Before this debate had really started, or when it had just about started, and for many months before that I had the feeling that there was a great deal I wished to say that had not been said by anybody in regard to the happenings particularly of the last 13 or 14 months. As the debate proceeded and as I clarified my own mind about what I wished to contribute in this House, and having listened to the crossfire that has gone on here, I came to the conclusion that the country and the institutions of State have already suffered enough grievous hurt in the disclosures made and the allegations flung around not only in public, not only in this House, but even in the very courts of this State. Therefore I have decided here tonight, particularly now that time has caught up with us and as I might not have the time to deal with it fully and adequately, that this is not the time to add my disclosures of what I believe to be the truth and the whole truth of what has gone on and of what lies behind all that appears to have gone on. This is not the time, nor is it in the interests of the country that it should so be put on record. There may be another time and there may not be another time suitable for such disclosures because these disclosures would involve disclosures of Government business and Government decisions which would be necessary in order to relate my entire narrative in regard to these matters.
These are things which in the normal way I would be bound not to disclose and I had only considered disclosing them because of the fact that in relation to the court case it was said that any bond of secrecy that was there would be removed or ignored in order that the whole truth might be got at. That was in the courts. Thanks to the justice of the courts in this country, although lately we began to wonder whether that was so or not, I do not have to go through that trial; I did not have to endure, as others of my colleagues and friends endured, the months of hardship and the months of sacrifice and unending restlessness that can only attend those who are accused and are awaiting trial on charges that are being viciously pursued by all the resources of the State which those same people have served and served very well up to the time of their dismissal from their particular posts.
I am not going into this tonight, for the reasons I have stated, plus the reason that, even if I wished to do so, time would not permit. I do so in the full knowledge that there is a great deal more that could be said if it were thought advisable that it should be said. I do not regard it advisable for me to say it at this particular time if, indeed, it may be advisable at any time because too much damage has already been done to our institutions not only at home but throughout the world in regard to this whole farce that has become the trial that never was—though it was held twice in order to reach a just verdict of acquittal for those who were accused.
I have been following the debate—if not all the time inside the House then all of it through reports outside. I have followed it with quite a sense of disappointment because speakers appear to have lost sight of the basic issue involved in this motion. The issue to my mind is simply this: indeed, it would be a question and, to me, it would be and is this: What policy should the Government and parliament, which derive their authority from the Republic of Ireland, declared in 1916 and reasserted by the first Dáil, pursue in relation to the problem of national unity?
The House is well aware that all other questions in this debate, such as those arising from the recent conspiracy trial and the differences within Fianna Fáil, not to mention the differences that exist in the parties beyond, stem from this basic issue. Let nobody inside our party or outside the party be under any illusions that this is the basic difference—and it is there lie our basic differences and it is there lie our problems and our difficulties. rather than discussing and lamenting and accusing and making allegations about who was telling the truth and who was not.
I have a fairly good idea, a fairly sound idea, of who was telling the truth in particular instances but I am not going to go into it here tonight either. I am much more concerned to put on record what I believe in regard to our role in this House in relation to the national unity of our territory. As Éamon de Valera, our President, said many years ago:
There is no one man with a cut-and-dried plan for ending Partition.
That surely is a truism none of us should ever forget. For Partition can only be ended by negotiation around the conference table. There can be no such negotiation until the British Government finally decides to remove its authority from every part of this land of ours, north and south.
I have said recently that the Fianna Fáil Party is at a crossroads. I go further tonight and say that the Irish nation, north and south—all of it— is at a crossroads in its history. If any Deputy is in any doubt about that, I would point to the unfortunate happenings in the Six Counties and, indeed, in the Twenty-six Counties during the past 15 months. The sham edifice that is Stormont, with its artificially-created majority and its sectarian regime, with which the democratic majority of the people of all Ireland have been forced, against their expressed will, to live for half a century, is now crumbling. Only by the force and the might of the British military occupation—I say "occupation" deliberately—and by the injection of vast millions of the British taxpayers' money is this fraudulent statelet now being propped up on what I hope is its last legs. The duty, therefore, rests on this Government elected by this House to give the leadership and initiative which, in these circumstances, when Partition has now clearly failed, will hasten ultimate unity. The question with which we in this House are concerned is vital at this turning-point in our history when the British experiment, that was Partition, is patently now falling apart.
In the first place, let us be quite clear on the question of using armed compulsion against the Unionist people of the Six Counties as a solution. It has not been, and it is not, the ideal solution for the ending of Partition. The British Government knows this; the Unionist Government knows this. Every Member of this House knows and accepts this. I, therefore, do not know why the Leader of my party, the Taoiseach, keeps making this an issue —as if there were any issue about it. I, and others who may share my views, have made it patently clear that this has always been our outlook and, in spite of that, we have been continuously and constantly misrepresented. I have been misrepresented when I referred to the use of force in another context. What I have said, and now repeat, is that if the minority in the Six Counties were to come under the threat of annihilation by armed murderous assault—as they did in certain parts of the Six Counties in August, 1969 — then we, in the Twenty-six Counties, could not, cannot and should not stand idly by. That is what I mean when I talk about not ruling out force. That is what I have meant when I said it in the past. I hope that those who have been misrepresenting my views in this matter and confusing the public will tonight "catch themselves on" and get it right for this time at least. I challenge any Deputy who believes we should give a blank cheque to the Orange mobs, and their Unionist manipulators, for violence against the Six County minority to say it honestly outright now and to let the country judge him accordingly.
If the ideal solution of Partition lies along the lines of peaceful negotiation, I do not for one moment accept that this means a policy of appeasement and compromise—and this is where I consider the Opposition Parties and the Leader of my own party now to stand in error. We are being told that we must win the consent of the Unionist majority within the Six Counties before Ireland can be united. We are told we must persuade them by good example. This has been put forward as a new policy. This is not new.
Consider what we have been doing over the past half century. We have held out the hand of friendship and co-operation to the Six Counties. We have built the community here so that —whatever its other faults may be— it is an example to those in the Six Counties of how Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter may live side by side in harmony and without discrimination or bigotry. We have striven to build a viable economy against great odds and to maintain a steady improvement in our social services as a further example to them who are themselves entirely dependent for survival on massive handouts from Great Britain. We have moved into close economic union in trade and commerce with Britain, our neighbour. We have offered to negotiate amendments to our Constitution to admit the views of the people of the Six Counties. We have offered to devise guarantees on every possible point about which they might find or have concern. We have done all this and yet, not once in those 50 years, not even after the past 15 months of world condemnation, has either the Unionist regime, or the Westminster Government for that matter, budged a single inch on the question of Partition. We are still, as it were, back on square one.
We are now being told by persons in this House, in the words used by a Tory politician: "Ulster must not be coerced". Éamon de Valera the founder of this party of Fianna Fáil in a debate in this House in 1945 dealt with this same question then when Fine Gael were complaining that we were not going far enough to meet the Unionists and that we should try for a compromise solution. He said of Fine Gael:
These people imagine that by giving away the rights of the majority they will conciliate the minority. They will do nothing of the kind. Our whole history has proved the contrary, and I hope, whether it is in our time or when we are gone, that there will be no people in this country so foolish as to proceed along that course. It is a fatal course.
Yet we are now being asked by our own Government to accept the right of the Unionist minority in Ireland to opt out and to decide when, if ever, they will join in a united nation. This is the proposition that destroys the whole case and takes away the entire roots on which our claim as a people to national unity rests. It is a proposition which was never accepted by the founders of the Fianna Fáil Party. Éamon de Valera said in the Dáil on November 24th, 1948:
There is no just principle which would entitle a political minority because they happen to be a local majority in a certain area to cut itself off.
Séan Lemass speaking at Oxford in October, 1960, said:
We do not accept... that a minority has the right to vote itself out of a nation on the grounds that it is in disagreement with the majority on a major policy issue.
By the Partition yardstick, of course, we might say that the Nationalist majorities in Derry, Fermanagh, South Down and South Armagh, have an equal right to opt out of the Six Counties or, indeed, that the people of my constituency or my county or the people of Cork city have the right to opt out of the Twenty-six Counties.
I would ask the Taoiseach, therefore, to clarify where we now stand on this principle which lies at the root of the claim of the Irish people to unity. The Taoiseach has told us that Mr. Heath, for instance, Britain's Prime Minister, has at long last introduced a new initiative by his statement at the United Nations last month that Britain will not now stand in the way of the Six County Unionists if they wish to enter a united Ireland. I fail to see anything new in that. The British have been saying this in so many words since Lloyd George first introduced the Government of Ireland Act in 1920 and thereby created Partition. King George V said the same and so did Carson and Craigavon.
The real initiative the Irish people are awaiting from Britain is a declaration that from a given date, be it a near date or a relatively far distant date, they, the British, are ready and willing to get out of Ireland and are, therefore, ready to sit down and negotiate their going with us. Far from expressing any such willingness, however, Mr. Heath has emphasised at the United Nations that Westminster will not move until such a time as the Unionist regime of its own desire decides that it wants to come into a united Ireland. Can anybody in Britain or Ireland really see a time when the Unionists of the Six Counties will drop their attitude of "not an inch" while they are being supported by the millions of the British taxpayers' money which these people can now no longer afford, and supported in government and power by the might and the arms of the British State itself?
Nobody can see them getting down to brass tacks to talk about the future of this country while they are so supported and it is for Britain to get wise to this and for us to try to make her wise to the fact that she should indicate her willingness to go and we should then get down to discussing her going. Answering Fine Gael in this House on one occasion Éamon de Valera, our President, asked the question:
Is there anyone foolish enough to think that if we are going to sacrifice our aspirations that they are going to give up their cry of not an inch? For every step we moved towards them, you know perfectly well they would regard it as a sign that we would move another, and they would not be satisfied, in my opinion, unless we went back and accepted the old United Kingdom, a common parliament for the two countries.
De Valera's answer to those who concede any portion of the national claim to unity was expressed by him on that same occasion as "not an inch".
He went further and warned that we would obtain a solution to Partition much sooner if that attitude were known than we would if the idea got abroad that we were going to begin what he termed "slithering along". That is what I fear we are now doing and have been doing for some considerable time, "slithering along" in regard to the unity of our country. Is there any Deputy in this country so naïve that he believes the Unionist regime, no matter how much we woo or coo at them, will voluntarily give up the power and privilege it enjoyed for the past 50 years and is now promised it can enjoy for all time by guarantee of the British Government?
We have heard much recently about the word "guarantee". The British Government has guaranteed that the package of reform which it has forced on the unwilling Unionist regime will be implemented. Mr. Wilson made a declaration in August over a year ago that human rights would be established and respected in the area of Ireland over which his Government claimed jurisdiction. Mr. Wilson is not the first British Prime Minister who waved a wand towards this country and hoped for some miracle solution or magic solution. It is now 15 months since then and very little in that direction has since taken place or, indeed, appears as if it is going to take place.
In the meantime a Tory government has come into office in Britain and the Unionists undoubtedly have found new heart. It is needless to remark that the establishment of human rights in the Six Counties remains what we might call pie in the sky. We have the Taoiseach then who tells us that he accepts what he terms the honesty of purpose of Major Chichester Clark, the Unionist Prime Minister. This is the same man who kicked out Lord O'Neill, then Captain O'Neill, and replaced him because he was allegedly going too fast with his intention to bring about reforms in those same Six Counties. This is the same man, Major Clark, who in the midst of the murder and shooting in Belfast in August of last year when hordes of B Specials, RUC and Orange gunmen were loosed on the minority community, and were held off, I might say, from a massacre by the bravery of a handful of men with very few arms, publicly dismissed this as "an IRA uprising" and praised the B Specials for their devotion to duty. How can we accept the word of such a man as Major Chichester-Clark in regard to any of these promises that have been foisted upon him by the British Government?
Our Taoiseach has also said that the Irish Government stand as a second guarantor. Tonight I was glad to hear one other speaker refer to this because Deputy Conor Cruise-O'Brien is as puzzled by it as I am. I am puzzled by it. How can we guarantee what reforms will take place in the Six Counties? How we can be the second guarantor I would love to know. Perhaps there is an answer but I doubt it.
Only this week in regard to promises from the British we find emerging in a book just published that there was made to Éamon de Valera back in the beginning of the forties a promise by the British Government, a promise that if we entered on the side of Britain in the war they would begin to do something about Partition. De Valera did not accept this promise where there was no corresponding commitment from the Unionist people in Belfast and he was right. Redmond had accepted a similar Westminster offer of Home Rule. We all know what happened about that. British declarations of establishing human rights in the Six Counties contrast very strangely with their refusal to allow any inquiry or inquest so far into the action of their troops in murdering three innocent, elderly men in the Lower Falls last July 3rd.
The Stormont Premier last week praised our own Leader here and spoke of the "cause of democracy" in Ireland. Everybody except the Unionists was responsible, according to Major Clark, for reviving what he called "the dying embers of old hatreds." He called for a return to what the Unionists like to call normality, the old order back in control once again and the Croppies lying down. Well, if it is any news to him he will never, so far as my judgment goes, enter into that state that he regards as normality again because the people of those Six Counties have risen. They are a risen people today. They know the strength of their own force and they will not be driven back underground as they have been forced to do over this last half century. The sooner Major Chichester Clark and others in the Six Counties realise that, the sooner they will come to the realisation, themselves and the British Government, that Partition is not a solution and that we must find another way.
I would ask, indeed, how the head of the regime in the Six Counties can talk of democracy when the known killers of Sam Devenney of Derry, of nine-years-old Patrick Rooney of Belfast, of Seán Gallagher of Armagh and a dozen others, have never even been charged by his law officers. How can he, Major Chichester-Clark, talk of democracy when he has 900 men in jail up there today, many of them for offences so trivial as remonstrating with unruly soldiers as in the case of Frank Gogarty, the CRA Leader?
I come back to the original position that we cannot accept compromise on principle. We all accept the situation that a majority today in the Six Counties area have no wish to join in a united Ireland and want to cling to the British connection. That has been the position for more than a couple of centuries but it cannot be put forward, despite that long history, as a reason for breaking on the principle that this minority within the nation has a right to opt out. We cannot accept it as a reason for a policy giving them that right that we have never conceded to them and on the basis of which our whole claim to national unity rests and has rested over the years.
The key to the solution of Partition, in my estimation, does not lie in trying to move the Unionists from their entrenched position. It lies with the Westminster Parliament and let them be under no illusions about it and let us keep telling them so. They, by Act of Parliament, created Partition and they are the people who must begin to end it. What the people of Ireland really need today from Britain, and have a right to expect, is a firm declaration of intent to get out of Ireland. If that were given, then the people of the Six Counties and the Twenty-six Counties, in my humble estimation, would very soon come to terms with their own problems within the four shores of this country and would negotiate the beginning of the end of the Partition of our land and the disunity among our people.
It is that end to which we should bend all our energies. That should be the policy of our Government, pursued vigorously and with enthusiasm, to bring to the British Government and particularly to the British people, the fullest possible knowledge of what has been done in the name of the British in the Six Counties over these years, to bring to that British public a massive public campaign, a knowledge that they have been so far denied, a knowledge that would open the eyes of that public, who are a fair-minded people, a people who if they knew what was being done and at what cost to them it was being done, not only in money and in arms but also in international reputation, would begin to move their Government to move in this matter to bring it to an end.
These are the sort of things that I believe we should be doing rather than writing it down, rather than giving the impression that, in fact, it will all blow over and that no serious repercussions are going to follow and that everything will be all right in future months or six months hence. Unfortunately, everything will not be all right six months hence or six years hence in so far as real peace in this community of ours is concerned. While Partition lasts we will have trouble breaking out intermittently, spasmodically, serious at times, not so serious, but break out it will again and again and again.
I ask this House how many people must be killed, how many must suffer death, no matter on which side, whether they are British Army or other personnel, how many must be killed before we really seriously begin to realise that we cannot have peace unless this farce that is Partition begins to come to an end or even be seen to be beginning to be brought to an end.
I have only got a few more minutes left and a vote will be taken in a matter of a couple of hours. On the far side of the House I see before me people who are very intent, very enthusiastic and are talking big talk as I have often heard them talk before about how they want an election. How many of you really in your hearts want an election?