I know. I am not claiming anything for any particular one or two. I am saying that we are all losers on this side of the Border. I only wish the Taoiseach's claim that there are no winners and no losers were true. I cannot but see that we have lost to a degree never before equalled in our history and this not only voluntarily at Sunningdale but we are still of the opinion, as is indicated to us in this House that, far from losing, we have done something really worthwhile. I wish to God that were true.
If I am the only odd man who believes that is not true, if, in fact, we are neither losers nor winners, if we have not thrown away by our declaration what I believe we have have thrown away, nobody will be happier than I. But that is what I believe. That, if it can be changed, should never have been allowed to arise in my reading of that communiqué, if it was capable by a proper explanation and exposition by the spokesmen for the Government to allay any doubts or fears. I believe it to be a certainty that we have really given away anything that really matters but if that is not true it should never have been allowed to appear in such a way that anybody could take that meaning out of it. It is far too dangerous that that should be so.
I do not believe it can be changed but I would be delighted if it can and that I can be proved totally wrong in my interpretation of it. When I say that, I am not concerned with legal quibbles if that is what we may get, not the legalistic terms and legalities and so on that can—no reflection on the legal profession or the law or its institutions—make black legally white. This can be done with the clever use of words by clever manipulators of them. Our legal people are trained in this: that is their job. Any Government worth its salt has within its ranks the best that can be got in legal advisers. I shall not be impressed if that is the sort of explanation we get. The hard, blunt fact is in the two paragraphs. If it can be shown to any reasonable person that they are not what they appear to be and that we have not lost that which has been so dearly held for so long by so many people, I shall be very glad. If, without any of the legalistic verbiage that will smother us and leave us not knowing whether we are going or coming, that can be cleared, let us have it cleared and I shall be the first to acknowledge that it is clear and that there is no ambiguity about it and I shall be delighted as a result.
The internee question, that I have mentioned, is still with us. May I make an appeal even at this stage? Having come to close quarters on a tripartite basis, is it not possible for our spokesmen or our representatives in Government, even as a result of their recent contacts, to seek, outside and beyond this whole matter that we have in the communiqué, to have internment ended and not to participate in what may have been a well-meant gesture but is causing nothing but dire distress to hundreds of people, this holding out of release by instalment just a little bit before Christmas? There are no relatives of internees, and many of those relatives are living down here because they may not continue to live up there, who are not hoping that their man, their son or their daughter may be included in the instalment that will be let out for Christmas. This is a cruel thing. I am not accusing those who brought it about of intending any sort of cruelty; I know the reverse is the case, but it is a cruel situation. From the very moment that it emerged that a batch were to be let out, every relative and every close friend of every internee has been hoping that their's will be among the batch who get out. This is not fair. It is wrong. I know it was not intended to be wrong in that way. I would ask that if there are to be releases, get them out. They should be on their way home before this sort of promise comes out if they are not all getting home and obviously they will not all get home because Mr. Heath has said internment may continue until such time as the security situation indicates that it can be done away with. Does Mr. Heath realise or appreciate—I doubt if he does and I do not think he got a great deal of help from those who talked to him—that if he waits until that happens he could wait until Tib's eve? While we are occupied as we are in this country and while we are partitioned as we are, it is not just a cliché but the truth to say that there will not be real peace in this country. There never can be. Unless and until we can get ourselves on the road that will bring us to that, even if it takes us a long time, we cannot even begin to have peace. We cannot even begin to have hope that there will be peace.
Internment is there and irrespective of the promise of instalment release it continues and is likely to continue for quite a long time. Mr. Faulkner is back in the saddle, the man who ordered it into being, who presided over it and no doubt advised the British in whatever part they played in it, together with the tortures. He was the man then, he is still the man today but more powerful than ever before. Consider Faulkner in his present role, seeking to get moving an executive of an assembly that has been brought together as a result of the astuteness and the tenacity of the Secretary of State, Mr. Whitelaw, recently gone back to work his miracles in order that Mr. Heath may win the next general election. Consider how powerful Faulkner now is, how much more powerful he will be in a number of weeks when if, with the help of this Government's delegation and his own delegations and the British Government, he really gets into business again. I say that when that happens there is nothing that Brian Faulkner can be refused on request from Great Britain if he make the threat, as undoubtedly he will, being the good politician he is: "Give me that, this or the other or I am finished with the assembly, the executive and the lot. You can have the whole damn thing back in your lap again." There is nothing he will not be able to command. This man who brought in internment, who ordered internment, who advised on it, who must be held responsible for the tortures that emanated from it, is now on his way back to being the most powerful man in these two islands and I deliberately say the two islands. We have helped to bring that about. We are helping to bring it even further and we should have a thought and a care as to what we are doing. Though I decry his outlook, his politics, his behaviour over the years, I cannot but at a distance—and it must be at a distance—admire the man's capacity to survive and keep bouncing up on top all the time, even though one might have little regard for the means he has adopted to achieve those ends. He has turned turtle several times but he is still right side up and is now cock-of-the-walk and no question about it. Consider the attitudes of our people who have suffered under internment, under the tortures and the brutalities that have been so clearly demonstrated to have taken place up there. So far as I know we are still engaged in an international court in proving what is known here to be true so that we can display it to the world as such though the progress is so slow that perhaps its impact and effect will fall far short of what it was hoped for at the time it was first referred to this international court.
There is the proposal for trying in one jurisdiction people accused of offences in another. I listened very closely and attentively to the Leader of the Opposition yesterday. I do not want anybody cracking back that I did not always do so. I was impressed to the degree that he certainly seemed to have grasped fully, and perhaps as a trained legal man he would have been expected to have grasped this fully, the apparently insuperable difficulties of trying somebody in one jurisdiction for an offence committed or allegedly committed in another. As the Leader of the Opposition went through this in a legalistic way, as was proper and as he saw it, I could see the whole progression of this matter. I have listened to other legal people, notably Deputy O'Kennedy today, speaking on this same subject. He enlightened still further myself and others who might not be as well versed in the law as he is.
But what is clear to me is that if we are to attempt to put into operation this sort of procedure we must have a common court, that is if we are to have a common application of law. If we are to have a common court operating under a controlled Council of Ireland, we must have a common enforcement organisation that would back up that court on both sides of the Border and be common to all 32 counties. Are we not then at the point where this parallels our peace-keeping force, our Garda Síochána et cetera? When that stage is reached is not the logical progression from there that the Army move in to back up, as is the practice today on both sides? Having reached that stage, are we not back to where we came in? As I have been saying for years, a Council of Ireland that has not got security as its prime responsibility and to whom the peace-keeping forces are entirely responsible is meaningless. But that is the stage the progression must reach if the council is to work. Therefore, would it not be better by far that those who have gone to the top storey instead of to the basement or, vice versa, whichever way one wishes to put it, should re-think this matter?
If there is to be a Council of Ireland there is a lot to be said for what I have been advocating for years in this regard. During that time I was laughed and jeered at by the then bossman on that side, who was applauded for laughing at me by the bossman on this side. Now there is produced a wishy-washy council that is proposing to do the sort of thing in this overall way that would appeal to the British and to Brian Faulkner and company in the North. The whole purpose of this is to get rid of violent men. Fair enough. If that is the purpose it would still be far better to get back to the concept of a Council of Ireland that means something and from which could come in the not terribly distant future without coercion or force, a united Ireland.
Such reunification cannot come from the council proposed, because this type of council is so ill-bred and so badly mixed up that it cannot make sense. It is to be composed of seven members from the North and seven from the South. I had been advocating seven or ten Unionists and an equal number of people representing this Government; but now there are seven from the Assembly, not just seven representing the Unionists, not an equal number representing their views. My purpose in having equal representation from Unionists and from the South of Ireland was to try to allay the fears and suspicions of the Unionists. Long ago in this context I proposed the rotating of a chairman. Surely such a council would have been a real council, one in which was inherent the security of the 32 counties, a council on which the chairman would have a casting vote, and one in which decisions would be reached by majority vote. The real safeguard in it would be that if in one year the Unionist chairman put his finger in the southern fellow's eye in regard to the casting vote he would know instinctively that his counterpart from the South would adopt the same attitude in the following year, and that if they continued in that way both would be without eyes within a very short time. Instead of that we have this emasculated effort at a Council of Ireland that is being given no chance of ever being capable of doing anything that would justify it meeting, wherever that meeting might be. I hope Armagh will be the venue. It seems to be the obvious place, but wherever it is held the journeys of its members will not have been worthwhile because each of the 14 members would have to reach his decision unanimously. In other words, every member is to have a veto.
Can anybody conceive of anything so far removed from the reality of the situation that obtains and in respect of which an attempt is being made to deal in this overall matter of a Council of Ireland than having 14 vetoes reposed in its 14 members? Is there anything the members of the council will be capable of doing that all 14 will agree with and which could not be done more capably, more effectively, more economically and more expeditiously by either a Minister from here and his counterpart from the North or indeed by a couple of civil servants getting together and doing whatever is to be done?
The impossibilities and impediments that are being created by this overindulgence in wishful thinking to have peace at any price are very obvious. It is illusory to think that this council can work. If it is understood to be illusory then it is dishonest to be putting it forward as something worthwhile. If it is believed by those who have brought it into being—and I can see there is this belief—that it will bring peace, I ask them to have another look at it. If we are to have a Council of Ireland let it be something the members of which might at least be proud of their membership of it in the knowledge that they were attempting and had the capacity within it to do something worthwhile, something that could not be done better by people at a much lower level and at considerably less cost.
All this reminds me of a trip I made some years ago to the US and Canaada. The project was under the auspices of some body of the UN and was undertaken by me in the context of new planning legislation that was being introduced in this country. The greater part of the itinerary involved visits to the various big cities in the US and Canada and in meeting the people in those places who had grappled with the sort of problem that was only emerging in Dublin and to some degree in the bigger provincial towns. On my second day there I attended a very long session and listened avidly to the people from different departments in the city hierarchy that seems to be part and parcel of the whole working of any city of note in the US. On that occasion, having listened to the manner in which the Americans were redeveloping in terms of lighted areas, twilight areas and their plans for buildings of a 20-year life span instead of the previous 40, I remember getting down to the details as to how one would take a centre city area that was in a bad state but which could be used more economically if it were knocked and re-built. I found that, between committees, commissions, agencies, mayors and councilmen among many others, there were 13 people or groups who had to say "yes" before a decision was taken on how to go about knocking a building.
Thirteen commissions, and elements, had to say "yes" and I asked: "In the name of God how do you ever do anything here and yet you do it quicker than anywhere else". Unfortunately, that will not work in the case of 14 vetoes. It does work in the United States of America. That was the explanation given to me as to how 13 elements could be got to synchronise their thoughts and their thinking to the degree that they would all say "yes" to a big development in the heart of their city. It was the dollar, not, perhaps, as mighty today as it was then but still effective judging by the performance in this and other fields that we read of.
While that worked in the United States of America it cannot work here. Nothing can make those 14 members with vetoes do anything effective. I can see that the frustration from there can do greater damage by far than one would imagine and greater damage than the good those who put it together thought it would do. It is a disastrous effort and it is one which cannot bring any worth in its train. Indeed, it brings the danger that if it ever gets off the ground it can do more harm than good.
On the question of policing, the courts and the common law enforcement area, I would like to suggest that if that is what we are going to have we also must have, and this is inherent in the idea of a Council of Ireland, the security of the entire 32 Counties as the responsibility and the prerogative of this Council. That further progresses to the point that the declaration of intent of Britain to get out must accompany that particular operation. What is now being attempted is incapable of working, well intentioned though it may be. It raises immediately in my mind with great clarity that what I have been advocating as what is needed, a declaration by Britain that she is prepared to get out of this country is the correct approach. Britain should state that she will delegate to the Council of Ireland, constituted and on equal footing with a majority decision rather than veto, her share in regard to security for the Six Counties and we, as a Government, should devolve into that Council of Ireland our authority as a Parliament over the peace keeping forces of the Twenty-six. In other words, Britain decides that she is going and she gives to the Council of Ireland the authority that she would be divesting herself of. We in turn, would match that for the Twenty-six Counties. This would mean that we could bring in a council that would mean something. In its working and its responsibility for the entire peace keeping force of the country such a council would give satisfaction to those who participated in it and worked in it as members. It would display to the entire population, north and south, Protestant and Catholic, that this was a body that could be trusted. It could then be seen that the peace keeping force for the entire country belonged to the people, not ours, but belonging to all of us and caring for all of us.
This is a real fault that should be cleared up in any talk of a Council of Ireland rather than approaching it on the basis that it sounds good and it can go over well. In my view it is not capable of performing even in the slightest way what those who offer it to us hope it will. There is a lot to be said for being honest with people from the North, particularly those who are not of my religious persuasion. I know those people and I am aware that they appreciate being told what the facts are. One thing which they deplore above every other attribute or vice is when anybody tries to sell them short of truth or honesty. That is a trait of theirs.
If that is the only sort of Council of Ireland that has any true meaning and if this one is a projection that it is hoped in some way may emerge as the real one, by some roundabout way that may creep up on these people without their knowing what it means. I say do not try that. Be honest with those people and tell them that this sort of council cannot function: it cannot bring us closer or do anything. These people should be asked if they are prepared to throw their lot in if Britain is going and if they are we should ask Britain to get out.
There can be no real discussion with these people and we cannot expect any reasoning from them in any discussions except they get their way while Britain stands behind their backs. When will this get through? It has not got through in this House and it did not get through in Sunningdale. The knowledge and the belief in this House is that at the high level of Government, present and immediately past, they never seem to grasp the absolutely fundamental elementary bit of knowledge that the British Government must get out of this country before we can get talking to our own people, the Protestants and the Unionists of the Six Counties, with any hope of their talking to us in a reasonable way.
How can we ask a man who is supported by that which he wants to cling to, whose fears have been fed and built up over the years as to what would happen if he was taken in here, who feared that he would be beheaded and that we would visit on him all the wrath of our people because of what some of his people did to some of our co-religionists in that part of the country to accept us? Regardless of how proud such a person is of being Irish— 90 per cent or more of these people are proud of being Irish particularly when they are outside this country— how can we ask such a person to join us or volunteer to come in while Britain stands by his side and tells him that as long as she is wanted she will stay and that is a guarantee?
Such a person would be a nut, a headcase, a double headcase, to agree to talk to us about uniting while Britain tells him that she will mind him so long as they stay with her. What can we expect a northerner of any description and particularly a hard-headed northern Protestant Unionist to do; cut his own head off and hand it to us on a plate? Britain must go before we can make any headway in getting down to the problem of living together. We can do this if Britain can be made to realise that she must make such a declaration. We must face the reality that in the future we must live without her and that we have got to either live or perish to get that. When that happens we will meet the reasonableness of the northern unionist and the northern Protestant who may seem over the years by his "not an inch" and the trailing of his sash to be something that cannot be brought together in the short term.
In the short term if Britain would declare her intention to go they will talk to us and they will make their agreements with us. If that day came, I would be glad to be an Ulsterman because they will get the best of it. Do not have any doubt about it. Faulkner and his men are having the best of it at the moment. I will be on their side if they ever get to that stage and I will be glad to see some of the people that I know getting their "come uppance" for a change. Britain must declare her intention to go. That is the only way in which we can ever really get to terms with these people. No amount of whitewashing and giving away and of conceding our claims and our rights will impress those people there. I am northern. I think I have the same temperament as those people, Catholic and Protestant. I am not impressed by anybody who is prepared to give all the time, give all in the belief that they can "cod" anybody by giving today, and you know damn well that their hands are behind their backs hoping that they will take something off you tomorrow. This is the way we see things in the North.
Be honest with the people of the North. Be honest with Britain and tell them to get to hell out of it and that we can really get to terms ourselves without the bloodbath that is being bandied and used, and the backlash that we hear so much about. There is all sort of backlash and bloodbaths. They are ten a penny at the moment while Britain maintains that she is going to stay. Why would there not be these threats? This is all part of the game. It has been going on for generations and will continue as long as Britain stays. We cannot get to terms or to talk. There is no way until Britain says she is going. Can we help her? I believe we can and I believe we have not been doing so because we have not been projecting this as the ultimate in so far as her thinking is concerned. I at times, feel that we are far from fair to Britain in this particular period.
Whatever our feelings may have been in the past of being hurt and injured, today and for a considerable number of years back I have felt that Britain got no help from us as an Irish Government established democratically and living in freedom on this side of the Border. We have not helped her one iota to understand the situation of the Six Counties and we are not doing it now. Could we help Britain to see that? Could we help her to prepare the way for her declaration of intention to go? I believe that only then and not until then will we have taken the first positive, real step towards peace and unity and justice in the whole of our land.
On this Council of Ireland we have this business which is hardly worth bothering about, although so much is made of it in the communiqué and some reference should be made to it. It may be as well to refer to it because much was made of it in the communiqué. I am speaking about the quite impressive list judging by its length that appears here as to the sort of matters that may come in time to be considered by the council. General terms are given and then there is a list of particular terms. There are eight items on the particular list and three very general headings which include everything from industry to sport, culture, and so on. They are all there; everything of that general nature by which we live and communicate is included. Tourism and electricity are mentioned. These only bring us back into the realm I have been talking about. Quite a number of things are being done. Even in the midst of the present turmoil, which is part and parcel of the Six Counties today and for the past five years, they are being done. It is nice to get them down and put them on paper but, as I said earlier, some of them are being done and the whole of them could be more effectively done and we do not need a Council of Ireland with or without a veto to look after these at all.
These things can be taken care of as they have been cared for up to now, but more could be done. This brings us to the question that if these things are to be done under or through the Council of Ireland who will pay for them. From the communiqué I take it that we in turn pay, north and south, and Britain is there or not there internal arrangements with Counties on the financial side business of theirs between London. So far as we are we will be dealing with Assembly or Stormont—I do what you call it—but the about it is that if these be moved ultimately into the Council of Ireland we them into very substantial cial expenditure and most of which is taking moment, but to whom this control, this power pensation of these giving them to a the manner proposed qué that has vetoes in addition, has 60 become the
We are great and we seem to be or half a book, out book—the United Nations, the Council of Europe. These have gone to our heads. We will have a consultative council and 60 of us going up for that and selected from this House and from the other House by proportional representation. They are all being remunerated. For what? They will meet to advise the 14 members of the council, each of whom has a veto and as a result of which are likely to do nothing. Who are we codding? What is happening? If this is merely a jamboree so that 30 people from here can meet 30 from up there, let us arrange the jamboree and the meetings frequently. On a night such as this, on the eve of the breakup for the recess at Christmas, would it not be a good idea to have something like a match here this year and another one up there next year? Let us do it that way, but do not let us get the idea that 30 people from here and 30 from there will consult and advise the council who in themselves by their very composition are capable of doing nothing, while we are going to pay for it. The public outside will pay for it and we are part of that public when we are not in here.
This will cost more money, and, as I understand it, none of these things costing one halfpenny of the public money or the public purse can be done without the authority of this House. How then does it come that in talking here yesterday and asking—through no fault of the Taoiseach at the time who seemed to be prepared to answer and this morning, in fairness to all concerned, he answered as far as he went —we have not been told when are we going to have another proper debate on this. When are we going to be fully informed so that we can be "with it" and agree? When are we going to be fully informed so that we know precisely what we are debating?
I was disturbed today because I do not think the Taoiseach was forthcoming in his reply. He went quite a bit of the way and his reply might seem satisfactory to an individual querying the Taoiseach on the Order of Business, but it is not good enough to me in that he did give me and this House to understand—which is the important aspect of it—that what was required by the law or the Constitution would be discussed here. Does this mean that this is the only discussion we will have, and by the time this House resumes in January or February there will have been another treaty document signed in our name without an opportunity having been taken of having it before the House, discussed and ratified before the final document is put on paper?
Is that it? If it is, then I can only appeal and plead at this stage not to do it that way. All I can say is: It is not the way to do it, above all in this particular Parliament. This is the last place that should be done. Let us not have any suggestion of a repetition of something being done irrevocably, irretrievably, while there is an Assembly such as this which can be consulted and, if necessary, steam-rolled by a Whip's majority to be accepted. Let us at least go through the motions of a debate and a decision before any delegation, no matter how well meaning, take it on themselves to go across the sea again to sign our rights, our heritage away, whatever may be the cause. Let us have it in this House.
That is not asking too much. It is our right in this House. It is our sad experience that we should exercise that right, above all in relation to our dealings with Great Britain and our occupied portion of this country. I say again, do not, no matter how you feel you have the power or the weight of the constitution or the law on your side, go and sign anything away until you have fully and completely and clearly and without question put it before this House and got its prior approval. To do anything else would be a tragedy above all other tragedies. It is one that I personally do not want to see added to the tragedy that I believe is enshrined in the communiqué that we have been issued with from the Sunningdale talks.
Do not double the tragedy by doing it in the manner that I seem to think the Taoiseach had in mind. He did not say it in so many words, in fairness to him. I am not saying that he said we will do it in that way, but he was less than forthcoming in what he said in reply to my specific questions and pleas about having a full and complete discussion in this House before the final documents are signed away. I hope that others on all sides of the House will join me in saying that this is not a matter of politics. It is not a matter of having a cut at somebody. It is not a matter of getting one up on anybody. It is a matter of fundamental principle that an Irish Parliamentary delegation should not sign anything while we have a Parliament still standing here capable of assembling, capable of debating and approving or disapproving that which it is proposed finally to sign. Let us exercise that which we so proudly boast of, our democracy, here in this House in regard to a matter which is part and parcel of our country, of our future, as well as being a great part of our past.
In regard to the matter of common law enforcement, apart from what I have already said on it, I should like to say that as things now stand I ask any Member of this House or any member of the public outside do they think or do they feel satisfied about this trying of a person in the other jurisdiction for something allegedly committed here. How many of you would be satisfied that you would get a fair trial there, particularly if you were known to have republican tendencies? We have had the experience of what has happened in the past six years not only in the Six Counties and its courts but in British courts in the recent past. Does anybody here or outside believe that a person picked up or having had a finger pointed at him up there as being republican or as being tainted, would have a hope of a fair trial? I refer to either the Six Counties or Great Britain.
Here I refer to Great Britain. She with her most recent savage sentences on those arraigned before her courts has shed no lustre on her alleged British justice. It is British justice all right when it applies to Britons but apparently it is not British justice when it applies to Irish people. In regard to these particular people, one of the things that disturbs me most at the moment is that those who have been savagely sentenced—I say "savagely" designedly—are in English jails. Efforts have been made to have them returned to jails in the Six Counties not because they are any beds of roses but because their families and friends at least can visit them, on the few occasions on which they are permitted to do so, without too great a hardship.
A short two weeks ago, Mrs. Bernadette McAliskey asked Mr. Carr in a written House of Commons question that the Price sisters, who were then being forcibly fed, might be returned to a prison in the Six Counties. He absolutely refused to do any such thing. That is disturbing in itself but it shows to a degree the way in which people become pawns as well as other things, because we found that Mr. Health, I think it is, has indicated that as a result of representations by Mr. Gerry Fitt and Mr. Paddy Devlin of the SDLP while they were at Sunningdale, is now having the matter reconsidered. Is it the Price girls' tragedy and misery that is more important or is it the political window dressing and whitewashing that is being done? The whole thing raises a very serious doubt. I am not asking, but I would hope that the Irish delegation did their job at Sunningdale in regard to seeking the return of those people. I do not want an answer. I am just expressing the hope that they did. I am not referring only to those who come from the Six Counties.
What I am underlining is that what could not be done by Mr. Carr and would not be done by him in any circumstances two weeks ago apparently could be done by Mr. Heath in more recent days in response to representations by two of the participants in the new set-up in the Six Counties. He said he was having the matter reconsidered. Very nice of Mr. Health. Might I say in this regard that there is ample precedent for all of the prisoners over there to be returned to the Six Counties. It is only the reverse precedent in regard to soldiers being convicted in Six County courts. In all cases of which I am aware, when they express the wish to be returned to jails in their own country their requests have been acceded to. If it can be done for British soldiers who have been convicted of crimes in the Six Counties, why can it not be done in reverse for those Irish people who are now in English jails? They might not fare any better from the point of view of their being locked away in Armagh or Crumlin Road. I am speaking purely from the humanitarian point of view—that their families at home would be able to visit them without incurring so much hardship.
Reverting to my earlier plea that the House be given the opportunity to debate the final document, I say also that the voting public are entitled to have their say. I am not saying this, as might be expected, as a gimmick. I am asking that the people be consulted. Whether the Government should choose a general election fought on this issue after it has been clearly debated here or a referendum to get a consensus I do not mind. I believe that, in addition to this House being entitled to full clarification, debate, ratification, amendment or throwing it out, the people to whom we are all responsible, and who sent us here, should be consulted directly on this very important issue. We can do it for other things. For example, Article 44 comes to mind immediately. If we could do it in that case, surely this is more important than Article 44 or any other Article.
Even if it is no more than equal to any of these, if we can do it for them then let us do it. Let us make sure that what we are doing we are doing with our eyes open, the Government, Opposition, all in this House and all the voting public, that they know and approve what they are doing or, if they do not approve that we are let know in the only way possible, through the ballot boxes.
I should like the Government to consider this. Perhaps they have already had some thoughts of this in their mind. I am not throwing this out as tempting them or daring them to have an election or a referendum. It is not that sort of test. I want the people to be consulted on this because of its importance. I want it clarified so that they may be consulted. I want it clarified so that we can debate it more readily and more clearly than we are capable of doing at the moment. We are entitled to this.
Again I would appeal to the Government not to by-pass this on the basis that they are entitled by precedent to sign this or that; not to by-pass this because the law enables them to do it; not to by-pass it because the Constitution does not prohibit them from doing it; not to enter us into commitments for the financing of which they will have to come back to the House, coming back retrospectively having committed us to the expenditure. The boys up above have paid their bills; we owe our part of it and have not paid it. This is not the way to deal with this and I do not think it would be the way for any Government to deal with this matter.
There is no point in quoting precedents and saying how many times we have legislated retrospectively for this or that. I agree we have done this a hundred times. It is a useful device and we will do it a hundred times more. This is not a matter of grants, rates or assistance. This is a matter of funding the institutions which are proposed to be set up, to which we are a party, to which we are agreeing and proposing to agree and depend on the signature of our delegates on behalf of our Government, our country and our people. It should be clearly established what is being done in the names of all of us, Government, people and country, before it is done. Do it in the House. Do it on the floor of the House. Do it before not after.
Go and consult the people as to whether they agree with whatever we have decided here. Find out whether there is acceptance or rejection. Let us get their verdict on it as well as ours. If we do it that way, at least what is done will be done fully and completely and democratically. Those who do not agree with what has happened must accept that a majority in the House and the country decided with their eyes open that this was the way it was to go. In that way you can get a proper decision. In that way the decision that is made is one which is likely to stick. In that way the decision taken is unlikely to cause unrest. Do it otherwise and it is fraught with dangers of unrest and unease, to say the least of it. It will not bring us anywhere. It will not improve our situation. It will not advance us one whit and may set us back in so far as our hopes and wishes for the future of our country are concerned.
I understand from listening to Deputy Lynch, Leader of the Opposition, that he is not knocking the Sunningdale agreement, but neither is he unreservedly accepting it. I may be misinterpreting what I heard but, if I have not misinterpretated him, then I may be misinterpretating Deputy O'Kennedy who spoke this evening. I think the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs queried him across the House to clarify or come across in some way. I understood Deputy O'Kennedy to say: "As the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday." He was asked by the Minister did he support it. It conveys to me a conflict. I am not seeking to tease out the conflict. I am merely seeking to point out what appears to be a difference in my interpretation of what I understood Deputy O'Kennedy to say and what I heard Deputy Lynch say, despite the fact that Deputy O'Kennedy underlined it by saying that he was saying again what had been said yesterday. That is not what I understood it to be yesterday and what I understand it to be today.
Deputy O'Kennedy seemed to support the Sunningdale agreement whereas I understood that Deputy Lynch was not knocking it but had reservations about it. I also understand, but only from the wind—maybe it has been said in the House; I do not know because I was not in the House for every speaker nor, indeed, for all of Deputy J. Lynch's speech either—that, while the Opposition intend to vote against the adjournment and therefore vote against the Taoiseach's Estimate, as it were, they are not voting against the Sunningdale ageeement. Quite candidly this is what confuses me; not "sort of" confuses me, but positively confuses me. You might say this is none of your business but I think it is. I should like to know whether or not the Opposition agree with the Sunningdale agreement. Except for a few of them they are just as important as the Government, because that is all the difference there is between the two sides of the House at any time.
If they agree with it, then perhaps it is an unhappy situation that they should be seen to be voting against the Taoiseach's Estimate incorporated in which, as its first part, is the Sunningdale agreement. On the other hand, if they are not in agreement with the Sunningdale agreement then is it not positively strange that they should indicate their intention to vote against the Taoiseach's Estimate on the adjournment of the Dáil while, at the same time, indicating that they are not voting against the Sunningdale agreement?