I was commenting on the remarkable interjections and the remarkable contributions to what was, in fact, a fairly simple discussion of the amendment of Deputy Séamus Pattison by my co-Deputy for North County Dublin, Deputy Patrick Burke and also by Deputy O'Malley, the Minister for Justice. In the interval since the adjournment of the debate I have had the opportunity to peruse the transcript of these, I repeat, very extraordinary contributions to the debate. Since both these Deputies were permitted at the time to introduce this extraordinary matter into the discussion of this amendment, on behalf of my party as well as, indeed, on behalf of myself, against whom entirely irrelevant accusations were made, I would ask you, Sir, to permit me to reply to some of these matters as I feel it ought to be done as soon as possible in the course of the same discussion.
Prohibition of Forcible Entry and Occupation Bill, 1970: Report Stage (Resumed).
If the remarks in question were not relevant, and the Deputy agrees they were not relevant, I cannot see how he can continue to discuss them on this particular amendment.
I would, of course, be guided by the Ceann Comhairle in matters of procedure but I understood that where specific accusations were made it was permitted to reply to them. You, Sir, were in the Chair at the time and if they were admitted by you into the discussion, it is therefore permitted to other people to reply to them.
If the Deputy has read the script as he says he has he will have seen, I am quite sure, that the Chair intervened and said that this was not relevant or in order. I agree that they were said and if the Deputy feels that he has an explanation to give, then I will allow him to do so.
I have no intention, in fact, of dealing with the specific accusations relating to myself and, indeed, also, I have no intention of dealing with matters where an indication was given from the Chair of their irrelevance. Deputy Burke brought up more than once what is to me and I think to all of us a central matter in this Bill and in every section of it. It is a slightly general matter and yet it is one which illuminates every section, every subsection and every amendment. This is the question of law and order in the community and the question of our attitude to law and order. There were four separate times in his contribution where Deputy Burke made reference to law and order. He said: "It is up to us to ensure that law and order prevails" and then he said: "Are we to have law and order or are we to have chaos?" He said right at the opening: "We must ask ourselves are we going to have law and order?" and then, having made various sorts of accusations against members of the Labour Party, all named, he asked a further question: "Is it their wish that law and order should not exist?" He was, in fact, attributing to us that wish.
We had, indeed, a comparable statement in the following speech from the Minister for Justice, Deputy O'Malley, which I will deal with separately but in his case it was not a reference to law and order, it was a reference to anarchy which, I suppose, one might define as the absence of law and order.
Therefore, since this phrase is a phrase that has been widely used in the discussion of these amendments and is widely currently used all over the world in all sorts of contexts, it is worth teasing it out a little in reply to the charges that were made. It is a phrase one hears continuously in recent times on the lips of such people as Enoch Powell, a phrase one hears continuously on the lips of the white races in the southern States of America and, indeed, on the lips of the white races in South Africa. It is a phrase one continuously hears on the lips of such people as Messrs. Craig and Paisley in Northern Ireland. It is a phrase, in fact, that is frequently associated with repression and with a desire to strengthen the powers of government as this Bill and as the section we are discussing are intended to strengthen the powers of government in order that the Government may bash people that they do not like.
The phrase "law and order" is a phrase that must be understood to mean repression as it is understood by the sort of people I have enumerated. Nonetheless, as properly understood and as I propose to define it, I am in favour of it and my party are in favour of this concept of law and order. In order to reply to the charge that we are against law and order it is necessary for me to say what I believe it to mean.
It could be argued that in the most authoritarian regimes now and in past times there has been order if by order you mean that the power of the State is used to suppress dissent of every kind. In that sense once he had interned or slaughtered his opponents one could say that Hitler had produced order inside his Reich. Indeed the word "order" is and has been a favourite one of fascists. One could argue that in comparison with the protesting blacks of northern cities of the United States order exists in those southern states where they are kept in place by lynching and by direct intimidation. The point of that sort of order is that it is order without law, it is order against law, it is order against the spirit of all of the legislation of the last century since democratic ideas have emerged in a more concrete form and have been embodied in the structure of states by laws.
One might argue that at the height of the power of Mr. William Craig, when he was Minister for Home Affairs, when he had his B Specials and when he had the whole structure of repression in Northern Ireland and when people of the minority who tried to express their disapproval of the situation existing were smashed up and physically intimidated order then existed and those persons of a unionist viewpoint in Northern Ireland hark back in a nostalgic way to the happy days of the law and order of Mr. William Craig. I suggest that it was order without law, order in violation of the law, order that did violence to the spirit of all modern legislation.
Therefore, when I claim for myself and for my party that we are upholders of law and order I also claim that you cannot have one without the other. Specifically, you cannot call for order without good laws and a democratic structure which is democratic and is seen to be democratic.
I suppose in a sense this lies right at the heart of our objection to the whole of this Bill. This Bill is concerned with order but not with the order of people who are disciplined because they are satisfied with the situation. It is concerned with the sort of order of those people who do not protest because they are afraid to do so. It is concerned with the sort of order which takes away the right of dissent, the right of protest, the right of the free expression of outrage at a scandalous situation. It is, therefore, an effort to make an enactment which does violence to the progressive and humane aspects of the principles of legislation, which does violence to the whole tendency of the evolution of legislation towards the enshrining of liberty and democracy. Laws have not always been concerned with enshrining these things. In a sense law is neutral. If you have an authoritarian milieu then you have authoritarian laws. Our milieu, our society, our Parliament, the whole structure of our State, claims to be democratic and to be concerned not just with the protection but the extension of human liberty. The essence of our objection to this legislation is that it seems to us something which will produce order of a fascist kind, order by intimidation, order by repression, at the cost of doing violence to everything that we believe good and democratic legislation to be.
When Deputy Burke says we will have law and order in Ireland and that it is our wish that law and order should not exist I do not think he is entirely clear about this. I do not think he has thought it through. I do not think he recognises the implications of what he is saying. I think he is acting foolishly rather than wickedly but I think he is concerned with order of a formal, imposed, external kind, not with order which is the self-discipline of a society concerned with its own uplift and that he is concerned with law not at all.
I am not a lawyer. Many of us in this House have no legal knowledge beyond what is accumulated in the ordinary course of living but I have seen legal arguments particularly by a professor of law making the point that this legislation is entirely unnecessary. Within the existing framework of the laws currently obtaining in this country we could get the end result the Minister professes to desire without this legislation at all, without this extraordinary transfer of the action of trespass from the area of civil law into the area of criminal law.
This is why I am spending a little time trying to articulate that I believe, and I am convinced my party believe, that society should strive for law and order, that these are valid and desirable social objectives, that the sort of calm and peace and tranquillity in which people can carry on their lives and tasks is something every society strives after but that, as far as we are concerned, the uttering of phrases about law and order, be they from people in the North of Ireland like Mr. Craig, from southern racists, from the Enoch Powells or even from the Deputy Burkes of this House, is a concept which will produce spurious, transitory and imposed order and will produce bad law and consequently the violation of law. Though it is a term people suppose they know the meaning of and use frequently to indicate repression, if they think about it they will see that you can only have real internal order on the basis of good legislation, you can only have respect for the observance of that law if it is good law. It is our conviction that the basic illuminating ideas behind this Bill are anathema to the concept of real law, are unnecessary, punitive, retrogressive and we strongly suspect unconstitutional. Were it not for the malice and petulance that the Minister for Justice has demonstrated so unmistakably, even in his interjection today, this Bill would not be proceeded with. We are opposing this Bill root and branch, line by line, with all our strength because we believe, not just that the particular content of this particular Bill is repugnant to the people and the Constitution but because we believe it is part of a retrogressive authoritarian trend of what in the end —not using the word as abuse but as the most accurate description I can find—can only be defined as a fascist trend. This is authoritarian, punitive, vindictive legislation.
I have already dealt with this extraordinary classification that Deputy Burke produced: people were either decent people or others. We cannot legislate for categories as nebulous as that. We would have to set up machinery to decide who decent people were. We must legislate for every person. We were accused in Deputy Burke's speech—I quote the accusation: "There are pressure groups outside this House who have people within the House to talk on their behalf." This is also nebulous: this is politics by innuendo and smear, because he does not name the pressure groups outside and neither does he name the persons in the House whom, he alleges, speak on their behalf. He has parliamentary privilege to do so; he could have done so, but he threw it out as a careless, passing accusation. So far as I am concerned, coming after him and speaking from the benches of this Party against which he threw this accusation, this simply will not do. Parliamentary privilege is a precious thing which was gained with difficulty and will be hotly defended. He had the responsibility, if he thinks there is an improper connection between any outside groups and members of this House, to reveal it here. If he does not possess such information then he has an obligation in honour—although I am satisfied it is an obligation he will not carry out—to withdraw the accusation.
Let us look at the matter of pressure groups because every organisation, if one does not like it, can be described as a pressure group. Personally, I would proudly accept—not as an accusation—I would proudly affirm that I consider myself the spokesman of the trade union to which I belong and, indeed, of the trade union movement as a whole. I should like to think myself as a spokesman of organisations such as ACRA, and NATO. I should like to consider myself the spokesman, where some material matter arose, of farmers' organisations. I should be proud, if the circumstances arose, to be the spokesman of the professional organisation and the profession to which I have the honour to belong. All of these could be described as pressure groups and, therefore, innuendo could be made in some way that improper pressure was being exerted. For "pressure groups" one is expected to read in the jargon of the Fianna Fáil Party "political organisations that the Fianna Fáil Party do not like".
This brings us back to the heart of the matter. This is a Bill to beat over the head such organisations as the Dublin Housing Action Committee and one bit of the Sinn Féin Party. When we get these innuendoes of pressure groups, that is the essence of it. I am not a member of the Dublin Housing Action Committee and never have been. In some ways I agree with and applaud what they do; in other ways, I think it is ill-judged and foolish. I have said this here and in public elsewhere but in so far as they raise the issue of the conditions of housing of Dublin people they are doing a valuable national service and, personally, I would be proud to consider myself their spokesman. But in that there is no surreptitious arrangement, no membership on my part. There is no reason why it should not be so, but the fact is that there is not any communication between them and myself. This is an example of the smear and innuendo, "pressure groups outside this House who have people within the House to talk on their behalf"—nothing validated, nobody named, just a suggestion that something improper and sinister is going on. If something improper and sinister is going on you are entitled, Deputy Burke would argue, to uphold the sort of legislation that would put the boot into these improper pressure groups. It seems to me that if people have legitimate reasons for this they are exerting a democratic right and also their own wit and common sense by setting up pressure groups to right those wrongs and there is nothing sinister there. That was innuendo.
Are we to abolish Dáil Éireann, asks Deputy Burke, and leave the country to these street parliamentarians? I spoke earlier and I do not propose to repeat myself about the relationship between the parliament of the streets and the Parliament in this building. I said that it would be a bad day for our institutions were we to come into head-on and protracted conflict between the parliament of the streets and the Parliament in this building because we are simply the highest structure of all the democratic institutions of this island. There should be no conflict between ourselves and other democratically-structured organs of opinion. In the end, what is more democratic, if you look at the etymology of it than the rule of the people expressed by the whole people? Ideal, full democracy such as has existed in very simple societies was a situation in which power was exerted by the whole people without any of these structures: our society has grown so big and complex that structures have become necessary to delegate this representative function we try to carry out. That is embodied in our name as "Deputy". But there is no conflict between the parliament of the streets and ourselves if we are acting correctly and expressing the will of the people and solving the people's problems.
We then come to what is to me a most ridiculous but, by me, a deeply resented accusation. We are first told that the hypocrisy—I am quoting— being displayed here on behalf of those trying to oppose this Bill is disgusting. So says Deputy Burke. Then he says, in regard to the pressure groups which he accuses us of improperly representing here: "It is because of them that the honest and decent person who is waiting his turn for a house cannot get it." It is because of the pressure groups, let me repeat. This is the accusation by somebody with great experience of local government. It is because of the action of the pressure groups concerned with the acute crisis in housing that "the honest and decent person who is waiting his turn for a house cannot get it". That accusation occurs in a sentence next to the sentence which contains an accusation of hypocrisy towards other people. Words have lost their meaning. This is an Alice in Wonderland situation where things become their opposite—if the action of others is hypocrisy but one's own action in saying that those trying to solve the housing crisis are causing the crisis is considered a true and fair statement of the situation.
There is a housing crisis because there are not enough houses. It is as simple as that. If there were more houses there would not be squatters, there would not be the Dublin Housing Action Committee, there would not be protesters. No amount of juggling of the existing square footage is going to produce the extra accommodation needed. Those people who protest about the lack of accommodation are carrying out a patriotic duty towards themselves and towards all the young people who are trying to establish homes for their families.
Those in this House who try to express their interest and to defend their right to free protest are accused of being hypocrites and the protesters are accused of causing the problem they are setting out to solve. It would be funny if it were not so tragic and so ridiculous. It would be a subject for laughter were the members of that party not now in the process of trying to ram through this House a Bill which is repressive and punitive and which does nothing to solve the problem that has generated the protest but which strives to make that protest illegal. To use a simile, this is a Bill whose purpose is to screw down the safety valve. If that is done, in the long run you put up the pressure until ultimately the system bursts. You solve nothing by taking away the people's right to protest.
I wish to deal with the words of the Minister when speaking on amendment No. 6. He said, to me with full evidence of paranoia: "Every time I stand up to speak in this House there is the usual interruption in an effort to prevent my speaking because there are certain people in this House who would wish to deny the right of free speech to anyone except themselves and to those who think like them." This is an extraordinarily interesting charge coming from someone who is trying to pilot through the House a Bill which denies the right of free protest, denies the right of free speech, and which even makes it an offence to report the free speech of other persons, and makes it an offence unless you dissociate yourself specifically from assenting to the free speech of other persons. I think the Minister was a great deal less than balanced when he made that accusation. I do not think that is the accusation of a man in possession of his cool—it is not the accusation of a man who is able to see objectively the situation as it is. He is losing his grip on reality if he can say something so ridiculous.
Our party have been manning these benches conscientiously in the course of the debate, as have Fine Gael. Let us take a spot check of the attendance in the House now. Neither I nor anyone else had any warning that this was coming. For Fianna Fáil, there are three present out of some 70 members of the party, I note the absence of the Minister; Fine Gael, four out of 51; Labour, four out of 17. I do not think we need worry about the strictures of the Minister in regard to the manning of the House. Incidentally, many times during the day there have been more than four Labour members present.
Surely the Deputy will agree that they must have a bite to eat?
They were giving their blood yesterday.
I feel a little different from the Deputies over there——
During the last month I did not see more than one or two Members on the benches over there.
Although I feel different from them, I think in our need to eat, to rest ourselves and to breathe the fresh air we are not greatly different. Anything in that respect which can be applied to members of the Government party can be applied also to members of the Opposition. Although I feel different in other ways, I admit to shared humanity in those respects.
If the Minister were worried about the interruptions to his right of free speech in this Chamber by our calling for a House on what we consider an extremely important and scandalous piece of legislation, with the 74 people at the command of his party he had merely to put in a sufficient number to make our calling for a House impossible. If he did this, the effort to throttle his free speech which he alleges in this paranoiac way would be impossible. This is all the Minister need have done but when he still alleges that we are trying to strangle his right to free speech he is losing contact with reality. In the odd illogic manner of disturbed people he is hurling at us the accusation which rightly belongs to him.
He has said that there are certain people in this House who would wish to deny the right of free speech to anyone except themselves and those who think like them. I agree there are such persons in this House. I have seen and heard them in action today but I submit they are on the Fianna Fáil benches. In making his accusation, perhaps haunting the Minister's subconscious is a sense of shame at what he is doing and, therefore, he verbalises to hurl it over at us. All the evidence shows that the threat which he enunciated in discussing this amendment comes from him, from his legislation, and from his party—not from the opposition to this iniquitous Bill.
In the accusations I am concerned to rebut before they grow too old to be worthy of notice, the Minister says of us: "They would like to see no law, law reduced to a situation where it was a complete joke." It is the Minister for Justice who is behaving in such a way as to reduce the law to a complete joke. The consequences in any evolved society of reducing law to a complete joke are exceedingly dire.
The Minister talks about anarchy, but the introduction of this Bill which we are now striving to amend, when it is unnecessary—because the power exists to do what he wishes to do if we are to believe he is bona fide in what he says he wishes to do— is the Minister's responsibility. The alternative is that he wishes to behave in a vindictive and punitive and sectional way towards persons and organisations who have irritated him. That is reducing the law, to use his phrase, to a complete joke, but a very bitter and dangerous joke.
I want to suggest, therefore, that it is not Deputy Pattison's amendment which we are now debating which would bring criminal law into the area of trespassing. It is this piece of trivial and vindictive and ridiculous legislation which the Minister has introduced. We have, indeed, a ghoulish and ridiculous situation where the law on trespass which, I suppose, has exercised the minds of lawyers since the days when the law was handed on from one to another by word of mouth, since before it was written down, is lengthy, complex, well evolved but, perhaps, not easy. I do not know the law but I would think that in an area of this historic and physical complexity it would not be a simple law. It is highly evolved. It is being transferred by this section which we are now striving to amend to the area of the criminal law.
The Minister used great rhetoric about making a criminal offence of the action of persons who try physically to throw squatters off their property or, indeed, who act to throw squatters off other persons' property. It is a ridiculous situation all right, but it is a ridiculous situation of the Minister's making, because we would not be in that area of legislation at all were it not for his efforts to produce a sledgehammer to crush a small, perfectly reputable and rather tough nut. We object to that concept. We will resist it with all the strength we possess.
I commend this amendment to the House for the reason that it takes the Minister's logic and follows it to its logical conclusion. The logical conclusion to bad logic is often a bad conclusion but you cannot have the first part of the Minister's ridiculous action in transferring trespass to the criminal law without accepting some consequences. As the Minister truly pointed out, it would be a ridiculous situation if it were a criminal offence to put stock off your land, or if it were a criminal offence to see a trespassing child who was trying to steal your apples physically off your premises. That would be ridiculous, yes, but it is a ridiculousness that is being imported into the Irish legal situation by the Minister. We are following that ridiculousness to its ridiculous conclusion. If that conclusion is ridiculous, the simple solution is to chop off this ridiculous branch at its ridiculous root, in other words, drop the whole section and, indeed, my colleague beside me says "and the Bill".
Although we have had a good deal to say on this section, the really obnoxious and degrading section is the section to come. I can promise the Parliamentary Secretary that we will fight it as we have fought this. If there is the challenge of the perfectly normal tiredness of the staff, if there is the challenge of the perfectly normal desire shared by all Deputies who are human to have their holidays after a lengthy period of hard work, we understand that tiredness and that desire but it is not we who are fighting scandalous legislation who are keeping people here. It is those who introduced this scandalous legislation and who are trying to ramrod it through.
Hear, hear.
We will accept that challenge if it is thrown down to us.
We do not need any holidays. Stay here.
Some of us do.
We will stay here by your decision.
No. By your decision.
This should never have been put before us. They should not have tried to ramrod it through vindictively. They have a perfectly good solution if they want to apply it, and let everybody go home.
Talk, talk, talk.
If the Government do not withdraw the Bill, and if they do not apply a closure, the responsibility for the opposition that will continue to the Bill is theirs. It might as well be clear at this stage that we will be here for as long as we are able to oppose it.
Who is the bullyboy now?
The Deputy should be ashamed of himself.
Bullyboy comes well from those benches. They are the original bullyboys.
He is a little bullyboy.
He will grow out of it.
(Cavan): It is, indeed, regrettable that highly controversial legislation of this nature should be presented to the House at this time of the year. As we have seen today in various exhibitions from the Minister, it is not likely to get reasonable consideration at Government level. I do not know whether the taking of the Committee Stage of this measure in the dying days of this session of the Dáil was in the hope that it would be rushed through or accepted. I do not intend to labour the point but I think this follows a pattern. A few years ago we had the controversial Marts Bill brought in here at the very same time. It was not rushed through the House because this party opposed it. Parts of it have since been held to be unconstitutional.
However, I rise to deal with amendment No. 6. Our attitude to this amendment highlights the impossible position in which certain sections of this Bill place Members of this House. Speaking on the Second Stage of the Bill I said, and I repeat, that we accepted sections 2 and 3 subject to amendment, subject to a change in the definition of ownership, subject to the complete withdrawal of section 4, and subject to other amendments, including an amendment of section 5 and an amendment of the arrest without warrant section. The only section on which the Minister has given way is section 5, the onus of proof section, which he met with an amendment. He did hold out some hope during Committee Stage that he would consider amending the definition of ownership, the definition of which I take such serious objection. He has not done that. And now we have this amendment. As the definition of ownership stands, it means an owner entitled to occupied property and it means an owner who is not and may never be entitled to occupy the property.
In the light of that definition of ownership Deputy Pattison introduced this amendment, the purpose of which is to make it an offence for anyone other than a member of the Garda Síochána to remove other persons from property, or other property from property, and it provides that it shall not be a defence to such a prosecution that the person who ejected the offending person was the owner of the property in question. That is very far-reaching. It would mean, if this amendment were accepted, that it would be illegal for a person to eject an intruder from his own house. It would mean that, if a Deputy were to go home tonight and find an intruder, a trespasser, in his house, he could not himself throw him out. He would have to go and get a member of the Garda Síochána to do it. As we understand it, if the owner ejected the trespasser that would be a violation of the common law and of the rights of ownership which have always been enjoyed by private individuals; it has always been accepted as a right of ownership that the owner can use such force as is necessary to eject a person who wrongfully takes possession of the owner's property.
I have the greatest sympathy with Deputy Pattison in this amendment because the definition of ownership, as insisted upon by the Minister, is so outrageous and so unnecessary—I cannot repeat this often enough—that any merit that there is in the Bill is to protect the owner of property entitled to occupation of that property. It is never intended to protect the remote landlord. It is never intended to protect people who are not entitled to the occupation of property. I have a feeling that that is the reason that prompted this amendment. Were we to support it with our votes we would, in my opinion, be violating the right of the individual to protect his own home from all and sundry. It may be that on another Stage of this Bill, or when it is being considered by the Seanad, we will be able to draft a further amendment, accepting the spirit of Deputy Pattison's amendment and, at the same time, protecting the right of the individual to protect his own property. For these reasons I do not propose to support the amendment. I see the idea behind it. I appreciate the spirit of it and, when the Bill comes before the Seanad, we will endeavour to draft an amendment designed to prevent the employment of private armies and, at the same time, retaining the principle that a man's home is his castle.
One of the remarkable aspects of this Bill is the very few contributions that have been made by Government Deputies in this debate on what is accepted by everybody as an extremely important and far-reaching piece of legislation, with a number of very disturbing features in it. We were, however, given the opportunity of hearing at least one member of the Government party this morning, Deputy Burke, on this amendment. His contribution was very disturbing because of its content. He adopted an extraordinary attitude of very venomous criticism of what he regarded as the obstructionist tactics of the Labour Party Deputies in regard to this Bill, trying apparently to give the impression that the Labour Party were anti-democratic, did not want to see this Parliament continue to exist and, in fact, wanted to have a Parliament dominated by what he called politicians in the street.
I think that is a very difficult charge to sustain on the record of the Labour Party and the labour movement over the years. If one looks at it from the historical point of view, of all the parties in this House the Labour Party's record in relation to the maintenance of Parliament and respect and regard for Parliament and the democratic organisation of Parliament, and all that that implies in our community, is easily the finest, is easily the one which stands out as almost too supinely respectful of the need at all times to behave in a peaceful way and to abjure the use of force or brute violence of any kind.
Both major parties have to admit that there have been periods in their histories in which they have set aside, or were prepared to set aside, the machinery of Parliament. This cannot be said about the Labour Party, whatever other things can be said about them, in all their 50 years of history. This cannot be said about them and, if the record of the members of the labour movement over the years is examined, even in this particular Dáil, even today, the record of our Deputies in legislation and their contributions to legislation, whether it be finance, education, defence, foreign affairs, agriculture, or anything else, is a very fine record. The contributions to the debates are on record. They may be of varying degrees of merit, but they are there. Amendments, Motions, Bills of one kind or another, and so on, they are all there. We have a record of which we can be very proud when it is considered in the simple context of the record of the democratic process and the democratic functions of this House. It compares very favourably and I think that any honest and honourable person would concede that it is the most consistent record of regard for the democratic processes in this House.
It is grossly unfair of Deputy Burke to impute these dishonourable motives in our very grave concern for the underlying alterations that are implicit in this legislation. Of course, the truth is that it is the anti-democratic nature of this legislation to which we object. It is we who are attempting to retain to the maximum this very precious and very difficult to realise concept of democracy in our society. It is for that reason that we are opposing this Bill to such extent. It is no pleasure for any of us to spend an unnecessary day or even an unnecessary minute in this House. Contrary to wishing an end to Parliament and to seeing the development of an anarchistic situation, it is because of our reverence for the whole fabric of the democratic processes and institutions such as this House and the Seanad that we oppose this Bill.
Deputy Burke made a number of petty, malicious and venomous references to our association with outside organisations — subversive organisations. This was a petty attempt by him to denigrate by inference our attempts here to defend the democratic processes. Nobody, not Deputy Burke nor the Minister, has denied that there is this problem to which these people to whom he refers are applying themselves and about which they are trying to do something, that is, the problem of the homeless in our society. I am not in the least worried or frightened about smear tactics when they are applied to me. So far as I am concerned, they have been going on now for the best part of 20 years but for the record I should like to make it clear that I have not approved of the methods adopted by the housing action committees. I have made this clear to them.
I am sure the Deputy will appreciate that we must get back to the amendment.
I agree and we would have preferred, too, if Deputy Burke had kept to the amendment but these rather serious charges were made against us and while I shall not dwell on them, I should like, briefly, to reply to them.
The Chair has already allowed the Deputy to refer to this and to reply to the charges.
We have been placed in an invidious position because these charges do not happen to be true. Such charges are being made constantly about the Labour Party in an attempt to undermine our position in the eyes of the community. They are an attempt to undermine our good name.
Although I do not approve of the methods of these committees to which I have referred, I do not see any reason why they should not continue to act in this way and their right to protest should be defended. From listening during the years to speeches of the type made today by Deputy Burke, I have always been struck by the extraordinary insolence of the condemnation of protest groups by the older generation of parliamentarians. I dislike having to say this but on both sides, these people who are so censorious, who are so critical and who condemn in such venomous terms the activities of groups of this kind are people, who in their time, protested in arms against the activities of one another.
The Chair will again ask the Deputy to come to the amendment.
I dislike also these people behaving like latter day saints in their dotage having regard to the record of disrespect they had for the first Parliament established here and their attempts to destroy that Parliament but who are now the people to lecture us on the democratic processes.
Deputy Keating dealt with the reality of the present situation—this whole conflict within the party about the continued use of force to achieve their other objectives. We are disturbed by the implications of this particular section and we are grateful to Deputy Fitzpatrick for his interpretation of the amendment. We are grateful, too, for his criticism of it. If the amendment is not accepted by the Minister, and it is not likely to be accepted by him, I hope that with his special knowledge and understanding of this particular problem and of what he had in mind, he he will be able to relate the two and that in the Seanad we might get an amendment that would incorporate our underlying idea as well as providing for the safeguard referred to by Deputy Fitzpatrick.
Deputy Burke raised this point as to what happens when he goes home and finds somebody in his home. Should he throw him out? All I can say is that personally I would not try to throw anybody out. Rightly or wrongly, I do not feel that I should. I feel that this is a matter for the gardaí but that is simply a personal feeling about being faced with such an unpleasant situation.
We are not in fact dealing with that situation. Deputy Burke over-simplified the whole problem by bringing it down to this plea about the old lady, or the Minister bringing in the man in hospital or the ward of court, or the mentally deranged person and all these other ad misericordiam appeals. We are concerned—and the Minister and Deputy Burke know it—with the speculator, the speculative land developer, and the powers he has, the growing powers he clearly has in our society, and we believe that in this section, as Deputy Fitzpatrick said, there is the power to create a private army. That is our great single fear. We have our own army and we have the Garda—one, a defence force and the other, keepers of the peace. We have trust in the gardaí. We know that they have a record, generally speaking, of responsible behaviour in situations of this kind. We believe that a situation of this kind, where people have taken possession of property as a form of protest, or simply because they are homeless, is a very delicate situation which should be dealt with with considerable circumspection and care.
We believe that the people best equipped to deal with that problem are these people, the Garda, because of their training, because of their experience, because of their knowledge of the law, because they are people who have their warrant from us in Parliament, their authority from us, because they are a uniformed force, because they are identifiable as a uniformed force, with numbers, because they are subject to discipline, because they must observe certain clearly laid down defined procedures and practices, if they feel they are dealing with somebody who has transgressed, who has broken the law and who in the community's interest should be brought before our courts and tried and convicted, if so, but these all must be carried out in accordance with a very clearly defined procedure. There has been no case whatever made for setting aside this procedure which we have all come to understand and respect, no case whatever made for giving this permission to an individual or to a group of individuals—and we have seen them in action; this is not fantasy—we have seen these private armies, private police forces develop. We see them in the streets every day and we see them proliferating at a frightening rate.
What is the reason for it? Has the Minister come to the state to which Deputy Keating referred at which the Government Party, at its final rally, finds it necessary to protect itself with a private police force? To me it was quite an astonishing sight. I have been at very many political meetings over a long time now, some of them hectic and very stormy meetings, but I have never been in the position in which I had the slightest fear that the gardaí would not be perfectly competent to deal with any situation at all that arose.
On a point of order, I wonder how can this be relevant to ejectment from property? The Deputy is talking about political meetings.
He is talking about private armies.
This section relates to the right to eject from property and the amendment relates to that also. I cannot imagine how the conduct or control of political meetings is in any way related to that.
I am sorry the Parliamentary Secretary has not been able to come into the debate until now because if he had been, he would know what we were talking about. If he would listen quietly and patiently for a while, he would be able to understand my arguments and follow them, or he could send for the Minister who would know what I am talking about.
We know what latter-day saints in their dotage mean.
Our case will be at least as effective as yours.
We are discussing the method for the enforcement of law and the case we are making is that we are now beginnning to believe that this man, who knows more about the police force than any of us could possibly know, as Minister for Justice, has now come to the conclusion, because of his special knowledge, that the police force is no longer able to cope with the deteriorating situation in our community as a result of government by Fianna Fáil over such a long period. Quite obviously, so it appears, the Minister is becoming particularly frightened, particularly apprehensive, of the development of a state of anarchy within our society which the police force will not be able to control, and for that reason he is allowing these people, these property owners, to use their cheque books, allowing these speculative builders to use their fat cheque books, to create any size, any number of a police force they wish to create. We are now being asked to give them that authority, and we are not told and not asked to insist that any specifications will be laid down as to the kind of people that will be employed to carry out the various functions which these are to be authorised to carry out, the removal of persons or goods from property. There are no specifications as to their qualifications or experience.
We have made it clear a number of times, although it does not prevent our being misrepresented just as frequently as we protest, that we are not making any attempt to defend the individual who takes possession of corporation property. This charge was made again this morning by Deputy Burke. While there is a shortage of houses through the failure of the Government to build houses we believe that the limited number of houses available are fairly allocated by local authorities generally throughout the country.
We are, however, concerned about the homeless person who because he has nowhere else to go decides to go into an empty house. That house may remain empty for months or years in order that it will appreciate in value and can then be sold at a speculative price by a very wealthy person who does not want to live in it, and his family will not be subjected to any degrading, humiliating, brutalising treatment by any of the people likely to be employed by the speculative landowner, property owner, builder, whoever it may be. It is for that reason Deputy Pattison has put down this amendment.
We do not want to see the development of supernumerary police forces. Is it the Minister's case, and Deputy Burke so implied this morning, that the gardaí do not have the authority to do this but that can be their function? If there is any limitation in the law this is the right place to correct that limitation. If the gardaí do not have sufficient authority let us give them that authority but, of course, the real answer is, as Deputy Keating pointed out, that the Government should build more houses.
It is difficult to know who Deputy Burke was referring to when he said that the Government simply wanted to defend decent people. What is wrong with a homeless man and his family? Are they not decent people because they are homeless? Why should such people be subjected to the fear, anxiety and brutal treatment—I have seen the behaviour of these people in Hume Street—of these people if they are told to clear a house? It is no good saying that these people have their redress in the law. As it happened, the little girl who was beaten up by the thugs at Hume Street won her case with the help of a well-known public-spirited lawyer, but if that wealthy man had wanted to pursue that case right through the courts she could not have followed him. That, of course, is the truism about the law courts. They are open to everyone, like the Ritz, so long as one can pay.
I disagree with the Deputy on that.
What hope has a homeless man if he is faced with somebody who is able to buy up half a dozen Georgian houses?
The Deputy would seem to be enlarging the scope of the amendment.
We are very anxious he should not be placed in this position and he would not be placed in this position if Deputy Pattison's amendment was accepted. His amendment ensures that in situations like this, one is not faced with an individual employed by a speculator but by a man who is employed by the community, namely, a member of the Garda. If Deputy Pattison's amendment is accepted, then the homeless individual has the right to bring the garda to the station sergeant, I have done it myself, and charge him if he feels he has exceeded his power. One may be quite wrong but, nevertheless, one has a right to do that. That is the protection which the individual has.
We would ask the Minister for Justice to try to understand this profoundly felt resistance on our part to what we believe are the authoritarian trends implicit in this legislation. This kind of law is not going to prevent pro-protests. The only way to prevent protests is to remedy the wrong about which people take to the streets and seek to protest. I am continually amused to hear the jeers of Deputies on the Government benches about the terrible tyranny of the socialist countries, their insistence on uniformity, the lack of the right to protest, the fact that people will be put into jail if they differ from the party line, the authoritarianism, the insistence that everything is taken from the top and there is no right to dissent. This is the case that is constantly presented about what they call the socialist countries or the communist countries.
Again the Chair must point out to the Deputy that on Report Stage we are confined strictly to the amendment.
Unfortunately, Sir, you were not in the Chair this morning when Deputy Burke made his speech but this was the general trend, this was the general tenor of his speech of criticism.
Again the Chair would point out to the Deputy that the present occupant of the Chair allowed Deputy Keating to reply to these matters and the Chair would hope for the co-operation of Deputies in keeping to the amendment.
What we are trying to do is to make it clear that our protest here is a perfectly legitimate protest. It is based upon our own beliefs as members of the Labour Party. It is based on our belief that the section which we are trying to amend is a particularly dangerous section because, in our view, it opens the road to the evolution and the proliferation of the uncontrolled, uncontrollable, undisciplined private army, private police force. To that extent it will lead to the gradual undermining of the whole democratic process in our State by reducing the right of individuals to differ and, when they differ, take to the streets if they wish to, criticise Deputies if they wish to. Deputy Burke was very annoyed this morning because, he said, they had dared to be offensive about this Parliament and Deputies of this House. I do not see why we should be immune either in this Parliament or as individuals to criticism from outside the House.
Having become aware of the amendment put down by the Labour Party, I felt it an obligation on me as a person who is concerned about the law, as, indeed, all of us here must be, to indicate in the first instance to the Labour Party and, one hopes, in the second instance to the public, the extent and the effect of this amendment.
It has always been a first principle of the law that, whatever may be the pious intentions, such as those that Deputy Dr. Browne has been referring to, of legislation, one has to have regard to what the potential effect of that legislation will be. It is a nice excuse and avenue of excuse for the Labour Party who, apparently after consideration—one presumes they have considered; one presumes they have even been advised—after such consideration and advice have put down an amendment such as this which, in effect, creates new criminal offences, whatever may be their pious intentions.
On a point of order, could I ask is it in order for a debate of this importance to go on for some hours, as this debate has done, without the presence of the Minister responsible for putting the legislation through the House? Has he fled the field? Is he afraid of criticism? Could the Parliamentary Secretary give a reason as to why he is not here?
That is not a point of order.
The Deputy has been very effective in prolonging the debate to the extent it has been prolonged and he had better wait to hear the views of people who are concerned about the law and the implications of the law.
Is he ashamed? Why is he not here?
We are asked in this amendment, as I said, to create a new criminal offence and this amendment is to be written into our legislation. It is no excuse to say that while it conveys certain powers very clearly and explicitly, those ill-advised but well intentioned people with liberal or tolerant views did not really mean it to go that far. The courts that will interpret this legislation will have to interpret it as it is presented to them. Anybody who has even the slightest knowledge of the law will know that to be the case.
I have often listened and even sympathised with Opposition Deputies saying that while they appreciate that certain things may be necessary they would ask the Minister if he is quite satisfied that the power he is conveying to any particular Department or to the authorities cannot be abused. If ever there was a case of power capable of being abused being conveyed, it is conveyed very effectively in this subsection.
We are being asked to turn back the clock on the whole basic principles of the common law and, indeed, of statute law for very many generations. It has always been accepted that a person is entitled to use reasonable force to eject a trespasser from his property, reasonable force in circumstances that can be determined by the civil law or the criminal law afterwards. Now we are being asked to make it an offence if a person uses any such reasonable force and the Labour Party in this Parliament are asking the public to create that offence.
It is not enough for them to say that what they really meant was something else. This is the most naive, ill-informed, nonsensical approach to legislation or amendments to legislation that any party in any House could ever propose. They must accept the responsibility that if by any chance the Minister were to accept the amendment it would confer those powers and create that new criminal offence. They have to accept that if, as might already have been pointed out—the thing is so ludicrous that I am quite sure many have pointed it out—if it came, in fact, to a case of removing——
You are responsible for ten Acts that were repugnant to the Constitution. Who are you to talk?
This section is not repugnant to the Constitution.
How do you know yet?
The Deputy will have to extend me the courtesy of not interrupting. This amendment is repugnant to the whole basis of law, to the whole principles of the criminal law and the civil law on normal life and behaviour. If the Labour Party do not understand that, it is no wonder the Irish people find themselves in little sympathy with the Labour Party.
We will be faced with a situation that a person who endeavoured to remove from land or a vehicle any person or goods, which under the law, of course, includes animals, from his property forcibly—which, I suppose, means against the will of the animal —would be guilty of an offence. Is it seriously suggested in this Parliament at this time that that is the will of the Irish people? It evidently is the will and the wish of the Labour Party but, surely, they cannot then set themselves up to be the guardians of civil liberties, the protectors of individual rights, if they are creating an offence where individuals in the normal protection of their property remove goods or animals, or people for that matter, from their property, using such reasonable force—and I use that term, "reasonable force"—as is necessary to do so. If they say that is an offence they are out of tune with the law, with all the established principles of the law for generations and they are about to create a whole new class of criminals, the whole new class being all normal Irish people who will have from time to time occasion to remove goods forcibly from their property, be they inanimate goods, animate goods or other goods, and indeed from time to time to use such normal and reasonable force as is necessary to remove people who have come on to their property and taken unlawful occupation of it. Deputy Browne suggested that he personally would not take the decision to remove a person from his property if he found him in such unlawful occupation.
Forcibly.
Forcibly, as the Deputy may or may not know, simply means having to apply to that person an element of what one might call physical persuasion that that person rejects. One might ask the Deputy, because this is what is involved in this amendment, if perchance he found a person in his bedroom, would Deputy Browne be so tolerant as to leave that person in his bedroom when he came home or would it be an offence for Deputy Browne, though apparently he would not be inclined to do so, or for the other Deputies of the Labour Party, to apply physical force and say: "Please get out of my bedroom"?
They are now telling us that the offender would not be the normal person, the person answering his domestic responsibilities, the normal person who decides in protecting his wife or family to take this step. It is not enough to say they had not that in mind because if they know anything about legislation, and God knows we sometimes doubt it, they will have to acknowledge and concede that their amendment creates that offence. It is about time the public became aware of the responsibility of a party who would put down an amendment of that sort after due consideration and consultation. Is it suggested that the law should be drawn up and implemented at the whims of Deputy Dr. Browne or the other members of the Labour Party, that if they feel they would not do it this should be the standard for all reasonable and normal people in this country?
That is what the Minister said yesterday—the police would not charge.
I am seriously asking the Labour Party—liberal, tolerant people that they like to pretend to be— if they realise the extent of what they have put down in this amendment, if they realise that they are creating a whole new corpus of criminals, namely the Irish people? Let them acknowledge now that in pursuing this amendment that is their intention. Let them not complain if at some later stage any Deputy from any party says, on an election platform or elsewhere: "That is the kind of thing the Labour Party want." Let them not complain because they have done it themselves after consideration, one would assume after advice, and I do not know whether after rational thinking or not.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary trying to imply Fianna Fáil have not done it before?
Neither Fianna Fáil nor any Government up to this time in Ireland, nor indeed that I know of in any country, have made it an offence for a person to remove animals forcibly, to remove goods forcibly— whatever that means. I do not know how one forcibly removes inanimate goods. Does one ask them to get up and walk? I do not know who their legal adviser in this matter is.
It is not the Attorney General anyway.
If it ever comes to the day when whoever your adviser is becomes Attorney General we will be in a sad and sorry state. I am sure the Fine Gael lawyers would have great concern about acting under an Attorney General who would advise that kind of an amendment.
Is it unconstitutional?
Not only is it unconstitutional, it cuts across the whole principle of every law not only in this country but in every country that has ever recognised the meaning of law. The enlightened members of the Labour Party, all of them for a half hour or an hour, have come and said to the Minister for Justice: "This is what you must do in the interests of justice."
I will tell the Minister for Justice here and now that if by any chance he or the Government had such a brainstorm that they would accept that amendment I would forthwith, and I am sure I would be joined by every member of the Fianna Fáil Party, say: "We cannot accept that kind of law; we cannot back that kind of party." It is for that reason——
(Cavan)): Would Deputies allow the Parliamentary Secretary to continue with his speech?
I did not interrupt any member of the Labour Party beyond raising a point of order. I was deliberating and cogitating on matters of more consequence.
We interrupted out of charity. We thought the Parliamentary Secretary would have a stroke.
I should like the Deputies, in replying, to tell the Irish people that they think things have come to the stage that it is wrong to remove animals from one's property, that in fact it is an offence and if you happen to be in some remote part of Ireland you will have to tolerate the situation until you can get a member of the Garda Síochána. The Deputies from the Labour Party of course do not know very much about the situation in remote parts of Ireland because most of them live in comfortable suburbia in and around the city of Dublin but if they did know a little more about remote parts of Ireland they might realise the utter nonsense and absolute stupidity of a suggestion, apart from the legal principles involved, that one would have to wait to remove the cow, the horse, or the box from the property until such time as one could get a garda to do it. Otherwise you would be not in peril of committing an offence but would have ipso facto committed an offence which could of course be proved without very much difficulty.
I hope the Labour Party will now admit that far from being the custodians of civil liberty they are the new masters of imperial aggression—that is one of the terms that is in vogue— of fascist domination. What term would we use to convey what this amendment involves? Whatever it is they are the new masters of that repression and the Irish people are entitled to know that they are so.
It will be very interesting to hear the informed reply of the collective wisdom of the Labour Party. It will be interesting to hear how it is that they propose to write that into legislation. We must consider that we are a Parliament, that our function is, between all of us, to create the corpus of the laws which will govern this country. It is not unknown for amendments to be accepted. They may not be quite the common pattern in legislation but they have been and will be written in. Deputies in Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil and Independents are being asked to create a new offence at the instigation of the Labour Party. I speak personally on this and I find myself appalled at such a thought, sickened to the extent of not being able to tolerate within myself the notion that such an amendment could be put down by a party in this country, particularly by a party professing to be concerned with legal rights and the liberal exercise of normal views.
Deputy Dr. Browne apparently takes umbrage at the fact that when he talks of protests—although I cannot see the relevance of protests and I do not intend to mention protests in connection with this; I shall keep to the section— he has often been referred to areas where protests are not allowed. I say in passing that the only thing that will prevent protests at any time is absolute repression of protests. This has proved quite effective in many countries. It is the only thing that will ever prevent protests.
Is that why the Government are not going through with the Criminal Justice Bill?
Deputy Corish knows there is only one way of preventing protests because of the nature of things there will never be a situation against which people will not want to protest. This must be acknowledged by all Members of the House.
What about building houses?
There is one way of dealing with protests—absolutely and utterly to grind them down. That has been done very effectively in many countries.
Is that the object of this Bill?
We do not want to follow the example of any of those countries.
The object of this section——
What is the object of the Bill?
I am only dealing with the section which apparently distinguishes my approach to any legislation particularly on Report Stage from that of the Labour Party. Apparently, they cannot distinguish between the function of discussing a section on Report Stage and the objects of the Bill. I am concerned only with the section and the amendment. The object of this amendment goes further than even the most totalitarian regimes in restricting protests. This amendment intends to create a body of criminals. Who is to say that when I go home and find some property left there by some person, deposited from a passing car or otherwise, if I forcibly remove this property I shall not become a criminal? Or, if I find an animal plodding around the house or in front of it that by chasing him out, I or my son or anybody attempting to do so will not become a criminal? That is what we will become under the amendment.
Apart from these smart, casual interruptions by the Labour Party will any one of them now—and I shall yield to him if he will —tell me that anything I have said at this point is not possible and is not so under this amendment? Can any one of them honestly say that this will not be an offence? They might say: "Well, judges should know" or something of that sort. They themselves want to create the offence. I challenge them here and now to say that they are not creating an offence. If they are capable of being responsible, informed parliamentarians, never mind legislators or being informed about the law or the consequences of amendments of this sort, let them consider what they are about. It is not enough to try to obstruct the legislative programme of the Government by putting down amendments. Every amendment put down must be considered as if it will eventually become law. This certainly can hardly have been considered by the collective wisdom of the Labour Party, if there is such, or of their advisers, if they have any, in putting down this amendment.
Some of them have travelled far and wide as some of us may have also in defence of civil rights and liberal traditions and all that many of us hold dear. Along the way, they may have picked up some ideas but I wonder where any of them could pick up this idea which is here in the name of Deputy Pattison. I do not think it emanated from the constituency of Carlow/Kilkenny which I happen to know reasonably well, having practised as a lawyer there for a considerable time. As a lawyer, I should be ashamed, either as prosecutor or defender, to have to come before a court in which a person was charged with an offence as envisaged under this amendment. Let the Labour Party —they are not so good at this— acknowledge that far from being the custodians of liberty—and let the public know it also—they are now the creators of a new crime because the amendment creates the crime and ensures that on the following morning following its passing we shall have 5,000, 10,000 or 20,000 new criminals in the country.
If that is the kind of legislation they want, let it be known. If they want to abuse the privileges of the House by introducing that sort of amendment it is well that should be known because I and most others who have been aware of the lack of progress of this Bill and aware of the attempts to obstruct it, know that this amendment and others like it are not put down with any serious intent but are merely there to obstruct the business of the House and frustrate the purpose for which we were sent here and make a mockery of law. If ever that was done, it has been done very effectively by the great guardians of civil liberties in these Labour Party benches in putting down this amendment which is contrary to the whole tradition of law and normal living.
This is a section and a Bill which, to say the least, has been treated with considerable contempt by the spokesmen of the socialist party in this House. It is worth stating exactly what this amendment means. It should be analysed, parsed, word by word, line by line, sentence by sentence and comma by comma. It is probably one of the most shocking and outrageous amendments tabled to any legislation in this Dáil. It is one of the most frightening amendments ever tabled in this House. What the amendment says is worth writing into the records of the House as often as the opportunity arises and I should like to make it very clear that on this side of the House at any rate the opportunity will arise as long as we can keep it going. We believe the public should know that after all the criticism we have incurred for our proposal to introduce the Prohibition of Forcible Entry and Occupation Bill, 1970— most of it unfair and uninformed but some of it, let it be said, criticism out of concern: one does not in any democracy dismiss somebody who disagrees with one; on the contrary, and we would be the last to do that—this amendment proposes to do more than the Labour Party are suggesting the Bill itself does.
Everyone who speaks on this amendment must ask himself the following question to justify his argument and I put it forward for consideration by the committed socialists on the other side of the House. If any member of the socialist party goes home this evening and finds that a number of people have taken over his home without permission, what does this amendment propose he should do? It proposes that, without laying a hand on the people or even talking to them, the owner should ring up the gardaí. This is one of the most extraordinary amendments that has ever been before this House.
Is it reasonable that any citizen, either living in a corporation house, a middle income house in suburbia, or in a higher income house in the city or county of Dublin, who finds his house in the possession of another person is not entitled to eject that person by force—reasonable force? It has been a principle of law throughout the ages that the amount of force should be reasonable and this has always been so interpreted by the courts. It is not to suggest that the owner of the house should use a blunt instrument if persuasion will get rid of the people on his property and we are not suggesting this. We are suggesting that if the people do not leave when asked to do so, one would be entitled to persuade them with a slight push and this would be reasonable in the circumstances. If the push does not do the trick, a slightly more reasonable amount of force would be necessary and if this is not effective one could use a slightly more reasonable amount of force.
When does it become unreasonabale?
It never becomes unreasonable. This is the lack of philosophy behind this amendment. The socialists in this House can sneer and make snide remarks but it will not deter us from exposing the dangers of this amendment. I should like to pay a tribute to a Deputy on the other side of the House, Deputy Cooney. He has sincerely and with integrity voiced his concern in relation to other sections and amendments on this Bill but he can see the demerits and dangers contained in this amendment and he stated categorically this morning that he could not support it. This is a man who has been in 99 per cent agreement with the Labour Party in their opposition to this Bill but in his honest fashion he has declared that he cannot support the amendment. I should not like anyone to think I am using the Deputy's contribution—on the contrary, I have too much respect for him to attempt anything of that nature. He has made an honest and convincing contribution on this proposed legislation but he does not hesitate to tell the Labour Party that he cannot support them on this amendment. None of my remarks is in criticism of Deputy Cooney: I merely point out to the Labour Party that one of their greatest allies on this Bill has made his stand on this amendment.
We have been described by various socialist Deputies as totalitarian, as introducing the concept of the bullyboys and introducing the element of private armies. There are many definitions one can use to bolster up one's argument, but what exactly is meant by a private army? Is it suggested that a private army is the security corps people? If that is what is meant it should be stated clearly. Who are the bullyboys in this so-called private army? I hold no brief for the suggested behaviour of the people in Hume Street and I should imagine that if they behaved as reported all right-thinking Deputies would condemn such behaviour and dissociate themselves from the type of force used in Hume Street. I was not present but I accept what I have read and what people tell me. Those who suggest that Fianna Fáil support such behaviour are dishonest. We do not support the bullyboys or the so-called private armies. The only legitimate army we support is the Army of the State and the only legitimate force of law are the Garda Síochána.
The contents of this proposed amendment should be put on the records of the House. I shall quote it and analyse it briefly:
A person other than a member of the Garda Siochána who forcibly removes from any land or vehicle any other person or the goods of any other person shall be guilty of an offence and it shall not be a defence to a prosecution under this subsection to show that the person charged—
and this is the important point
—was the owner of the land—
how shocking, how outrageous
—or vehicle or acted on behalf of the owner or that the occupation of such land or vehicle by such other person, or the presence therein of the goods of such other person was unlawful.
If we falter on this side of the House in our opposition to this amendment, we will be doing Dáil Éireann and our country one of the gravest disservices ever perpetrated upon it. This House is entitled to know from whence this amendment emanated. I am not in any way reflecting on Deputy Pattison. He is a Deputy of this House who has the respect of all Members of the House. I am not being personal. It is not in my nature to be personal. That is a fact. However, I think that Deputy Pattison has an obligation, when he is concluding on this amendment, to analyse it and tell us how he arrived at the philosophy behind it. Did Deputy Pattison sit down one evening and, in his wisdom, produce this masterpiece of non-law? How long did he spend producing this proposed amendment?
How long did the Government spend producing this Bill?
It is a very, very interesting point.
Check the definition of "owner" and you will see the relevance of our amendment. Any person acting on behalf of another may be an owner. That is the whole kernel of the amendment.
Deputy Desmond was not in the House for a little while and he did not hear what I was saying.
The amendment is designed to show now ludicrous the whole Bill is.
Is the Deputy admitting that this is a ludicrous amendment?
Our spokesman will reply in due course.
I am sure he will, and no more able spokesman to reply on behalf of the socialist party in this House.
Precisely.
We accept that.
Has the Minister for Justice resigned?
Like the whole lot of us, the Minister for Justice is a human being and is entitled to a cup of tea.
He must be a great tea drinker. He is at it since 10.30 this morning.
That is not so. If he was, which he was not, it is better than being absent from the House for weeks on end and then coming in and making a contribution on this Bill giving the appearance of being here all the time.
If he were, not if he was.
Forgive my grammar. Did the Deputy understand what I meant?
I did.
If it was a cliché or a piece of bad grammar, so long as I communicated with the Deputy that is the important thing. Deputy Donegan is too intelligent a person to fall for this sort of pretence. It is not fair to ask him in any way to sully himself by even considering what is proposed in this amendment. I am sure he knows already, but I would not ask him to exercise his mind too much on it. I am sure he dismisses it out of hand as every member of our party intends doing.
What this amendment means is that, if a person goes home in the evening, or at any time of the day, and finds his house in the hands of some other person, he is not entitled to use force to get rid of the person in occupation. This is one of the most tragic pieces of thinking ever proposed in this House. This is why I would respectfully urge with no question of any malice, no question of bickering, no suggestion of any personal animus against Deputy Pattison, that he should explain to the House exactly how he arrived at the proposed amendment. What was the thinking behind it? This is just a small suggestion. We are entitled to know how he arrived at the thinking on the amendment and what was the philosophy behind it. It is important that we should know what is the philosophy behind it.
It emanates from a Labour Party inferiority complex.
No. The socialist party in this House are putting up a pretended defence to this Prohibition of Forcible Entry and Occupation Bill. They then come along and fall into their own trap by producing an amendment of this nature which, with great respect, far exceeds anything that could be described as very bad in the Bill itself. It far exceeds any other part of this Bill which they describe as bad, or shocking or outrageous. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Deputy O'Kennedy, said with tremenduous force and vigour, this is one of the most frightening and nauseating amendments ever to emanate from any Party in this House. As Deputy O'Kennedy said, the socialist party are holding themselves up as the great liberators, the liberals, the free thinkers, with the philosophy—and maybe there is something in it—of being on both sides. They never come down on one side or the other but go part of the way with everyone. I am really astounded that some of the people in the Labour Party who hold themselves up—and let me say rightly so—as intelligent men, men who have a contribution to make in this society —I will not deny that—should associate themselves with this amendment.
What about Deputy Murphy?
I do not know where Deputy Murphy is. I am not questioning his absence.
Where was Deputy Allen last night?
That is another point.
Oh, my country!
Oh, my country indeed, an excellent opera! I am not commenting on the absence of anybody. I do not want to enter into that field. There are people in the Labour Party, who, in their own way, have a tremendous contribution to make and, indeed, have made a tremendous contribution. I include Deputy Dr. Browne in that for whom I certainly have the deepest respect and sympathy. I may not share his views or his pronouncements but that is a matter for Deputy Dr. Browne. I respect his independence and his democratic right to say what he says. There is a lot of that needed in the society in which we are living, if I may pay him that tribute. I am amazed that he should be associated with this amendment on the basis of his previous statements on many issues, issues on which I disagree with him in the main. Nevertheless, having regard to his pronouncements, I am astonished and, indeed, shocked and disappointed that he should associate himself with this amendment.
That would go down well at the L and H.
The Deputy is not bad at the L and H stuff himself, with great respect. I really think that Deputy Dr. Browne and one or two of the other doctors in the Labour Party should hang their heads in shame in connection with this amendment. It is an amendment which must frighten the most liberal amongst us. It cuts across the very basic philosophy of the law, which is the bedrock of the society in which we are living. It cuts across the thinking of all right-thinking members of the society in which we live.
This is one of the most shocking, outrageous and frightening amendments ever moved in this House. I am sure Fine Gael will either vote against it or abstain from voting on it. They must. Fianna Fáil will, of course, do their duty. They will protect the people against the type of thinking revealed in this amendment. We have an obligation to do that.
I would make a final appeal to Deputy Dr. Browne to reflect on what is intended by this amendment. I would ask him to take it carefully and not to rush it. I would advise him to go out and have a cup of tea or a cup of coffee and ponder over the amendment. When I resume my seat—I am quite sure the Labour Party would like me to resume my seat at this point of time—I shall be delighted to go out and have a cup of coffee with Deputy Dr. Browne, with whom I am on friendly terms, and I will, of course, pay for it. I would go so far as to do that to convince him that this amendment is unacceptable.
Could the Parliamentary Secretary not run to a little more exotic refreshment?
I would make a final appeal to the intelligentsia of the socialist party: please, gentlemen, do your duty; I know that you cannot vote against your party, not on this amendment, but you can always politely refrain from listening to the division bells.
The last four words: Go to the country.
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to go to the country. The reason we are not going to the country is that the Labour Party are indulging in this fatuous exercise. That is the reason why none of the Deputies here can go to the country.
What about the Taoiseach?
He is as much entitled to a holiday as anybody else.
He is entitled to a holiday of ten years at least.
The Deputy is talking about an election. I am never against elections.
I appeal once more then to the intelligent members of the socialist party, or should I say member, to withdraw this amendment or else vote against it. I would ask the Labour Party to consider the frightening aspects of the amendment and to do the House, the country and, in the main, the socialist party in this House a service.
I am not quite ready to conclude since I thought there would be more speakers. The "soldiers of destiny" indicated that they had a great deal to say about this amendment. As it turned out there were only two speakers and the Minister against the amendment. In view of the earlier indication I was quite prepared to wait some time before I would have an opportunity of replying.
It is a pity the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach did not direct his appeals for calm consideration of this Bill to the Government party and particularly to the Minister for Justice. It is a pity he did not invite the Minister for Justice for a cup of tea over which to have a chat with him about the repugnant provisions in this Bill, provisions designed to muzzle the Press, to muzzle free comment and prohibit freedom of association. It is a pity he did not consider all these aspects over a cup of tea with the Minister for Justice. Had he done so there would have been no need for this amendment and we would be dealing now with more constructive, more essential and more urgent legislation.
As I said, very few speakers on the benches opposite have seen fit to speak on this amendment. The Minister, of course, had to speak on it. It has been dealt with in complete isolation from the other aspects of the Bill and the overall effect of the Bill. All the criticism directed against this amendment could be directed with equal force against the Bill as a whole. This amendment was designed to take its place in a Bill which has been described as most objectionable and repugnant to all the principles we have hitherto upheld.
Order. Deputy Pattison.
Apart from a notable contribution from Deputy Gallagher on the Government benches, the other contributions are scarcely worthy of comment. The scarcity of contributions from the Government benches makes us wonder what support the Bill actually has or what knowledge of the Bill Government Deputies have. This amendment seeks to ensure that private armies and gangs of bullyboys will not be given a free hand. The last few speakers asked a question and I will ask the same question: what would happen if I went home tonight and found someone in my home? What would I do? The first thing I would not do would be to tackle the intruder on my own. That would be the sensible thing, I think. The second thing is I would not send for a private army because I could not afford to send for one. But that is what the Minister wants people to do. He said, in opposing this amendment, that he could not allow a situation in which the gardaí would be used in circumstances like that.
Therefore, if this amendment is not accepted the only effect of the section will be to provide protection for those people who can afford to hire private armies and who can afford to pay for private gangs of bullyboys. All we are seeking to ensure in this amendment is that the Garda Síochána will be available for this duty and that it be stated clearly that they are the proper people to administer action of this sort because they are the only people qualified and experienced in handling such situations. There is no argument against that. The poor man who cannot afford to hire gangs of bullyboys but who goes home and finds that his house has been taken over will have to rely on the Garda Síochána for protection. There is no need for me to spell out the breaches of the peace that would occur in the event of private armies being employed.
This Bill introduces many new criminal offences. I was amazed to hear previous speakers criticise this amendment on the ground that it created new offences, whereas the entire Bill creates a wide range of new offences that will affect every newspaper editor, every journalist and every person who makes either a written or a verbal statement on any of the activities which this Bill seeks to prevent.
The purpose of the amendment is to protect not only the weak unauthorised occupier of property but to protect also the weak owner who is not in a position to hire a private army and who, physically, might not be able to eject people from his property. I cannot understand how the purpose of the amendment could be so grossly misrepresented by speakers opposite, both of whom are lawyers. I have not the privilege of attaining those heights but if I were in that position I would hate to be going into a courthouse as a lawyer to try to deal with a case involving some of these people, some of these bullyboys acting on behalf of owners, who could be in foreign countries, a case of serious assaults having been carried out by these people. It would be little consolation for the unfortunate victims of these assaults to be told that the law would deal with the people who assaulted them.
As I said, the whole kernel of this amendment was completely sidetracked by the speakers opposite. The previous speaker spoke of Deputy Cooney's contribution on this amendment, but Deputy Cooney stated quite clearly he was in sympathy with the principle of the amendment and that he understood and sympathised with the motives behind it. It was strictly on a legal point that he would not subscribe or agree to this amendment, a legal point which possibly I as a layman, without the knowledge of the law which Deputy Cooney and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach have, might not appreciate. But here again, as I said before, this is an assembly of laymen and we have to make our contributions with the knowledge and experience available to us, so there is from Deputy Cooney a clear and sympathetic understanding of what motivated this amendment, and in view of the glowing terms used by the Parliamentary Secretary and his willingness to quote Deputy Cooney, why did he not accept the amendments in Deputy Cooney's name? He had a few amendments tabled and still has a few to come. We hope this change of heart will transform itself into something more concrete than mere empty words.
We have heard people referring to cows and how to remove cows, but this is a Bill relating to forcible entry, and I would pose the question: how is the Minister for Justice going to deal with a cow which forcibly enters property.
Or a goat.
A goat, yes, or something like that—how are they going to deal with it?
The only thing in it is that we would want a 300 per cent increase in the Garda.
Yes, and the alternative is to create private armies instead of increasing the numbers of gardaí. That is what the Deputy wants.
You are supporting the private armies as they are.
We now have it from Deputy Burke that the reason the Minister wants to oppose this amendment is that he does not want to increase the number of gardaí, that he wants this duty put into the hands of private armies, private thugs and police forces. I am glad that Deputy Burke came in at this late hour to clarify that point.
This amendment stems entirely from the completely inadequate and completely anomalous definition of "owner" in the Bill. I think that if the Minister and Deputies opposite studied the definition given to "owner" and "ownership" in the Bill, they would understand more fully, if they could be got to understand at all, the purpose and the need for this amendment, because it arises directly from the wide definition given to ownership. We recognise the difficulties and the possible anomalous situation that this amendment could create but it was put down because it is the only way we could try to protect unfortunate people from the kind of treatment which we had experience of in Hume Street, where we saw what these private armies can do and, unfortunately, some people physically felt what they can do.
Unfortunately, it may, as Deputy Cooney pointed out, impinge on long-established common law practices but this is not our fault. It is the fault of the Government during the past few days. If this amendment is all that the last two speakers said it is then so is the whole Bill because, apart from the Minister for Justice, Deputy Gallagher, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach and Deputy Burke, no one else, either inside or outside this House has supported this Bill. All associations and all the media of communications have condemned the provisions contained in this Bill.
The essential element of this amendment is that the Garda Síochána will continue, as they always have, to be custodians of the law. The Garda Síochána are very disciplined, trained and experienced in the carrying out of the law. We want to ensure that they will continue to do that and that their functions will not be replaced by private armies or usurped by private thugs who use weapons and force of all kinds. It will be little consolation to the people who have suffered at the hands of these people and have had their skulls crushed or their bones broken to be told that they used too much force and will be summoned and dealt with accordingly.
The Deputy is doing well.
I have a good case.
Will you allow the poor Deputy to make his bad case as well as he can?
Is that what the Deputy calls social justice?
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education pointed out how this amendment will affect the existing law but he omitted to explain how the whole Bill will affect existing law. It is because the Bill will affect the existing law that we have brought in this amendment in order to try to balance the scales in some respect and protect the weaker sections of the community.
Tá
- Browne, Noel.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cruise-O'Brien, Conor.
- Desmond, Barry.
- Kavanagh, Liam.
- Keating, Justin.
- O'Connell, John F.
- O'Donovan, John.
- O'Leary, Michael.
- Pattison, Séamus.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Lorcan.
- Andrews, David.
- Boylan, Terence.
- Brady, Philip A.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Briscoe, Ben.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Browne, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick J.
- Carter, Frank.
- Childers, Erskine.
- Colley, George.
- Collins, Gerard.
- Cowen, Bernard.
- Cronin, Jerry.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Noel.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Fahey, Jackie.
- Faulkner, Pádraig.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom (Dublin Central).
- Flanagan, Seán.
- Foley, Desmond.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gibbons, James.
- Gogan, Richard P.
- Healy, Augustine A.
- Herbert, Michael.
- Hillery, Patrick J.
- Hussey, Thomas.
- Kenneally, William.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lalor, Patrick J.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Lenihan, Brian.
- Lynch, Celia.
- Lynch, John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Moran, Michael.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Connor, Timothy.
- O'Kennedy, Michael.
- O'Malley, Des.
- Power, Patrick.
- Sherwin, Seán.
- Smith, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Timmons, Eugene.
- Wyse, Pearse.
You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
Behold the people who want to enter everybody's home.
They want the rabble to go into everybody's home and take it over. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
May I claim your indulgence for a moment?
Give him a plenary indulgence.
Will the Deputy allow business to proceed?
Everybody is to walk into people's homes.
Will the Deputy please sit down?
I move amendment No. 7:
In page 3, line 34, after "who" to insert "verbally (otherwise than on radio or television)".
This is an amendment to section 4, which is the most notorious section in this most notorious Bill. In fact, it is the most notorious and infamous section that has ever been legislated for by our native Parliament, because it provides the extraordinary principle of vicarious criminal liability. It is a section which has been roundly condemned by people other than politicians and people who clearly would have no axe to grind, whose only concern would be with the idea of personal liberty and with the idea of justice and the sacredness of the rule of law.
This amendment is designed in some way to soften the retrograde effects of this unfortunate section. Subsection (1) as drafted says that a person who encourages or advocates the commission of an offence under section 2 or 3 of the Act shall be guilty of an offence. It provides that where a statement which itself is an offence under subsection (1) is made by or on behalf of a group of persons each member of the group may equally be guilty of that offence. Section 2 is a completely new offence in our statute law, the offence of forcibly entering. Section 3 is another new offence, the offence of remaining in forcible occupation. Section 4 says that anyone who encourages or advocates the commission of either of these offences shall himself be guilty of an offence.
There is considerable apprehension that, whether it is intended or not, it is implicit in it that this section can have a censorship effect in so far as it uses the rather vague, nebulous term "encourages or advocates" and that any person who does either of these things can find himself guilty of a criminal offence and subject to the very severe penalties prescribed by this Bill. To that extent it seeks to discourage comment and discussion because either of these things could fall within the heading of "encourage or advocate". In that sense it has within it the seeds of censorship and worse still the seeds of Press censorship. The one mark of a regime that is heading along the path towards naked fascism is a desire to muffle the organs of opinion, to muffle the newspapers of the nation. It has been a traditional characteristic of all the dictatorships that we have seen in this century in Europe that their first enemies were the newspapers of the country in which they sought to grow. It would be a disastrous thing if we in this Parliament, a young Parliament, a young democracy, should allow to pass through this House a section which even remotely might contain within itself the seeds of censorship of the mass media. It is to avoid any such imputation in this section that I have put forward this amendment.
If the Minister, as I have no doubt he will, protests that censorship is the last thing on his mind I say to the Minister that if that is the case there is nothing to prevent him from accepting this amendment.
The subsection reads:
A person who encourages or advocates...
I want it to read:
A person who verbally (otherwise than on radio or television) encourages or advocates...
That leaves the Minister with his offence of encouraging or advocating but it removes from the commission of such offence people who might be commenting in the mass media on the subject matter of a situation subsequently to come within the courts as constituting an offence under this Bill. It removes any inhibition from a newspaper to support a plea for the preservation of an historic building. We have to go back to the oft-quoted example of the Hume Street episode when a well-intentioned group of people, with serious concern for this capital city, took certain action to prevent an aesthetically beautiful part of the city from being destroyed. In that action they were supported and encouraged by the newspapers of the land. If this section and this Bill were law when that particular episode took place, not merely could those well-intentioned citizens have been prosecuted as criminals but the newspapers who expressed admiration for their activities could also have been prosecuted under section 4. My amendment seeks to ensure that in this democracy such a situation cannot and will not arise.
The amendment is simple. It merely makes it an offence to encourage or advocate verbally otherwise than on radio or television. In other words, expressions of support in newspapers would be excluded from the scope of this section and a newspaper would be entitled to carry out its legitimate function of commenting, of expressing a point of view either in praise or in criticism of a particular action or a particular agitation which might unwittingly find itself under this unfortunate section a criminal action. A newspaper should always have the right, untrammelled in any way whatever, to make whatever type of comment it pleases. If there is any diminution of that right we have taken the first step towards totalitarianism. If the Minister, representing a party and a Government who pride themselves on the epithet "Republican" has any real appreciation of what that epithet means he will accept this amendment. The essence of Republicanism is equality, fraternity and, above all, freedom. Freedom in its most important manifestation, in this age of instant communication, is freedom of the Press. This section as drafted definitely discourages, inhibits and cuts down the freedom of the Press because if a situation arises in which the Press comments either critically or in an opposite vein, especially in an opposite vein, a complaint could be laid that the person writing the article to the editor of the newspaper was encouraging the commission of an offence under either of the two offence sections. No newspaper should ever be put in that position.
The amendment is simple. It merely seeks to exclude a newspaper from the possibility of committing this offence. It also seeks to exclude the commentator on radio or television. I would be particularly careful to ensure that those persons would be protected and would be absolutely immune from the effects of this nefarious section because we have already had straws in the wind in regard to the attitude of this Government towards the television and radio services and towards what the Government think they should or should not present or how they should or should not present any particular problem. I have only to point to the infamous and unnecessary 7-Days Tribunal which was appointed to decide whether the programme on money-lending was an accurate reflection of a situation in Dublin. There is no doubt that the gist of the finding was that that programme exposed a dirty situation in the capital city of our nation.
We recently had a commission set up to review the activities of our national television station. Also it is notorious that there have been behind-the-scenes attempts by Ministers to muffle or blunt some of the comments on current affairs made on our radio and television. These people who, by and large are responsible journalists and who are in a position akin to the newspapers, should be completely untrammelled and free to express the point of view of public interest without being in any danger of committing an offence, an offence so vague that to encourage or advocate will constitute it.
The Minister may say that, because of its wording, my amendment, if accepted, will exclude newspapers from the scope of this subsection. The Minister may take exception to it on the grounds that it may also have the effect of excluding handbills or broadsheets or a similar type of instant print but, even if some informal printed matter of that nature were to escape, the harm that could be done by it would be minimal compared with the damage that might be done if the amendment is not accepted. The Minister may also feel that the organs of opinion issued by some of the subversive organisations would escape. Some of these organs are newspapers issued regularly, published in accordance with law and with a very definite circulation and once they fall into that category they are entitled to be issued and printed.
The amendment is simple but the effects are serious if it is accepted, and I fail to see how the Minister can reject it if he is true to what he pretends and says is the tradition of his party, that of republicanism. It is an amendment designed to ensure that our Press will never be muzzled. It is designed to allay the unease of the people working in the communications media in regard to this Bill and this section particularly, the most infamous section, in my opinion, that has ever been introduced in this Parliament. It is designed so that that section will never act adversely on our popular Press. The section, as drafted and amended, if the amendment is accepted, will still get at the type of scruffy subversive that the Minister says the whole thing is aimed at. If the Minister wants the jackboot to squash these people this amendment will not in any way blunt the steel on the heel of the jackboot. It will be available to him to wield it as mightily as he wishes. But the amendment will protect the newspapers, their writers and proprietors, the editors and publishers. It will protect journalists whose vocation lies in broadcasting either on radio or on television. It will protect the independence of these people to make their comments on current affairs. It is an integral part of our tradition that these people should have the right to comment as they think fit on current affairs. I shall be most disappointed in—but not surprised at—the Minister and his party if this amendment is not accepted.
I wish to support strongly the amendment proposed by Deputy Cooney. In some respects I believe the amendment arose from a statement made by the Minister on 26th May, 1971 when the general ministerial thinking behind the introduction of the Bill became quite apparent to us. The Minister said then, as reported in column 230 of the Official Report of 26th May, 1971:
Newspapers are not any more immune from the law of the land than any other individual or company——
Deputy FitzGerald aptly remarked at that juncture:
Here comes the threat.
The Minister went on to say:
——in the country and if a newspaper at the present moment sees fit to write editorials or articles advocating crime of one form or another ...they are guilty of an offence. They can be guilty of incitement or of participating in crime as principals in the second degree or accessories before the fact, as the case may be.
Reading the Official Report I found it profoundly disturbing to see such a simplistic, dangerous and repulsive political assumption residing in the mind of the Minister in regard to the role of newspapers. It certainly illustrates the total failure of the Minister to appreciate the role of newspapers in society and the role of our national communications media. His petulant attitude throughout this debate has shown the necessity for an amendment of this nature.
I submit that the section, in any event, is quite unconstitutional. The real importance of the discussion tonight lies in the future challenge in the Supreme Court which will undoubtedly come in regard to this Bill and particularly this section. Under Article 40 of the Constitution, the Bill will, I am certain, be found unconstitutional. Article 40 enshrines the right of our citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions. It is under that section in regard to the role of newspapers and communications media that the Supreme Court would be most likely to find this Bill unconstitutional. The Minister's attitude tonight will go on record in that regard. Every Member of the House, particularly Fianna Fáil Members if they have any sensitivity left in regard to this Bill, should oppose the section and support the amendment.
There is widespread public unease about this section. It is not often one finds an occasion on which almost all national and provincial newspapers are unanimous in their view on this section of the Bill and in regard to the opening up of a new vista of legal definitions affecting freedom of expression, of comment, newspaper publication, and reportage in regard to such offences. This is an extremely serious situation. I come from the south. I have never regarded the Cork Examiner as being a notoriously radical or reactionary newspaper. When the Cork Examiner speaks out in violent opposition to the Government's policy something must be radically wrong. For the Minister's edification, I shall quote from the editorial in the Cork Examiner on 4th June, 1971. Under the heading “Dangerous Legislation” it stated:
It is not often that the press in this country feels compelled to object strongly to measures put forward by the Government which would tend to limit its traditional freedom. We live, after all, in a democracy, and by and large, there is no undue interference with the work of newsmen. But issue must be taken with certain sections of the Forcible Entry Bill, which has just gone through the Dáil, and which if allowed to pass unamended into law, will almost certainly seriously curtail the liberty of the press to report and comment on matters which it feels to be in the public interest. We refer specifically to that section of the Bill which makes it an offence "to encourage or advocate the commission of an offence". It is quite clear that comment, or even mere reportage in certain circumstances, could be construed as incitement, and it is intolerable that such an enactment should be made, not only against a press which has always shown itself to be highly responsible, but against ordinary members of the public who may feel constrained to speak their minds on public issues.
This is a rather historic editorial in a newspaper in the Taoiseach's constituency. He pays close attention to editorials in the Cork Examiner and I hope he will read this editorial again. The Cork Examiner continues:
Let it be quite clear that we recognise and support any measure which is aimed at safeguarding either private or public property, and we do not take issue at all with those portions of the statute which are directed towards that necessary end. But this could have been achieved without resorting to undue interference with the right of association, the right of free speech and liberty of written comment. The proposed legislation, as it now stands, is drafted in such a manner that it is almost absurd. Indeed, were it not so potentially dangerous, it would almost be possible to laugh it off as being undeserving of any further attention. A number of Dáil Deputies gave some examples of its possible consequences which were not at all as exaggerated as they may have seemed at first glance. The blunt truth is that, if this measure is allowed to become law in its present form, newspapers and the communications media generally will be unable to criticise anything, lest in so doing they may tend to incite people to commit an offence.
What this means in effect is that the press will no longer be able to fulfil its essential and time-honoured function as a public watchdog: it will be unable to point to injustice and deprivation, much less to resort to any form of crusading journalism. It will become a fettered press, unable to speak its mind, unable to act in the interest of the public it serves, and ultimately reduced to a pale spectre of its former self. We have no doubt whatever that the people of Ireland do not want such rigid control of journalism. We have no doubt that it would not be at all in their interests to have it so controlled. Equally, we have no doubt that it will be roundly denied that any attempt is being made to impose such control. This we refuse to accept, as we will refuse to accept any spurious assurances about the intention governing this far-reaching and dangerous legislation, which smacks of naked dictatorship. We will, in fact, refuse to accept anything less than comprehensive amendment of this section, or its abolition, simply because we happen to believe in a free press, in freedom of association, in free speech, and we refuse to accept any interference with those basic freedoms, no matter how well intentioned.
As a Member of this House, I say: three cheers for the Cork Examiner.
Why does the Deputy not read my reply? He should read the letter I wrote to the editor.
That is the privilege of the Minister.
The Deputy should give both sides of the story. I wrote a letter to the editor but the Deputy will not read it out because it would not suit him.
The Minister will say it in the House, we hope.
Lest I be accused of being provincially partisan, I shall quote an important editorial in the Irish Independent dealing with this section of the Bill. The Irish Independent is not reputed as being the most radical of papers in the country and it is not often that one finds a newspaper of this type dubbing a Bill as a “Fascist Bill”. The editor of the Irish Independent must have “done his thing” in a big way in reacting to the Minister. I should like to point out that the Minister was so appreciative of this particular editorial he did not even write a letter to the editor—at least the Crosbie family of Cork had been much more honoured by the Minister's reaction. The editorial is worth placing on the records of this House. It dealt eloquently with the Forcible Entry Bill. In fact, the Labour Party could not have said it better— and the Irish Independent is not even affiliated to the Labour Party.
The editor of the Irish Independent said that three repressive proposals stand out: (a) the giving of powers of arrest without warrant to the gardaí; (b) the placing of the onus of proving himself innocent on an accused and, (c) the attempt to muzzle the Press— which is relevant to this amendment. The editorial continued:
Sacrificed also are the interests of the community as a whole because freedom of speech and the corollary right freely to be informed are essential to the interest of a free society. This being so the Bill can fairly be termed Fascist.
The Minister should pay due regard to that.
I will not quote the many provincial editorials, copies of which are available, but it is important in relation to this section of the Bill that the Minister should pay heed to the views of a reputable national professional trade union, the National Union of Journalists. As an organised professional group, that union has been extremely sensitive not to indulge, or be seen to indulge, in party political matters. It has always maintained appropriate non-involvement in such matters. However, so irate has been the NUJ in relation to this Bill and so conscious of the tremendous restraint it will impose on its membership, it has taken the liberty—an historical and proper liberty—of circularising all Members of the Dáil and Seanad with the views of the chairman and secretary of the Dublin Branch of the NUJ. It is proper to challenge the Minister to refute the views expressed in this communication. It relates particularly to this section and the amendment we are discussing this evening. The circular stated:
A recent meeting of this Branch, which represents 400-500 members working in Dublin, unanimously passed a resolution expressing grave concern over certain provisions of the Prohibition of Forcible Entry and Occupation Bill and resolving to seek your assistance—
that is, the members of both Houses—
—in having section 4 withdrawn or satisfactorily amended.
This, it will be recalled, is the section which provides heavy penalties for anybody found guilty of charges that could arise from the investigation, reporting, photographing, commenting on, or otherwise editorially dealing with, for publication or broadcast, specified activities, in a hitherto legitimate manner.
I do not think that even with his expertise, Deputy Cooney could have summarised it as succinctly as that. It goes on:
Because of the nature of our members' work, it is only with the greatest reluctance we take any action that involves us directly in issues of public controversy such as this. However, up to the present advanced stage of the Bill's passage through the Houses of the Oireachtas, the efforts of individual Deputies, which we fully appreciate, and those of others have not met with any significant success where our members' interests are concerned. Therefore, left with no alternative, we and our immediate colleagues in the national press and fellow-members throughout the country now feel it is our duty to declare publicly our professional and ethical concern over the obvious threats to working journalists and grave dangers to fundamental press freedom posed by the Section.
The resulting dangers to the public interest and the implications for our most cherished concepts of democracy are, we feel sure, matters of common concern to all Irishmen, whether electors or legislators.
We are awaiting a meeting with the Minister for Justice and, in the meantime, we look forward to having the widest support of Members of both Houses.
It is signed, "Yours sincerely, Michael Ó Croinin (Chairman), Niall Connolly (Secretary)." I think at this juncture, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I should call for a House in the hope that the trade union committee of the Fianna Fáil Party will come into the House now so that I can gauge reactions to that correspondence.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,
Now that the research officer of the group of trade unionists of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party has arrived——
Unlike the Deputy, I am not paid.
May I ask this honorary member of this distinguished group of unionists in the Fianna Fáil Party if he has received a communication from the National Union of Journalists expressing on behalf of 400 or 500 members of their union in the Dublin area, their total repugnance to section 4 of this Bill, as it impinges on their professional work? I suppose it would not be inappropriate at this late hour to seek a reply, through the Chair.
The Deputy had better continue with his own contribution.
I hope Deputy Moore will avail of the opportunity when I finish shortly, to convey to the House the reaction of the Fianna Fáil Party, since Deputy Haughey has declared himself time and again as being totally opposed to this Bill. He considers it to be absolute rubbish and he is a man whose opinion should be respected in this House in view of the fact that he is a former Minister for Justice.
The Deputy is just wasting time.
The Garda are looking for him now as an adviser. They will be looking for Frank Keane next as a fingerprint expert.
Order. Deputy Desmond.
Deputy Haughey holds the honourable position of chairman of the Fianna Fáil trade union group of unions which is a peculiar honour since he is not a member of a trade union himself.
On a point of order, I wonder is this related to the amendment or to the section?
That is not a point of order.
This is just filling in time.
It is very relevant to the section.
We would like to see them supporting this amendment.
I should like to challenge Deputy Andrews, who has a very low flash point, to give his views now.
They seem to be challenging one another in their constituency. They share a very respectable constituency.
I am sure that the objections of the Fianna Fáil Party to adopting the amendment proposed by Deputy Cooney will be dealt with eloquently by Deputy Andrews and by Deputy Moore in a very short space of time.
Deal with it on your own behalf.
I have already quoted quite extensively from the editorial in the Cork Examiner, headed “Dangerous Legislation” and the editorial in the Irish Independent, headed “A Fascist Bill”, and I have quoted the circular from the National Union of Journalists, three of the most authoritative and impeccable sources in this country. I have also quoted from the booklet that is presented to Members of the House when they arrive here, on election, the Constitution. We get a free copy. I got mine in 1969 in Irish and English. I quoted Article 40 of the Constitution. I ask the Minister or any Fianna Fáil Deputy to advise me how this section is in accordance with the Constitution. There has been no come-back and there is not likely to be much come-back from the Fianna Fáil Party.
The Deputy will learn about that when the Bill is passed.
Interruptions are out of order.
I want to place on record the strong support of the Labour Party for Deputy Cooney's amendment. We should also place on record the articles in the Irish Times yesterday and today headed appropriately “The Wrong Remedy”, two articles by Senator Mary Robinson, admittedly not a confidante of the Fianna Fáil Party. She argued very effectively in both of these articles that this Bill is quite unnecessary because at present criminal law could deal with adequately, and cope with, any problems that arise. In relation to section 4 she said in the second article that it has caused grave alarm to responsible groups in the country, including the Dublin Branch of the NUJ. I certainly fully support the clear-cut amendment in which Senator Robinson has offered alternative outs to the Government if they are disposed to accept it, or to accepting any sensible amendments at this stage.
I submit that what is at stake in the section is the fundamental right to public expression of opinion; what is at stake in the section is public freedom of speech; what is certainly at stake is freedom of public comment, and the more appropriately and more definitely endangered in this section is the freedom of the press, television and radio to report and comment within the normal limits of the law, and to do so without being hauled through the courts by the Minister for Justice. I am extremely conscious that our present Minister is so petulant, so narrow-minded, so vindictive and so inexperienced—I would not say he is incompetent for he is a well-briefed man but briefed in the wrong direction frequently—that I do not think he should be allowed to enjoy the opportunity in the next 12 months, which one would anticipate would be the length of his Ministry at the very outside, of bringing newspaper reporters and editors through the law courts at his whim, simply because he has decided to introduce a particular piece of legislation because some small groups in the country went off half-cocked in relation to squatting and forcible entry. These groups could have been quite effectively dealt with under the existing processes of the law without the complete and total waste of Parliamentary time that we are now obliged to endure in a farcical situation, solely at the whim and instigation of the Government. It is a situation which certainly has brought this House into further disrepute with the public at large at a point in time when our economy is in dire need of being strengthened in relation to the development of freer trade and when our country should be endeavouring——
We cannot get away from the amendment.
What do we find? We find ourselves in a back-to-the-wall effort on section 4 to prevent a vindictive Minister, a mealy-mouthed Minister, a petulant Minister and one might even say an impudent Minister —he certainly has all these qualities in my reaction to him——
And arrogant.
——Arrogance is such a part of the stock in trade of the Fianna Fáil Party that I do not think anyone need worry about it—so much so——
Nobody minds what the Deputy says. Nobody takes him seriously.
——that the time of this House is being wasted and I have no doubt that between now and half past three or four o'clock tomorrow when a further amendment will be moved by the Labour Party—amendment No. 10 which deals——
Perhaps we had better keep to the amendment we have at the moment.
I would have thought that if anybody had been anxious to expedite the business of the House, amendments Nos. 7 and 10 would have been taken together. They are entirely appropriate, but it is the laxity of Fianna Fáil——
That is a matter for the Chair and I am sure the Deputy appreciates that.
I would have taken the two amendments together and would have saved time.
It is a matter for the Chair.
I want to submit that time and again the Minister has advanced the view in this House that there is nothing new proposed in the context of new offences. He made this ploy right throughout the debate; he used the term repeatedly—"There is nothing novel in this Bill." I want to challenge him and bring to public attention the fact that there is something most obnoxiously novel in this Bill.
We are dealing with the amendment.
It is that under section 4, if we pass it as it stands, the freedom of public opinion to be expressed and reported will be called seriously into question, and even Deputy Andrews with his extensive knowledge of mediaeval jurisprudence will not deny that any national legislature which decides to take to itself the power to muzzle the newspapers is taking an awful lot for granted and as far as I am concerned, it deserves to be fully opposed, as we are doing.
(Cavan): In order to appreciate this amendment, and more particularly to appreciate the necessity for it, if this Bill is not to leave this House as an extremely dangerous piece of legislation, it is necessary to understand section 4 of the Bill which this amendment proposes to amend. Section 4 says that a person “who encourages or advocates the commission of an offence under section 2 or 3 of this Act shall be guilty of an offence.” That means that if anybody encourages or advocates the commission of an offence under sections 2 or 3, he shall be guilty of an offence. “Anybody who advocates the commission of an offence”—what does that mean? It is easy enough to understand the expression “advocates”. It means somebody who calls for the commission of an offence, somebody who makes a case for the commission of an offence, somebody who speaks in favour of the commission of an offence or somebody who, speaking publicly or in writing, states or leads others to believe that it is necessary to commit an offence. That is what I would understand by the word “advocate”.
But there is another word in the first two lines of this section which says that a person "who encourages or who advocates the commission of an offence under section 2 or section 3 of this Act shall be guilty of an offence." I would invite the Deputies, the general public and the Press to consider seriously the meaning of the word "encourage". It is a vague word, a word which is hard to define.
A person could encourage another to do a thing in a variety of ways. He could encourage him by coming up to him in the street and standing looking at him; he could encourage him by giving him a friendly smile. He could encourage a person to do a thing by writing in a newspaper. For example, if somebody was taking possession of a house in order to demonstrate the hopeless state of housing in this city, in order to bring before the general public the fact that the Government had fallen down hopelessly on the job of housing the people, if that was the object of the protest, and the protest took the form of squatting forcibly in a house, and a national newspaper came out during the currency of this protest and wrote a leading article saying that, while illegal acts could not be condoned, it was easy indeed to understand feeling running very high when one considered the appalling conditions in which families were living in this city—that type of leading article could be regarded as encouraging forcible squatting, or what-have-you.
That is one of the appalling ingredients, in my opinion, of section 4. It seeks in its vague way to take power to control the Press, to stifle opposition, to prevent the Press from putting before the public their views for the purpose of forming public opinion. That is what subsection (1) of section 4 does.
Subsection (2) provides:
Where a statement in contravention of subsection (1) of this section is made by or on behalf of a group of persons, every person who is a member of the group and who consented to the making of the statement shall be guilty of an offence under that subsection.
Suppose there was a partnership and one of the partners happened to be the editor, sub-editor, or feature writer in a newspaper and he wrote an article in the newspaper explaining why people were protesting—that is all he would have to do—that could certainly be taken as encouraging the protest and not alone would the author of the article be guilty of an offence but all the partners would be guilty too. Indeed, it might be said, though I do not say this with the same conviction, that all the directors of a newspaper might be guilty although it could, I suppose, be argued that, if it were a limited company, it would be an artificial individual and all the directors or the shareholders would not be liable.
Subsection (3) provides:
In a prosecution of a person (in this subsection referred to as the defendant) as a member of a group for an offence under subsection (1) of this section in relation to a statement made by or on behalf of the group, if, having regard to all the circumstances (including the constitution and rules, if any, of the group, and the extent to which the defendant had participated in the activities of the group), the court thinks it reasonable to do so, it may regard proof of the defendant's membership of the group and of the making of the statement by or on behalf of the group as proof of consent on the part of the defendant in the absence of any adequate explanation by him.
I put it to the House, and I put it on the record of the House, that that is as drastic a subsection as ever was sought to be inserted in a Bill. I have been consistent throughout the debate on this Bill, right from the Second Reading down to this Report Stage. I have said that I believe in private property. I have said that I believe in the right of private ownership and private occupation. But there are objectionable sections in this Bill. There are objectionable definitions in this Bill. There are sections in it which no legislative assembly conscious of its obligations to the public would allow to be enacted. This section 4 is the most objectionable section in the Bill.
I made it clear on Second Reading that I would oppose this tooth and nail all the way. It is true that, on Committee Stage, in response to criticism on the Second Stage, the Minister did introduce an amendment. In the Bill, as originally drafted, it was stated that, in order to free himself from guilt if he were a member of a group or organisation and if he wanted to dissociate himself from any encouraging words published by any individual member of the group, then he, and all the other members of the group, would have publicly to dissociate themselves maybe by hiring newspaper space, maybe by hiring a loudspeaker van, or maybe by going on radio or television and saying: "We disagree with our colleague. We did not authorise him to say that. We do not accept what he said and we do not approve of what he said."
This was pointed out to the Minister on this section. It is true that he brought in an amendment, but it is also true that the amendment he brought in, instead of improving matters, makes the position worse because under the Bill, as drafted, an individual knew under section 4 what he had to do to prove his innocence. It might have been inconvenient and expensive but he could at least take the necessary steps to show that he was not guilty. In his efforts to improve the situation the Minister wrote in subsection (3) which says: "In a prosecution of a person .... as a member of a group for an offence under subsection (1) of this section in relation to a statement made by or on behalf of the groups, if, having regard to all the circumstances"et cetera, et cetera, et cetera“the court thinks it reasonable to do so” it may accept as sufficient evidence the fact that the accused person is a member of the group in order to saddle him, and saddle him fully, with the guilt of his fellow-members in the group. That is guilt by association. That is an innovation as far as I am concerned in the criminal law. We sought on Committee Stage to have this section removed from the Bill. We did not succeed. We put down an amendment and we opposed the section and put it to a vote, but the Minister, with his majority, steamrolled the section through the House.
It is in those circumstances that we have put down a number of amendments to this section, including the amendment we are dealing with now. This amendment is one of the amendments which proposes to protect the freedom and independence of the Press to express its opinion on matters of public concern. It is unnecessary to point out that the Press in this country wields a very powerful influence in forming and guiding public opinion and that has been so since the foundation of this State. I do not think it can be said that the Press has gone too far or that it has abused the position which it holds on any occasion. I had occasion to say in this House about 12 months ago that the Press did not go far enough. I said then and I repeat now that if the Press had been keeping a closer eye on the Taoiseach and on other members of this Government and had been taking up the hints and direct charges made from this side of the House the Government would not be in the sorry mess they are in today or that they have come through during the past 12 to 18 months.
It would be a sorry day for this country if, by any action of this House, the Press was put in a position in which it had to stop to think before conveying its views to the public on a matter of public concern. If we ever get to that stage we shall be beginning to tumble down the slippery slope towards the end of true freedom and true democracy as we understand it and as I hope it has been enjoyed in this country. It is for that reason we on this side of the House are determined that this section will not be passed at least until the people know what is involved in it, until the people know the dangerous precedent that it proposes to establish and until the people realise that it could well be the thin end of the wedge in attacking the Press and muzzling public opinion.
In the immediate past there was an example in this House of Government thinking as a whole and of the thinking of the Minister for Justice in particular in regard to the Press and the publication of national newspapers. I propose to spell that out in black and white tomorrow morning before I conclude my remarks. I will not have to go any further than the Official Report of 13th July, 1971.
I have been saying that the Press wields a powerful influence in forming and guiding public opinion. I believe that the free Press of a country is a greater bulwark against the infringement of the constitutional rights and the ordinary rights and privileges of the citizens of a country than Parliament itself. It is possible to have a position in Parliament, as we have at the moment, where the Government have an absolute majority and are united superficially and numerically at any rate and as long as they are they can steamroll their will through this House. They can steamroll legislation through this House however stiffly that is resisted from these benches. The Opposition can oppose strenuously at length and eloquently but unless the Press is free to report to the public at large we might as well be wasting our time. That is particularly so in the modern world where the other mass media, television and radio, are controlled to some extent or another by the Government of the day.
In a small country like this at any rate it is essential that the national television and radio service should be a monopoly because otherwise it could not be sure of success. That situation has been availed of in this country to give the Government of the day an opportunity of getting a stranglehold on television and radio. Indeed, television and radio is operated here under the control of a board nominated, appointed and kept in office by the Government of the day. With the best will in the world that organisation, which is Government controlled, has to respect the wishes of the Government and, indeed, can be directed by the Government under a section of the Broadcasting Acts to do or not to do as the Government wants.