In matters affecting the security of the State it would be totally improper for the leader of the Opposition to publicise matters of that kind without having first spoken to the leader of the Government, who might put before him various considerations he might wish to take into account as regards how he would handle the matter. We do not know, we still do not know, enough about this affair to know what its implications are, but it could well have been the case that, when Deputy Cosgrave went to see the Taoiseach, the Taoiseach might have said to him: "I am acting in this way for these reasons: if you explode the matter at this moment we may fail to catch people whom otherwise we would catch and I ask you therefore to hold your hand for the time being. I will tell you what I am doing and why."
In those circumstances Deputy Cosgrave would, of course, have held his hand. For him to have done otherwise than to give the Taoiseach an opportunity to say if there was any such consideration that properly could prevent this matter being brought to light at that time would have been totally improper and the Minister for Finance knows that as well as I do.
In other parts of his speech there was much one could agree with, much that was interesting and valuable. It is, indeed, a measure of the situation that faces us, and has faced us since last summer, that in a number of debates in this House we have had from both sides of the House contributions of a very high standard, a very high order, when people have been brought by the gravity of the situation really to speak their minds, to set on one side at least for part of their speeches in any event, considerations of party politics and to give us something of their own philosophy. We have heard today within a few short hours from the benches opposite two statements of philosophy, somewhat divergent, as I could point out, in character, but both worthy of consideration in themselves, both coming from people for whom we have respect on this side of the House. I refer to the Minister for External Affairs and the Minister for Finance.
In listening to the Minister for Finance and his statement of the republicanism which attracted him to Fianna Fáil I was reflecting on what he was saying. I made a note of the points he made. I found them of great interest because his definition of republicanism is really widely divergent from that of his recent colleague, Deputy Blaney. His definition of republicanism comes down to two things. He stated it, first of all, in terms of the doctrine of Tone and this he summarised under two headings: Tone and Fianna Fáil republicanism, as they express it, stand for the small man, first of all; secondly, that all Irishmen be treated equally. These are the two doctrines of republicanism to which he attaches importance.
Is there anyone in this House who does not endorse these doctrines? What is there so specific to the party opposite that nationally proclaims it the repository of republicanism, which belongs only to Fianna Fáil, so that a man entering politics who believes these things has no alternative but to join that party? Is there any party in this House or any person in this House who does not adhere to these views? None. But the interesting thing is that at that point Deputy Colley, Minister for Finance, went further: he said that something, and I can give the exact words, was added subsequently to the doctrines of Tone and he spoke of the belief in our own language and our culture as something additional to the doctrines of Tone.
Here, of course, is the difficulty for the Fianna Fáil Party because they are ambivalent on this. There is a deep ambivalence. It demonstrated itself not only in the two speeches of the Ministers, on the one hand, and Deputy Blaney and Deputy Boland on the other, where the contrast is not over this vital issue, which divides us, or a few of us, from the rest of us now, but it showed itself in quite a fascinating way as between the speeches of the Minister for External Affairs and the Minister for Finance.
Clearly, the Minister for Finance did not hear the Minister for External Affairs. He had not the privilege the rest of us had. There is between them a divergence of view, which is fundamental, and it is on this very issue, because the Minister for Finance not only cherishes our culture and our language, as indeed we all do—in that neither he nor Fianna Fáil are unique —but he cherishes them in a particular way and elevates them to a particular role which is, in fact, divisive, though he would not accept that it is divisive. He rejects from his particular form of republicanism—this is why he uses the word republicanism and the Minister for External Affairs does not lay the same stress on it—certain things and he adds to his form of republicanism the doctrines of Tone, which are all-embracing, which treat everybody equally, Protestant and Catholic and Dissenter alike, whatever language they speak or religion they practise, whatever part of the country they live in, all are treated equally.
The Minister for Finance differs because he added something. He is a revisionist in terms of modern Marxism. He added an extra dimension to Tone's doctrines; you must be dedicated to a particular culture and a particular language. This is, in fact, the traditional doctrine of Fianna Fáil and it is the expression of that doctrine throughout 50 years which has, more than anything else, helped to continue the division of this country because there will never be peace and unity in this country until the viewpoint put forward by the Minister for External Affairs, so ably and so nobly, in his concluding remarks is accepted, as it is by this party, as it is by the Labour Party, by the Fianna Fáil Party as their policy.
There is in the Fianna Fáil Party today not merely a division between the Blaneyites and the Bolandites and the rest; there is a more fundamental division between people who adhere to these old doctrines of Fianna Fáil, this peculiarly narrow form of neo-Tonite republicanism, in which you have to dedicate yourself to one language and one tradition and elevate these over the others, and everybody else is a second-class citizen, a doctrine which is, of course, totally rejected not alone by the million or so of the majority in Northern Ireland but, indeed, by many other hundreds of thousands of people in the north and in this part of the country also. So long as that view is put forward, so long as that particular brand of republicanism is put forward by the benches opposite, even by men of the quality and calibre and thoughtfulness and sincerity of the Minister for Finance, so long will this country remain divided.
I was deeply impressed today to hear from the Minister for External Affairs a statement of a broader view, a viewpoint which has been expressed here from these benches for a long time past, a view point which found its greatest expression through our party in the Presidential campaign of 1966 in which Deputy Tom O'Higgins campaigned on the idea of a pluralist society, a society in which all traditions would be given an equal share, an equal part, would be treated equally—in fact the true, full doctrine of Tone as enunciated almost two centuries ago which has become lost in the mists and quagmires of the latter day doctrine of Fianna Fáil.
The fact that the Minister for External Affairs propounded those views from those benches gives us hope. I have always known that in Fianna Fáil there exist people of broad view who are pluralist in outlook, who do not accept this narrow doctrine enunciated in the early days of the party and carried forward to today. I had the experience once, as I said in the House before, before entering politics of addressing a Fianna Fáil gathering on the subject of the language and Northern Ireland. The last remark I addressed to that gathering, looking across to Jim Ryan who was sitting in front of me there, before I left, was that I was not disappointed with the reaction. One-third of those present had in one way or another shown that they shared the pluralist vision that I had and did not accept the narrow, old-fashioned so-called republican outlook of Fianna Fáil. I remarked as I left, and my last sentence to them was: "I am not too disappointed; I had not expected to convert Fianna Fáil to true anti-partitionism in less than 20 years." I joined Fine Gael shortly afterwards.
There are, therefore, on the other benches different views, ably expressed by men of sincerity. It is not surprising that this should be so but is it not interesting that the place where these divergencies find expression is not within the divided ranks of the so-called coalition parties but in the ranks of Fianna Fáil? In these parties we have a clear view. There are, as I said the other day, no dissenting voices in these parties on this issue of introducing more violence in the situation in the north. On these benches there are not, I think, dissenting voices on this issue of the vision of a pluralist society as outlined by Tone. We are agreed on these essential principles. There are, as has been said from the opposite benches, many things on which we disagree but they are not the fundamentals; on these we agree. On the opposite benches one can see not two, but three schools of thought. There is the small group of bitter men at last fortunately expelled from that Government. Even if it now lacks in experience and perhaps in ability and brilliance according to the Taoiseach something of what it had previously, and has been, in the words of the Tánaiste "purged", it will no doubt benefit from that. We see this small group of men with their violent views, a particularly vicious form of republicanism, although to use that word about their activities is to demean it.
There are then in the rest of the Fianna Fáil benches among the men of goodwill who want a peaceful solution these two views which divide them deeply, these two policies in regard to partition one of which says: "We stand firmly in our Gaelic republic and these people must be made to join us somehow—peacefully, of course; let us do it by constraining the British to push them out or let us just hope that it will happen some day that they will all wake up Irish speakers in the morning." That viewpoint was ably expressed by the Minister for Finance.
The other viewpoint is that we must be prepared to create a real society of Tone, a society in which there will be genuinely equal treatment for everybody, where no group and no tradition, no language and no religion will feel in any respect diminished or at a disadvantage or in any respect second-class citizens, where no man will be denied the right to serve in the public service of his country because he lacks facility in one of its official languages, where everyone will be treated equally, the vision expressed in our Presidential campaign four years ago and expressed from the opposite benches today by the Minister for External Affairs.
But which is the real coalition? Is it to be found over here where we agree on all these essentials or over there where you have this deep division between one group of men who are out to destroy this country and amongst the rest a very deep division in their philosophy and vision as republicans? The real uneasy coalition is on the far side of the House. Perhaps it is obscured from many of themselves by the extraordinary character of the Fianna Fáil Party which has been written about by political scientists as being closely akin, in its organisation and structure and in its devotion to the idea of the party, to the communist party, not, for a moment, I emphasise in its doctrines which are indeed conservative but in the extraordinary dedication to the party which takes precedence over the State.
This devotion to the unity of the party which came out so strikingly even in the most critical moments of this difficult occasion, expressed by the Tánaiste among others on radio at 11 p.m. after the conclusion of the marathon debate and also by the Minister for Transport and Power. This pride in the unity of the party which will overcome any crisis as the most important thing, I think obscures their vision. I think many people opposite are genuinely unaware of the fact that they are in a party which is deeply divided on the most essential question of all, the basic philosophy of life, what kind of society we would like to see here and how we should tackle the unification of our country. They are the divided ones, not we. When they talk about coalition, if they would think of the reality rather than the form they would realise where the real coalition lies.