We have, of course, no difficulty whatsoever about law and order. We have a history that speaks for itself. Our reputation is laid on unshakeable foundations from the point of view of the establishment and the maintenance of law and order. We have never shifted from that and we never will shift.
When I got my copy of this Bill I read it slowly and carefully. I did not have the benefit of any legal training and I had no more than the knowledge of the ordinary Deputy in regard to the legislation that is in existence, legislation designed to enable the Government to deal with unlawful organisations. My first reaction to the Bill was that my hackles rose against it. I believe that would also be the reaction of the average person. It is possible that, not being a legal man, I read more into the Bill than it actually contained, but that is the way it affected me and that is the way, I believe, it affects the majority of the people: I said immediately: "The Government have gone berserk. The Government have suddenly wakened up to the realisation that they have allowed a serious situation to develop because of their own inaction over the last three or four years. They are now in a state of panic and they cannot see clearly what legislation they require to deal with this situation, a situation in which everything seems to be tumbling down around their ears. They do not know how to cope with the situation or how to contain it."
I may be right in that, or I may be wrong, but that was the effect it had on me. I was convinced that the legislation available to the Government three or four years ago—it is actually still available to them—was more than adequate to deal with the situation, a situation engendered because of Government inactivity. But the situation was even worse than that. It was well known that there were within the Fianna Fáil Party certain people actively assisting unlawful organisations. Those people constituted a sizeable section of the Fianna Fáil Party. Can the Government blame us now if we criticise them when they come in here for emergency legislation to deal with the situation which they irresponsibly allowed to build up? I do not think they can. I do not think they should be surprised that we are fearful of giving them more legislation than is absolutely necessary to deal with the situation. We have seen them both underuse and misuse the powers they have. I emphasise "under-use" and "misuse". That is why we are apprehensive. That is why we are slow to give them the green light.
It is quite wrong for Deputy Moore to allege that Fine Gael are here for no other reason but to oppose this Bill. We are not here for anything of the sort. We have clearly spelled out the position taken up by this party on this Bill. We do not say that no part of this Bill is not necessary. We are quite prepared to examine it critically and we have enough legal brains on this side of the House to assist us in making up our minds. We have Deputies, like Deputy Moore, coming in here and saying: "We want the Bill. We cannot do without it". The fact is they do not explain why they cannot do without it and they do not explain how much further we must go if we are to do a really effective job in dealing with unlawful organisations.
This is a short Bill. The Minister made a very long statement on it but I do not think he succeeded in clarifying people's minds. The Taoiseach made light of certain sections of the Bill and seemed to explain them away with a wave of his hand. On several occasions I have been told by legal people outside this House that they do not care a damn what the Minister or the Taoiseach said in the House, and that it is what is written in the Bill that is important. As a responsible party we cannot allow a measure to pass through the House which says something which is explained away, or attempted to be explained away, by the Minister when he is introducing it, when he has not written it in, or is not prepared to write it into the Bill.
I do not deny that there is a dangerous situation here, a situation which has been allowed irresponsibly to build up by the Government. We warned them on several occasions that they were allowing the situation to get out of hand. We asked them continuously to use the law available to them and they did not use it. We implored them to increase the strength of the Garda force and the Army and to equip them properly. All these matters have been neglected. Is it any wonder that lawlessness could develop and thrive in such a situation, when we have an insufficient police force and Army, obviously an easy target for any lawless group to take on. The Government cannot complain if we criticise them bitterly.
I thought the position of this party was spelled out as clearly as possible and that there could be no ambiguity. I do not think there is. There are people on the other side of the House who are deliberately setting out to misrepresent us. The attitude of every member of this party is that, whatever Government are in power, they must be given sufficient authority to carry out the mandate of the people, and to maintain law and order and respect for the institutions of the State. We all feel a sincere responsibility to ensure that they have that authority.
Regardless of the failure of the Government in the past, regardless of who is responsible for putting us in the position we are in now, we have a duty and a responsibility to look at the situation as it exists today. That is the attitude of responsible politicians. We are elected to carry out the will of the people and we must insist that we have whatever legislation is necessary to do just that. The Government have not told us in detail what they feel is the additional legislation they require. They have thrown this Bill at us and said it is that or nothing. They cannot maintain that stand. When I looked at this Bill I thought that it was surely the legislation of a police state. Can I be blamed if I read too much into it? If I did not read too much into it, why can the Government not give us our amendments? In what way would they weaken this measure? I do not think they would weaken it at all.
Section 1 is the definition section. We are prepared to give the Government section 2. On section 3 we start to disagree with the Government. In section 3 (1) (b) there is a word none of us likes, the word "omission". It provides:
In paragraph (a) of this subsection "conduct" includes omission by the accused person to deny published reports that he was a member of an illegal organisation, but the fact of such denial shall not by itself be conclusive.
In his statement the Minister for Justice makes light of this and says that if a person for any reason was unaware that a statement was made about him he cannot commit a sin, so to speak, by omission. It should be easy to rectify that. It is only common sense that it should be written into the Bill as a safeguard. That is a very minor thing.
Under section 3 (2), if a chief superintendent says he believes John Murphy is a member of an illegal organisation, that will be accepted as evidence, full stop. We cannot accept this because it smacks of the law of a police state. The Taoiseach makes light of this, too, and says it is subject to cross-examination, and that the evidence of anybody else who is brought in will be considered. We are asking for something quite simple in order to safeguard the individual who may be innocent.
In his opening statement the Minister quoted section 26 of the Offences Against the State Act, 1939. It provides:
...Chief Superintendent states on oath that he believes that such document was published (as the case may be) by the accused or by the accused in concert with other persons or by arrangement between the accused and other persons, such statement shall be evidence——
and this is the important thing
——(until the accused denies on oath that he published such document either himself or in concert or by arrangement as aforesaid) that the accused published such document as alleged in the said statement on oath of such officer.
We are suggesting that this should be brought into this Bill as well as a safeguard, and that the undue significance given to the evidence of a chief superintendent should disappear, or that it should be possible to get a proper abutment by the accused. The Government cannot see that it is important to safeguard the individual by allowing him to swear that what the chief superintendent believes to be true is false—that is all we are asking for— and that it then ceases to be evidence once the accused says on oath that this is not so and that he is not guilty.
I do not think it would require any great effort on the part of the Government to agree that this represents an improvement in the legislation they are asking the House to give them. When they consider the issue seriously and look at the legislation in existence at the moment, I am sure they will agree that it is only right and proper that this should be written in. That is our main bone of contention in this Bill. We are standing on this and we must stand on it.
We are not quite satisfied with section 4 because again we want the rights of any individual to be safeguarded. We do not want a situation where a person walking along the street, stops at a meeting and listens and thus puts himself in the position that he may find himself in court and in jail. We are asking that that danger be removed and that a person cannot be committed simply for attending a meeting. A person might be there accidentally or he might go there to hear what this crazy group or person had to say and would feel entitled to do that. Everybody is entitled to hear what somebody else has to say. That comes under the right of free speech. I do not think it is too much. Deputy P. J. Burke agrees with me. I am sure that individuals on his benches and Ministers, and even perhaps the Minister for Justice, will agree. They will say, of course, that when the matter comes to the court the person will get out of his trouble. Of course he will, but I say that is no good if it is not written into the Bill. It is the simplest matter to write that safeguard into the Bill. I hope some sensible Minister, or the Minister for Justice when he comes to reply, will say that they accept that this is easy, that it is right and proper, that the Minister for Justice will say that it is in his statement and that he has no hesitation in having it written into the Bill. That is the sort of assurance we want.
Our opposition to this Bill is by no means wholesale opposition to any measure that is necessary to contain the dangerous situation the country is in at the moment. We realise and recognise that this is emergency type legislation, that it is repressive legislation. We do not want repressive legislation for one hour longer than it is necessary to have it because the more repressive the legislation the more likely it is to beget violence. Of course, unreasonable people must be dealt with but, as I say, Fianna Fáil have a great deal to blame themselves for and the situation we are in is largely due to the fact that they have neglected their responsibility over a period of four or five years. It is due also, I have no doubt, to British misunderstanding of the situation in the North of Ireland and their stupidity in thinking they will ever solve the Irish question by force of British arms and by their presence in the North. Until that is realised, as well as the fact that we are not standing here on this side of the Border for lawlessness of any description, we will never see the end of this.
We want a time limit on this legislation. None of us would like to see it in existence an hour longer than is seen to be absolutely essential. We might be prepared in the first instance to give it a life of 12 months—six months perhaps—but certainly not more than 12 months when we all hope sanity will have returned to all parts of the country, and peace and security and normal living. It would be to anticipate something that none of us wants to think possible to make it for longer than 12 months.
That is our opposition to the Bill and I do not want any Member on the other side of the House, Deputy Moore or anybody else, trying to interpret our attitude in any other way. That is what we want. We have clearly stated it and I regret to say that the Government have not clearly stated to us in what dimension the law as it stands today is short. We have legal men on this side of the House who have reached the top flight of their profession and they feel that, with these amendments and with the sections and subsection of the Bill, we are already prepared to accept the position is truly and properly taken care of and that no further excuse lies with the Government for failing in their duty to the people.
There will be other speakers after me and they may help to reinforce what I have said. They may help to clarify what I have said. Quite frankly, it is wrong for any speaker on any side of the House to go back over the history of the last 50 years, a history in which we would come out pretty well, but it is not appropriate to the occasion of this Bill that that history should be trampled over and over again and that the bitterness of the past should be resurrected for a variety of purposes. We are here at a time when great responsibility is called for. We should deal with this measure in the most responsible way, in the most critical way. One of the things that convinced me was what the Minister said about a case of a lady where they failed to get a conviction on membership. I believe the law should be such that it is possible to convict such a person as a member of an unlawful organisation, a person who comes out openly and says that he or she is a member; not only that but that his or her purpose is to unseat the lawful authority in this part of the country. Certainly, when it can be shown that the existing law is inadequate to deal with that sort of situation we in this House should give any necessary improvement in the law to deal with it.
The Minister said in moving the Second Reading:
The provisions of the section reenact as accurately as possible that branch of the law of contempt of court which relates to comments on a case that is sub judice. Such conduct is ordinarily dealt with summarily by the court in relation to which the offence of contempt is committed. It might therefore be asked why it is necessary to create a specific statutory offence to deal with this kind of conduct. The answer is that the extent to which these activities have been carried on in recent years, their increasing seriousness and the fact that they are frequently planned and organised for the clear purpose of subverting justice in relation to members of unlawful organisations make it right, in the Government's view, to prevent the activities by making them the subject of a statutory offence that can be prosecuted in the ordinary way and that is punishable with suitably severe penalties.
I agree very strongly with that statement. I have in mind the protests carried on in the Curragh in the last few months when contingents came down from the North of Ireland and confronted our Army personnel. I have received reliable and accurate descriptions of those protests. We should not deny any Government the necessary legislation to deal effectively with such people. Their conduct was deplorable. Our Army should not be subjected to that sort of conduct. It is not right that people can get away scotfree having conducted themselves in such a manner. The same applies in the case of the Garda Síochána. They should not be open to a similar measure of assault from lawless persons who can then go free anywhere they like.
I am prepared to support any improvement necessary in the legislation to deal with that sort of thing and I am sure that goes for every Member of this Parliament. We wish to ensure that the forces of law and order get the support they need to carry out their work on behalf of the people.
I hope I have made clear the purpose of the extent of our opposition to this measure. I hope, too, that when he is replying, the Minister for Justice will see the wisdom of accepting the alterations we have proposed. The leader of this party, Deputy Cosgrave, has made our stand perfectly clear and it is behind him that we all stand on this issue.