, say, that could stand up to legal proof and which he will now submit to the Attorney General? It is important for the Taoiseach to tell us if he got more evidence, or if more evidence was made available to him between Thursday and Saturday, which strengthens his case for the sacking of two or perhaps three Ministers—the third Minister is in doubt.

If the Attorney General does not take action what then? The country will still be confused. The country will be very confused and the confusion will again have been caused by the Taoiseach. He talks about the slightest suspicion being attached to members of his Cabinet. The slight suspicion he puts on Deputies Blaney and Haughey must then rest on himself unless he can make a more convincing case to the Members of this House, to his party, and to the country as to why these two or three Ministers were sacked from the Government. The suspicion has already been mentioned by Deputy Boland. Deputy Boland is not convinced that the Taoiseach's action is justified in view of the fact that absolute evidence has not been produced.

This suspicion on the Taoiseach has been imputed by Deputy Blaney and Deputy Haughey in their denials. This contradiction must be cleared up. It appears that the Government are not prepared to resolve the contradiction. I repeat my call to the Taoiseach for the establishment of a Select Committee. We have had a judicial inquiry on illegal moneylending, arising out of the Seven Days programme. This is a much more serious matter and we still do not know whether there will be any inquiry. The Taoiseach has stated that the papers, which cannot stand up to legal proof, have been deposited with the Attorney General for his decision as to whether or not any action can be taken.

We do not wish to prolong this debate. We would prefer if matters could be cleared up quickly. If nothing happens in the Attorney General's office and if a Select Committee is not established to inquire into the whole matter we, the members of the Labour Party, will table a motion asking this House to have such a Committee established. The Dáil and the people must know all the facts.

The Taoiseach has centred this crisis around one specific instance of which he became aware on 20th April. I assume he became aware of it for the first time on that date because nothing he has said has given us any information as to whether he had any suspicions of this sort of activity by his Ministers prior to 20th April. There have been allegations and the Taoiseach—I know he cannot read all the newspapers but certain news items must be brought to his attention by members of his staff, whether such items are on the newspapers or announced on television or on the radio—has said he had no suspicions earlier. Does the Taoiseach not know that allegations have been widely circulated for a long time to the effect that military observers have been in the Six Counties since August? Deputy Cruise-O'Brien referred to that in a supplementary question to the Taoiseach. I should like to know whether this is so? If this is so, I should like to know whether they were there following a formal or informal decision of the Government, or were they there following a decision of certain Government Ministers? The Taoiseach will have to reply on this point.

Statistics are very intersting. We all know the realities of Irish life. We know of the effects of the Fianna Fáil economic policy. These effects are important in their own place. The questions posed in this debate and in the debate last week must be answered within the next 24 hours. Was permission given for these activities or was the blind eye turned towards the alleged activities of these military gentlemen? How can the people have confidence in a Government who are silent on these points when all these doubts are still unresolved?

The Taoiseach talks in the well-known clichés—perhaps with sincerity —about the Government policy of peaceful persuasion. This would be the policy of the vast majority of the Members of this House. What does the Taoiseach mean? Can the Taoiseach give any concrete example of where he or any Member of his Government or of his Party have taken the initiative and employed a policy of peaceful persuasion? I do not know of any example of it since the events of August last. Deputy Blaney told us he was in the north when he was wanted. We, in the Labour Party, described to the House in October the activity that we engaged in then and which has been engaged in by the Labour Party with the Council of Labour over the last few years. We have tried to make some contribution. The Government should give up talking in clichés about the Six Counties. They should implement what the Taoiseach describes as "a policy of peaceful persuasion."

Deputy Blaney jeered at the Labour Party and said they were in the north when the television cameras were in action. This was purely coincidental; the cameras were there because there was trouble in the Bogside. When the trouble was at its height there was no evidence of any member of the Fianna Fáil Party or of the Government being in Bogside, Newry, Armagh or on the Falls Road, Belfast.

Apart from the crisis which is a political crisis, we also have an economic crisis. The unfortunate thing about the events of the last few weeks is that this Parliament should be discussing Deputy Blaney, Deputy Boland, Deputy Haughey, Deputy Ó Móráin and Deputy Paudge Brennan. This Parliament should be discussing the economic crisis which exists. The Government should attend to this economic crisis. People in the country are concerned about it. The people are also concerned with the effects of the Budget speech of the ex-Minister for Finance, which was read by the Taoiseach a short time ago.

People are concerned about prices and lack of control. Every Deputy can be told of the steep increase in prices since the extra 2½ per cent turnover tax was imposed from 1st May. People laugh with derision at the forecast that prices will rise by no more than 2½ per cent. Any housewife can give evidence of the increase in prices from her experience in the shops last week-end. We may have a political crisis of great dimensions but there is also a crisis in the shops and supermarkets. I believe we can expect a 10 per cent increase in prices over the year unless the Government take action by way of price control. Some years ago the then Minister for Industry and Commerce. Deputy Dr. Hillery, introduced a Prices Bill which has never worked. It was never meant to work because the machinery for price inspection was never provided by that Minister or his successors. We have not alone a political crisis but also an economic crisis in so far as prices are concerned. We also have a balance of payments crisis. Deputy Haughey said that we might expect to have an unfavourable balance of payments of £50 million. I regret to say that this appears to be unrealistic when one learns of the increases in prices and in costs.

There is undoubtedly a blow also to our tourist trade. This follows not alone the events which took place in the Six Counties last year but also the events which have taken place in this country over the last two weeks. We can expect reaction, especially from the British tourists.

There is great industrial unrest in two fundamental sectors of our economy. The cement strike affects us seriously. There are thousands of men idle at present because of it. We have a bank strike which plays its part in nullifying the Government's attempt to control the creation of credit. I do not wish to be misunderstood when I say this. We in the Labour Party will always defend the right to free negotiation by the trade unions.

Might I pose this question? What has the Minister for Labour been doing in the past eight, nine or ten weeks? Does he imagine he has no responsibility except to open a petrol station here or to cut a tape to open a road there or just to come in here very occasionally and to be responsible for the Estimate for his Department? Except on one occasion, he has not expressed any concern for the thousands who are idle because of the cement strike or for the situation with regard to the banks. The Government and the Minister for Labour should indeed be very concerned because Cement, Limited, and the banks both enjoy a monopoly position. It behoves the Government to ensure that the people in charge of those monopolies will not be allowed to remain in their ivory towers, as is the position at the moment, so far as those working for them are concerned and who are at present seeking a standard of living to which they believe they are entitled.

The Minister for Labour just sits in this House and answers a couple of questions now and again. I believe he has added responsibility now: the Department of Social Welfare has also been given to him. He does not appear to be doing anything. Compare his performance with that of a Minister for Labour in a Socialist Government in Britain where action would be taken within hours as against months in the case of our present Minister for Labour. Enormous damage can be done to our economy by the prolongation of the cement strike and of the banks strike. The danger is that, when these strikes are settled, skilled employees will have gone to Britain in greater numbers and, with them, builders' labourers. Knowledge abroad of industrial strikes here cannot but damage our tourist industry. The consequences will be inflation later on and diminution of foreign investment.

The Taoiseach says he believes he has the best Cabinet this country can supply. He talks about the courage with which his team will go to negotiate for membership of EEC. I wonder what they will think of them now. They do not know, except by name, the Haugheys, the Bolands and so on. They will be looking at an Irish Government which had been forced to sack two Ministers and a third, perhaps was sacked or resigned and yet another resigned because he believed the Prime Minister of this Government executed his Cabinet colleagues without trial. Will they have a very high view of a negotiating team from this Fianna Fáil Government?

We have two crises—one political and the other economic. I should prefer not to have the political crisis. I should prefer if, last week and this, we talked about employment, health, jobs, wages, an improved standard of living and the general problems of our people than, as appears to be the position, about political gangsters. I have no doubt that Fianna Fáil will stick together. There is no doubt in my mind nor in the minds of those responsible for gauging and affecting public opinion—the news media—that the morale of the country has been shattered by the events of the past ten days. Fianna Fáil may give the Taoiseach his majority but the country would not do so because the country has no confidence in this Government nor in this Taoiseach.

I rise to support the Motion of Confidence in the Government. It is indeed interesting to note the cheap tactics of members of the Opposition who, a few weeks ago in this House, would not support the efforts of Fianna Fáil to improve the lot of the old age pensioner, the widow, the orphan, the unemployed, the deserted wives, the blind, the disabled and other people who require social assistance of one kind or another. The spineless individuals in Fine Gael and Labour failed to go into the division lobby to support the Financial Resolution to ensure that needy sections of our community would get the increases which they so justly need and deserve.

It has been the pattern, down through the years, under the benevolent umbrella of successive Fianna Fáil Governments, that the weaker sections of the community would always receive under the Budget whatever improvement could be managed for them in their standard of living. In recent years, we heard the Leader of the Labour Party indicate in this House that he would support any taxes in order to ensure an increase in social benefits. On this occasion, however, Deputy Corish took his instructions from the Fine Gael Party because of the tie-up which is now evident as a result of the Kildare and Longford-Westmeath by-elections. We are now aware of this tie-up. We are aware of this group of ruthless, place-hunting individuals who are willing to crush this particular section of the community—the weakest section—in order to ensure that they themselves will stabilise and improve, if at all possible, their political position.

Down through the years, the Fianna Fáil Party and successive Fianna Fáil Governments have demonstrated their anxiety for the welfare all sections of our people and not least for our weakest sections who require social benefits, not forgetting, also, parents of young families who receive increased and more favourable children's allowances, whenever possible.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

I see that the doctors have deserted the dispensary now. There is nobody in it. The Labour benches are empty.

What is being dispensed?

The doctors have gone and there is nobody to look after the aged, the unemployed, the sick, the weaker sections of our community. This spineless and ruthless group came together in Longford-Westmeath and Kildare where the wedding took place between the two groups. On one side, we had Lady FitzGerald and, on the other side, the reluctant groom, Deputy Brendan Corish. Of course, the bride was dressed in virginal white with red trimmings.

At least, it was not a shotgun marriage like——

I am not so sure about that. As a matter of fact, I am convinced that it was. This wedding that took place, to which the people of Longford-Westmeath and Kildare were invited, was a very unimpressive ceremony. No doubt the bridesmaids were dressed all in red: I am sure Deputy Stephen Coughlan gave each of them a little red book to read. The marriage between Fine Gael and the Labour Party took place in that particular area. We see the remnants of the marriage lines trailed across the floor of this House in the following manner. The happy couple, and their retinue, failed to support the Financial Resolution necessary to ensure that the old age pensioner would get an increase of 17s 6d a week and that the other needy sections would get the various increases envisaged in this Budget. The happy couple were indifferent as to whether deserted wives and assistance classes would receive increased benefit and as to whether parents would receive increased children's allowances.

Just imagine having that happy couple and their retinue as an alternative Government to Fianna Fáil. The alternative to Fianna Fáil was a combination of Fine Gael and Labour under which this country suffered on two occasions in the not too distant past when we were very rudely made aware, as indeed was everybody in the country, of their total lack of sincerity and of their painfully meagre contributions to the weaker sections of our community. When Deputy Corish was Minister for Social Welfare, the very best Fine Gael and Labour could do, between them, was to give an increase of 10d a week to the old age pensioners.

We have absolute confidence in a Government who are concerned with the needs of the weaker sections of the community, whether they be social assistance classes or others. We have always ensured that these weaker sections received a fair division of any moneys that were available. We are aware of the actions of Fine Gael and Labour in trampling those particular sections. This Government did not run away from their responsibilities as the Coalition Governments did in 1951 and again in 1957, when Deputy Dr. O'Donovan helped in bringing the country to disaster. As has been said here on many occasions by Deputy Paddy Burke, the Coalition Government did not leave as much as the price of a bag of cement.

The Deputy's party will not take the chance of running away.

That Government left behind 100,000 unemployed and about 60,000 left the country to go to Brimingham, London and other places. The building trade was brought to a standstill at the time. The people do not forget such happenings and, as has been proved in successive elections, they have confidence in the Government who ensure that employment is maintained—a Government who do not run away.

The Government have not run away on this occasion either. The Taoiseach took a courageous decision in which he was supported by every member of his party. Both the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party have their problems, but what would they have done if they had had to deal with the problem that we faced? They most certainly would have run away. The witch hunters and scaremongers kept us here through the night on Friday and all they did was to repeat what each one was saying. There are six Labour Parties on the one bench but, if they were faced with a major problem, I am sure there would be 17 Labour Parties, as there probably will be in time to come. I see Deputy Desmond here. This man has made rude and vulgar comments when referring to the Taoiseach and to Ministers. In his early days in the House we heard him make such comments to the Taoiseach as "come off it, Jack". This type of remark is an indication of the type of person Deputy Desmond is.

During the past few days responsible men like Deputies Neil Blaney and Charles Haughey have been vilified in this House by a group of scandalmongers from the Opposition benches. These two Deputies are honourable men and they support this party. They supported the Taoiseach in the action he took. We have no apologies to make for having staved together. Of course, the Opposition parties were hoping for a split in this great party, but the party is too big for that. We are capable of resolving our problems, be they big or small, in a democratic way. It is not necessary for us to meet behind closed doors or in public houses or elsewhere as different groups. Neither have we any apologies to make for being republicans. We are republicans. This is the republican party. It always has been the republican party and always will be the party to uphold republican traditions.

It is very hurtful when individuals come in here and endeavour to pillory responsible men as has been done during the past few days. We have had nothing from the Opposition but repetion, and now they are attempting to have more repetition. However, the end result will be that the vote of confidence in this Government will be supported.

There are spineless and gutless hacks in Labour and Fine Gael who indicate they are not in favour of the benefits being given to the weaker sections of the community because they have not the courage to go into the lobby to support the necessary taxation. Of course, taxation must be found if the necessary moneys are to be made available for the increased concessions being granted in the Budget. Should there be another Government in power at any other time and should money be required to help the weaker sections, we will not shirk our responsibility; instead, we will support the Financial Resolutions to make it possible to provide such moneys.

That is good to know. We must take a note of it.

Members of Labour and Fine Gael have no desire to be reminded of their spineless action of the past few days. I do not believe there is anybody either inside or outside this House, other than those in the Opposition, who would oppose the necessary taxation to provide for the widow, the orphan, the unemployed, the deserted wife, the sick and the disabled. I have spoken to many Fine Gael supporters outside the House and they have told me that they would be only too glad to make a contribution of 2½ per cent, or indeed more, so long as they knew it was helping those people who are being helped by the Budget. The benefits being paid to the weaker sections of our community are not as great as I would wish them to be. However, we can be sure that when the next Budget is introduced there will be demands for more taxation to ensure that the income of those people is brought up to a realistic level.

During the next couple of days we will be subjected to a repetition by the Opposition of all that was said on Friday and Saturday last. The witch hunters will be endeavouring to undermine the confidence of the people, but the confidence of the people has manifested itself in many ways during the weekend. Members and supporters of the Labour Party were heard to make known their disgust at the type of speeches which came from the Labour benches on Friday and Saturday last. These speeches were not in keeping with the republican views of some members of that party. It is evident that there is a division within the Labour Party. There are black, red, blue and green to be contended with; in other words, there are many Labour Parties.

I should like to comment on some of the advances that have been made by Fianna Fáil. We are all aware of the success of the efforts of this party to set up so many industries in the country. We are also aware of the many schemes that are in operation and which are giving so much employment to Irish men and women. The Department of Industry and Commerce are ever conscious of the need for attracting industrialists here. In my area of Ballyfermot-Drimnagh there is a £6 million industry already giving valuable employment and which will give further employment to a substantial number in the not too distant future.

This is the latest addition in my area, a £6 million project—and that is no small project. I wonder how many factories or industries were attracted to this country during the reign of terror of the last Coalition Government and of the previous one? There was certainly not the confidence in industrial development that is there now. There was no confidence whatever. They ran away from their responsibilities, deserted Deputy Noel Browne and left him carrying the can. The place of collective responsibility in that Government was quite clear when they fell asunder because of the row over the mother and child scheme. One would think that people who spoke in such glowing terms about themselves and their party in the last few days and who tried to project themselves as the wondermen of this age would have had the guts to stick together when a problem arose but on the first occasion that a problem arose the Coalition fell asunder. They deserted their post, ran away and left behind them 100,000 unemployed.

In the process they sold out the chassis factory and the aircraft that had been purchased by Aer Lingus for the transatlantic route. It is hard to think that a Labour Party would sell the very tools required for people to work, would desert their comrades, would desert the trade unions when they were in power. They sold the transatlantic aircraft and they sold the equipment of the chassis factory at Inchicore before it ever came out of the crates. A large industry was being developed at that time for which the most elaborate and up-to-date machinery was obtained but when a group of men who were bent on power got into operation they deserted the workers of this city and of this nation and sold the very means of their employment. One can understand the mentality of Fine Gael in carrying out a vicious act like that but one cannot understand how a Labour Party could stand by and allow industries to be sabotaged and sold. Men who had been trained in Aer Lingus to deal with this type of development found themselves scattered all over the world because they had no employment at home. Anything was good enough so long as they got their hands on a few pounds and they did that by selling the machinery in Inchicore and by selling the aircraft. How much damage did this do the nation? We lost a heavy industry in Dublin city and we lost the airlines that were available to us then. When Fianna Fáil came back to power they re-established the airlines and we have there now a viable project giving employment to 5,000 or 6,000 people. That could well be 10,000 people today if the inter-Party Government had not been so ruthless in the destruction of employment for Irish trade unionists.

It was a sorry day for trade unionists that the Fine Gael and Labour groups ever got into power and trade unionists have expressed this on many occasions since. The building workers who were deserted in 1957 know too well the type of individuals who are in the Labour Party and what they will do in order to cling to power for the period necessary to get ministerial pensions. This is the only reason they lasted three years. If there had been no pensions there would have been no Government after six or 12 months and judging by the comments in the House recently of one of their advisers, Deputy Dr. O'Donovan, it is no wonder the Government fell asunder. One wonders how they stuck together for three years with that type of adviser.

However, industrial development is now going well and has been going ahead. We are aware of the progress that has been made in the industrial estates at Waterford, Shannon, Galway and elsewhere. These were decried by members of Fine Gael and Labour. I remember the Waterford by-election at which Deputy Fad Browne was elected. During that compaign members of the Fine Gael and Labour Parties said there would never be an industry opened in the Waterford estate, just as in the past they said that Shannon would be a white elephant. We have the Shannon Development there today with a variety of factories and very substantial employment—factories that have brought new skills to this country and where our technicians have developed and acquired new skills and crafts which will be very useful in the years to come in further expansions of this nature. These industrial estates are a success and we know that as further industrialists require further space for industrial development this Government will be able and willing to ensure that development will continue.

One has only to look at the industrial development in Ballyfermot, Wal-kinstown, Bluebell, Coolock or Finglas to see the progress we have made. If every trade unionist in this city stood for a moment and thought who developed his factory, who extended his factory by the grants made available, he would have to come to the conclusion that it was Fianna Fáil who did all this because there are very few factories here that were established by anybody other than Fianna Fáil. This is well known. That is why we seldom hear a voice from the Labour Party about industrial development. They never had any time for it. They are aware of their sabotage in relation to industrial development when they were in power.

The housing programme this year has set an all-time record. There are needs in this city for further housing development. These needs are there because of a variety of problems and a variety of changes which have taken place. The population increase in Dublin before 1961 was approximately 1.8 per cent. From 1961 to 1969 it was approximately 10 per cent. This means that there have been attracted to our developing industries a large number of people. We are glad that people are finding employment, that our solution to the housing problem is not to send people to Birmingham, London or Coventry but to maintain employment here and to develop our housing to an all-time record. I am sure that in the years to come we will have even greater figures.

The Ballyfermot, Rathfarnham, Bluebell, Crumlin, Finglas, Cabra, Coolock and Ballymun estates are results of the efforts of the Fianna Fáil Government. One can point to very few houses in this city which were developed by anybody other than Fianna Fáil. Fine Gael and Labour came into power when much of the groundwork was done and when the foundations were laid during the war years in places like Crumlin. It was easy to continue after the development work and the groundwork had been done. There is no credit due to anyone except Fianna Fáil for increasing the housing programme during those years.

This work was continued when Deputy Neil Blaney was Minister for Local Government. He saw Dublin Corporation were not going fast enough to meet the requirements of the people at that time. He set about examining a system whereby there would be an agreed number of dwellings to meet the demands of the people on the waiting list who wished to have a home of their own. I am not satisfied with the efforts of Dublin Corporation. I might mention that the housing committee over the years has been presided over by chairmen from the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party. It was presided over by the Fine Gael Party on the last occasion and by a chairman from the Labour Party on previous occasions. We know that it was through the efforts of those people that Dublin Corporation were impeded in their efforts to provide housing for the people of Dublin.

When Deputy Neil Blaney was Minister for Local Government he sent members of Dublin Corporation to examine system building in other countries. At that time we had full employment in the building trade. We found it was impossible to increase the number of dwellings according to the system already in operation. It was impossible at that time to obtain the services of a carpenter, a plasterer, a plumber or a bricklayer. There were very few such people then unemployed. There were a number of people on the labour exchange who when they were offered jobs said: "We want this amount of money and we do not want our cards stamped". Those people are still going to the labour exchange. They did not wish to be employed. They could be employed if they took the jobs offered. I hope the time has now come when we will have a complete examination of the number of people employed and unemployed so we can obtain a factual assessment of the situation.

As I said, it was impossible to increase the number of houses by traditional building and, therefore, the Minister for Local Government at the time sent members of Dublin Corporation to visit the continent and come back with new ideas which would be acceptable to our requirements. Deputy Moore, when he was Lord Mayor, accompained the deputation to a number of European cities. As a result of their visit to those cities, and as a result of the work of the then Minister for Local Government, Ballymun was developed, in addition to the housing programme of Dublin Corporation. This enabled an extra 3,000 dwellings to be provided. This gives an indication of the type of Government Fianna Fáil are. They are not satisfied with committees presided over by Fine Gael or Labour chairmen, where they have a substantial majority, and where they are able to impeded the work of Dublin Corporation. Those people try to cash in when pressure is exercised on them by the Department of Local Government and other Government Departments and take credit for what is done. Those of us who have served on Dublin Corporation over the years know the tactics used by those people to try to impede the elimination of defective buildings or the construction of new dwellings.

I served for 13 years on Dublin Corporation. Several times during that period the committee was presided over by a Labour Party chairmen. I thought this man was reasonably fair but nevertheless great intrigue was carried on. I was glad when Dublin Corporation was abolished and, much as I would like to see it being restored, I would not like to see the same type of pressure carried on. Those people held up many valuable projects for quite a number of years. We would have large housing estates on the south side of the city developed now were it not for opposition to sewerage schemes and other schemes over the years.

Housing, industrial development and social advantages are things in which I am very interested. I know we will further increase the housing development to meet all the needs of our people. We will also increase our industrial development in order to ensure full and viable employment for generations to come.

Last Friday and Saturday we saw the circus come to town with the variety of speakers on behalf of the Fine Gael and Labour Parties. We saw the way they endeavoured to drag out the discussion for the purpose of trying to accumulate the largest amount of Press space for their speakers. The substance of what they said could be put on a postage stamp. There was no solid contribution made by any member of either party. We heard a repetition for almost 40 hours of the one thing over and over again. They must have had a long playing record in their party rooms which they listened to during their breather sessions. Everybody was tuned in to this, then came down here and recited the one recitation. We know what happened at the end of the day.

The Fianna Fáil Party were elected by the people to govern and have governed and made the decisions we were called on to make, over the years, even if those decisions were difficult at times. Fine Gael and Labour speakers suggested that we should get on with the job we were put in here to do. The Taoiseach did that job with courage and conviction. There is no need to go to the country because we have got a mandate from the people to do a job. We will carry on until such time as that mandate expires. We will not ask the people to fix our problems for us; we will not run away from our responsibilities; we will do the job we were sent here to do, whether it be the dismissal of Ministers or otherwise. If that is part of what is required the leader of the party will make those decisions and I am quite sure when they are made they will have the full support of our party. This particular circus gave the Labour and Fine Gael Parties an opportunity to cover up the disruption within their own parties.

Not so long ago a group of individuals in the Labour Party tried to prevent people from playing a football match. They tried to "black" personnel travelling on Irish and other airlines, they tried to "black" the baggage of some airline passengers, they tried to prevent people from obtaining meals in hotels and intimidated some of the workers in Dublin hotels. If Fine Gael or Labour were in power they would try to tell us what football match we should watch and what hotel to dine in; they would tell hotel staff whom they could serve, tell Aer Lingus what passengers they could carry on their planes and the baggage attendants what baggage they should clear or otherwise——

And what bookie to place a bet with.

We know the difficulties a certain gentleman in the Labour Party encountered when he travelled outside his own constituency and the reception he got when he went to a constituency in the West of Ireland. We know that Deputy Coughlan proved himself on that occasion to be a man of principle. He did what he thought right and he got the support of his constituents. He gave his answer to Deputy Desmond, to Deputy Cruise-O'Brien and other intruders in his constituency. He told them to mind their own business, to look after their own constituents and that would take up all their time. Some of the people who wept so bitterly in this House in the last few days are the people who spend much of their time abroad, either in Paris or in America. They are not concerned about the needs of the Irish people when they are abroad and I am quite sure their pockets are well lined for the period they spend away from Ireland.

We in Fianna Fáil are ever conscious of our responsibilities; we are always here to ensure that the needs of our constituents are catered for. I might add that we do not get our telephones disconnected to ensure that our constituents cannot get in touch with us. This was made very clear in a recent article in the Sunday Independent.

In the last few days we have heard nothing but talk of a crisis from certain people who used it as a way of concealing their own difficulties. We all know that a crisis exists between the various sections of the Labour Party. That party got their answer from the workers of Dublin South West not so long ago and the workers will give their answer in the same terms when they are called upon to do so in the future. I can understand the wish of the Labour Party to stick together and to ensure that there is no election. They do not want an election now or in the future because they know their numbers will diminish still further. They will certainly need the doctors in the party when the results of the next election are known.

We have never run away from our responsibilities, we have never let the people down. We are not going to the people to ask them to solve our problems; we will solve them in a democratic way and do the job which the people entrusted to us. Sometimes unpopular or tough decisions have to be made; they will be made and we will respect them.

Before this debate concludes I know we will have more witch-hunts, we will have the scandalmongers crying for this country—the country they deserted when they had an opportunity. The Labour Party are a party without a future; there is only one Opposition party and that is Fine Gael. They proved this in the by-elections in Kildare and Longford-Westmeath and they instructed the Labour Party what way to vote in the division lobbies during the recent division on the Financial Resolution.

Deputy Corish said that if nothing were done about these things his party would put down a motion. They are always putting down motions—in the corporation, in local authorities and in this House. However, all the motions they put down are of no value and they certainly do not bluff the people. The people of Dublin will not stand for such nonsence and Labour and Fine Gael should realise this.

Fine Gael have been crying recently about the social welfare classes, about the widows and the orphans. Deputy Belton put down a motion in relation to old age pensions and social welfare changes and he could not get a single member of Fine Gael to support it. Even the people who put their names to it would not support the motion. Fine Gael try to bluff the people and pretend they are concerned about the widows, the orphans, the disabled and the unemployed but they certainly are not succeeding. When they tabled a Private Members' Motion, Deputy Ryan and others who have been shedding crocodile tears for this country in the past few days, did not come into the House and the motion fell for want of a seconder. This showed quite clearly the sympathy Fine Gael have for our social welfare classes.

On the next occasion when they had a motion tabled it was moved and seconded but when it came before the House there was not a single member of either Fine Gael or Labour in the House to support it. This motion also dealt with the weaker section of our community about whose welfare the Opposition claim to be deeply concerned. It appears to me that the tie-up proceeded from that stage; that social welfare was out because they wanted to ensure that the assistance classes would remain at a very low level and that therefore they could point at us and say: "Look at the level of assistance the weaker sections are getting." They do not want any assistance to be given to the weaker sections of the community. Therefore, they need not talk about motions. They could not get a single member of the Fine Gael Party or the Labour Party to support a motion which called for the betterment of the services.

Why did the Deputy not second it himself?

It was a complete bluff and your bluff was called. Both Fine Gael and Labour voted against the recent increases to the widow, the orphan, the unemployed, the deserted wife and other deserving people, inasmuch as they voted not to make the money available. We know their mentality. When Deputy Corish was Minister for Social Welfare, the Labour Party, with the assistance of the Fine Gael Party, managed to scrape up tenpence a week for the old age pensioners. We never insulted the old age pensioners in that manner. On the other occasion that they were in office they gave a miserable increase averaging tenpence per week over a three-year period. Let the Opposition Parties put down more motions. They make good reading. It gives us a deep insight into the social conscience of both Fine Gael and Labour.

Deputy Corish spoke about increased prices in the shops as a result of the turnover tax. There are bound to be increases but the housewife and the man in the street do not begrudge paying those increases in order to ensure that the less well off are assisted. As I said in the Budget debate there may well be people in the supermarkets and shops who will overcharge, who will be only too happy to discredit the Government while lining their own pockets. We want to ensure that a close eye is kept on these vampires. However, in general, the housewives are satisfied that the Government have done a good job by ensuring that the people in the gravest need get the necessary assistance.

Deputy Corish spoke about skilled workers going to Britain. The greatest number of skilled workers who ever left this country left at the rate of 60,000 a year as a result of the misrule of the last Coalition Government. Now with the assurance of full employment in the building trade and industry for a long time to come, many workers will come back. I challenge any trade union representative to say there is not full employment in the building trade. I know from going into my union to make inquiries that there is full employment. The opportunities are there and are being developed because of the constant attention that is being given to this vital matter of increasing job opportunities. The skilled workers who went to Britain will certainly come back when the cement strike and other strikes are over.

It would be far better if the Opposition Parties devoted their attention to the improvement of industrial relations rather than to undermining them. It is no wonder that the minds of Irish workers are contaminated by some of the material pumped into them by Labour Party speakers and some trade union officials. It should be possible to have a discussion on the improvement of industrial relations and what can be done to ensure continuity of employment. It is not beyond the capacity of Irish industrialists and some of the commonsense trade unionists to come together and decide what would be acceptable to workers and employers, where workers could be assured of additional benefits as the circumstances would dictate. That would be more beneficial than the kind of tripe we have heard here in the last couple of days from the Labour speakers who spend all their time in the House. It is no wonder the trade unions are running riot throughout the city and country. The trade union officials who are here should be outside looking after the people they represent in this House.

On a point of order. In view of the statements made by the Deputy, it may be of interest to point out——

The Deputy may not intervene in this matter. This is not a point of order.

The Deputy is making a provocative statement. There are no trade union officials on this side.

The Deputy will get an opportunity of making his own speech.

There are no trade unions over there, either.

It is time the Deputy finished and went home to bed.

When we wanted to go to bed you would not let us. It is our turn to come in now.

They would be much better employed if they were outside trying to heal the industrial wounds and to eliminate industrial strife. We have heard these statements from time to time from irresponsible trade union officials. I am not saying that all trade union officials are irresponsible. Some of them are very responsible, like Senator Jimmy Dunne, who has a bit of common sense, who will not be dictated to by outside forces and outside suggestions. Those over there can do best for the Irish workers——

Now he is getting worried.

I am well aware of the situation.

The Deputy will not hide behind Jimmy Dunne's cloak.

I am giving credit where it is due and I am sorry he is the only member of Labour to whom I can give credit. Senator Dunne has been acknowledged as being an excellent man and I would be the last to denigrate him. I leave that to Deputy Desmond. I hope that the common sense displayed by Jimmy Dunne will rub off on other Labour Party members. From what I can see in this House I am afraid there is no hope of that. Deputy Desmond will have an opportunity of making his speech, but I think he would be better employed outside.

For the Deputy's information, I have no employment outside.

He would be better off outside trying to ease industrial tension. He says enough outside to give the impression that he is very influential. I am glad to hear from him now that he has no employment outside. Any influence he has exercised outside has been of a disruptive nature. I appeal to the responsible elements in this House, if there are any still left over there, to ensure that there will not develop among the workers the type of split they tried to develop in the not too distant past. We saw it during the referendum and the general election.

One would think that the Labour Party alone spoke for the workers. I can tell them that there are more trade unionists for Fine Gael than for Labour and more of them for Fianna Fáil than for Fine Gael and Labour put together. Fianna Fáil have always commanded the greatest respect from the workers of this city. They know, as was evident in the not too distant past, that Fianna Fáil never deserted them, never sold them out. I hope that common sense will prevail before the debate finishes and that there will be a realisation that the time of the House could be much better taken up by discussing the other business on the Order Paper. There are the Horse Industry Bill, the Sea Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, the Housing Bill, the Local Government (Planning and Development) Bill, the Shannon Free Airport Development Company Limited (Amendment) Bill, the Prisons Bill, and so on, all important Bills, and we would be much better disposed discussing them here today.

This is the Taoiseach's motion.

The motion came about as a result of other motions. The Deputy's motion did not even get a seconder. At least we have a seconder here. The members of the Deputy's party either thought he made a rotten job of it, that he made a rotten speech, or they were not interested in social welfare. Whichever it was, I am in agreement with them. As I have said, there is much work to be done by the House instead of indulging in these time-wasting tactics. There is, for instance, the Housing Bill which would provide supplementary grants for young couples looking for housing accommodation.

I can say that this party are solidly behind their Taoiseach, united behind their Taoiseach. Reference has been made to my colleagues, Deputies Haughey, Blaney and Boland. They are not the type who would shirk their responsibilities or make irresponsible speeches like those over there. I am proud to be a member of a party of which men like them are members. They have been foully slandered here——

By the Taoiseach.

The Taoiseach sacked them.

The Taoiseach did the job he was called on to do.

Who called on him?

Deputy Bruton will get another opportunity.

He is not as long here as I am or he would know.

Mr. J. Lenehan

Let him go out and buy a few more cheap bullocks.

Do not be led by Deputy L'Estrange, Deputy Belton or the others. They are only misleading the Deputy. He knows the image they have outside. He knows the image Fine Gael have outside—the image of never having a prospect of being able to form a government, even with the assistance of the other half, Labour. I understand Labour are getting up a new name for themselves.

As I was saying earlier, I have great pleasure in supporting this motion which is to reaffirm the confidence of the House in the Fianna Fáil Government. The people of the country displayed that confidence when they sent us here last June. They sent us to do a job and we are doing it. I know the Opposition are deeply grieved by our concern with the weaker sections, with industrial development and with other problems. They would be quite happy if there was complete disruption, if there was no employment, if widows and orphans were living on pittances.

One normally does not take Deputy Dowling's contribution seriously but he has been sent in by one of his friends who is no longer in the Cabinet to deliver his long blockbuster speech in an attempt to keep out a number of Ministers who wanted to defend the Taoiseach. That is my interpretation of Deputy Dowling's contribution. I can see no other reason why he should be put in on a restricted debate to deliver a long and irrelevant speech.

I do not believe it is enough for the Government to limp along with the support of an artificial majority based on essential divisions. One cannot have confidence in such a Government being able to deal with the many problems which we will be facing in the future. I believe a Government must be stable, united, have competent and experienced Ministers, be prepared to tell the people where they stand and come clean with the people on the various issues which are causing doubt and concern. On all these heads I believe the Government are not capable of holding the confidence of the people.

It is not enough for the Taoiseach merely to dismiss Deputy Blaney and Deputy Haughey from the Cabinet because they are suspected of these activities. Deputy Blaney and Deputy Haughey shaped Fianna Fáil and made Fianna Fáil what they are. They have now been shown up in their true colours and, if the evidence which the Taoiseach is going on is to be believed, they have been shown up to be men who believe in violence as a means of solving political problems, because guns can only be used in a violent context.

If these men were importing guns into Northern Ireland they must believe in violence. What confidence can we have in the safety of our democratic institution if the men who shaped the governing Fianna Fáil Party are men who believe in violence? They are, apparently, men prepared to supply arms to organisations which propose to achieve their ends by violent and non-democratic means. In other words, men who were elected to this House and who served in what purports to be a democratically elected Government, were supplying support to organisations which repudiate the democracy on which this Government is based. These men made a great show about being in favour of law and order. They preached to the farmers who did not deceive anybody but came out openly and technically broke the law; yet they are shown to be lawbreakers themselves. What confidence can we have in a Government whose policy was shaped and whose organisation is still controlled by these men? What confidence can we have when they protest their love of democracy and their adherence to the rule of law and order? What confidence can we have in them when the Taoiseach believes they were engaged in these violent unlawful activities?

The speeches made by Deputy Blaney and Deputy Boland can be compared with the speeches of the Rev. Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland. The Rev. Ian Paisley never advocates violence openly; he never comes out and tells the Protestants to shoot the Catholics; he does it by stimulating the emotions which lead to violence; he does it by playing on old fears; he does it by dragging up old historical bones in order to stimulate violent feelings among people. He indirectly advocates violence and this is precisely what the speeches of Deputy Blaney and Deputy Boland also do. Deputy Blaney and Deputy Boland attempt to stimulate the same emotions which lead to violence in the same way as the Rev. Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland.

Deputy Blaney and Deputy Boland are equally irresponsible, equally unpatriotic and equally undemocratic because they adopt the same methods to forward their own political careers. Deputy Haughey and Deputy Blaney have developed contacts up and down the country through their organisational work in the party. They have great power in the party; they still hold vitally important posts in the Fianna Fáil National Executive. The Taoiseach believes they were engaged in illegal, violent and anti-democratic activities, and yet these men still hold power in the Fianna Fáil Party. What confidence can we have in a Fianna Fáil Government in which such men have power? What confidence can we have in a Government which is dependent for staying in office on the votes of these men and their supporters in the division lobbies. These men who believe in violence can hold the Government to ransom by threatening to refuse to vote for them.

There are many reasons for being dissatisfied with the way the Taoiseach has handled the recent affair. Obviously, it is not all his fault; it is the fault of the Fianna Fáil Party, which has germinated men like Deputy Haughey and Deputy Blaney. The Taoiseach has been faced with an awkward situation which, I believe, he has handled incompetently. The Taoiseach became aware on 20th April that these men were involved in illegal activities. He was not able to interview Deputy Haughey at that time because Deputy Haughey was ill; this is fair enough, but Deputy Blaney was not ill. Why did the Taoiseach not interview him? Deputy Blaney continued in full health to occupy a powerful Ministry while under suspicion by the Taoiseach of being involved in these activities. He continued to hold that office until 29th April, a period of nine days, without even being interviewed by the Taoiseach. When he did interview him he allowed him a further six days to think about it.

In all, the Taoiseach allowed these men 15 days in office after he had become aware that they were probably involved in illegal activities which threatened the very basis of this State. Is this the action of a responsible Taoiseach? If he had a real consciousness—as the people have—of the danger of the activities in which these people were engaged surely he would not have let them stay in office, in positions of great power, for so long as 15 days? In a revolutionary or violent situation 15 days is a very long time. Indeed, one day is a long time, and even a few hours is a long time, and yet the Taoiseach was prepared to let Deputy Neil Blaney, who was in the whole of his health, stay in office for 15 days before eventually removing him, and then only when the leader of the Opposition came to him.

It is wide open to us to speculate that these men would have remained in office for a further 15 days, and even a further 15 days, were it not for the fact that the Taoiseach knew that the leader of the Opposition knew what was going on and knew the game was up. If the Taoiseach had any real conception of the seriousness of what was involved, if he had had any courage, he would not have delayed for so long before removing these men from office.

As I mentioned already, a Government in which the people want to have confidence must be prepared to come clean with the people and to give them the full facts about matters of public controversy. This is what the Government are not doing. The Taoiseach said that no suspicion must attach to any Minister yet we have the statement of Captain Kelly and another one from Sinn Féin which appear to suggest that the then Minister for Defence was fully aware for a long time of what was going on. We have had no clear statement about whether the Minister for Defence was or was not aware of what was going on. A cloud of suspicion still hangs over the man who is now Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries and the Government are not prepared to come clean and make a categorical statement about whether he was or was not aware of the activities of Captain Kelly.

If he was aware he is as much implicated as the other former Ministers; if he was not aware then he is incompetent and had no control over the defence forces of which he was Minister. Either way, Deputy Gibbons, the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, is in a very serious situation. Either he was aware, and is implicated just as much as Deputy Haughey and Deputy Blaney, or he was not aware of the activities of Captain Kelly and therefore he was an incompetent Minister for Defence because a Minister for Defence should be aware of the activities of every Army officer in so sensitive and important a matter as this, dealing with the North of Ireland.

There is also considerable ambiguity in relation to the hunt for the killers of Garda Fallon. We had the Minister for Local Government making a statement to the effect that the hunt is not pursued effectively and we had the Taoiseach assuring the House that it is. Which statement is true? It is well known that the Garda Síochána are of the opinion that they are not getting support in pursuing these killers. This might again suggest that there is some tie up between elements of the Government and the people responsible for this killing.

We have, then, a Government whose Taoiseach is not prepared to come clean, not prepared to give us the full facts. We have a Government depending for their continuance in office on men who espouse violence and anti-democratic policies and who apparently are suspected of illegal activity. We have a Government whose policy has been shaped and whose organisation is still controlled by these men, Deputy Neil Blaney and Deputy Charles Haughey, who espouse anti-democratic policies and who are apparently prepared to supply arms to organisations which strike at the very root of the democracy on which this House is founded. This is the Government in which we are asked to repose confidence. I do not believe the people can repose confidence in this Government. I do not believe that other countries in their dealings with this Government will be able to have confidence in them, or will be able to negotiate with them with the confidence that if the Government give their word that word will be kept.

We are facing at the moment a very grave situation in regard to our balance of payments and to inflation. Can a Government whose moral fibre has been shown to be virtually nil hope to give the leadership which is needed at this crucial time? Against the background of a very severe financial crisis there is every reason to believe that the events of the last few days will have a serious effect on what was already a very serious economic crisis. We have every reason to believe that people who have investments in this country will now see that the Government are not a stable Government, that they are a Government like the many other governments in underdeveloped countries who come into office and go out of office and the members of which are often suspected of activities similar to those of which the former Ministers are apparently suspected. These people who have invested money here and on whose investments we were depending to keep our balance of payments in order will now withdraw their support.

The point was made here that what was keeping the balance of payments in order was speculative capital which can be withdrawn quickly. If the banks were not on strike we would probably know that this money was now being withdrawn over the last few days and that even in the last few days our balance of payments position had further deteriorated. The reason is that these investors can no longer have confidence in the ability of the Government to carry on in a normal, democratic and civilised manner.

We can also expect that the recent crisis will have a severe effect on tourism. Already there is evidence that, because people believe the Government are not capable of governing the country in a stable way, of ensuring that violent activities will not occur, they are afraid to come here. They have every reason to be afraid because a Government whose members are engaged in the support of violent activities can hardly be expected to prevent the occurrence of violent activities among sections of the community.

How can we expect this Government to carry out the very vital negotiations for our entry to the EEC? Can we expect them to be respected by the other countries with whom we are negotiating? Can we expect the negotiators from the EEC Commission and the Six to have confidence that the Government really speak for the people or that the Government really espouse the ideals of democracy on which the EEC is based? Can we expect them to have any confidence in the word of Fianna Fáil Ministers? There is reason to expect that they will not have this confidence because vitally important Ministers have been shown to have been, apparently, involved in illegal and anti-democratic activity.

How can we expect the EEC negotiators to respect a Government which harboured such men in office for so long and whose policy was shaped by such men? Can we expect the negotiators in these circumstances to have any respect for the Government? I believe we cannot and I believe that because the EEC negotiators will not have that confidence in the Government's commitment to democratic institutions they will try to drive an even harder bargain, that the terms of entry will be even stiffer because they will not have the confidence that the present Government adhere to those principles of democracy upon which the EEC is based. If they are not confident that Fianna Fáil adhere to these principles they will try to make the price of entry for a country led by a Fianna Fáil Government even higher than it would otherwise be. Because of recent activities we have, I believe, forfeited that international respect founded upon our traditions of democracy so painstakingly built up over the years by various people, Fianna Fáil Ministers included, in the United Nations. We had the emergent African nations reposing a certain confidence in us. We had Zambia sending her army officers here to be trained. Those officers were sent here for training because Zambia had confidence in the integrity of our Army and in our commitment to democratic ideals. The events of the past few days will strike a very severe blow at the confidence Zambia and other countries placed in our commitment to democracy and in the integrity of our Army.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

The Taoiseach cannot wash his hands of the activities of Deputy Blaney and Deputy Haughey merely by dismissing them from his Cabinet. He cannot pretend that, by doing so, his honour and the honour of his party is purged of all taint as a result of their activities. The party still depends on these men for their support. Down through the years these were the men chosen to serve in office, chosen by Deputy Jack Lynch, the Taoiseach, to be his Ministers. These are the men now shown up to be engaged in violent and anti-democratic activities. Against that background what confidence can emergent nations have in our democratic tradition? We have been held up in the past by people, like the Republic of India and other emergent nations, as a shining example of democracy and tolerance. The events of the last few days have revealed that people espousing policies opposed to democracy and opposed to tolerance had penetrated the highest positions in the Government of this country. This will have a very, very serious effect indeed on the confidence which emergent nations have in our commitment to democracy and our validity as a country with a democratic tradition. This will have a serious effect on our balance of payments situation if the Fianna Fáil Party continue in office. It must raise a query as to their ability to tackle the balance of payments situation and their ability to conduct our negotiations with the EEC with integrity, with a strong hand and with the confidence that they are really speaking for the Irish people.

But these serious effects pale into insignificance compared with the serious effects this will have on people of all religious denominations in Northern Ireland. The greatest contributory factor to discrimination and to violence is fear. The fear of the Protestant majority in the north will be that they will be stamped on, overcome by force. The creation of this fear will lead them to retaliate by discrimination and by acts of violence against the Catholic minority. Prejudice is almost always grounded in fear. I do not think there is any way in which the Fianna Fáil Party could have done more to enkindle fear in the Protestants of the north.

Men who had penetrated to the very core of the Fianna Fáil Party, who held positions of power, were men involved apparently in running guns into the North of Ireland to be used against the Protestant majority there in a religious war. This revelation will do more than anything else could have done to increase fear in the Protestant population of the north and, in turn, to increase their discrimination against the Catholics in the north.

The surest way to encourage the Protestants of the north to use guns against the Catholics is by creating the suspicion—perhaps more than a suspicion —that we are supplying guns to the Catholics to use against them. Fear always leads to discrimination. It is a simple equation. If we want the worst possible conditions for Northern Ireland Catholics, if we want the worst possible discrimination against them. then we should act with as much bellicosity as possible and involve ourselves in gun running because that is what will increase the fear of the Protestants and increase discrimination.

We must have a clear declaration in relation to Northern Ireland. We must realise that we are not going to impose a rule against the wishes of the majority there. If a long-term solution is to be found as to the form of government in Northern Ireland—I believe it should be a united all-Ireland Government—that can only be achieved on the basis of the consent of the majority. Any other method of achieving unity is bound to lead to violence, bloodshed and unstable government. It will be to the benefit of no one.

I do not believe we can afford to carry on government for the next few months or years in an electioneering atmosphere governed by a party who are so obviously divided when one considers the different statements made by the former Minister for Local Government and the Taoiseach in regard to so many matters, and the subtle differences of emphasis in regard to so many policy matters also in these statements. A divided party hanging on to office in such a way will generate the feeling that an election is imminent and in those circumstances good government will not be carried on. Strong decisions, unpopular decisions will not be taken because everybody will be looking over his shoulder at a coming election. If we have such a situation this summer and autumn while this Government continue to cling to office we cannot have the strong decisions taken which must be taken to solve our serious problems. The best way to get rid of all the uncertainty is to have an election now so that people can have their say and elect a Government who are not divided and not tainted and in whom they really have confidence.

On the Opposition benches we are prepared to offer the people a united party with a clearly defined policy for which we have produced the costs, which can be implemented by men whose integrity is unimpeachable. That is the sort of Government the people need, not one limping along in office supported by men who apparently do not support democracy nor the Taoiseach either. A general election now would solve the problems, clear the air and establish a Government in which the people could really have confidence.

While Deputy Bruton was speaking, the Report of the debates last Friday and Saturday, 8th and 9th May, was circulated. Out of that welter of 1,350 columns of debate there emerges, perhaps, one outstanding characteristic. The pages are spattered with attempts by a majority of the Deputies to survive in their own political party, Fianna Fáil. There is an almost obsessionist concern in that Dáil debate with Fianna Fáil as an organisation. Equally, I can say there is a slightly obsessionist reaction on the part of Fine Gael with the existence of Fianna Fáil as though the cat had finally found the bowl of cream and was going at it in no uncertain manner. There was some concern about the role of the Irish Government but more particularly in the Republic; there was certainly very little reaction about the Northern Ireland situation. There were echoes of the Civil War which brought a note of realism certainly for me into much of the debate. We had also the obsession of Deputy Jack Lynch, the Taoiseach, a man professing integrity. With cynical manoeuvrings he made a great show of honesty, lasting into the early hours of the morning in an endeavour to gather together and maintain by hook or by crook a Cabinet around him, notwithstanding the expressions which I heard from some of his Ministers that they would not give a pair of shoelaces for "the whole shower" who were now in the Cabinet. Indeed, one Minister said this to me last Saturday morning.

Outstandingly absent in that Dáil debate was any real or passionate concern about the effect of the actions of Government Ministers on the people of Northern Ireland. This should have been our dominant concern on Friday and Saturday here when, in fact, we had mere posturings of political parties. For me that was the most disturbing aspect of the whole debate: we had only a marginal analysis of what I consider the totally catastrophic effect which Ministers' speeches and Government speeches have had and which the whole debate had on the one million people in Northern Ireland who certainly do not agree with everything we allegedly stand for in this Republic. Therefore, this House must share a good deal of the condemnation we get from time to time in respect of our debates.

This debate and the motion of confidence and the appalling ineptitude of the Taoiseach's performance this afternoon which shattered the remaining remnants of faith I had in the Taoiseach——

Hear, hear.

It was a throwback performance of a man who was apparently suffering a deep psychological disturbance, one would almost say ill-health, a sort of infection from what had gone on in the House. He began harping back to the argument that other parties were getting political kudos out of the situation, that there were far too many important issues regarding the future of the country which should be discussed rather than be discussing this issue and that he wanted to get on with the nation's work and restore confidence. He even referred to the tragedy of the Treaty— Jack Lynch and the image of the seventies—

I think the Deputy should use the term appropriate to the Taoiseach when speaking of him, if he would not mind.

I regret that. We had the Taoiseach referring in hysterical terms, some of which some of us found new in the Dáil debates of the seventies, to the tragedy of the Treaty, as he said, the economic war of the thirties, the steadfastness of Fianna Fáil and the Fianna Fáil role in the second world war. I was only five years of age at the beginning of the second world war. We had it all right down the line—Fianna Fáil versus the rest, restoring the national dignity as he said, of the Irish people.

Finally, he said that Fianna Fáil was always at the ready to answer the call of the Irish people. In 1957 the country got, if I may quote the Taoiseach, a burst of intelligent policies from Fianna Fáil. This was the massive apologia of the Taoiseach for the elementary fact that the Cabinet is split right down the middle, even now in the new Cabinet. The Parliamentary Party is split down the middle and we now have built up in this House a kind of dual carriageway of Paisley on the one hand and Deputy Blaney on the other.

Most of us are familiar with the near-hysterical religious militance of the Rev. Mr. Paisley but we saw manifestations of it last week in the traditional local demagogic expressions of Deputy Blaney. We say the trumpeting career of northern politicians, as Deputy Lenehan says, preoccupied about "our people". Of course, that means Catholics, as Deputy Lenehan well knows. We had the fundamentalist primitiveness of Deputy Boland displayed in this House in terms of republican analysis and we had a sort of nostalgic harking back to republican graveyards littering almost every speech from the Fianna Fáil Party in the past week. Therefore, all we needed was that once more Deputy Blaney and Rev. Mr. Paisley, would let loose the dogs of sectarian hate, as they are both quite capable of doing.

Not only does almost the whole of the community of Northern Ireland suffer from a deep psychological ill-health politically but in the Republic we still have certain manifestations of an infection of sectarian bitterness and of what I regard as inverted nationalism, not patriotism in its true sense. At least Paisley is honest about it but I am afraid Deputy Blaney is not.

I want to point out to the House —and I do not particularly relish stating it—that the performance of the Government and the Taoiseach, and his performance here this afternoon coming before the House again to explain away the situation to the Irish people, created a major problem of repairing the tremendous political and psychological damage which has been done to the country north and south. The cost to the political and social structure of our country has been extremely heavy. I have no desire to add to it in any way.

The Taoiseach's action in keeping his former Ministers in the Cabinet when he knew months and months ago and even years ago the attitudes of Deputy Boland and Deputy Blaney —and, indeed, the suspicions which at times were attached to some transactions by Deputy Haughey—has had an appalling effect on investment and on the growth of new investment. I would suggest that the gap in our international credibility must be a mile wide in any European Parliament. We are now back to the old position from which we were striving to get away in the fifties and sixties. Irish politics are once again structurally based on the personal ambitions of individuals rather than on the policies of parties. Another tragedy is involved here. Due to the failure of the Taoiseach to withdraw the Whip from the Deputies concerned—he failed to purge them from his political party—we must now spend the next two or three years unduly preoccupied with the personal and political attitudes of those Deputies. This is an ugly aspect of Irish politics which I have no wish to see developed.

Notwithstanding the courage displayed by the Taoiseach and the support he got from this side of the House in dismissing those Ministers, the tragedy is that he is now the captive of the extremists in his own party. It might have been better for the Taoiseach to be dishonest and keep an eye on them within the Cabinet when he caught them out. He said today that in future the country will not be used as a base. He let them off the leash and he is now the captive of those extremists in terms of his Parliamentary majority. I think he made a bad situation even worse. We now have the four or five "Greek colonels" in the back benches of Fianna Fáil, men who have descended to the level of being nothing more than pistol-packing politicians. They refused to indulge in any intellectual argument with the people of Northern Ireland, with the Protestant community in Northern Ireland, to influence the people in that area, to influence the Government in Westminster, and to use their collective influence on the United Nations. Instead, we are back to the pistol-toting politicians who settle everything at the end of a Thompson sub-machine gun.

There are some matters which have not been fully and comprehensively dealt with in this debate. Last weekend I asked Deputy Cosgrave to name his sources. It is about time he was asked again. The leader of the Fine Gael Party should be challenged to state the sources of his information. He should state whether one of his sources was the Sunday Independent. If Deputy Cosgrave will not tell us perhaps the editor of the Sunday Independent will confirm or deny that. I am sure that he is quite capable of looking after it himself. I do not share Deputy Cosgrave's preoccupation with the Irish Press and I do not subscribe to his occasionally snide remarks about the Irish Times. I have too much respect for the editors of those papers to go along the road with Deputy Cosgrave in that regard.

I suggest to him that he has an obligation to the public. I would be slightly hypocritical if I were to demand from the Taoiseach further information about his sources of information if Deputy Cosgrave has information and does not disclose his sources. This is an important point. I do not want to be unduly catty in my comments about the Fine Gael front bench. Deputy Cosgrave has by forcing the hand of the Taoiseach done a public service to the Irish nation which will go down in history. Deputy FitzGerald's reconstruction of the events and his eyeball by eyeball confrontation with the Fianna Fáil front bench last Saturday night were in the best interests of democracy, but I think he was stretching his imagination more than slightly when, in my opinion, he wrongly accused the Taoiseach of lying in the debate on 5th May. It is true that the Taoiseach was unduly coy. I would say he was putting it up to Deputy Cosgrave to state what he knew. The Taoiseach said: "I do not know what the Deputy is referring to." But I do not regard that as a deliberate lie, as Deputy FitzGerald suggested at column 1315 of the Official Report. In the cold light of this debate Deputy FitzGerald might well re-assess the narrow political advantage which he may have been trying to get on that occasion.

The Taoiseach was accused of being dishonest with the House on the wrong issue. I think he was rather dishonest in his comments relating to Deputy Ó Móráin, the former Minister for Justice. With a tremendous show of concern the Taoiseach told the House that Deputy Ó Móráin had suffered a severe shock from the death of Garda Fallon, that he was in ill-health and incapacitated in Mount Carmel Hospital. It is rather ironic that a man who was suffering from such severe shock should be visited by the Taoiseach only 24 hours later who talked to him about his future political prospects. That must have come as an even bigger shock to Deputy Ó Móráin. The fact of the matter is that the Taoiseach found the continued presence of the Minister for Justice in his Cabinet intolerable. His continued presence would have been an embarrassment to the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach found that if he came before the Dáil some time later announcing the resignations of certain Ministers the failure of the Minister for Justice to ensure effective secret service apparatus in the country within the Department of Justice would be embarrassing and, therefore, he had no option but to ask for the resignation of the former Minister for Justice.

If the Taoiseach had told us that, I would have accepted it and I would not have been so preoccupied with wondering whether the Taoiseach was or was not deliberately deceiving this House. I have no option but to suggest to the Taoiseach that he was being evasive and deceptive in a way which was not in the national interest. I do not wish to accuse anybody unjustly in this House. If I am proved wrong I can assure the Taoiseach I will willingly withdraw any imputations I have made in this regard.

These happenings were unique within the Government. They were not really within the Fianna Fáil Party, but rather within the Government. I have not the slightest doubt that if these events had taken place when there was another Taoiseach on the front bench of the Fianna Fáil Party he would have said as he did when he came from America in 1919 and when the men of the movement formed the Fianna Fáil Party in 1926 and named it Fianna Fáil, or the Republican Party, that there was a thing called discipline. That man was in a position to bring discipline into effective focus in the Fianna Fáil Party over a number of decades. That Leader would not be convinced of the existence of discipline within the Fianna Fáil party at present.

We have reached a sorry impasse. There is not unity within the party. What about Deputy Ó Móráin, Deputy Blaney, Deputy Boland, Deputy Haughey and Deputy P. Brennan? I cannot help feeling that Deputy Dowling's name could be added to the list of names of Deputies who could now be called the "anti-Lynch force" in this House. I would also add Deputy Sherwin's name. These are all men who have yet to declare their allegiance. It is fair in this House to challenge these people as to whether they are supporting the Prime Minister of this country or not.

Deputy Foley has been known as a follower of Deputy Boland and Deputy Blaney. He is profoundly upset by the whole fracas. He should declare his allegiance one way or the other. No one in the front bench of the Fianna Fáil Party, after 45 hours of debate, has yet stood up and said "I am backing Jack Lynch".

I am waiting to hear Deputy Seán Flanagan speaking. He arrived at Dublin Airport and went to Deputy Haughey's house and not to Government Buildings. Deputy Haughey has a strange influence over Deputy Seán Flanagan. I am entitled to know where Deputy Seán Flanagan stands in relation to this incident. I am quite sure one could reminisce with Deputy Eugene Timmons about his close relationship with Deputy Haughey. Deputy Timmons received the transferred votes of Deputy Haughey during the last election. I have great regard for Deputy Timmons, who was very upset by this whole affair.

The role of Deputy Colley is enigmatic. We have heard him in the mid-1960s speaking throughout the country on ersatz republicanism. He had an impeccable background and a wonderful reputation. We now find him, within some hours of this incident, being surrounded by an armed secret service guard. I would have thought that Deputy Childers had earned a secret service guard after speaking on television and on radio but it is Deputy Colley whom we find with such a guard. There is no comment yet from Deputy Colley as to where he stands.

It is not unfair to suggest that Deputy Flor Crowley has never been known to be a supporter of Deputy John Lynch. He has been denied the post of Parliamentary Secretary on many occasions since 1965. No doubt he has strong views about where he stands in terms of supporting the current Taoiseach.

What about Deputy Frank Aiken and Deputy Paddy Smith? Things are not as they were in their time. If I were in the Taoiseach's position I would not like to be looking for a vote from them. What about Deputy Lorcan Allen who graces this House with frequent interruptions and who managed to get a photograph into the Irish Times of himself having a shave in the Party Rooms last weekend? That was his contribution to the long debate. Where does Deputy Dick Gogan come in?

The meeting tomorrow morning will devolve on whether or not Deputy Haughey was or was not techically guilty. Deputy Haughey is the "crunch issue." There are not many people in Fianna Fáil unduly preoccupied about the exit of Deputy Blaney and Deputy Boland. Deputy Boland was unpredictable. The exit of Deputy Blaney was overdue in many respects. There is concern at the lack of explanation by the Taoiseach in relation to Deputy Haughey. Deputy Haughey is not a man to take things lightly. He may be only fractionally guilty. If that is so, and if he has a good defence, I would suggest to the current Cabinet and to the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party that they would be wise to watch themselves in so far as Deputy Haughey is concerned. If he is innocent—and I have not in any way prejudged him guilty except that this House must accept the word of the Prime Minister on a serious issue like this—and if it became a straight issue for or against Deputy John Lynch as Taoiseach, or for or against the return to the fold of Deputy Haughey, I am afraid there would be more than five people voting one way or the other. Mr. Louis Maguire, a Member of the Fianna Fáil National Executive, said after the last Fianna Fáil National Executive meeting on the 12th May. "We are all one big happy family". That was his opinion. On that charitable note one must depart from this analysis which is not very fruitful in any event.

The Taoiseach should have recalled this House last August. The Taoiseach committed an error of judgment in not having a special sitting of this House then. Had the House been in session in that crisis situation—and this was demanded by the Labour Party last August—and had we been given some report as to the divergent views obviously then existing within the Fianna Fáil Party, within the Cabinet, the current discussion in this House might not be taking place.

It might well have been, and I think it not unfair to assume, that Deputy Boland and Deputy Blaney would not have resisted the temptation to stand before this House and, if they were in disagreement with their party last August—as obviously they were—then most certainly it would have come out in the wash last August. It must go into the political history of this country that, on that occasion, when Westminster devoted the first day of its autumn session to an intensive debate on Northern Ireland and when there was a special debate in Stormont on the situation in the North, we here did not meet or discuss the matter until quite late in October or in November when the House resumed after the Summer Recess.

It was a frightening development that, while there was such division within the Cabinet, never once during that crisis did the Taoiseach call this House to discuss the situation. As a result, the Labour Party had no option but to go north and subsequently to London. Some members of the Parliamentary Labour Party went to the Six Counties and subsequently to the Home Office in London and met members of the British Labour Party's National Executive and Lord Chalfont at the Foreign Office. They got a great deal of information in London on the situation in Northern Ireland. With us, in London, we had fellow-socialists from the Six Counties. We had meetings with members of the British Government on that occasion.

The Irish Government, without any consultation with or sanction or involvement of Dáil Éireann, or even of the leaders of the Opposition Parties, had a number of observers in the Six Counties at that time. This was indeed suspected but now, so many months later, it has come out in the wash. This knowledge instils a lack of confidence in the Government apart from all the other reasons why this Government merits lack of confidence. I sincerely believe that, on television, there was more than just a hint by the Taoiseach of Army intervention. I do not believe that the actions of Deputy Boland and Deputy Blaney and the visits at that time of Deputy Haughey to County Donegal and, indeed, to the borders of Derry itself, were without very significant meaning. There must have been very intense division of feeling within the Cabinet. There were rumours that Deputy Boland had gone to the President to hand in his seal of office and such rumours would now seem, with hindsight, to have had some foundation. I do not wish to indulge in speculation.

The Government's hint of armed intervention was given without an understanding of what the consequences might be. One cannot but wonder if it was due to pressure by Deputy Blaney and Deputy Boland. Such intervention in Derry might have pleased some Donegal republicans but it could well have led to the massacre of ‘our people,' the Catholic minority, in Belfast. The Government, the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil Party were indulging in a very dangerous game at that point of time in Irish history. It may well be that they wanted to impress the people in the Twenty-six Counties. Possibly they felt they might be able to twist the arm of the United Nations on this subject. Undoubtedly, this Government knew that a joint Irish/British force which was ludicrously suggested in some quarters, was a most unfeasible proposition. The Taoiseach, Deputy Jack Lynch, said later that there was no intention whatsoever of intervening.

We in the Labour Party had to suffer our share of denunciation for our belief that, at that point of time, the only way to protect lives was by the intervention of the British Army; this was already the hope of the Taoiseach. Deputy Hillery, the Minister for External Affairs, took out a massive insurance policy in the United Nations even though the British Army had been in Northern Ireland for the past 50 years or so. While condemning the intervention of British troops at that point of time in Northern Ireland, Fianna Fáil very conveniently forgot that British troops had been there for upwards of half a century. On this occasion, Fianna Fáil's attitude could be likened to that of the Nigerian Government which refused landing facilities for supplies of food for famine relief.

We have seen more than enough of the bull in the china shop approach of Fianna Fáil to Northern Ireland. Their overriding consideration has been to keep their options open so that they may turn any given situation to their advantage in future developments. Fianna Fáil denounce the presence of British troops in Northern Ireland. On the other hand, if Britain do not send troops there in this present situation, Fianna Fáil can denounce Britain for encouraging a general massacre in Northern Ireland. If Irish troops go in, Fianna Fáil have the insurance policy that it is in accordance with the historical tradition of the Irish people. On the other hand, if Irish troops do not go in, Fianna Fáil can claim that they are acting responsibly by withholding them from going in there. Remember that Deputy Blaney said we did not forget our people when they needed us most.

The best insurance for Fianna Fáil is to have a few renegades, a few departed republicans, in the back benches of the Fianna Fáil Party so as to be able to exercise another variation of pseudo-statesmanship in the hope of impressing people in Northern Ireland and, above all, in the hope of impressing the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis when next it meets.

While I find the blood and thunder speeches of Deputy Blaney nauseating and utterly ineffectual, I am overcome by the behaviour of the Taoiseach in relation to Deputy Blaney. We had a succession of speeches from Deputy Blaney but all he got from the Taoiseach was a reprimand as he was walking along the corridor on his way to this House to answer Parliamentary Questions. It did not occur to the Taoiseach to call Deputy Blaney to his room or to call him before their Parliamentary Party or to raise the matter at a Cabinet meeting. There are more effective ways of dealing with this matter than a casual display of spleen between the Taoiseach and the then Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries while on his way to this House to answer Parliamentary Questions.

These are some of the points which I think are of major importance in relation to the developments we have witnessed in the past week. I must confess that Deputy Dr. Hillery, Minister for External Affairs, seemed in the past week the only member of the Cabinet who was keeping his head in a critical situation. I quote the statement he made to the United Nations when, on the 26th September last, he unequivocably made known the Government's point of view:

We have, ourselves, sought to achieve re-unification by means enjoined by the Charter of the United Nations through co-operation. We have not had nor do we now have any wish to achieve it by force.

That particular approach has now been repudiated in intent by some members of the Cabinet. Once again, in Irish history in terms of our relations with Northern Ireland, the question of force is raising its ugly head. I do not go along with anybody who hopes in his wildest dreams to bring about a kind of Israeli solution or a kind of Russian/Czechoslavakia style solution by the use of force in Northern Ireland I do not see the logic of immediate, total and massive coercion, as is implied in the attitude of Deputies Blaney and Boland.

We must analyse coldly what this exercise would entail because there are those in Fianna Fáil who are of the opinion that force is the final solution to the ultimate problem in Irish politics. It would entail the coercion by armed force of some 60 per cent of the population of the Six Counties, otherwise known to the majority of people there as Northern Ireland. I ask anybody who advocates such a terrifying solution to tell me from where this coercion is to come. Who is to launch it? Is it to be launched by the British Army or is it to be launched by the Irish Army? Is there to be a new force, a guerilla revolutionary army with internal support in Northern Ireland and subvention from the Republic? We went through these permutations in 1956 and Fianna Fáil are now going through them again because many Fianna Fáil Deputies are quietly supporting Deputies Blaney and Boland in this matter.

Does anybody seriously think that the British Army will now coerce the majority of the Unionist people in Northern Ireland into an Irish Republic? Anybody who believes that we in the Republic have the ability or, for that matter, the moral right or the resources within our island for such an undertaking is grossly and irretrievably ignorant of the situation in Northern Ireland. Certainly, they have little conception of the social, political and cultural traditions of our fellow Irishmen in Northern Ireland who constitute the majority in that area.

I would say too—perhaps Deputy Cunningham will agree with me on this —that these are also our people. I find it very embarrassing to hear Deputy Blaney saying that we will take up guns for our people and our people alone in the Six Counties while, at the same time, members of the Northern Ireland Cabinet are saying that Irishmen must not fight Irishmen. Therefore, coercion is not the solution to the problem. This country will only be united when bigotry, both religious and political, is ended and when there are full democratic civil rights in the whole country both north and south; when, above all, the British Government, by pressure from us and by international pressure, ensure that democratic rights are in operation and are seen to be in operation in that area. When all Irish men and women in that area are accorded their fullest dignity and human rights then, and only then, will there be a solution to the problem.

This process will be a slow and tortuous one and may take many decades to achieve. Indeed, it may not be achieved in our time but, as elected public representatives, we at least have the obligation to enumerate some of the ways in which the road may be paved. It is to the eternal discredit of some members of the Government who, by their speeches and by intent, have made a mockery of the old slogan of the north that "where the north began, the north is carrying the day". That slogan was never less appropriate than in relation to the action of certain Ministers in recent weeks.

One important point which should be made is that there have been reforms within the Six Counties. They may have been moderate but they have been forthcoming. There were very few Neil Blaneys or Kevin Bolands screaming their heads off in relation to the civil rights developments in 1968 and 1969 in Northern Ireland. There is a widespread acceptance in Britain and in Northern Ireland that reforms are very urgently needed. No member of Fianna Fáil can claim credit in recent years for that attitude on the part of public opinion in Northern Ireland. There has been considerable exposure of British involvement in the situation in that part of our country. So far as the British Government are concerned, there is no going back to the old 1949 position in relation to Northern Ireland and the attitude of the British Cabinet towards Stormont. The Unionists have been divided in Northern Ireland. Who can claim credit for that? Can the credit be claimed by the Neil Blaneys or the Kevin Bolands of the Irish Republic? Did the Taoiseach divide the Unionists? Certainly not. The division came about as a result of the evolution of political democracy, civil rights and the opposition from within. Any belated attempt such as has been made in recent months by Deputies Blaney and Boland to subvert the civil rights organisation in Northern Ireland—I do not for one moment accept the reply given today by the Taoiseach in relation to that scurrilous rag Voice of the North— or to get credit for that exercise in the north will not succeed. They certainly do not deserve it and will not get it as far as the Labour Party are concerned or, for that matter, as far as the Fine Gael Party are concerned.

A political earthquake has shaken Northern Ireland. More progressive changes have occurred there in the past 12 or 18 months than in the whole of the previous five decades. These changes have shaken the whole basis of Unionist rule and have won major reforms in the interests of all people there. Indeed, they have considerable constitutional implications for the area and, as a consequence, have a large bearing on future relationships between London and Dublin. The whole motivating force—and it must go on the records of this House because I do not think that to date it has gone clearly on the records of this House— behind the changes that have occurred there has been the broadly based Northern Ireland Civil Rights movement.

It was this new force which, for the first time in half a century in Northern Ireland, united the great mass of non-Unionist Party people who were hitherto divided into so many antagonistic and fragmented groups. The importance of this unity was that it was achieved, moulded and developed at a time when British public opinion, and particularly opinion in the British Labour Government, was much more sympathetic to Northern Ireland and less likely than ever before to countenance the injustices in northern Unionism. The Civil Rights Movement blossomed at an extremely propitious time.

The Unionist Party had—very much like the Fianna Fáil Party in many respects in its hierarchical structure— grown rather neurotic and inflexible and was quite unable to cope with the Civil Rights Movement as it developed and brought these pressures to bear on them. As a result of the militancy of the Civil Rights Movement, the morale of those demanding civil rights in the north was raised to a pitch it had never before reached. Certainly O'Neillism failed. A great deal of neurotic, introverted Unionism was exposed.

What is important now is that there should be clear-cut political agreement in this House. As far as we are concerned and as far as the Fianna Fáil Party, in particular, are concerned it must be "hands off" the opposition forces developing in Northern Ireland. Otherwise I am afraid the agents, the provocateurs of the Government, who have already done irreparable harm in the regrouping and alignment of forces there, will go down in history as perpetrating an act of treachery disastrous for the development of democracy and progress in Northern Ireland.

I have spoken in strong terms because it is necessary to do so in order to penetrate the consciousness of a number of Ministers of State in relation to this matter. In doing so I have no desire—I speak as a Labour Deputy —to see the British Government in any way exculpated nor have I in any way taken from their role in this whole tragic episode. This is what this debate should be all about. It was the British Government and the British Parliament which established the Northern Ireland State in the 1920s and which drew its boundaries in such a fashion as to secure in that area an almost permanent Protestant majority in the largest possible area of Irish territory. By doing this there is no doubt that Britain ensured that the conditions were ripe for a good deal of internal oppression and injustice.

It would be quite wrong for Opposition Deputies not to acknowledge the role and the involvement of the British Government in that regard. However, that should in no way cloud the importance of the fact that there does exist in Northern Ireland, and existed long before the 1920s, a large group of Scottish planters of the Protestant faith who have now developed, as a result of a British Government they could not trust and of an Irish Government they feared—and as a result of gun running by certain individuals—a perpetual state of sectarian paranoia. It is quite tragic. However, we see something like it on the opposite side in relation to one section of the community versus another. I would not like to see develop in the Republic, as a result of the actions of Deputy Boland or Deputy Blaney, the same sense of religious and social conflict which has dominated politics in Northern Ireland. Politics there are based on out-dated and utterly antique sectarian ideals about the papacy and about the monarchy, a kind of morbid legacy of ritualistic religious hate practices, a complete throw-back to the period when the people on this island, all the people on this island, were a pawn in the general religious and spiritual fratricide that grew out of the divisions of Christianity itself.

This is the tragedy: that men professing Christianity, such as Deputy Boland, Deputy Blaney and Deputy Haughey, should have fallen into the trap. It is true that we are facing a kind of regression at the moment in the Republic, a regression within which we see the interwined religious warfare and power politics of the 17th century. There is now a kind of final fling in the attitudes of the Rev. Ian Paisley and, in a much more quiet and subtle manner, in the attitudes of Deputy Neil Blaney. This should send a cold chill down the spine of any Irishman.

These are points which are of major importance. There is the deep hatred of the Catholic population in the North for the Protestant community, and then there is the superimposed Protestant class structure. We have the deep conservatism of both Catholic and Protestant relationships. When one looks at the situation in which both the extremists of the Catholic community and of the Protestant community in the North believe with such deep conservatism that they have the whole truth, that it is theirs and theirs alone, then one begins to appreciate the deep cultural, social and, inevitably, political sickness which exists in Northern Ireland.

We see a situation where Deputy Blaney and Deputy Boland are the opposite extreme products of that malaise in the north, and even in the south Deputy Boland would be classified as a by-product of that development. It is essential that we as Members of the Opposition should try to urge, advise and guide the opposition force in Northern Ireland to evolve greater normality in that area. The first structure is that the Government in particular and Cabinet Minister should keep their hands off the opposition forces in Northern Ireland and those trying to evolve a democratic society in that area. The other advice we would give is that there should be the broadest possible interweaving of opposition forces seeking democratic evolution in Northern Ireland. I consider this to be extremely important.

I am not one who shares the view expressed in some parts of this country that what is needed as of now is an all Ireland Republic, a Fianna Fáil version of it. That is not what is required at this time. Likewise at this time it is not "on" to say that there must be an Irish socialist workers republic in Northern Ireland, however one might define that concept. That is not a realistic attitude in regard to the situation in Northern Ireland any more than it is to suggest that one wants a workers republic in the North of Ireland and that this is a clearcut aim.

I submit to the House there still remains the need to win the struggle for civil rights and to get the basic principles of democracy accepted, applied and in operation in Northern Ireland. That is the first fundamental principle we have to get into the minds of those who are in favour of gun-running at this point of time.

As yet democracy certainly is not by any manner of means in operation or in practice in that part of the country. We must eliminate discrimination in the area and this must be one of the principal aims.

It must be said that many of the republicans in the north, many of whom are extremely perceptive, have acted responsibly in many of the recent crises in Northern Ireland. When I say that I am very conscious of the allegations that can be made. The Cameron Commission commended many of the republicans in the north for acting in a responsible way. We must remember those are the very people who have suffered most under the Special Powers Act. Now we have the provocation of Deputy Boland and Deputy Blaney goading those men into a resumption of a certain attitude in Northern Ireland. Republican clubs are banned in Northern Ireland and it is not possible to propagate republican ideas in Northern Ireland without immediately running the risk of criminal prosecution.

The pressures on the republican movement, such as it is, fragmented as it is and in many areas divided as it is in the north, are very intense. Despite this, we get Deputy Boland and Deputy Blaney shovelling in a few lorry loads of guns to get the trigger-happy men working away and developing their particular approach. I consider it quite irresponsible that the republican elements of Northern Ireland, who are at the lowest in the pyramid of general discrimination there, should be the very people whom Deputy Boland and Deputy Blaney would like to see fighting for them while they remain in the comfort and the security of the back benches of their own party inside this House.

Just as the republicans in the north, as a matter of policy, have not used civil rights platforms in the north to propagate their own ideas, there should be a decision on the part of Fianna Fáil Ministers not to avail of similar opportunities to propagate the Fianna Fáil version of republicanism in respect of events in Northern Ireland.

If I speak strongly on these issues I do so because I see the dangers involved. As a trade unionist, proud to be a member of a trade union which has many thousands of members in Northern Ireland, I learned my lesson on sectarianism in respect of Northern Ireland. I remember going up to Derry when by-elections were taking place, speaking and working for men such as Stephen McGonigle in Derry, when Deputy Blaney with Eddie McAteer ran a sectarian rampage through that city and then it dawned on me what republicanism in Fianna Fáil really was in terms of Donegal and of the Dohertys of Derry. As far as I was concerned that was the end but I have not forgotten it. It was an eye-opener for me when with some aplomb Deputy Blaney said to Eddie McAteer: "Give your election address only to the Catholics: forget about the Protestants, knock them off the register". That was a nice clean sectarian campaign. He said they would bring over the cars to Derry on election day and they would make sure Eddie McAteer was elected. That was the version of republicanism which crossed the Border to Lifford and on to Letterkenny over the last weekend.

Unpleasant as it is to say those things, I must say them to the people of the country. We have a great deal of clearing up to do in the south before we come across with a more coherent attitude. If the civil rights movement re-gathered their forces and maintained them in a vigilant, competent and effective manner in Northern Ireland that would be one of the principal bridges left to a Catholic camp, as it has unfortunately and tragically become, to those 1,000,000 in Northern Ireland whose minds, as a result of attitudes in the south, are tense with traditional hysterical fears. Many of those people are now experiencing a trauma of reaction. Any of them who would read the 1,335 columns of the Official Report of last Friday and Saturday would assume the people of the Republic did not know their political attitudes.

We now see the Protestant community in the north, which is a minority in the whole of this island, with a loyalty which they have always professed to the British Empire, in a very jingoistic sense, being spurned by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Callaghan in Britain. We see the Unionist Government forced to give concession after concession; we see the Parliamentary structure in the north in tatters and once again the people of the north going through the trauma of believing the people of the Republic to be their enemy. The people of the north must now have come to the conclusion that they have been tricked by the north, by the south and by Britain.

This may sound an apologia for Protestant fears and Protestant attitudes in Northern Ireland but consider it in its correct context. If we in the south are to bridge the gap between us and our fellow-Irishmen in the north we must first act in an honest, responsible and coherent manner. This has been singularly absent on the part of Fianna Fáil Deputies who appear incapable of preventing themselves from causing further difficulties in the north.

I would hope to see the realignment and development of the civil rights forces in Northern Ireland. Much has been achived in that area in terms of civil rights: it started with the sacking of Minister Craig, with the destruction of the unity of the Unionist Party and with the breaking of Unionist control of Derry Corporation. There was the introduction of a parliamentary commissioner to investigate complaints against local authorities and public bodies, the introduction of a points system for the allocation of local authority houses and the commitment of the Unionist Government to local government franchise. There was also a community relations minister, legislation to outlaw religious discrimination and there was set up a new commission to draw up boundaries in new local government areas. All of these measures, whether they are now in force or on paper, were obtained with no thanks due to the Taoiseach. It now developes on the Opposition in Northern Ireland to ensure that any of those measures not yet in force are implemented in full. This is a major job for the Opposition in the north, it is something the people of Northern Ireland must do for themselves, in their own setting. This is the basic lesson that must be learned.

These are some of the major points I wish to make in this debate. On 5th May I expressed support and sympathy for the Taoiseach. I did not wish to see parliamentary democracy in the south reach such a low ebb and I did not make my expression of support in a snide manner. On the 8th May I expressed my condemnation of the ex-Ministers. I cannot claim to have an intimate knowledge of the situation in Northern Ireland and I have to depend on meeting fellow trade unionists from the north for much of my information. As an officer of the ICTU I tried as best I could to appreciate the role and development of the 180,000 trade unionists in Northern Ireland in a united trade union movement.

In the debate conducted in this House on Friday and Saturday last we had Deputies talking to the people of the north, saying what our hopes and aspirations were in respect of a united Ireland, in terms of the amendment of our Constitution—minor as that will be in the evolution of a united Ireland. This afternoon the Taoiseach stated that there will not be in the south any base for arms going north—at long last this has been rejected by Fianna Fáil or at least those members who are still supporting the Taoiseach. He also said that so far as he was concerned this would be vigorously enforced by the Government.

We must welcome this but I must confess I was profoundly disappointed by the traditional apologia of the Taoiseach this afternoon in relation to his party's role in this murky affair. I do not think that this motion before the House is worthy of support. Not only has the Taoiseach lost the support of the majority of the electorate of the Republic, he has lost the support of the vast majority of the population of Northern Ireland. One has only got to look at Ulster Television or speak to correspondents in the north or speak, as I have done, to trade union officials to sense the dismay and shock they have suffered. Even though it may necessitate a blood-letting exercise in Dáil Éireann it is better that we go through with that exercise so that the people of Northern Ireland will be under no illusion about where we stand. It will serve a useful purpose if we can extend clean hands across the Border and have a resumption of the attempt to bring the 60 per cent majority in Northern Ireland around to our way of thinking, so that they will not think that everything the Republic epitomises is completely alien to them. This may take our lifetime and, perhaps, the lifetime of the coming generation but we must continue with our efforts. People in the north may have felt they were sold down the river in recent weeks and we have a lot of ground to make up. I hope this debate will at least partially attempt some recompense and make up some of this lost ground.

Those who forecast that this debate would simply be a repeat of the debate last week have been proved correct.

The debate is not over.

I sat here for a number of hours during the previous debate and listened to point after point being repeated ad nauseam and I wondered why a no confidence motion should need to be put down by the Opposition, because I know that it would simply be a continuation of the previous debate with the same speakers coming back and making the same points all over again. During the course of his speech Deputy Desmond mentioned that the volume of debate is rather considerable and that our people could not be expected to read it. I can tell them from my experience in this House during the previous debate that there would be no need for them to read it apart from the first half dozen speeches, because we got nothing afterwards except a repetition of what had been previously said.

The Opposition Parties have seen fit to table a vote of no confidence in the Government. This can represent only two things, the first being that they genuinely feel that the people have lost confidence in the Government and, the second, that they are merely engaging in political playacting at a time when they hope to embarrass the Government without, of course, having the slightest concern for the embarrassment they may cause the nation. That the latter is their motive is patently obvious.

What motion are we discussing?

We are discussing the vote of confidence in the Government.

Not on this side of the House—the Minister's side.

Certainly it is the tradition of the Fianna Fáil Party always to put the nation first. I listened to Deputy Desmond speak disparagingly here of the Taoiseach. I can assure Deputy Desmond that his opinion is not shared by the people of the country. If he were to mix with the people and listen to what they have to say he would recognise what they feel about the Taoiseach.

What does Deputy Boland think?

When there was the slightest imputation against two Ministers of the Government the Taoiseach took action. He was concerned only with the good of the nation and not with narrow party politics which would appear to have been the concern of others over the weekend. He showed himself to be a leader who has the strength of character and judgment and firmness of purpose to do what he believes he should do and to take decisions that are right in the interests of the nation and to ignore party considerations.

Less than a year ago the people declared their confidence in the Fianna Fáil Party. The policy of the Fianna Fáil Party has not changed, as has been underlined by recent events. Our economic prospects are good if we show some restraint. The achievement of our social and economic objectives is a task that demands all our energies. The Common Market negotiations which are now imminent will be crucial for the wellbeing of the nation. There are other urgent, vital matters to which the Government must attend. It would be a dereliction of duty on the part of the Government to fritter away time seeking a further vote of confidence from the people on the excuse of a crisis fabricated by wishful thinking. This Government have a job to do and they will do it. We were elected to govern in June of last year. We got a mandate from the people to do that. They recognised at that time that we would face many difficult problems during our term of office. They did not say to us then: "When you come up against a difficulty, scurry for cover." They said: "We are putting you in there to do a job and irrespective of what problems you may face we want you to do it." They knew the Fianna Fáil Party; they knew the difference between us and the coalitions. They knew that no matter what the problems were or how difficult the problems were Fianna Fáil would stick to their guns and do the job they were elected to do.

(Cavan): They did not elect them to create problems.

When the Opposition, with their tongues in their cheeks for the most part, demanded an election I wonder did they stop to think what the purpose of a general election is? A general election is fundamentally an exercise in democracy which allows the people at stated intervals to say by whom they wish to be governed during the normal period provided by our Constitution. The Constitution also lays down how the Government is to be formed and how problems and difficulties like the one we have encountered recently are to be dealt with. The person who is appointed as Taoiseach is not only given a mandate to form a Government subject to the agreement of Dáil Éireann but is also empowered to change the membership of his Government should he so wish, again subject to the sanction of Dáil Éireann. The Constitution does not envisage that simply because, for one reason or another, the Taoiseach decides to make some changes in his Government, a general election should follow. In my view the onus is on the Taoiseach to continue to govern the country so long as he has the support of Dáil Éireann.

A responsible head of Government must consider the national interest not only in relation to the formation of a Government but also in relation to the calling of a general election. Let us consider how the national interest would be served by a general election at the present time. The first question is: on what issue would a general election be fought? There is no change in the social and economic policies of Fianna Fáil which the electors approved of only a few months ago. Its policy in relation to the re-unification of the country is that which is shared by every party in this House.

But not by all Members of the Minister's party.

Therefore, an election would be fought on side issues which, so far as the nation as a whole is concerned—and here I am referring to the 32 counties of Ireland—would be completely divisive and could have a damaging effect on the whole situation not only here but in the north as well. The freedom that has been won here has been very dearly bought. The price that was paid for it should not be squandered simply because the Opposition Parties feel it is only at a time when there is some confusion in relation to the real issues that they may secure a share in some kind of rump Government.

If there is one thing more than anything that this nation cannot afford at this time it is another coalition. The Taoiseach has pointed out in relation to the EEC the very serious situation that could arise if we had a coalition government. It amused me on Sunday to hear Deputy O'Brien state that the Fianna Fáil Government could not continue in office because there was disunity in the party. In a coalition, not only would you have two parties at loggerheads but inside both of them there would be divided factions.

It is obvious that the people have learned their lesson in relation to this subject from the two previous coalitions. They know what happened, they know the state the country was brought to before both coalitions ran out of office, before they broke down when the first relatively minor difficulties arose. The people realised from the time of the failure of the last coalition that only one party are capable of giving stable government and that it is the Fianna Fáil Party. I have no doubt that if we found it necessary to go to the country now, which we certainly do not, we would be returned again for the obvious reason that there is only one party in this country at the present time that can give stable government. The people have already placed their trust in us on many occasions and we have not failed them, and the past few weeks have served only to highlight that moral courage and sense of realism which is the badge of our Party.

Oh, ye gods.

It may affect the Deputy that way but let him look at the facts, study the situation.

Yes, look at them.

Which party will the Deputy join next?

We have also to consider the effect a general election would have on the situation in the Six Counties. As I have said, a general election would not be fought on social and economic issues. It would not be fought on the broad issues in relation to a policy on Partition which is accepted by all our people. It could be fought only on non-issues and would give rise to inflammatory speeches and writings which would so exacerbate the situation in the north as to set in train a series of events which would be too terrible to contemplate.

Hear, hear.

Our people realise this. Our people are not fools. They realise the difference between playacting in party politics and acting in the national interest. I am convinced, I have already mentioned it here, that by their actions on Thursday and Friday night last, the Opposition Parties, Fine Gael in particular, reached a new low in bemeaning politics. I am convinced that in those two days—I am sure, unwittingly — they provided more reasons for the people of the country as to why they should have the utmost confidence in this Government than I could possibly enumerate.

The Minister has the wrong days. It was Friday and Saturday.

"Demean", not "bemean".

You often heard the expression "he did not know the day of the week".

I have not been here so long without knowing the days of the week. I am glad Deputy O'Brien is here. In his speech, I think it was on Wednesday last, he referred to his previous visit to the Six Counties and he chided us on this side on our lack of visits to the Six Counties——

Open visits.

——and our lack of endeavour to get to know the people and the conditions there. He did not hesitate to foretell developments there from the knowledge he evidently gained during that brief visit. It is, therefore, pertinent to ask Deputy O'Brien with whom did he speak when he was there. If one is to judge from the reports of the well-publicised visit one can conclude that he met only a small group imbued with an ideology similar to his own, and that his main objective was to cut down the kite which had been flown in regard to his standing for the Mid-Ulster seat in the forthcoming British general election.

Which groups has the Minister in mind?

I have no doubt he had cosy discussions with this small group.

Which group?

The television crew.

The so-called worker socialist republicans, who preach a form of government that has never been accepted voluntarily by any free country in the world.

Except Britain.

And in the countries where it was accepted it has proved to be an absolute failure.

Would the Minister prefer Mr. Health? Is the Minister a Tory?

Will Deputies allow the Minister to make his speech?

He will not answer the question.

In speaking to this very small group, Deputy O'Brien was not getting the feel of the people of Ulster.

Which group?

Would Deputies allow the Minister to make his speech?

He is not making a speech.

They do not want to let me make a speech. I wish to assure Deputy O'Brien that far from lacking knowledge of conditions in the north and, more important still, far from not knowing the people in the north, many of us on this side have been frequent visitors to the north, not only since last August but for many years and I might add not for the purpose of being in the glare of full publicity.

What about the cup of tea with O'Neill?

I have listened to the people of the north for many years. I have spoken with them and have discussed their problems over those years. I have listened to their hopes, their aspirations, their fears, doubts and hates. Also, through my membership of Comhaltas Uladh, I have had opportunities on numerous occasions of speaking to various people from many walks of life. When referring previously to my discussions in the north, I was not confining myself to any one group but to the people who are vitally concerned in Comhaltas Uladh.

In the Comhaltas, however, you get a relatively wide spectrum, admittedly on one side, but nevertheless you can find a considerable number of different opinions. I discussed these matters with them both when there was an apparent calm and when there was an emotional situation. I am convinced there is only one way in which you can really come to appreciate the northern situation and that is by discussing it with the ordinary people there. In this way, as I mentioned a moment ago, you begin to get the feel of the situation and recognise their hopes, their fears and so on and by understanding them you can move towards establishing communications on a firm foundation.

I believe the rantings and ravings about the various "isms" either from the Left or the Right succeed only in confusing and bewildering the ordinary citizens so that they do not know where they are. In some instances it is intentional in the sense that some people are much more concerned with pursuing and developing a particular ideology than they are in endeavouring to unite the people of the Six Counties. In other instances, of course, it is not intentional but, irrespective of whether it is intentional or otherwise, the result is equally insidious. Appeals for co-operation from either one or the other of these groups immediately set up a resistance on the other side because as far as they are concerned the source is tainted.

In my conversations and discussions down through the years with all shades of opinion among ordinary people in the north and with the many MPs there who do not figure very regularly in the news media I found that whether they are Orange or whether they are Green there is one basic fact which is true in relation to all of them and that is that they are anxious to live in peace. Whatever their political opinions may be life is difficult enough for them. It also emerged very clearly that it was not easy to find a solution. To speak of peace was not sufficient because a superficial peace naturally was not enough; it is essential that any peace should be a peace based on Justice. In my discussions with them I saw the fear, the distrust and the uncertainty. Nationalists who have been discriminated against for many years, particularly at the local administration level, were convinced that there was no hope for them because under a Stormont Government no effective change would ever be made in their position and they would therefore continue to be second class citizens. The Unionists were convinced that their future and safety hinged on Britain and that in the event of a reunion of the country into a 32-County Republic they would be discriminated against. Despite the basic desire for peace, peace itself appeared to be far off and all appeared to be hopeless.

The disturbances last year highlighted the situation and did a considerable amount of good because the demand for reforms was brought to world notice. The disturbances also accentuated the differences. People began moving towards extremes mainly through fear. It was only when very great danger threatened the whole community that the British Government began to accept, I must say in relatively mild form, their responsibility to act. The disturbances highlighted discrimination and reforms were forced on an unwilling Government.

With regard to the future we have to understand and recognise the actual position. Whether we like it or not there are many hundreds of thousands of people in the Six County area who do not want, at this point in time, to come into a 32-County Republic. There is something deeper than the physical partition by a line on the map: there is, as it were, a partition of the mind. When we talk of ending Partition we have to understand exactly what we mean by it. If we mean the integration with the rest of this country of the grass, rocks, trees, streams and mountains of the Six Counties then, so far as I am concerned, the ending of Partition has little relevance and certainly no meaning for me. If, however, we are concerned with a unity of heart and soul and spirit of the people here with all the people in the north, then achieving this type of unity is in my opinion worth any sacrifice. To me there are no "them" and "us"; there are only Irish people whatever their creed, class or political view and I would be the first to admit that there are many in the North of Ireland who would not thank me for this particular outlook and would spurn any claim to being Irish, in the sense in which I mean it, but I feel most assuredly that this position will not last. To those who believe as I do force is out of the question.

It is on this that Fianna Fáil policy on Partition is now and has always been based. We want a unity of the heart and mind of our people. We want them to accept that in a united Ireland working together we can achieve material prosperity but, better still, we can work together towards a society where each man is important in his own right. How can this be achieved and when? It is not unreasonable for the Nationalist people to say to me that they cannot remain forever in a dependent situation. I believe if the reforms are carried out sincerely and quickly, and this is vitally important because time is of the essence, that the day will rapidly approach when all the people of the Six Counties will be on an equal footing and there will no longer be any second class citizens, when the Catholics in the Six Counties will no longer feel discriminated against and the Unionists will no longer feel the need to dominate to ensure their own position, when a real spirit of neighbourliness can grow up and will grow up in the Six Counties among all the people. Of course, the ultimate result of this will be that its effect will cross the Border and we will ultimately have a united people in the way in which Fianna Fáil want it and in the way in which I am sure all parties and all our people want it.

Today, of course, with rumours of violence, dissension and turmoil, this may appear to be a far-off proposition but with goodwill, and I want to stress that there is a large fund of goodwill growing up in the north perhaps because of the violence, it will come sooner than most people think, but it must come along the road of peace. The British Government have the ultimate responsibility in this matter. Britain was tardy in accepting that responsibility over the year but it is time now—and as I said, time is running out—for Britain once again and to a greater effect to shoulder her responsibility. We have a right to be involved in any solution to this problem. The time has come for Britain to call a meeting of the Irish Government, their own Government and representatives of the people in the north to see how far we can go in meeting one another in the matter of unity.

I noticed in the remarks made all over the House over the last few days that Opposition Deputies have been amazed and disconcerted that the Fianna Fáil Party have not crumbled. Deputy Desmond said that we appeared to be over-preoccupied with the Fianna Fáil Party. The Deputy himself seemed to be particularly preoccupied with it also. I do not know why. All through Wednesday last the Deputies opposite waited with bated breath for the result of the meeting of the Parliamentary party. The prophets of doom foretold that this was the end and even the most hardened political commentators were preparing for the obsequies. It was a short meeting and the smiling Fianna Fáil Deputies and Senators told its own story—Fianna Fáil had once again proved their magnificent fighting spirit in adversity. They have shown themselves prepared and not only prepared but well qualified to continue in Government.

We were amazed all right.

I have no doubt that the commentators considering the forecasts being made about the demise of Fianna Fáil at this stage, and coupling it with the predictions of June last, must be asking themselves "What is this Party made of?" I am sure they are wondering why minor incidents could rock other parties to their foundations while this party who have overcome many serious difficulties and problems over the years, just as they are doing at present, remain unshaken.

The sacking of four Ministers is a minor incident?

That is not what he said.

(Interruptions.)

The people have put their trust in Fianna Fáil time after time despite attacks on the integrity of the party and despite personal attacks made on Ministers and others.

That was scandalous. That was bloody scandalous, making personal attacks on people. You would not get that from Fianna Fáil.

Order. The Minister for Education.

The people know in the most complete sense, with the instinct and feeling which go hand in hand with knowledge, that the Fianna Fáil Party are not simply a political party but a great national movement projecting in political terms the people's deepest feelings. Fianna Fáil have been identified with and have inherited the aspirations of——

Wait for it!

——the leaders who formulated and shaped the ideal of a free, democratic Republican system of Government.

(Cavan): Deputy Boland certainly does not share those views.

They have also inherited the ideal of a native culture based on our language, literature and on history. As for the ideal of a united Ireland, surely it is not necessary for me to put on the records of the House that which is part of modern history, that the very existence of the Fianna Fáil Party has its origins in the rejection of any final settlement of our national aspirations other than our complete independence.

Because the majority of the people recognise this and recognise that these are the facts, and that they represent the fundamental feelings and convictions of the people, they have consistently given their allegiance to this party and I have no doubt will continue to give it until these ideals have been realised. The unity which this party displayed on Wednesday last is no facade. It can be appreciated only by those whose thoughts and feelings are steeped in the traditions of Republicanism and steeped in the best traditions of the people.

Fianna Fáil have been called "monolithic". They are monolithic only in so far as they remain and will continue to remain true to the national ideal and everything that that connotes. This Opposition motion of no confidence concerns my present responsibility——

It is the Taoiseach's motion.

It is a good motion too. Of course, the Deputies opposite put down motions too——

(Interruptions.)

They put down motions of no confidence. I am concerned with the motion they put down. You talk about the motion we put down and I will talk about the motion you put down.

(Cavan): On a point of order, am I right in thinking that the debate is confined to the motion before the House?

Surely that does not prevent me from mentioning the motions put down by the Opposition?

(Interruptions.)

In the matter of confidence I want to refer to the difference in the situation between the state, and that is the word, in which education found itself in 1957 as compared with the situation as it is today. When the Coalition broke up in disorder in 1957 the last dying kick it gave was to cut the grants to the secondary schools by 10 per cent and the grants to the vocational schools by 6 per cent. The economy had been reduced to such a state that they could not afford even £15 million for education. Today we are spending £75 million on education. A buoyant economy is enabling us to make this amount of money available. The physical evidence of what the fivefold increase in expenditure represents is there for all to see. The numbers in post-primary education have increased from 83,000 to over 190,000. The numbers in higher education have also more than doubled. We are awarding 1,500 grants to students entering higher education as against 275 scholarships previously awarded and where, a few years ago, we were transporting 2,000 children to school, we are now transporting 100,000 every day, thereby ensuring that all our children will get the benefit of the free education Fianna Fáil has made available for them.

That is not to say, of course, that all the major problems in education have been solved. There is the whole future of higher education to be determined. It should be obvious that, if this very important matter is to be determined satisfactorily, a single, united, forward-looking party like Fianna Fáil is the one to deal with it rather than any possible coalition. I have no doubt that the Government have the confidence of the nation and that they will continue to enjoy it. The people have shown in the election of last June that they want us to govern the country. Our policy has not changed in any aspect since we put it before the people and they not only accepted that policy but they gave us a very definite mandate by giving us an overall majority in order that we could carry out that policy and I can assure the House and the country that that is exactly what we are going to do.

I am tempted to follow the Minister for Education into the political meanderings in which he indulged, but I shall resist the temptation. It is significant that when he spoke about the North of Ireland, about the problems there and what our attitudes should be, his sincerity and his deep feeling came across and he got the attention of every Member on this side. This is something I have noticed in debates here: those who speak sincerely get the attention of the House. Those who wear their hearts on their sleeves, as it were, do not. While I might question the use the Minister sometimes makes of certain words and phrases his heart is at least in the right place in relation to this problem.

The Taoiseach's speech was disappointing, coming on top of all the exhortations we have heard about the challenge of the "seventies" and so on. It was disappointing that the Taoiseach in a motion such as this—that Dáil Éireann re-affirm its confidence in the Government—should start by going back, not very accurately, into history, to the Civil War. I doubt if there is anyone in this House at the moment who was born at that time. The Taoiseach's dissertation was completely irrelevant to the motion itself and to the problems the Government faces. This traipsing down the corridors of hatred and vilification and abuse belongs more correctly to pre-1914 politics, not to the present day, and I think the Taoiseach has done himself a disservice by his speech here today.

Those of us who returned to our constituencies on Sunday had an opportunity of talking to our constituents and sounding out public opinion. I would sum up the situation as I found it in Cork by saying that there is tremendous respect and a great deal of pity for the Taoiseach but absolutely none for the Fianna Fáil Party. Their concern with holding on to office has disgusted the vast majority. I do not say the Taoiseach is involved in this; I am thinking more of the Fianna Fáil Party. Members of the party have said that the party itself is disgraced. This is the verdict of the people and, because it is the verdict of the people, Fianna Fáil should not stay in office any longer.

The Minister for Education spoke very movingly about the situation in the north and about the difficulty of getting across to all sections the need for trusting one another and learning to live together in harmony and goodwill. It is regrettable that we should have to speak of Protestants and Catholics, but we would be less than realistic if we did not think in terms of Catholic and Protestant. But all are Irish men and women, as the Minister for Education said. There is white between orange and green in our flag and the white is symbolic of peace between orange and green. Peace is the ideal for which we should strive.

The word "patriotism" has been so abused one hesitates to use it. I believe all Irishmen want the same thing—Éire gan roinnt, an undivided Ireland. As between individuals and parties the means to be used and the schemes to be implemented might vary, but the aim is the same. The means to achieve the end are agreed by 80 per cent of this House. Force is out. That has been clearly stated by Fine Gael for a long number of years now. All the people in the north are our people. We must learn to live with them. We must remove fears and build up trust so that they will recognise when we say they are our people that we wish them well and we wish them a part in the building of this nation.

About a month ago Deputy Boland was interviewed on television and he said that the two problems now facing the country were the revival of the language and the reunification of the country. He put them in that order and I agree with his order. Reunification will take time. It will not come overnight. We must try to win over the north, not because we want to submerge the north but because we believe the people in the north, all the people, have a part to play in building our nation and we wish them to play that part.

Fianna Fáil at present appear to be speaking with two voices as regards the means of uniting this country. On the one hand, the Taoiseach speaks for, I believe, the majority of the party when he says there should be no use of force. The only categorical statement we can find from Deputy Blaney is in what is known as his Letterkenny speech when he said that the use of force could not be ruled out by an Irish Government in all circumstances. I do not know how he meant that but a man in his position as Minister should have been careful of his words and what they might mean to people who might not clearly see his meaning or who might wish to read something into them that he did not intend. If he meant that an Irish Government could in the foreseeable future use force of coercion to bring the people of the north in here under an Irish Parliament his action of the last month, if we are to take it from what the Taoiseach said that he did take part in this supplying of guns, was not responsible. Deputy Dowling referred to "honourable and responsible" men. "Honourable" has different definitions but "responsible" has only one definition in this sense and by that definition Deputy Blaney is not responsible.

I do not like to use the Irish Press to beat the Fianna Fáil Party because I think it is unfair. For a number of years now that paper has taken a very broad look at Irish politics and Fianna Fáil people are probably sensitive when it is quoted against them. The leading article this morning expresses much better than I could what I am trying to say. It says:

We have to be very careful that we do not allow ourselves to be swept away by the notion that the only definition of a republican is that of one who favours the use of force to secure Irish unity. This would be a limiting and dangerous vision; it was not Tone's; it was not Connolly's. At no time did they ever envisage using force to coerce their Protestant fellow-Irishmen and at no time would the use of force be less opportune and less effective than today.

The vast majority of us subscribe to this. There was a time to use force and it was used. But times change and to apply the standards of the "'teens" and the "'twenties" or to adopt the solutions of problems of those days might be all wrong now.

Probably the first effort to secure some kind of a response from those in power in the north was made during the first inter-Party Government when the Erne Scheme was inaugurated. That was followed many years later by the famous Seán Lemass/ Captain O'Neill meeting. The present Taoiseach, when he assumed office three years ago, went to meet the then premier of Northern Ireland, Captain O'Neill. At that time snowballs were thrown in a rather stupid form of protest. As a result of speeches down here in the last 12 months I fear that if the present Taoiseach now went to Northern Ireland the snowballs or whatever else might be thrown would not be thrown in the semi-playful way they were thrown at that stage.

In the past three years, after practically 50 years of self-government here, the situation has deteriorated. The relationship between the two parts of the country is worse now I would say than since the last war or possibly before that. People here must accept responsibility for that: this House as a whole and previous Members of it from 1922 onwards who continually ignored the North of Ireland, pretending it did not exist, and who hoped they would wake up one day to find all the Orangemen had become green Catholics. That kind of ostrich-in-the sand approach is to blame for the lack of response from the other side of the Border. We are as much to blame as the people in the north for keeping the country divided. Either individually or as political parties or as a people we have not made any effort to meet the people of the north and try to understand their point of view. We cannot expect them to move. They fear the Government and the politicians south of the Border. They say Home Rule is Rome rule and until we break down that belief and show them it has no basis in reality we must take the blame for continuing to prop up an artificial barrier.

The Taoiseach spoke of the necessity to have a Fianna Fáil Government or, as he said, a stable Government like Fianna Fáil in power for the important negotiations which will take place with EEC in the next 12 months; but these negotiations will take place, certainly initially, in a spirit of mistrust if the Fianna Fáil Government stay in power. The European Governments will be mistrustful because two of the Ministers now no longer in office were two of the most important Ministers who went to Europe to make soundings in the past couple of years. They are now gone.

While I believe some of the new Ministers are of sufficient mental calibre and will, with experience—I hope they will not get the experience; that they will be gone and that we will be there—be able to take on the task, there will be mistrust in Europe of a Government that found it necessary within three days to dismiss or allow to resign four senior Ministers and one Parliamentary Secretary. This will seriously hinder us in negotiations for entry into Europe.

I have always thought the Fianna Fáil Party were not the proper Party to negotiate our entry into Europe. They are too insular in outlook and too narrowminded in their approach to many problems. Initially, we put down this motion, for which the Taoiseach's motion of confidence in the Government has been substituted, because we felt certainly since last Wednesday that the Taoiseach should go to the country and consult the people on whether he should continue in office. The Minister for Education says the general election would be fought on divisive issues and that inflammatory speeches would be made. We on this side of the House will not be divisive or make inflammatory speeches or say anything to provoke a situation that could affect the position between the Republic and Northern Ireland. These inflammatory speeches have been made from the Fianna Fáil benches. There is no doubt about that. They will not be made here. Divisiveness will not be brought about by a wedge driven by the Fine Gael Party between the people of the north and the people here. It will be brought about by members of the Fianna Fáil Party, ex-Ministers, who will do so deliberately, for what ends I do not know. I do not know what good it will do to have a Catholic Parliament in the north composed only of Nationalist Catholics. We must recognise that there are one million Protestants north of the Border. If anyone makes this a divisive election and drives a wedge between our people here and the people in the north it will not be on this side of the House, but over there.

We are told that the situation does not warrant a general election. In 1965 there was a by-election in mid-Cork. It was an unimportant by-election. It was not a Government seat. A member of the Labour Party had died. The by-election was won by the Labour Party and yet the then Taoiseach, Deputy Seán Lemass, decided to go to the country. To my mind, this is a very much more important issue and a greater crisis. There was no crisis then and there is a crisis now. In all honesty the Taoiseach should consult the people.

I should like to refer, first, to one point which the Taoiseach made concerning the EEC and the two Opposition Parties. The leader of my party has replied to the main substance of the point and, of course, I support what he said on it. However, I should like to add this. From my own experience of international bodies, what part you play in them, what benefit you derive from them, depends to a considerable extent on the spirit in which you approach them. I think our Government have approached this in entirely the wrong spirit, in a spirit of somewhat abject hurry, of indicating that we will do absolutely anything to get in.

It has been indicated that we are prepared to scrap the first Article of our Constitution, which should surely be very dear to the hearts of all Members opposite. We are prepared to scrap it instanter in order to get in. No one asked us to but we decided to volunteer that we will even do this. Similarly, the Minister for External Affairs has quite gratuitously, as it now appears from his answers to questions today, offered that we will enter into defence commitments. He thereby seems to have involved himself in conflict with the Taoiseach who said on 23rd July of last year that it was not Government policy to enter into military commitments either through joining NATO or in any other way. Now the policy seems to have been changed, unless the Taoiseach overrules the Minister for External Affairs on the point.

Nonsense.

Deputy Colley says "Nonsense." Sorry, I am not used to it yet—the Minister for Finance says "Nonsense."

I am not used to it myself.

We shall see. I put down a question on that for the Taoiseach. On this, as on other matters, the governing party seem to speak rather too often and on too important matters with two voices. This is our main reason—and I shall develop it in another context—for not having confidence in them.

I join with the last speaker in praising much of what the Minister for Education said in relation to Northern Ireland. It was sincere and I think it represented what would be a consensus stretching from many, perhaps most, on those benches right around through all the Opposition and through a great majority of the people. Unfortunately, these are sentiments which the Fianna Fáil Party sometimes express. They are varied with other things, some of which I will have to quote later, other much more sinister things which would be supported by only a fraction of this House, and I believe of the nation, but which have a tremendous and dangerous impact on all our lives.

The fact is that even though the Minister for Education and other Ministers speak sincerely on this issue—I have no doubt of their sincerity as men when they so speak—they will not be accepted as being sincere by the people who have to be convinced, that is, the majority in the north, the Protestant majority, as long as others are using from the same benches and, until recently at least from the same Cabinet, different language of veiled hostility and menace. The second speech cancels the first and so I am afraid speeches like that of the Minister for Education are likely to fall on deaf ears. I notice that the Minister for Education in his remarks had some difficulty in deciding—it was an awkward point for a Minister for Education—whether the Fianna Fáil Party should be referred to as "they" or "it". One can see his difficulty considering the utterances of some of his colleagues.

On a personal point on which I am obliged to reply, the Minister for Education referred to my recent brief visit to the north. He implied that I had picked up whatever information I might possess about the north on this visit and that I picked it up also from a small group of people whom he also implied to be of dangerously left wing tendency. I may be permitted, therefore, to place on record that I have been in the north, I should think, between 60 and 70 times over a long period beginning in 1940. I taught there for a while. I have relations there. I have, I believe, probably more contacts among people of both religions —and it is an important line of division —than any other Deputy, certainly than most. If what I have to say on this subject may be negligible, it must be due to my own lack of talent and not to any sources of information available to me. That is not very important but it is necessary for me to put it on record.

In some ways I find it a little painful —I am reluctant—to vote no confidence in this so largely new Government because the fact is that in composition they inspire more confidence than the old Government, the last Fianna Fáil Government whose four pillars were shot away into the back benches with such spectacular "brio" a short time ago. The fact is that the four people who have gone back a few yards did not inspire the confidence of this side of the House as Ministers. I do not want to dwell here on their deficiencies but it is a fact that, since the House is in what is coming to be an increasingly passionate time, when signs of tension are all around us, especially in the north and spreading out from there, it is essential that we here should be able to discuss our differences, sharp as they may be, without undue passion or personal hostility.

These were men—certainly three of them—who by their treatment of the House injected a current of excessive acrimony into our proceedings. At one time or another we either opposed the nomination of all those gentlemen or called for their resignation. Two of them, Deputy Boland and Deputy Ó Móráin, used to report to this House as if they were responsible to some other body—perhaps a revolutionary body—and were simply going through the forms of reporting to this facade that we have here today. That is highly undesirable and dangerous.

The information we have subsequently gleaned about these men does nothing to reassure us. Deputy Haughey addressed the House with a condescension inappropriate in a Minister addressing a Parliament from which he derived his authority. I would speak with respect of Deputy Blaney in this particular matter. He always treated the House with consideration. Only on one particular subject is Deputy Blaney a dangerous man, but on that subject he is dangerous to a great degree.

I do not personally know all the new members of the Government but from what I know and from what I have seen of them I feel that we will be able with that front bench to have, on the whole, more rational and therefore more progressive debates here. This is not a negligible factor. I do not wish to minimise its importance. Unfortunately, the men who were dangerous on the front bench are still dangerous on the back benches and they may be, in some ways which I propose to analyse later, even more dangerous there because we must regard not only the composition of the Government itself but the composition of the party by whose votes alone the Government remain in office.

In relation to that important matter there is no ground for confidence. Most of the members of the Fianna Fáil Party are reasonable people but the party includes some who are not reasonable and who are not trustworthy, as the Taoiseach has found, and who would be dangerous men to depend on in a crisis which may be coming. We have been accused of prognosticating a crisis and even perhaps of provoking a crisis by prognosticating it, and Cassandra is always unpopular.

We have not forecast or prophesied a crisis. We have only expressed, as all reasonable and prudent men should express, a fear that that crisis may come on us. We hope it may not, but we consider it only prudent to plan as if it may come on us very soon. There are probably enough of the kind of men whom I have mentioned, who might be briefly described as those who applauded in particular Deputy Boland's speech. Deputy Boland's speech was more dangerous in some ways than Deputy Blaney's because it was more outspoken. There are enough such men to bring down the Government if, in a certain kind of crisis, Government action failed to match their turbulent and reckless expectations.

The logic of this needs to be watched, in that the Government in such a crisis, a crisis occasioned by bad news from the north which is always possible, would have to do one of three things. I am not going to sketch in the kind of bad news which could come from the north. Let us take it that very bad news, even worse news than we have been having, is possible. It could be the kind of news that would send up the whole temperature of the nation and of all of us because we are all emotionally affected by these things.

In such a crisis the Government would have to do one of three things. If there are more courses of action open to them I would like to hear from someone else what these would be.

The first course of action would be to allow themselves to be influenced by these extremists so as to retain their support, the support of at least five and possibly of up to 17 men who, in a crisis, would demand extreme action quite at variance with the kind of moderate utterances we have been hearing here. The first course of action would be to allow action to be at least influenced and perhaps, in certain circumstances, determined by the extremists.

The second course of action in the event of the extremists standing their ground, as extremists are likely to do, would be to dissolve the Dáil. A time of extreme emergency, of course, would be the wrong time for the dissolution of the Dáil.

The third course would be to remain in office. The Fianna Fáil Party would reveal a split in their party by remaining in office for the duration of the crisis with Opposition support, which would certainly, I am sure, be forthcoming if the national interest required it for the holding of a sane course in a national emergency. It is to the Opposition benches and not to their own wild men that the Government would have to look. Deputy Lynch, the Taoiseach, would have to rely on the Opposition benches if he really wanted, in a hot emergency, to stick to the kind of line which he announced at Tralee and which he repeated since. We support that line and some of his Fianna Fáil colleagues do not support it. I will quote shortly, from the mammoth number of our debates, what one or two of them said, and speak on the implications of their statements. Nationally speaking, the third course would be the proper one. It would be proper to reach out for a national consensus in such a hot emergency as might occur in order to serve the nation.

In terms of the interests of the Fianna Fáil Party the third course would be the worst one. The Fianna Fáil Party always say that they think of the nation first and of the party afterwards. In practice, we know by long experience their rhetorical style. They identify the nation with the party. The party represents, in their view, the best and most healthy force in the nation and, therefore, the best interests of the nation. This view is based on something like Rousseau's general will. It was first developed by Mr. de Valera in circumstances which we know of. This view has entered into the bones of the Fianna Fáil Party. They identify the interests of their party with those of the nation. As the party is the nearer and more coherent entity, they look to what is best for the party as the first thing. The safest and best course for the nation in the kind of crisis I describe would be to hold on in office by the support of the Opposition but this would obviously be the most perilous course and perhaps the most destructive course for the Fianna Fáil Party. I do not think the Fianna Fáil Party would do this.

The ruling out of that third possibility and confining ourselves to the other two has very ominous implications. We should look ahead a little and try to look at the possible future as far as we can in order to see what the limitation of choice now is on this question on this party, composed as we now know, and partly guess, it to be. Certainly not everything has come to the surface in this crisis about the party. Then only the other two courses remain open. I have to speak of a "hot emergency" because we are living now in a kind of emergency. However, I am speaking of one in which passion and national hysteria may rise and all kinds of demands may be made by people who, at this moment, may be calm and sensible but who, in a few months, may be crying out for violence.

In that kind of hot emergency, with this Government in control, the Government would either have to appease its wild men or precipitate a general election. A general election, under such conditions, would I think be in itself something of a disaster when one thinks of the terms and language in which it would be fought. But it remains the lesser of two great evils. The greater evil would be to appease the wild men; to pay their emotional and political blackmail by some wild action or, what is much more likely, by wild words and gestures and perhaps some token action. This would further inflame the situation and put Catholic and Protestant demagogues more and more firmly in control of their respective followings. This last and worst course is the one that this Government, despite the present moderation of its language, would most likely be driven to follow. The alternatives—either dependence on the opposition or a general election—would be exceedingly unpalatable.

The country at the moment is being reassured, being quieted, being lulled, by statements I would describe as good statements such as that made just now by the Minister for Education, Deputy Faulkner; such as certain statements made by the Tánaiste, Deputy Childers; such as statements made, of course, by the Taoiseach himself. To sum up our view of these statements, we welcome them but we do not feel we can rely on them. The Taoiseach mentioned today that we know the problems of the minority in the north. He asked if we could turn a blind eye on the terrible prospect of an armed conflict in Northern Ireland. He reminded us that armed conflict in Northern Ireland would probably spread throughout this island. He thought that not many people have yet appreciated that fact. He used the term: "armed conflict in Northern Ireland." He continued:

To facilitate or to condone in the slightest degree a situation which would lead to Irishmen shooting Irishmen would in my opinion not serve the minority in the north but would be a tragedy for them and their neighbours in the Six Counties and indeed in the country. We have helped them as much as we could in the past.

That is a somewhat ambiguous phrase. We do not know what kind of help this was. The Dáil was not told. He continues:

We have tried to do everything in as practical a way as we could. We have used our influence to ensure that the forces needed for their protection, for the protection of the minority who have genuine fears, will be adequate for the purpose.

Here we have two voices. Last August, when he was telling us he could not stand idly by and he was moving troops to the Border, in that "hot" time, he told us the presence of British forces in the north was unacceptable. Are these unacceptable forces of last August the same as "the forces needed for their protection" referred to in the Taoiseach's speech today and last August? Has what was "unacceptable" become what is "needed"? One would rather like to know the answer to that from the Taoiseach. Is it the same or are these some new forces? Are they the Irish Army? Are they those forces whom Deputy Boland condones inside that area? Or are they the United Nations forces who are not coming? If they are in fact forces which are on the spot and can protect the people, they have to be—much as we all may regret the circumstances leading to it—the British forces which were unacceptable and may, in certain circumstances, perhaps, become unacceptable again.

There is a wild oscillation of language in this from a sort of Dr. Jekyll of the present stage of the crisis to the Mr. Hyde of last August and the five to 17 Messrs. Hyde on the back benches.

The country is of course reassured by the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach has a pleasant and reassuring personality. People are drawn to him. People rely on him. A reassuring personality is very good if the situation is also reassuring. But if, behind the reassuring facade, disquiet about things is going on, if all is not well, if there is not the preparedness for a unified responsible course when real trouble comes, then the reassuring personality is playing the role of a sedative in lieu of an operation in a dangerous malady. I think that may well be the case at present.

Again, we do not want to be prophets of doom. We are not prophets of doom. This summer may well go by without serious trouble. It may be that prudence, tact, here in Dublin, in Belfast and in London, may take this country—I refer to the whole island— through this threatening summer. But no one who has been there recently can doubt that there is a great danger of the opposite happening, of a crash happening. I was there the week-end before last and then again at the end of last week, just after this crisis. Already I found, at that stage, a sharp escalation. Things had been tense before. There was fear in the air, fear among Catholic and Protestant, fear among the whole population. I am speaking now of the city of Belfast, in the main, where I think the tension is probably at its greatest. But, at the end of last week, after this crisis here and the revelations about alleged gun-running, Governmental collusion, certain speeches of retired Ministers, after these had broken on the scene, the atmosphere was electric.

If one talks about running guns— and I believe that very probably there has been more talk about gun-running from out there than there have been actual guns—then, of course, one creates the mentality of those who feel they must go and look for the guns. The mentality of those who feel they must go and look for the guns creates a further need for the guns so that there is set in motion an even further small, desperate, vicious circle. That is now what is happening. It may come to a head; it may not.

In relation to any such crisis the Government cannot hold on unless they get help from Deputy Boland and those who think like him. Good. Therefore it becomes very important to know what Deputy Boland thinks so that we might know how he would behave in a crisis, how he would allow others to behave and how he would influence their behaviour. Bear in mind, while I am reading from Deputy Boland's speech, that we are not speaking at this moment in terms of a real emergency now existing but in terms of a tension situation. Rhetoric, like everything else, escalates. People talk differently in a major crisis from the way they talk in times of relative calm and that makes Deputy Boland's remarks all the more disquieting and all the more ominous.

As there has been so much spoken during this long debate, I make no apology for reading at this stage what I consider the most important statement made during the debate—a statement the implications of which should be pondered upon very carefully by every Member of this House as, no doubt, they have already been pondered upon by Fianna Fáil.

Deputy Boland is important because he tells us what he thinks. Deputy Blaney uses language, sometimes at least, to conceal his thought. Deputy Boland said and I quote from columns 749 and 750 of the Dáil Debates of 8th/9th May, 1970:

The objective of the party to which I belong is to bring about the reunification of this country——

All right.

——and this obviously involves the unification of the people of the country. This, of course, as anybody with any normal intelligence will see, cannot be done by force.

Good.

This does not mean that I subscribe to the outburst of Daniel O'Connellism that has marked recent speeches in this House. Neither does it mean there is any acceptance of the right of any section of the Irish people to opt out of the Irish nation.

It does not matter what they think: they have no right. We are not going to use force to unify them but they have no right to opt out. Already I do not know where we stand but let us read on:

It certainly does not mean there is any acceptance of the right of any foreign country to divide our country, to maintain an army in it or to legislate for any part of it.

If I read that correctly, they have no right to maintain what the Taoiseach called the forces needed for their protection. If they have no right, does a right exist to deal with them by force? We shall read on and find out from Deputy Boland's speech:

The fundamental fact is that the British are aggressors in our country——

I presume if they are aggressors there is a right to resist them.

——and the responsibility for the existing situation of barely suppressed violence in the Six Counties rests squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Harold Wilson and his colleagues.

Who, no doubt, colonised the area in the 17th century.

The first requirement for the solution of the problem is that this fact be recognised by the people responsible for it, that the British guilt be acknowledged and that a decision to embark on what would almost certainly have to be a long process of disengagement and reparation should be taken in the place where the crime was committed and where it is continuing to be perpetrated to this day.

That is not too bad but listen to this:

While a policy ruling out force is appropriate and almost unanimously accepted as far as I know for this 26 County State—certainly it is unanimously accepted so far as the Fianna Fáil Party are concerned— there is no doubt——

these are the important words

——that the people in the Six Counties are, in fact, in the same position as the people in the whole country were in before 1916, and they are entitled to make their own decisions.

If they are in the same position as the people of the whole country were in before 1916 then a group of people acting on their behalf would have the right to attempt a 1916 Rising. If they have that right and, one would think, duty, to stage a 1916 Rising even though they have no immediate chance of success would it not be the duty of a government here, such a government as Deputy Boland could in honesty and sincerity support, to come to their rescue? What does that imply as to what such a government as we have now might be called on to do in the case of, let us put it more modestly, an attempted IRA coup in a Border setting? Deputy Boland continued:

While we here are both entitled and, I think, very well qualified to give advice on this matter, and the advice we would give would be that there should be no inclination to utilise force——

Obviously well-guarded words.

——to solve the difficulties which exist there, and to try to secure the acceptance of our approach,——

What happens if we do not secure it?

——it would be presumptuous for us to attempt from the smugness of this 26 County State to dictate to our fellow countrymen who are suffering under British imperialism, because that is what they are suffering under.

It would be unpardonable for us to take any action to frustrate the efforts of our people in the Six Counties to protect their lives and property.

Notice how, in his speech, in this very dangerous way, the two issues, the protection of the lives and property of the minority, become blurred into the idea of a possible rising. Guns are given to people although it is not known what they will do with them. Either the protection or the rising is justified according to Deputy Boland. Of course, it would be the people who would get the guns and not anyone here who would determine how they would be used. Once they got into the hands of a military underground organisation, even the Frankensteins who are working for this would lose all control of their creature. Deputy Boland continues:

The objection I see to the approach of many Deputies who have been speaking here in this matter is the concern for what is described as the freedom we have achieved....

Incidentally, that phrase "the freedom we have achieved" was used just now by the Deputy's colleague in the party, the Minister for Education. In my opinion, the Minister spoke very properly of the freedom we enjoy in this part of the country but for which we paid so high a price and he indicated that this freedom is worth holding on to. However, Deputy Boland, on whom the Government depend, takes a more dashing approach and deals more lightly with the freedom as well as with the lives of the people both in this part of the country and in the other part. He says:

The objection I see to the approach of many Deputies who have been speaking here in this matter is the concern for what is described as the freedom we have achieved, the attitude that the overriding concern must be to retain this State and this Parliament.

Petty matters with which to be preoccupied.

So far as I am concerned I want to go on record as saying that I reject that attitude, that I do not see a 26 County State as an achievement. I see it as a retrogression. I see it as a situation resulting from the 1922 betrayal.

Debate adjourned.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 14th May, 1970.
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