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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 13 Dec 1973

Vol. 269 No. 12

Committee on Finance. - Vote 3: Department of the Taoiseach (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1974, for the salaries and expenses of the Department of the Taoiseach.
—(The Taoiseach.)

I want to make some concluding remarks on our position within the EEC, particularly having regard to the point I was making earlier, that I believe this Government have failed properly to publish and project the benefits available to individuals and organisations who could derive benefit from them. In a recently commissioned survey undertaken at the request of the Commission it transpired, and it was apparently a representative survey, that 56 per cent of the Irish people when asked now whether they were in favour of our membership of the European Community answered "yes" and, not surprisingly, only 41 per cent of them thought it was a good thing for them individually. This is obviously a very steep drop from the 83 per cent who voted in favour of entry. I make the point now to confirm what I have been saying, that the Government have failed miserably properly to promote the various schemes of the EEC to the individuals and organisations concerned. I hope they will take note of this as an indication of the public's reaction and concern. It may also be an indication of many other things but at least I would regard it as being an indication of that.

I want to make one other reference in connection with our membership of the EEC. I referred to this before but since then I have reason to understand that perhaps I did not sufficiently highlight the significance of a statement in a report on the European Communities. It is the one dealing with political co-operation. It refers, at paragraph 1.2, to the Paris Summit of October, 1972, and the mandate given to the Foreign Minister to produce a second report on methods of improving political co-operation. It goes on to refer to the second report and it says that the discussions in this connection are regarded as being outside the scope of "normal Community activity."

It should be stated for the record of the House that the discussions in connection with the foreign policy of the Community undertaken prior to the mid-East policy statement are outside the scope of Community activity. They have nothing whatever to do with our membership of the EEC. In fact, it is under the Avignon procedure, whereby the Ministers of the member states retire to another room, and if necessary to another capital, take off one hat and don another, and then make statements as individual Ministers of the nine member countries. It is important that the Minister should have spelled out clearly, first in the report and secondly to this House, that the position in this instance is totally outside our obligations as members of the EEC. I do not intend to repeat what I said during the debate on the report but I am concerned that the Minister can involve himself so freely in decisions which may be a precedent for further decisions in the foreign policy area and ipso facto in subsequent defence area decisions which we are not either obliged or expected to take as a result of our membership of the EEC.

Anybody reading the first page of this report would not understand these consultations unless they had a knowledge of the procedure. There is no indication of how significant or detailed were the consultations. It is my opinion that the decision was an ad hoc reaction to circumstances presented to the Minister at the time. I am concerned that our Minister could so freely append his name to any statement of this nature without having the opportunity of giving it active and detailed consideration and in particular without indicating here in advance whether the decision would be taken as a precedent for further involvement beyond our commitment.

There is a suggestion in the Taoiseach's speech that as a matter of principle all Bills coming before the House from now on should be sent to a special committee. Let us take a factual view of this suggestion and consider it in the light of the facilities and capital available to us to discharge either individually or collectively, such responsibility.

I need hardly remind the House of the number of committees in existence at present, both special committees of the House and informal committees such as the EEC committee and the committee concerning Northern Ireland which was established during the lifetime of the last Dáil and which has been reactivated since. When one takes into consideration the number of Deputies who are members of the Cabinet as well as those Deputies who are members of the European Parliament and the number that we hope will contribute meaningfully and positively to the Council of Ireland and, I presume, to the committees of that council, and when one considers the various other committees that exist, one realises the limitations of the capacity of the House.

Therefore, it is ludicrous for the Taoiseach to suggest that we should now refer all Bills to special committees. Is the Taoiseach being serious, considering that his Minister for Finance indicated this morning the provision of a further £45,000 this year for the committees of this House and seemed to regard this as a major breakthrough. The public will realise that these committees can only discharge these responsibilities if they are properly serviced to do so, but this would require a lot more than the £45,000 mentioned by the Minister.

Even with the best back-up service in the world, I have grave doubts whether this House having regard to the responsibilities of some Members and the professional preoccupation of many others, as well as the fact that many Members are not concerned particularly with the detailed work associated with Bills, could ever reach a stage where we could bear the burden of the present much less of the future in these areas. Maybe there is a case to be made for increasing the representation in the House, but I am not suggesting that this be done. It is a suggestion to which the public might not take too kindly. If the Taoiseach's suggestion were to be implemented, the newspaper people, too, would have difficulty in servicing such committees in addition to servicing the proceedings of the House and any other work that might be in progress simultaneously. It would appear that the suggestion was made without having any regard to what would be the consequences of implementing it.

Before dealing with what the Taoiseach referred to as being the most important concern in this debate, the Sunningdale conference, I would like to comment on a reference made this morning by the Minister for Finance to the necessity of backing up the European committee. The Minister said that we were concerned with empire building. I do not know whether he was referring to me or to other Members but I think I am justified in saying that he had better sort this one out with the Minister for Foreign Affairs because there seems to be a very considerable difference of views between them on the subject of empire building.

For a considerable time we have been endeavouring to have discussed in this House the question of whether it is appropriate for us to have diplomatic relations with Russia but we have not succeeded in these endeavours. It is the opinion of the Minister that the matter is one for the Executive to decide. That is fair enough, but not having heard the views of the House I fail to understand how he can be so confident in his decision. Fortunately, however, some of us took the precaution of recording a statement made so freely by the Minister on a radio programme. On that occasion he stated clearly that it was not for trade purposes that this matter would now be considered but in order that he, as a member of the Council of Ministers, would be able to take an informed view on matters coming before that Council so that when he cast his vote it would be an informed and responsible vote having regard to the fact that he has very serious responsibility in this area and that our country is the only one of the nine that has no diplomatic relations with Russia. If it is the Minister's opinion that we should establish an embassy with any country so that he might take an informed and responsible view at meetings of the Council of Ministers, and judging from what he said this would seem to be the most important reason so far as he is concerned, might he not be the one who is engaging in empire building and not those of us on this side of the House, as was suggested by the Minister for Finance?

Taking the Minister's point and other factors into account I am not suggesting that if the matter were discussed here the House might decide to support the Minister, but having regard to the present lack of back-up of our involvement in so many international organisations I think the Minister's priorities are wrong especially when one has regard to our limited resources. Perhaps even at this late stage this is a matter on which the Minister would take a responsible viewpoint and that whoever is engaged in empire building will have a second look at the situation.

Regarding the Sunningdale conference I would like to say at the outset that, as the Leader of this party has said, the public, should they have any doubts, can rest assured that all of us welcome any move towards reconciliation, tolerance, harmony and peace in this country. In so far as the agreement reached is a significant step towards the realisation of reconciliation and co-operation we support the outcome of the conference. I want to put that clearly on record.

I should like to put a question to the Deputy. Would he say whether Fianna Fáil on balance accepts the Sunningdale agreement or not?

I have said we support the Sunningdale agreement but I intend, if the Minister has an opportunity to listen, to make certain comments which I believe will give him an indication of our concern in some areas. We recognise a formal agreement is to follow and we hope the Government will take what we have to say into account when this formal agreement is being signed.

The Sunningdale conference, and any talks in this connection, must be put in proper perspective. The Deputies on this side of the division were not responsible for Partition. Neither was it our fellow Irishmen in the North of the country who were responsible for Partition. Responsibility for Partition, and the consequences of Partition in many ways, not in every way, lies fairly and squarely with the British Government. This is the first thing that must be stated. But looking at the communiqué issued from Sunningdale one could be forgiven for getting the impression that the matters were discussed in the light of troubles that have spontaneously emerged in any part of our country because of certain differences of tradition, attitudes that exist on both sides of the Border and the need, particularly, to deal with terrorism. There is much more to it than that.

One thing more than any other that all Irishmen have in common —this is something that has not been stated as yet—is the fact that we all recognise Britain's financial obligation deriving from history, deriving from our economic involvement, to contribute meaningfully to the solution of the present position in Northern Ireland and, in particular, to enable all Irishmen to work towards effecting harmony and peace. I acknowledge the firmly held view of many Unionists in the North of Ireland who wish to remain part of the United Kingdom. I acknowledge and respect that view. When one acknowledges these things one must also accept that we can never hope to achieve normality with them until such time as we can, by persuasion and proof of our concern, change their view. We can only do that and no more. We cannot do that by any other means.

There is no reference in the communiqué to this financial obligation of Britain. I should now like to refer to paragraph 7 of the communiqué. This paragraph states that the conference agreed that a Council of Ireland would be set up. But what follows is the important point.

It would be confined to representatives of the two parts of Ireland, with appropriate safeguards for the British Government's financial and other interests.

I know it is easy for me to suggest an appropriate amendment to that text. Nonetheless, I should like to do so and I should like to inquire from the Minister who will be replying on behalf of the Taoiseach what difficulties they found in inserting an amendment such as I am about to suggest. The amendment I suggest is something that occurs to any Irishman. I suggest that instead of saying, "with appropriate safeguards for the British Government's financial and other interests" we should say, "with appropriate provision for the discharge of the British Government's financial and other obligations". This is a matter which, in the interest of all Irishmen must be stated because all of us recognise that Britain has obligations that derive from history and otherwise.

In the interest of the pride of Irishmen of whatever tradition this should be stated. In this we could find another common bond, a common bond that all of us are looking for. This is not based on a prejudiced opposition of any type but on an acknowledgment of what the reality is having regard to the history of this island.

When one reads paragraph 9 of the communiqué, which deals with the revenue of the Council of Ireland, one sees that there is no clear indication of Britain's financial commitment or contribution to this council. This paragraph states:

During the initial period following the establishment of the Council of Ireland the revenue of the council would be provided by means of grants from the two administrations in Ireland towards agreed projects and budgets, according to the nature of the service involved.

I know it can be fairly said that if it comes from the two administrations there is already an element there of a financial contribution from Britain but it must also be said that this is qualified in other ways by what follows. Equally, if this council is to achieve the purpose all of us want to see it achieving—reconciliation and co-operation and whatever happy consequences may follow from that— Britain may have, like always, to be a little more than generous in the circumstances and even make direct contributions to certain projects. I am not prejudging the issue but the ways of the past are very much in favour of this argument.

Paragraph 9 of the communiqué further states:

It is also agreed that further studies would be put in hand forthwith and completed as soon as possible of methods of financing the council after the initial period which would be consonant with the responsibilities and functions assigned to it.

I hope those further studies will give rise to some such commitment. That paragraph continues:

It was agreed that the cost of the secretariat of the Council of Ireland would be shared equally—

From what has been said earlier one presumes that this means equally between the two administrations, between the Executive in the North and the Government here. We are also told in the communiqué that other services would be financed broadly in proportion to where expenditure or benefit accrues. The Minister for Finance referred to this earlier today. Again, in its own way, this is a reasonable proposition, and obviously one all of us welcomes, but I see no indication of Britain's obligation or role in this apart from the fact that the Northern Ireland Executive is involved.

Another part of paragraph 9 states:

While Britain continues to pay subsidies to Northern Ireland such payments would not involve Britain participating in the council, it being accepted, nevertheless, that it would be legitimate to safeguard, in an appropriate way, her financial involvement in Northern Ireland.

I know it is not possible to say everything in such a communiqué because of the delicate feelings of the people on this island. However, one wonders, when there has been so much reference to Britain's interest and safeguarding in an appropriate way her financial involvement if the people who spent so much time and trouble —and I acknowledge both—in drafting this communiqué were aware of the reaction of the people here to the fact that we seem to be concerned with safeguarding Britain's financial interest in one sense and that we have made no reference to Britain's obligation to discharge her financial obligation.

I hope the Taoiseach, and the members of the Government, in the course of their later discussions prior to the signing of any treaty arising out of these talks, will give serious thought to that. We would like to have a commitment, if we are entering or registering agreements in the United Nations, which is a little more specific that what at present appears in the communiqué. I do not think any such commitment would upset the attitude of Irishman to Irishman whatever their tradition. If I thought that would happen I would not have made that suggestion. In fact, I think it would acknowledge the one thing we have in common: a recognition of Britain's financial obligation and the fact that we, given a chance, can discharge our responsibilities and do not need constantly to rely on the handouts of assistance of any other nation.

I do not regard this as a handout. I regard it as a consideration in discharge of a contract. There is a long and historical binding contract between this country and Britain. There have been changes in Britain's attitude over the last 50 years. I welcome those changes, belated though they be. It is important at this stage in recognition of the reality that we should look at those changes. We should first look at the 45 or 50 years of inactivity. There was apparent lack of concern. Under the Speaker's convention in Westminster the internal affairs of Northern Ireland could not be brought up there. For all those years, for reasons best known to themselves, the many injustices which existed, and which I do not intend to discuss in detail, were not apparently a matter of immediate concern to the British Government.

There may have been other reasons, but the reality was that it was not until very recent years that, because of the Civil Rights movement, what followed it and the international notice attaching thereto, the British Government reacted. I am glad to say that in recent times they have reacted in a reasonably positive sense. Up to 1969—and I am not quite precise about this—the Speaker's convention still applied. Then, because of the factors mentioned, Northern Ireland could not only be discussed but it became the main topic of discussion there. If there was one single topic which dominated the discussions at Westminster it was, in fact, Northern Ireland. The Legislature in Westminster then changed the law with regard to the status of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. Any change in the status of Northern Ireland would be subject to the consent of the Northern Ireland Parliament. But now it is guaranteed as long as the people of Northern Ireland wish it. By a stroke of the pen, or by the change in the collective opinion of the Legislature in Westminster, it is no longer "the Parliament"—Stormont, as it was then —but "the people of Northern Ireland."

This is an indication of Britain's position in this matter. It is an indication that Britain, taking decisions of this nature, can influence the situation to a considerable extent when it seems necessary and urgent to Britain to do so. We had the suspension of Stormont under British legislation. We had the establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive under British legislation. We now have the Council of Ireland legislation to be introduced this week to give effect to decisions taken at Sunningdale. This is all an indication of the fact that the sine qua non of any development in this area lies with the British Parliament because of their historic involvement and obligation. The position is that nothing can change in any real sense until the British Government—and in the manner in which they are now reacting one can hope at least that the opportunity for further positive and tolerant change will emerge—act on their responsibilities.

Suggestions have been made from time to time that somehow the conditions in this part of the country were the cause of Partition. I do not intend to defend many of the attitudes of our society. This is not a matter for debate on this occasion. The Taoiseach is on record as having said that the time has come for a new Constitution and we should bury the old one quietly. Recently Deputy Harte appeared with me on a programme called "Here and Now". The chairman mentioned the All-Party Committee on the implications of Irish unity and Deputy Harte said that so far as he was concerned he would throw the Constitution into the Liffey and, further, that he was not concerned whatever with meaningless constitutional jargon.

I accept the sincerity of people who say they are more concerned with people's lives, as all of us are, than with Constitutions. But it is being quite naïve to suggest that one can do anything in any area to safeguard people's lives without having institutions through which one can operate. I am concerned that, if there is an implication that the responsibility for the troubles that have presented themselves lie here and that we have a responsibility to change, we are causing others to whom we present that argument to look in the wrong direction. I acknowledge that this case as presented by me now is not entirely original. I have seen it referred to very effectively in a recent article in The Irish Times by Geoffrey Bing who had experience of this matter in Westminster. It was indicated that from the 14th to the 19th centuries the British could lay claim in their coinage and otherwise to being rex or regina Francia. This claim was not a matter of particular concern to the French during those generations.

I mention that to indicate that matters of this nature represent the genuine aspirations, as the communiqué acknowledges. Our Constitution and what it contains represent our genuine aspirations. We should all like to see the time emerge when, under new institutions in a new Ireland, we would not need any such statements in a Constitution because they would have become superfluous. Until such time as it does emerge we must acknowledge the fact that we should place the responsibility where it should lie. When our time comes, we must prove that we, too, will be generous and tolerant. In the meantime there is a danger from the tone of this communiqué that there is an implication that it was our responsibility rather than Britain's that all of these troubles have come about.

Paragraph 10 of the communiqué states in connection with the proposals which were put forward:

Different ways of solving this problem were discussed: Among them were the amendment of legislation operating in the two jurisdictions on extradition, the creation of a common law enforcement area in which an all-Ireland court would have jurisdiction, and the extension of the jurisdiction of domestic courts so as to enable them to try offences committed outside this jurisdiction. It was agreed that problems of considerable legal complexity were involved, and that the British and Irish Governments would jointly set up a commission to consider all the proposals put forward at the Conference and to recommend as a matter of urgency the most effective means of dealing with those who commit these crimes.

At the beginning of paragraph 10 it was stated:

It was agreed by all parties that persons committing crimes of violence, however motivated, in any part of Ireland should be brought to trial irrespective of the part of Ireland in which they are located.

I simply want to say that the criminal law is only one element in the total statute law of a country. It does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of the legal framework of any country. Therefore we should not just be dealing with punitive jurisdiction of the courts because when we are dealing with crimes of violence we may lose sight of what the law means and of the fact that the criminal law is but one element of statutory law in any country. I hope we are concerned with encouraging respect for law generally.

There has been a lot of talk about law and order and this can be interpretated in a very emotional way. This has often been the reaction in the matter of law and order according to all preconceived attitudes. We must learn to understand that the law represents not just punishment but also the concern our institutions must have to establish a framework for society which will uphold all the legal requirements of those in that society, including protection of civil rights.

Last weekend I suggested that there is great opportunity and scope for the commission which has been suggested to harmonise the law as between both parties. Up to 50 years ago we had such harmonisation and common courts in the several areas. Having regard in particular to our membership of the EEC and the need in any event for harmonised laws within that community, surely the Council of Ireland and the institutions set up under that council will have a better opportunity to establish what they want to establish. Normally the courts of such an institution would be concerned with normal protection of civil rights, whether these involve criminal law or civil law. I am not aware of any jurisdiction where the criminal law is treated entirely separately. Criminal law in property is inevitably associated with civil law in property. That can be illustrated in several jurisdictions, including the States in America.

Our main concern is to see that there is respect for the institutions of the council and for the courts which we hope to see established. These courts, I hope, can evolve into representative institutions in regard to the various aspects of law. I know it is not reasonable to expect that all this can be done overnight. It involves complex studies but they are not as complex as they might appear to be. I am mainly concerned that the council or any of their institutions would not be seen simply as an agency of punishment or enforcement. You cannot have respect for an agency which is one of punishment or enforcement——

I do not understand what the Deputy is saying. You cannot respect whom, where?

If you have just a court whose only jurisdiction is a criminal one, which apparently is what we are concerned with here at the moment, then those who appear before that court, if they look at it as being only an agency of punishment——

I do not think they respect any court. Do they?

We are talking in terms of the minority in Northern Ireland; we are talking in terms of the law from the point of view of people whose fathers and grandfathers, who for years were denied the normal rights of employment——

The representatives of the minority in question have agreed to this.

I agree and if the Minister thinks I am illogical in what I am saying, well and good. Mr. Faulkner seemed to suggest he did not think it was necessary to look at the general harmonisation of laws, but perhaps if it were brought home to him that such could be done he would agree. I am not aware of what happened at the conference. We welcome the conference and the communiqué. All that is needed is co-operation between Irishmen through democratic institutions.

I was glad to see in the communiqué that representation should be weighted in favour of the northern representatives. From our point of view we can assure all concerned that we will not in any way support deceit or coercion of our fellow Irishmen, that through the council we will not deceive or coerce them into a united Ireland.

I hope that from their experience of working with us in the council they will find in us a healthy desire for friendly normal relations with our nearest neighbour as two countries whose destinies and futures are inevitably associated, particularly having regard to our common membership of the European Community. They will particularly find in us a desire to live in peace and reconciliation with Irishmen of every tradition for our common good.

Towards this end we must be patient, generous, tolerant and understanding. We are concerned for the feelings and frustrations of all in the North of Ireland. These feelings are deep and the frustrations are real. We are concerned in a special way for the feelings and frustrations of our Unionist fellow Irishmen because they might not readily appreciate our concern. I believe we can prove that concern through the institutions which have been proposed as a result of these talks and negotiations which have been carried on during the past few days. I believe we can prove that concern and, in time, they will respond to it. That is the ultimate hope we all share.

It is unfortunate that this debate has been relegated to a place where, when everything else has been attended to, we will talk about the Taoiseach's Estimate. A minute part of it is, perhaps, the most important, some say historic, momentous occasion, certainly in my lifetime and the lifetime of most of the people in this House, that is, the Sunningdale conference which was held a few days ago.

I am amazed at the manner in which it has been played down. I am staggered by the scant treatment it has received from the Taoiseach who brought it in with his Estimate, as we felt, to give it a better floor for discussion and make it more convenient for the House. It was brought into that discussion a number of days after the various media had their "go" at it and quoted the various versions of the participants in those talks. I am horrified at the prospect that this is to be the only discussion on a matter as important and as far-reaching and, perhaps, as dangerous as is, I think, this document which has emanated as an agreed communiqué. I complained very bitterly, and properly so, that a copy of the communiqué was quoted in various cross-Channel and home newspapers a number of days before a copy was made available to any Member of this House. In fact, copies were made available to Members late last night. Most Members would not have received their copy until this morning.

Members were approached by various newspapers and asked to give their views on the communiqué. They did so and their views were widely publicised. Yet, the communiqué— which was the only document issued on the discussions—became available to Members of this House only yesterday. This was very wrong. It reflects no credit on the Government, or the Information Bureau—if they were at fault—or on anybody connected with the Sunningdale discussions.

I have been sought by newspaper reporters—I will deal with other media later—for some time. I did not have anything to discuss because I had not a copy of the only document to emanate from that conference. I read what was reported in the papers both cross-Channel and at home. I issued a statement because it appeared as if I had nothing to say about this. That would be untrue, of course, as well as unfair to the people I represent. My statement was carried in full by The Irish Times, to quite a degree by The Irish Independent, to some degree by The Irish Press and not at all by the State-sponsored and State paid for RTE. Perhaps they were following in the footsteps we know they trod in recent years of being suppressed in disseminating the views of any of us anywhere who do not happen to agree with the official view of the Establishment of the day; and that goes for today, yesterday, last week and last year.

The document I issued got some mention, not only because of what it contained. It even got a description: a Paisleyite-like document. That, of course, could come from one pen only, wielded by one man who would see this document in that way. I give him this credit at least: by so doing he is drawing some attention to it, which is more than the RTE institution, which I and the rest of us help to pay for, had the courtesy to do. In their operations over recent time—when I say "recent" I mean the past two or three years—on this very touchy matter of the Irish question and the national issue, they seem to be directed by the gnomes wholly and completely to conform to the Establishment point of view. Any time they infringe on that there is a long silence before another view contrary to that of the Establishment is heard from any of the persons who might hold a contrary view. There are more people holding contrary views to those of this and the last Establishment than would be depicted by that particular media.

I have had no reason to change the statement in question now that I have seen the official communiqué. I should like to quote from my statement. This may be unusual but it is not unorthodox. I said:

Mr. Heath says of Sunningdale that "it is absolutely true that all delegations were prepared to compromise in order to get agreement". Mr. Cosgrave says of Sunningdale that none of us has compromised and no one has asked any of the others to compromise on basic aspirations.

Yet the Dublin Government have agreed to make a solemn declaration recognising internationally (as I understand it) the present partitioned status of the Six Counties as part of the United Kingdom. The greatest sell-out in our history (and I underline that).

Would the Deputy mind quoting the actual text of the declaration of the Government which is not as he has just quoted?

I will do that. It is like the three thimbles: which is it under? The only thing is there are only two here and we still do not know which it is under, left or right column, we do not know.

Would the Deputy quote the actual text of the declaration?

I will come to that at a later and more appropriate time. I will continue to quote from my own statement which I made on the 11th December:

The agreement would ensure the return to Stormont, with the RUC elevated to a new and more powerful status and their continuance guaranteed by all the five signatories of Sunningdale.

Internment is to remain. The internees and political prisoners are to be used as pawns. A mean advantage is being taken of the relatives of internees with baited promises of release by instalment in order to assist the compromisers of Sunningdale in selling this shabby deal to the Irish people.

The proposal for trying in one jurisdiction persons accused of offences in another jurisdiction is ludicrous.

It is totally unacceptable, unworkable, and almost certainly unconstitutional. If the Dublin Government were being honest with the people in this regard, it would scrap the Constitution and propose our return to the United Kingdom.

Appointments to the Garda Police Authority are to be made in consultation with the Council of Ireland. But Britain is to make the appointments to the RUC Authority after consultation with Mr. Faulkner.

With the Northern Ireland Executive.

The statement continues:

Why the sinister difference? Further, Mr. Faulkner says that the Garda Commissioner and the Chief Constable of the RUC are "to sit down and work out together the best ways to co-operate" in hounding Republicans. Collaboration, in other words, is to be legalised—and this outside the control of any parliament.

Apart from the fact that the stated matters with which the proposed Council of Ireland may deal are not relevant to a peaceful solution of the Irish question, the further fact that each of the 14 members of its Council of Ministers has a veto makes it nothing more than a further piece of Sunningdale window-dressing for which the public are to be asked to provide the finance.

The only solution that holds out any real hope of an end to violence in Ireland is for a Council of Ireland with complete control of security for the whole island—and that can only happen after Britain declares her intention to go. This must be accompanied by the ending of internment, with a general amnesty North and South, and in Britain, for all political prisoners.

The Sunningdale agreement has all the appearance of being another "damn good bargain", as Mr. Cosgrave's predecessor some fifty years ago described what has since proved to be a tragic mistake.

That statement was made without the aid of the communiqué but as a result of reading various cross-Channel and home newspapers. As I have said, having read the communiqué and having tried to digest it since last night, I have no reason to change it but much reason to add to what I have said.

It appears from what we have been told by the Taoiseach that we are not to discuss the matter. In fact, it has been suggested it would be better that we should not elaborate on the subject. We have been told that the hopes of success and chances of real progress would be better if we did not talk about it. Surely this is the very negation of the whole purpose of a forum for debate in this country. If there is no forum for debate before which a matter as important as this might be brought, then there is no democracy left in what we claim to be our territory on this side of the Border.

What does the Taoiseach want us to do? Are we to willy-nilly trust what has been done by way of a bargain, which emerged as a package at Sunningdale? All I can say as an Irishman—I do not think anyone can feel aggrieved about it—is that anything brought about by way of deliberations, discussions and bargaining with British diplomats and members of the British Government is not to be trusted. That is the first thing all of us must surely know.

This particular operation is even more fraught with danger because in addition to the traditional British diplomacy that has held them together and won for them many possessions during the centuries, on this occasion aiding and abetting them was the very quick brain and the politically agile Mr. Faulkner who has no peer in the political arena in either of the two islands at this time. For those reasons I was absolutely staggered by the Taoiseach's suggestion that it would be better not to go into this matter in any great detail. He set the tone himself by relegating to five or seven pages out of 27 pages his contribution in connection with this important matter as head of the Irish Government delegation.

In the first paragraph of my statement I highlighted the contradiction where one Prime Minister, Mr. Heath, said it was absolutely true that all delegations were prepared to compromise in order to get agreement, while the Taoiseach stated that none of the parties compromised or asked anyone else to compromise on basic aspirations. In the light of that contradiction, and from the scant supply of information furnished to us, either through the communiqué or the Taoiseach's contribution or those of other speakers in the debate, can we see what has happened and is happening?

One reason for all the apparent secrecy, the soft-footed approach, the playing down of the most momentous and important occasion in my lifetime, and the contradiction evident in a specific way in the remarks of the British Prime Minister and the Taoiseach, may be that the British public have to be sold a version, the Unionists in the Six Counties must be sold a somewhat different version and for the poor slobs south of the Border any version will do. The long-suffering nationalist people in the Six Counties also have to be given some variation of the version——

They were represented at the talks.

All of this must go towards selling the idea. We are great at selling these days. It seems to be our greatest attribute now. Is this why we are not being given the information? Is there a better, more reasonable or more logical explanation? If there is, is it not a sad thing that we have to look for it in the House rather than being given it?

Should not the fullest explanation be given whether it be a version that pleases or displeases me, or pleases or displeases the Unionists in the Six Counties, or the British people or the Nationalists? It is the truth that should be given. There should only be one version. Let us get it all out. Let our people know what it is all about. Let us not have doubts raised because of lack of information, particularly if there is no cause for those doubts. Why raise the doubts by short circuiting the information that might be given if it is available? I believe the Government must give that information. I believe it must be clarified and that it will be on their heads if it is not.

In opening this debate the Taoiseach avoided like the plague giving any details which might elaborate or clarify what is contained in the communiqué. We find some strange and rather difficult passages in the communiqué but, before going on to quote them, let me put it this way. In the five pages, or so, the Taoiseach gave us by way of his total contribution, representing the people who were at the talks and the Government over which he presides, these were his words:

The wording of the communiqué is I believe clear and I do not think it necessary or useful to enter here into a detailed commentary on it, or interpretation of it.

Having disposed of it satisfactorily and explained it so clearly that even I could see every last item in the communiqué, he goes on to say in the next paragraph:

The important thing now is to make what was agreed at Sunningdale work for the benefit of all the people of Ireland.

What is he talking about? What is it that is so clear in the communiqué? What is it that is for the good of all the people of Ireland that should be so clear in this communiqué that, having dealt with it in those sparse few words, we are now to lump it and like it and work through it for the betterment of all the people of Ireland? This is a grand aspiration, but surely it is not the manner in which a document of the nature of this communiqué, and particularly its content, should be dealt with in this House on this important occasion.

Surely we should look at it and seek clarification and, if necessary, rediscussion and re-negotiation in order to get clarification on practically everything contained in the communiqué. The Taoiseach said that the setting up of the Six County Executive and the Council of Ireland early next month, as he forecast, would not be helped "if each Party to the agreement were to enter into detailed exposition of its own particular interpretation of the communiqué, or of any part of it".

This brings me back round the circle again to the other way in which it has been approached. Apparently there must be a deal and a pact between all the participants in Sunningdale that, whatever it is they have agreed on, even though we do not understand it, we are not to be told their versions of it. What does that mean? Are we all to be kept in the dark or are we, as we have already seen, to find some of these parties not sticking to the deal at Sunningdale, like Mr. Faulkner coming out in various media and telling us various parts of what he understands and believes he agreed to and what will follow from it. Mr. Heath, I am sure, is not really in any great dilemma. If he is pushed on any of these matters he will talk.

Here in this House the Taoiseach, perhaps in accordance with some preconceived and agreed formula is not forthcoming at all. I think he has got to be. There is an absolute obligation on him. No part of this dealing can or should properly be done—even if it can be done it should not be done— until it is fully and completely and absolutely explained and clearly understood by all the people of this country and not only their representatives in this House who are not clear on it at this stage. Unless we get a great deal more information we will not be clear on what this is all about. We should get the clarity that this important occasion demands and then, regardless of whether it is law that is involved, constitutional or otherwise, and regardless of whether the Government have a right as the Government to manipulate their way around what might preclude them from signing our heritage away, they should do one of two things.

I would ask them to consider this seriously. They would go down in history as people who, having done what they believed to be best, took the honest and straight course with their people. They should go through the country for an election on the whole issue, the whole issue having been explained, or hold a referendum. There could not then be the recriminations which undoubtedly must arise and will arise, and from those recriminations perhaps more tragic happenings and, perhaps, parallels with that of which we have all had too much experience in the past. I believe the Government should do this. Even though they may feel they could show, by legal manipulation or otherwise, that they do not have to do it, it is important enough for them to do it. They would then know exactly where they were. The people would know where they were going and, by and large, the Government and people would move towards that end.

Are the people to be left in the dark? That is the question I ask. Are they to be left with what we have been given here? Are they to be left with the various interpretations that we will have to try to make on these matters, representing as we do people who will be most interested to find out what do we think? What is the explanation? What was said in the Dáil? What does that mean? I say: do not leave us in the dark and do not leave them in the dark. We had enough of that during the power cuts without having it in reality here again.

If Stormont is coming back, as I believe it is, the people should be told. If we are recognising the Six Counties for the first time in our history and reneging—as I see it; others may see it differently—on our national aspirations, let us say that is what we are doing. Do not let us go along, as we appear to be doing in paragraph 5, trying to have it both ways on the two sides of the one page. The first thing which struck me about the declarations was that normally we get paragraphs one after the other, but here we get them side by side. The Irish Government's declaration is on the left and the British Government's declaration is on the right. I now quote the Irish declaration:—

The Irish Government fully accepted and solemnly declared that there could be no change in the status of Northern Ireland—

The rest of it is hogwash but I will quote it:—

—until a majority of the people of Northern Ireland desired a change in that status.

I put the full stop after "Northern Ireland" if you want to know what is really intended there. Again, my interpretation, and I am open and gladly available to be convinced that that interpretation is wrong above anything else in this document. Anyone who can convince me that that is not the real interpretation I certainly will welcome.

That is the end of the Irish declaration. We move over from that, as I see it, declaring our acceptance of that which we have never accepted, the Six Counties as part of the United Kingdom and we then get the British declaration and, as I read it and see it, and as it has its impact on me, it follows in this way, and I quote the British declaration:

The British Government solemnly declared that it was, and would remain, its policy to support the wishes of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland. The present status of Northern Ireland is that it is part of the United Kingdom.

There is a full stop there. It goes on —again waffle, hogwash in my own estimation, and of no consequence whatever in so far as our national aspirations are concerned:

If, in the future the majority of the people of Northern Ireland should indicate a wish to become part of a United Ireland, the British Government would support that wish.

I suggest that the British declaration coming, as it were, after the Irish declaration which, reading on the left, is read first, merely copperfastens the fears I have and that have, indeed, been headlined in some papers, that we are, in fact, recognising the Six Counties as part of the United Kingdom and that we are jettisoning and throwing out the window the oft repeated claim that only the majority of all of the people of this island have the right to determine what may be its future; or, putting it conversely, as it often is, that no part of the 32 Counties of Ireland are conceded the right to opt out of this nation. To me, nothing that has gone before or may come after in so far as the Sunningdale agreement is concerned matters a damn when it is compared to that if, as I say, it cannot be shown that my interpretation as I have given it here is not correct. I would hope that it could be so shown, but I cannot see where or how that welter of words in both those declarations, and cutting out the bottom portion of each, they could mean anything other than the sell-out that I have mentioned earlier and, indeed, that I have mentioned at other times in the recent past.

What are we then to do if we have, as I believe, though I dearly desire and hope that I am wrong—as I see it here, there is no getting away from or gainsaying it—in fact, given in and sold out our heritage and our birthright to Britain? What then is to be the future in so far as any aspirations towards uniting our country as it is entitled to be united is concerned? What of all those and everything that has gone in the past in trying to reach this particular goal? What of the sorry tragedy that the partition of our country is and has been for the last 50 odd years? What does it mean that there are a thousand dead since 1969 and that there will be more dead—maybe before we are out of this House? I just do not know. Can we just go back even before 1969 and have a thought going back only those six or seven years to the emergence of what is credited as the beginning of the whole movement that has brought us up to this situation that we are discussing such a document here today, namely, the emergence of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in the Six Counties? Might I just even say that that may have been the formalising of the movement that began the whole situation and the whole episode that has culminated in this, if culmination this is in this agreement. But might I suggest there was an earlier movement?

I think that the first real evidence of an assertion by the people in the Six Counties of no longer being prepared to be pushed around and discriminated against on a sectarian basis arose out of the protests, which were non-political, non-religious, organised to try to do the sensible thing in regard to Ulster's new university; the people wanted it built in Derry. They failed and the stupidity is still there with us, a bulge where it should not be on the north west, while Derry, on the north west, lacks the very facility that would be so useful to both sides of the Border, with or without the unnatural divide that is there at the moment. From that I believe came the knowledge and the belief and the confidence that people could be got together to fight for their ordinary rights, to protest in every possible way and no longer lie down and take the sort of treatment that partition and the setting up of Stormont and the enshrining of a perpetual majority of a Unionist outlook was handing out to them. Whether it was then known or not as the Civil Rights Association the movement began to gather strength, began to be taken note of, and whether it might have continued as it ultimately continued, if we did not have the stupidity on Craigavon Bridge away back in 1968 or the greater stupidity of Burntollet through the forces of the RUC and particularly of the dreaded B Specials at that time, whether the movement would have gone on regardless of these further provocative, inflammatory and discriminatory actions of these alleged law-keeping forces at that time, I do not know, but these things together with the ban on the march made by the then Minister for Home Affairs, Mr. Craig, whether they only contributed or whether, in fact, without them the cause might have fizzled out, I do not know, and nobody ever will now know.

But the cause and the movement went on and gathered strength to such a degree that as 1969 wore on it became pretty evident that a clash was inevitable and that clash emerged and erupted, as we now know, tragically in Derry in August of that particular year. We have the evidence upon evidence through inquiry after inquiry, through the cameras of the all-seeing eyes of our television crews who risked their lives and limbs to bring to us then the true state of things above in those Six Counties of ours, and the manner in which our people, all of them, irrespective of what side they belonged to, were being treated and all that they were going through. They depicted above all else to the world to see that the B Specials and the RUC were no more peace-keeping forces—it is difficult to describe how far removed they were from what they were supposed to be doing as against what they were doing—because they were the people who were batoning down the people. They were the people supposed to keep order but who were, in fact, the creators of the disorder. They were the sort of people who kicked to death one Sam Devenney, of whom the House has heard many times before. These things were seen and appreciated for the first time in a wide sense and by a wider audience than ever before. This helped to create public opinion not only here in Ireland but in England and much, much further afield.

True to its tradition—indeed, I suppose, almost obeying the causes and the reasons and the promoters who brought them into being—this peace-keeping force did not suddenly emerge in new splendour to keep the peace, but batoned to the ground, as they had so often done before, the Croppies who had raised their heads to claim their rights in their own city not only in Derry but also in Belfast.

These things should not be forgotten when we are talking here in this communiqué from Sunningdale not only about recreating the RUC, but, adding insult to injury, creating and restructuring our own Garda Síochána on the RUC pattern. What does this mean except that we have absolved completely a force that, by exposure to the world, by sworn statements at public inquiries and other inquiries, has depicted itself as a force that can never regain, if it ever had, the confidence of the minority in the Six Counties occupied, as they have been for so long by Great Britain?

Have we lost all sense of reason, all sense of decency? Have we forgotten entirely the role this force has played over so many years? This is not to say that every member of it is to be condemned any more than the members of any other organisation are to be condemned, but as an organisation it is not the type that should be retained if there is to be any hope of respect for the law or the keeping of order in the future. Above all, we should not import that pattern into the Garda Síochána, as is now being proposed. This is madness, madness that should be nipped in the bud. If there are to be police let there be two sets of police or guards, if the Border is to remain as it has been enshrined, in this document, as I read it, forever and always. That is what it means to me. I may be too obtuse. I certainly am blunt. I am northern, and I think I know what I am talking about in this regard.

It is a tragedy that at the hour of our greatest opportunity in all of our history to put our foot on the road to final unity in this country, that we should opt out of our claim to that unity by saying that by consent we shall have it, with Britain saying very graciously: "If they consent we shall not stand in the way; in fact we shall help you." I am sure Britain at this stage in her history would be delighted to get rid of the North. She must be sick, sore and tired of the Irish question. There may have been a time when holding the Six Counties was not merely the pride of the British Empire and the British Government, as I believe it now only is; there may have been a time when it was regarded by its war lords as absolutely necessary to the preservation of the island, but no longer is that the case. Surely we must have been aware of how sick and tired Britain is of the kettle of fish she has on her hands these last five or six years, shown up before the world for the occupying usurper that she is in this land of ours. She wants to get out, but we have not been helping her to get out. We are now pinning her down to stay in. What has gone wrong? Surely there must be limits to the distance any delegation is prepared to go to get agreement. I am from the North of Ireland, north of the north. I want peace in the North of Ireland or in the Six Counties, as it will always be to me. I want an end to the conflict there. I want to have the greatest co-operation between the people of Derry and Tyrone and Donegal because the Border counties of Monaghan, notably, Cavan, Louth and Donegal are all partitioned counties. We are suffering from the evils of Partition. Who has represented our views at these talks? Where are we given any consideration in this matter? We have not even been thought of. We are sick listening to the tune: "You cannot bomb a million Protestants into a united Ireland". Nobody says that he could or that he wanted to. What nobody who sings that tune ever seems to advert to is that there are half a million Catholic Nationalists in the Six Counties who have been kept there by coercion, discriminated against scandalously down through the years; and that there are close on another half million living in close proximity to the Border but south of it who are almost as much affected by that Partition as those inside the Six Counties. If you put them together there is no case you can make that the million have a right that the other million have not got; or that the million have a right that the other three-and-a-half million in the country have not got.

We have gone away from any semblance of sanity in regard to this matter. I do not ignore the fact that those who went from this Government and Parliament here represented the Twenty-six Counties in all good faith, but overburdened with the idea that an agreement had to be got and that peace at any price was the answer. The greatest deception that any people could perpetrate on themselves is to believe that you can have peace at any price. If the price is too high, that is the sure way not to have peace. It is my fear and my regret that we will not have peace out of this package that has been presented to us, because the price is a reneging on our claims to our own territory. That price may have bought something today, but it will not endure on the morrow. I only hope that my interpretation is as wrong as I am positive that it is nearly right.

Internment is a dirty word. Internment in the recent years and in the recent decade was a very dirty word. Together with internment has gone torture, evidence of which has been elicited through the various media and as a result of public inquiries, not instituted by any of us here but instituted by what would only be regarded as the objective third party, Great Britain, who I feel, if anything, would not be partial to our point of view or to the finding that tortures were taking place. Internment and torture were introduced hand in hand. By whom were they ordered and introduced on that dark day of 9th August 1971? By none other than Mr. Faulkner who is now the king pin of the 11-man Assembly designate that has been brought about as a result of the support of the SDLP who claimed that they got Stormont prorogued, got rid of Stormont and Brian Faulkner and who said they would never again sit down and discuss any matter relating to the Six Counties and its troubles until internment was first ended.

What do we find? Internment continuing and Mr. Brian Faulkner the new king pin of the Assembly designate with a majority of six to five, even if you counted the fifth—but a majority, nevertheless, and no man knows what a majority means better than Mr. Faulkner. He has said that a majority of one is still a majority and he is dead right. He is being put back and put into a position of power that he never occupied before and never even dreamt he could attain by the very people who would claim credit for knocking Stormont and who said they would never have anything to do with anybody in this regard until internment was ended. Internment remains; Stormont is on its way back and—fair play to him—Brian Faulkner is the chief pilot, captain and bossman and nobody can gainsay it. I salute him for his political agility, his capacity to survive, his quickness of political brain and strategy by which he can cod the lot, and I do not exclude those who went from Dublin to Sunningdale.

If we could have changed captains in this game, as I said in relation to another game not so long ago, I reckon we would win. However, that has not happened and the tragedy to my mind is that we now have Stormont coming back, entrenched more firmly than ever, acknowledged and accepted and brought into being by the people who say they represent the Nationalist minority in the Six Counties, aided and abetted by the representatives of the Dublin Government whom I excuse to this extent: they have been advised as were their immediate predecessors by SDLP members and if the information they have been fed—and I am sure they were fed very strenuously by these people—has misled this Government, as I believe it misled the previous Government, then I blame both for being misled but I have a better understanding as to why it happened. It does not excuse such a cardinal and fundamental error as paragraph 5 of the Sunningdale communiqué would indicate that they had made. Nothing can excuse that. No deal that is in any way to our betterment emerges as a result of that.

The Taoiseach said there are no winners and there are no losers.

The Deputy backed a loser and you interned people also.

If the Deputy allows me to make my speech he need not fear but that he will be allowed to make his.

But it is a fact.

I do not mind cracks and whips across the House. On other subjects, I would welcome them; on this particular subject I do not. I do not give a damn if the whole lot on both sides of the House are barracking me; it would not bother me but what bothers me is what I am talking about. That alone bothers me and the phrase "no winners and no losers". If everybody else has a different opinion—"they are all out of step except our Johnny"—very well, I am accustomed to that appellation in this House. Naturally, I do not like it but I must accept it if that is so. Can anybody convince me—believe me, I want to be convinced—that there have been no losers in this case because I believe that we are losers? I believe that we have lost the only remaining vestige of the traditional republican heritage that was part of all of us and, I am sure, of Deputy Coogan equally.

We were republicans when it was dangerous to be republicans.

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?

This has been done by Deputy J. Lynch. This was stated by him. If Deputy J. Lynch's interpretation is correct any matter which involves financial commitment must come before this Parliament.

Perhaps I am straining things a bit but I am anxious in this matter. Perhaps because of its vital importance normal procedure might not be strictly adhered to. When I am seeking information from a Minister, that is one thing, and when I am seeking information from the Opposition benches, that is another. In this case what is really happening is that the Opposition's recorded vote will not be against the Sunningdale agreement, nor is it to be taken that their not voting against it means that they are voting in favour of it—that what they are doing is reserving their position in that they are of the belief, as I am, that there will be another day or days in regard to this matter when there will be a precise and straightforward debate and the issue resolved directly concerning the Sunningdale operations rather than anything else.

It is not my job to enlighten the Deputy but if legislation is necessary, yes.

That is where I came in and where I am going to go out as well. Is legislation necessary before the final deed is done? This is what I am concerned about. If I could be assured that all the detail in the communiqué as circulated would be discussed in the House at a future date, even by special recall of the Dáil in January which I think should take place, I should be happy to leave it at that and hope for some assurances. I would be happy if there were some changes of mind and would be glad to be reassured that the agreement is not what it seems to be. If I knew we would have another day so that we might unravel the matter and get more explicit, concise, explanations that were not merely part of an Adjournment Debate on the Taoiseach's Estimate I would be happier than I am at the moment, or at least I would be satisfied that we were not being bamboozled into accepting the agreement when we are unclear about it. This matter should stand on its own, it should have a full debate and not be tied in with the Taoiseach's Estimate. I hope we will get it.

The financial matters mentioned by a spokesman for the Opposition could be very tricky because I think they are capable of being sought for afterwards rather than being a prerequisite to the event. If this is so we are deluding ourselves that we will have another day because when we have irretrievably and irrevocably signed, when we have made our commitments and have obligations to meet for which we must provide money, we may not have an opportunity to discuss the matter in this House. If we cannot discuss the merits of the payment of the money, I am wondering——

The Deputy need not worry about that. I can reassure him when I come to speak after him.

I should sleep all the better if the Minister could do that and I should be delighted to hear if he can do it. With regard to the international registration, perhaps the Minister when he speaks might be in a position to elucidate on this matter. Perhaps he can tell us what it means, how it will be done, what are the obligations and whether the registration requires us, through our Constitution or the laws of the United Nations, to come and get authority from this House. I should be very glad to hear this kind of information from a speaker on behalf of the Government and there is nobody better versed in these particular operations than the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

Any assurance of a further debate would relieve my mind considerably. It would reassure me that whatever we decide will not be done in haste and, consequently, it will be all the better. Whatever may be decided ultimately will be more likely to be right than if it is done now, irretrievably and irrevocably; no matter how well-meaning we may be, we could be doing the wrong thing. It is my belief we have sold out the most important thing by our declaration. My overall attitude is that I do not like it. I realise it is hardly necessary for me to say it, but say it I will. I do not like the deal, I do not like the package. I find a great deal of the detail wrong, much more than I have mentioned here. I do not think it is a good deal, I do not believe it has a snowball's hope in hell of attaining the ends the Government representatives so dearly wish. For all those reasons, and for that reason in particular, I dislike the deal; if it is as it appears in the communiqué, any way I can influence or talk others into opposing it in order to change it I shall do so. I do not believe the deal is good; I believe it is positively bad, but if I can be persuaded that it is good I should be very happy.

First, I should like to ensure that Deputy Blaney will sleep tonight. I should not like to keep him awake. Certainly the Dáil will have another opportunity of debating this matter. We think such an opportunity is needed because it is necessary that every Deputy has not merely an opportunity but a need to declare or to show by a vote where he stands on this matter. It is absolutely necessary that the people know where their representatives stand exactly on this, and they do not know now.

The next stage of this matter is the renewed second or formal stage of the tripartite talks which will take place early in the new year. At those talks there will be a formal agreement; the international parts of that agreement between the two sovereign States will have to be registered in a formal agreement. When that formal agreement is reached it will be brought before this House and we will have an opportunity of debating it. Those who cannot make up their minds at this stage where they stand on the matter will have not merely the opportunity but a duty to say exactly where they stand. I hope they will. There will be a vote on that.

With regard to consulting the people, it is clear that if the vote in the Dáil went against the agreement the Government would have to go to the country. If not, then I think not, but the Government have taken no decision on the matter. The Government would have no hesitation if necessary in going to the people about the Sunningdale agreement or the subsequent agreement. We believe the people will welcome these steps but no decision has been taken on it. Those who advocate that course can do so in the course of the debate on the formal agreement. Frankly, Deputy Blaney speaks for himself. He is his own man but he does not speak for anyone else here.

If the Opposition party were to demand that the Government should go to the country on Sunningdale or the subsequent agreement, and defend Sunningdale before the country, the Government would take that suggestion very seriously indeed. I could not commit the Government because it has not been discussed but, if that were what the Opposition party thought should be done, that would be very seriously considered. They will have an opportunity of saying what they think about that in this debate. I will say one thing for Deputy Blaney. He has made absolutely clear where he stands on Sunningdale. He is against it.

Before the Minister gets off that topic could I ask him one question?

The Minister said there would be an opportunity in a formal debate. Perhaps I missed out but does that mean after the irretrievable and irrevocable signing or before it.

It means after the signing. The House would have a chance of repudiating the Government who signed.

It will be still open to repudiation?

Clearly. Deputy Blaney made a comparison between this and the Treaty situation. They are, of course, in many respects very different situations. The whole historic period is different. There is also one major difference. The Government sent a united delegation to that conference and that delegation came back united. That delegation was empowered by the Government, before it went, to agree to propositions. It did agree to propositions. It reported back to the Government. A united Government approved a united delegation and a united set of formulae. That is an important difference. I believe also that the Dáil will approve.

Deputy Blaney deserves credit for having said honestly where he stands on Sunningdale. He is against it. We all know that.

I hope the Minister will not take offence if I leave the House.

Not the slightest offence provided he sleeps well tonight.

I hope so.

Deputy Blaney has stated his position honestly, we know where he stands. He is against Sunningdale. We know where everyone on these benches stands on Sunningdale. We are for it. We do not know where the gentlemen opposite stand. I will come back to that. It is a pity that we do not know at this stage.

I should like to make a few more comments on what Deputy Blaney said. His speech contained some positive elements, just a few, not very many. I am looking for them and they seem to be even fewer than I thought. He said that the delegation which, on behalf of this Government and this State, agreed to the Sunningdale communiqué acted in good faith. That is something. We must be grateful for small mercies. We acted in good faith. We were rather simple-minded people and we were led up the garden path by Mr. Faulkner and the British, but at least we acted in good faith. That is something judging by the general standards of this controversy.

When we were in Monaghan recently, for reasons which Deputies will recall, a meeting of ours—and I believe the same thing happened to a meeting of the party opposite—was interrupted by a group of demonstrators identified to us as supporters of Deputy Blaney and including, I believe, Deputy Blaney's brother. They carried placards with words like "Arch-collaborationists", "Traitors", "Quislings"—all words which in our vocabulary have somewhat lethal overtones. The same word "Arch-collaborationists" was used in the communiqué of the Provisional IRA in which they claimed what they regarded as credit for the attack on Austin Curry's house which had taken place not long before.

I would say this to Deputy Blaney if he were here. No doubt he will read the Official Report of our debates. If he thinks, indeed, that we whom he opposes here acted in good faith—and no doubt he would extend the same presumption to his erstwhile colleagues—let him exert some influence on his Republican sympathisers to moderate their language if they will not moderate their actions.

In one of the more interesting parts of his remarks Deputy Blaney repeated several times that he hoped his interpretation was wrong. He went back to that again and again, in the midst of a speech which was, for him, not especially vehement, though it would have been vehement for many other Deputies. I think there is something even in Deputy Blancy that sees the force of what was done at Sunningdale, feels the need for it and the attraction of it, something which I would call, if I may without offence, the rational side of Deputy Blaney, overshadowed and obscured as it is at the moment by his emotions and the momentum of the things he has said in the past, the fairly recent past, because his over Republicanism is a matter of the fairly recent past.

There are a few things I should like to take up but this in particular. Deputy Blaney referred again and again to the long-suffering Nationalist population of the Six Counties of Northern Ireland. He came back to that again and again. Particularly from the earlier part of his discourse one would have thought that the Sunningdale agreement was an agreement reached between London and Dublin or, perhaps, London, Dublin and the Unionists, over the heads and without the consent of the said population, the minority in Northern Ireland.

That minority was represented at Sunningdale. That minority, through its representatives, agreed to Sunningdale. The SDLP with their 19 Assembly Members have one of the solidest democratic claims in this whole country to represent a particular section of the community, the minority in Northern Ireland. They agreed unanimously to Sunningdale. By what right are we to be told by Deputy Blaney, or any other Deputy who does not represent any section in Northern Ireland and has not been chosen by them, that we are betraying the minority whom the SDLP represent if we agree to something they agree to? What sort of sense does that make?

It makes sense only in that kind of dark Republican logic by which representatives have only the right to represent and only the right to act, if they represent and act in accordance with other people's slogans, the slogans of the Republican Movement, or that section of it which Deputy Blaney represents. We make no apology for what we agreed to at Sunningdale. We were glad to work there with all the people who share power in the Executive. We recognise, in particular, that the Sunningdale communiqué rests in a great measure on the work accomplished by the representatives of the minority in Northern Ireland, those representatives who have carried the historic step of getting themselves included in a power-sharing executive for the first time in Northern Ireland.

Make no mistake about it—and I shall come back to this—without what was agreed at Sunningdale, there will be no power-sharing executive for Northern Ireland just as there will be no Council of Ireland. If anyone wrecks Sunningdale—and I believe nobody will wreck it, or can wreck it— the minority in Northern Ireland are once more shut out from all share in the control over their own lives, in the representation of their own people, and in the power to help their own people. Let that be remembered before Deputies think of committing themselves against Sunningdale.

Deputy Blaney spoke of sinister steps, about the return of Stormont, and so no. If Stormont were returning in the sense that Deputy Blaney means—that is to say, in the sense of shutting out the minority from all power and discriminating against them and so on—it would be nonsense to think that the representatives of that minority could agree to such a step or even that they would be consulted about it. The thing is completely meaningless, as far as I can see.

Another point that Deputy Blaney made was to ask why are we not getting the information, why are we not being told about this? This, again, is without meaning, I am afraid, because the communiqué, this communiqué here, has all the information there is because it is all that was agreed. No gloss that might be put on this by any of the partners can have any authority in relation to the agreed wording of this communiqué, precisely because this communiqué was agreed and negotiated for long, hard, slogging hours, and every word in it is the product of that negotiating process. There is no secret agreement. There is no behind-the-screen understanding. There is nothing else at all at this stage only this and, when there is anything else, this Dáil will be told about it and told it right away.

Deputy Blaney spoke against the two declaratory sections of paragraph 5, as it his right to do. He used curious language in talking about them; he said "cutting out the bottom portion of each" they meant something or other. Nobody has any right to cut out the bottom portion of each or any portion. They are all-in. They are all there. In relation to one particular sentence he spoke with peculiar severity. In general, his language was somewhat less vehement than is, perhaps, his custom, but he was very hard on this one sentence for some reason. The sentence is the sentence in the British declaration in the right hand column of paragraph 5. It is the sentence which says:

If, in future, the majority of the people in Northern Ireland should indicate a wish to become part of a United Ireland, the British Government would support that wish.

Now Deputy Blaney describes that statement, which seems to many of some significance, as "waffle","hogwash" and "of no consequence whatever". That is his description.

I worked in what was then the Department of External Affairs and what is now the Department of Foreign Affairs for close on 20 years. I was there in the forties when Mr. Eamon de Valera, lately our President, was Minister and later under Mr. Frank Aiken who was a colleague of Deputy Blaney's in the Fianna Fáil administration. I know that under Mr. de Valera and under Mr. Aiken the Department of Foreign Affairs for years tried to extort from the British Government by one means or another, but always in vain, this declaration which is now described by a former member of that Government as "waffle", "hogwash" and "of no consequence whatever". So for 20 years Fianna Fáil were striving to obtain waffle and hogwash and things of no consequence whatever; that was the object of their diplomacy and, indeed, it was all that passed with them for a policy on Northern Ireland. That was all that they had: (a) blame the British and (b) get the British to say this.

Now I think this is a positive step but I do not attach quite as high hopes to it as Fianna Fáil did in those years. By itself it will not change the face of the whole problem. It has a bearing on it, and it has a useful bearing on it, and that is how we would present it and that is the only way in which we would present it.

Deputy Blaney also referred several times to atrocities. The atrocities he referred to, like the Devenney atrocity, were real and terrible deeds but, again, and this is the worst part of his speech and the worst part of his whole approach and of those who sympathise with him, it was one set of atrocities only all the time. Never a word about all the others that were committed by the Provisional IRA, the Official IRA and others, just the atrocities of the British, of the RUC and of Protestant extremists. That is all they ever mention. These atrocities are all horrible and we all have a duty to condemn them all.

Deputy Blaney referred to savage sentences on people whom he did not otherwise identify but who were, in fact, people convicted of placing bombs in public places. Savage sentences! The sentences were severe. They may have been unduly severe. They may be reviewed. I hope, in mercy, that in due process of time they will indeed be reviewed. Deputy Blaney says the sentences were savage. What adjective did he apply to the bombings? None. He did not mention them. He did not mention the word "bomb". You would think these people had gone to jail for their republican principles and not for bombing. If the sentences were savage the bombings were even more savage. But that was not said.

He referred to internment. He attacked internment in very strong terms. He knows more about internment than I do. I have never been a member of a Government that had to employ internment without trial, as he did without demur. He expressed the hope that internment would be brought to an end. I share that hope. I share that hope even more strongly having attended the recent SDLP conference in the Europa Hotel in Belfast, where I heard speaker after speaker demand the end of internment. But they were using an argument which I respect and an argument which would possibly surprise Deputy Blaney. I am referring now to SDLP speakers from the floor, not leaders, not office holders, not people widely known, but people coming from places like Andersonstown where there have been many interness. Their point about ending internment was: "Please bring internment to an end because it is the only moral weapon the IRA still hold, because it is through this they exercise what moral leverage they still possess within that community". They were speaking, therefore, not as IRA sympathisers but as the very reverse.

I thought the thrust of their argument impressive. At the same time, there is an argument on the other side. It is suggested that all the interness, all of them without exception, are harmless, innocent people who were never associated with any violent organisation. Of course they may be in the sense that none has been convicted by the court; the presumption of innocence is there, but I did notice that whenever any of them escape from internment, they are always described as members of the Irish Republican Army and their escape is chalked up as a feat of that organisation. I think this is a statistical fact. I do not think there is any exception to it. From that we must infer the distinct possibility that among them there are some dangerous people, people who might, if released, booby-trap a motor car. Cars have been booby-trapped very recently killing RUC men. No condemnation of that was heard here either.

I believe that it would, on the whole, be more politic and better to release the lot, in part because of the general objections to internment without trial, and in part because of the argument I heard at the SDLP conference. However, there is no doubt that the most effective argument and possibly the only fully effective argument for the ending of internment could be provided by the Provisional IRA if they followed the example of the official IRA—the belated example but, in that respect, a good one—by stopping the campaign of violence, by the simple step of stopping killing people. If they would stop that, I believe internment could be faded out in a very short time and that there would be very little resistance to such a proposal.

I would like to refer to Deputy Blaney's final scenario, that the British should be induced to pull out now without their being in advance any agreement with any Unionist or Loyalist section, and that we then try to get their agreement to a kind of Council of Ireland with no veto and overall powers. That is cloud cuckoo land. This has no relation to any possible reality, and I do not believe there is anybody in Belfast who would say anything different about it. I certainly know that none of the SDLP leaders would say anything about it. If the British simply pulled out without any advance agreement, there would be a massacre on a very great scale, and the end of that would not be an agreement, Council of Ireland, or anything like that, it would be a new Border in a new place, and in the northern part of that, an Ulster Loyalist dominance and a terrible fate for minorities in every part of Northern Ireland. I do not want to dwell on that but that is the perspective that we have turned our back on or have begun to turn our back on at Sunningdale on the 9th of the month. To say that we began then is wrong. The beginning was earlier, and, perhaps, the most decisive step was the setting up of the power-sharing Executive, but, again, the coming into being of that Executive depended on the outcome of tripartite talks, so in any case it was a turning point.

I think I have said enough about Deputy Blaney's comments. I should like to refer now to what Deputy Lynch had to say. I should like to speak with as much measure as I can on that subject. I confess that my immediate reaction, as I listened to Deputy Lynch yesterday, was one of disappointment and even irritation at what appeared to me to be a pettifogging response to an important occasion. The occasion itself Deputy Blaney, I believe, described correctly. He said it was the most momentous event affecting Ireland that had occurred in his lifetime. That was the scale of it as it was assessed not by any of us here who might happen to be accused of wanting to magnify the importance of something we support but by its enemy, its only declared enemy in this House, though it may have other enemies.

Deputy Lynch's response was guarded and did not seem to us to rise to the height of this occasion. But I would like to say this: Deputy Lynch himself while Taoiseach in the period from about mid-1970 until the fall of his Government, contributed in a very large degree—and I honour him for it—to the climate of opinion which made possible the very general acceptance by the country of the Sunningdale communiqué. I am certain, and I think all Deputies will be aware from their own contacts, that there is such general acceptance. Deputy Lynch did help to build that, and we have the right to acknowledge this here.

That being so, it is sad that he should not have felt able to come forward and openly and clearly welcome a communiqué which is in full agreement with the thrust of his own argument, I shall not say with every qualification that he introduced into his argument, but the central thrust of his own argument in those critical years. I thought, reading over his speech, that I had, perhaps, not done him justice. A bad speech—and I think it was a bad speech—may be a good action if it is intended to serve a good purpose and does serve that purpose effectively. I believe that Deputy Lynch's aim was to hold the line, to keep his party as much in accord, or as much out of discord, with the Sunningdale communiqué as he possibly could. If that interpretation is correct, it does honour to Deputy Lynch personally, but at the same time, it is an index of the dangerous forces building up inside his party.

Pure nonsense.

Deputy Wilson will have an opportunity of stating his view——

And will avail of it.

——and no doubt stating his position clearly on Sunningdale.

Deputy Lynch spoke for his party.

The Minister is in possession.

In any case, he appears to have spoken for Deputy Wilson, so that is one element of information we have acquired.

An old oratorical trick. He spoke for his party.

Perhaps Deputy Wilson would allow me to make my own speech. I assure him I shall allow him to proceed without interruption, although I admit that I have from time to time interrupted others under pressure of extreme emotion. As I say, it is an index of how great the pressures are on a person of Deputy Lynch's known personal views——

Fantasy.

It is not fantasy. We know what Deputy Lynch said when he was Taoiseach. We know what he was able to commit his party to when he was Taoiseach, but when he is not Taoiseach, that is another question. He made a very qualified, very guarded response to this.

For his party.

Yes, and that is why it was so qualified, as Deputy Wilson is aware.

Perhaps the qualification——

The Deputy should desist from interrupting.

I would ask Deputy Wilson to stop interrupting. I do not mind an odd interruption.

I will obey the Chair.

I would hope so.

Deputy Lynch's qualifications were surprising to the degree that he never actually said that he either welcomed or supported the Sunningdale agreement as a whole. He did not say at any time—and I read the statement carefully for this— what he thought of Sunningdale as a package, because Sunningdale is a package, every part of it is interdependent on every other part. It is only moderately interesting or useful to know what the Leader of the Opposition thinks of this or that part of it, to know, as we learned from him, that he liked the idea that there was a Council of Ireland but that he had reservations about the Irish Government's declaration and so on. That is not what we need to know, because we cannot pick bits out of this package or put bits in. It is a negotiated text, as Deputy Lynch well knows, and the whole point is to know this: do Fianna Fáil, yes or no, support the Sunningdale package? That is what has not yet been authoritatively answered.

Perhaps whoever winds up for Fianna Fáil in this debate may have the authority from his party to tell us do they, yes or no, support the Sunningdale package? I put the question to Deputy O'Kennedy and under a good deal of pressure he said, yes, he did accept it. He may be speaking for his party but if so, the party must have reached some sudden decision between Deputy Lynch's speech and Deputy O'Kennedy's reply to the question because Deputy Lynch did not say—we know that he weighs his words; we know that if he did not say something he meant not to say it —that he welcomed or supported the Sunningdale package. He said he supported and would support what he called the practical proposals involved in Sunningdale. That is something, but the practical proposals are part of a package of which there are other parts and the other parts cannot be separated from the practical proposals. In particular, if these declarations which stand in paragraph 5 had not been decided on, if the Irish Government, for example, had not made the declaration that stands there, the rest of the Sunningdale package was simply unobtainable. If you say: "I accept the practical proposals but I do not accept the declaration" you are saying: "I would like to stand on this ladder but I shall cut away the floor on which it stands." You cannot do that. What we want to know, in honest and clear language is, whether or not the whole of the communiqué including the Irish Government's declaration is accepted.

Let me say something about the significance of the declaration in relation to the Constitution and otherwise. This matter was raised and, indeed, the Unionist Party, Mr. Faulkner's Unionists, subsequently divulged that it was raised and so I am not breaking any confidence here. The Unionist participants in the Executive designate who were among our partners at Sunningdale raised the matter. One of the first things they raised with us was the question of the Constitution, specifically Articles 2 and 3, to which they strongly objected. They urged us to undertake to amend the Constitution in this respect. We told them in very clear language that we could not give such an undertaking. We explained that it was only the people as a whole who had the power to amend the Constitution and that we did not think a major amendment of the Constitution could be carried out without concensus, preferably of all the parties.

We told them that an all-party committee of this House was at present studying the Constitution and all related matters. We also told them that to attempt to link the question of what was to be negotiated with the question of possible Constitutional revision would be a very foolish and damaging thing from the point of view of all the interests concerned in that a subsequent referendum could destroy the whole structure if these things were linked. We told them we could not link them, that the whole of the Constitution, including Articles 2 and 3, stood as the fundamental law of the land. They reluctantly accepted that as being our position. I do not say they approved it—they did not— but they accepted it and continued the negotiations with us on that basis.

When I say that I should like also to say that it has been the view of many of us—and the Taoiseach was quoted in this debate, I think, by Deputy Blaney as having said it—that we need a new Constitution. I think we do. I think the Constitution framed in 1937 in many ways is obsolete and no longer corresponds to the views of most of the people and needs to be changed. But I think that required change is, and has to be treated as an entirely separate matter from these negotiations. So, we were not, and we made it absolutely clear to our interlocutors that we were not negotiating on the basis of a possible or proposed change in the Constitutional arrangements.

The declarations are there. The Irish Governments declaration reads:

The Irish Government fully accepted and solemnly declared that there could be no change in the status of Northern Ireland until a majority of the people of Northern Ireland desired a change in that state.

I think that is perfectly clear. I have no authority to put any gloss on it. Deputy Blaney asked people on our side to provide some kind of exposition, explanation or commentary which would enable him to take that. I cannot do that. If he cannot accept that as it stands or if Deputies opposite cannot, very well, let them reject it but I cannot, and nobody on this side can, and no single partner to the negotiations can give an authoritative interpretation of an agreed text. I think Deputy Blaney referred to masses of verbiage: it is quite a short declaration and quite simple and it embodies a principle which I should have thought has been common to all the main parties here for a very long time, the fact that the unity to which we aspire is to be won by free consent including the consent of the majority in Northern Ireland.

If it requires their free consent it is rather clear that they have to agree. These propositions are almost tautologous. It may be asked how this declaration stands in relation to the Articles of the Constitution. I think Edmund Burke had the right answer. At the time when trouble was developing in America—it was then the American colony of Great Britain—it was generally held that the Constitution of Britain, an unwritten but, of course, powerful document, entitled the British Government to tax the colonies. Edmund Burke did not dispute that Constitutional position; he agreed that the British Government had such a right, the Crown had such a right, in the terminology of the time, but it would be wise and prudent not to exercise that right.

This declaration concerns policy. It is not a declaration on basic right; it concerns policy—what should be done about a given situation, what the Irish Government takes on itself to do, what it accepts and I think there matters are entirely consonant. If you say "unity only by consent" you are also saying: "There cannot be unity unless there is consent." You cannot accept the principle of consent unless it also includes a right to dissent: you cannot denounce a veto while you are looking for consent.

I think in our debates here we must be conscious all the time, and conscious with a certain sense of urgency, of the actual pattern of forces inside Northern Ireland at present. The Northern Ireland parties to this agreement, the power sharing partners, are at present under extreme and terrible pressure. It would not be too much to say that they are in very serious danger indeed, political danger and even physical danger. All of them have done a very courageous thing. They are menaced from two sides. They are menaced by the men of violence, the extremists inside the Protestant community, and they are manaced by the Provisional IRA. They are in such danger from both sides that if any of them were to be attacked at the moment it would be very difficult to know from what side the danger came.

What ought we to do in relation to their situation? Ought we to say: "Let us wait and see. Let us be pretty cautious about this. Let us be satisfied that all the formulae are in accordance with formulae our parties have used in the past?" Are we to sit it out or are we going back to them? Are we going to buttress their position? Are we going to help them to defend their position? If we choose the latter option then we will support the Sunningdale communiqué. We will support it clearly. I will not say without reservations. It is possible to have reservations and say: "We do not like our having to say that but on balance we agree that it was worth saying if that was part of the package." That is a possible line. But it is not possible to say: "We like some bits of it, we have reservations about others and we will not say what we think about the communiqué as a whole." That is not enough. It does not match the urgency of the situation and it does not match the danger in which the Northern Ireland signatories of Sunningdale now find themselves.

There are very few conjunctures at which you can say that the forces of reason and decent feelings are both on the same side, are all or virtually all on the same side, and that the forces of irrationality, fanaticism, cruelty, injustice, are arrayed on the other side under different banners. But if ever there was such a case this is it here. Every decent Irishman should rally to the support of the power sharers in Northern Ireland now and should heed their call to support the Sunningdale communiqué.

To get our situation in relation to the communiqué into perspective, I have on a number of occasions visited the British Parliament and had discussions with both Labour and Conservative Members of Parliament over the past four or five years. Usually such discussions end up with the Labour Member of Parliament agreeing entirely and the Conservative disagreeing. Where I have come up against Conservative Members of Parliament disagreeing I have put the proposition that if I were an Englishman and the situation were reversed and I had to deal with a situation in which a part of England was under the control, with a local majority, of another country, it would be a situation in which I would have to work in the interests of people and their lives, but it would not be a situation which I would approve. There is a distinction here which has applied over the past 50 years to the situation that exists in this country.

The communiqué which was issued to us yesterday is a detailed, fairly legalistic document which has resulted from many days and hours of strenuous discussion and argument, of which of course I have no knowledge. It has also resulted from many years of patient effort and trial, particularly the past four years, but it goes further back to when efforts to reach some sort of an accommodation over 50 years ago failed. It is too serious and too far-reaching a document for anyone to permit himself the luxury of coming to hasty conclusions about it, although some people have done so, as I have noted in the Press and in the Dáil this evening. This is a sovereign democratic Parliament and we are the democratic Opposition, a single party with two exceptions. As such it is our duty to be a responsible party which represents, at the time of the last election, almost half of the electors. As such we will approach our job of examining this communiqué and what follows, calmly and intelligently before we come to firm conclusions. We have no intention of being rushed into anything in so fundamental a matter as is contained in this communiqué. The Leader of our party has put our reservations on record, so I shall not repeat them. The Government's duty in the course of the next couple of months will be to convince us, if they are willing to do so.

Having said that, I should like to say that in my opinion any sane person will hope that good results can come from the recent strenuous discussions and the published communiqué. It is reasonable to hope that the benefits which may follow may be seen later as a significant step in bringing about a better relationship between the Irish people as well as between the two sections of the Northern community. I express the genuine hope that the agreement will prove to be acceptable and that it will work.

Hear, hear.

The manner in which some speakers from the Government side referred to what was said by the Leader of the Opposition causes me some concern. The impression was created that some people on the Government side of the House might try to use this very important and serious question to divide the country. That was the impression I got and I will say no more than to express the hope that it is only an impression and that in the coming weeks the interest of the people and of the nation will be kept above the interest of party politics of any kind. For many years we have had a bi-partisan policy, and fortunately so during the past four years, which have been a period of very great concern for those in Government. Both the Taoiseach and Deputy Lynch referred yesterday to the importance of the question of the lives of people in our considerations. Deputy Lynch expressed genuine concern in a very reasoned approach to the agreement not only on behalf of this party but on behalf of many others who are not involved in any way in politics but who are genuinely concerned about their country and its future. It may be that the concern expressed by Deputy Lynch was taken mistakenly as an attempt to play party politics. I assure the House that there was no such intention.

In approaching this question it might be no harm to reflect on the gradual development of this part of Ireland to the stage where we have arrived at what I might describe as a clearly defined political sovereignty, a sovereignty recognised beyond doubt internationally. A number of years ago we became a member of the UNO and this year we took a major step forward in becoming a member of the EEC. It is worth bearing in mind that the Government which has a Foreign Minister as a full member of the EEC, are acting as a sovereign Government because political sovereignty for this part of Ireland has been achieved. If this sovereignty had not been achieved I believe we would not have been able to become a full member of the EEC. Steps that were initiated many years ago have led to a situation in which not only are we a full member of the EEC but in which we are, this year, in political terms in Europe, on an equal footing with Great Britain. Perhaps this in itself is having its own subtle form of influence on the Unionists in Northern Ireland.

From some speeches I have heard in recent times I have detected a type of attitude on the part of some of treating sovereignty lightly. I agree that there is a tendency at times to become obsessive in regard to a matter such as sovereignty. This depends on what one regards as sovereignty. To me sovereignty is not an obsession; it is simply the right of a people to decide their own affairs. In the past it was described as self-determination. It is important to bear in mind that the efforts made down through the years have led to a situation in which we may be making a significant move forward because we have independence.

In relation to the Northern Ireland problem I have stated on numerous occassions that the main obstacle, apart from Britain's involvement, to the creation of a normal relationship in Ireland has been the determined refusal since 1921 by the Unionists to be involved in any way with the rest of Ireland. Up to recently at any rate this refusal has been supported and, indeed, encouraged earlier on, by Britain. In the course of our history Britain has invariably taken the easy road that suited her interests and British support of the Unionists from 1921 onwards in a situation in which the Unionists had their own political closed shop is a good example of the self-interest of Britain in a matter in which she has had and still has a major responsibility.

Events in recent years, including the inability of the former Unionist Government to function normally in a way acceptable to the minority have brought about a major change in the British attitude. From a position of a couple of years ago following on the troubles which developed in 1969 onwards, Britain has moved from the position where she declared that she was not standing in the way of settlement and has now said that she will now support it if the majority wants it.

This may be a significant indication that Britain would like, eventually, to be done with her involvement in this country. I am one of those who believes that all that is needed to bring about a normal and sane relationship in Ireland depends on two factors. The first is that Britain would want to disentangle herself from involvement in our affairs. That does not mean that I am suggesting that she should do so suddenly but that she should have the will and the inclination. Secondly, that the Unionists, or enough of them, would be able to escape from their own historical prison and get down to talking with the remainder of the country. They would then be able to settle down to normality and put this country, which is the country of their birth, first so as to bring about the kind of peace, reconciliation and progress that all but the unstable wish for.

I express the hope that the agreement will prove to be workable because I believe that any joint assembly such as the proposed Council of Ireland once it begins to function should make rapid progress in the area where progress is most needed in Ireland: in our attitudes towards one another and, particularly, the attitude of Unionists towards us which has been the main stumbling block to progress.

We are at a stage in our history which is very important to us all. It is equally important that we should approach our problems calmly and as maturely as possible. We should remind ourselves that lessons can be and have been learned from past mistakes. Most people would agree that if those who were in positions of leadership in Britain and Ireland during the period 1919-22 had a second opportunity they would have acted differently. Unfortunately, none of them, and none of us, have the benefit of hindsight.

After the suspension of Stormont I expressed the view that some sort of interim arrangement was needed in Northern Ireland. I hope this is the sort of interim working arrangement that will work. If some form of normal working relationship can be developed between us and our fellow countrymen in the North after a time they, like us, will come to understand that the same approach to affairs in Ireland is one in which decisions for Ireland should be taken by elected representatives of the people here and not as up to the present for a part of Ireland by people elected in another country.

On the Adjournment Debate there are a number of points I should like to deal with. We discussed last week the European Investment Bank loan and the considerable advantage it would give us in relation to our telephone system. This loan will enable the present administration to proceed with reequipping and the provision of additional equipment. It will be possible to do this virtually without having to raise additional capital on the home market. The agreement, to my mind, is a very satisfactory one. Hopefully, it will continue over the five-year period because if it does it will mean that 40 per cent of the total capital necessary over the coming five years for telephones will be made available from the European Investment Bank. This is another indication of the wisdom of those who urged the electorate last year to join the European Community.

Recently the question of open broadcasting was made a subject for public debate. I believe this whole question should be kept as open as possible and that a broad discussion should be engaged in by all of us in order to establish what is the best thing to do. For example, there is a serious need to provide a service for the North of Ireland. This may become possible, and acceptable, if the Council of Ireland comes into being and functions. This is very important because many people are not conscious of the fact that our television signal is not available to the majority of those who live in the Northern Ireland area. If it could be made available on some acceptable basis it could lead to an opening of minds in the North which should bring about even a greater degree of reconciliation and a better relationship between us.

In this connection also the people who live in the single channel areas should be considered. That area does not benefit from free television reception from the outside channels. Because they do not have the advantages of reception from outside channels these people feel deprived. This is important. It must be decided on over the next few years. What we can afford must be decided. What amounts to open broadcasting and television is available to a large section of our people at no cost. One of the principles involved here is that no country or state that I know of has ever provided broadcasting and television transmission from another country at the expense of the taxpayers of the receiving country.

There are special reasons why we should try to provide a second channel possibly through RTE, which could relay one or other channel or a selection from all the existing outside channels. Whatever decision is arrived at we must have regard to the future of RTE as the country's national communication service. A service such as RTE is necessary for our community in order to support our community identity.

I would like to remind the Parliamentary Secretary of the RTE programme called "The Politicians" from which the Government side withdrew some time ago. Programmes of this kind can be useful. Some agreement should be reached to arrange something similar or, perhaps, a little different to take the place of the programme originally planned at the beginning of this year.

The Taoiseach referred to the setting-up of special committees to deal with Bills and also to committees to examine and report on semi-State bodies. I would favour such committees. Other speakers have mentioned the problem of how much a House of this kind can do. This committee system works very well in Britain but there are problems here. The British Parliament has a membership of over 650; our Parliament has about one-fifth of that. The point has been reached where many Deputies are finding it difficult to keep up with the committees to which they are attached. There are committees in the House here and party committees. Some Members have been delegated to the European Parliament.

There is another matter I must mention by way of criticism: the rate of inflation. We are now at the top of the European league, together with Italy, with an inflationary rate of 11 per cent. According to my calculations the rate of inflation has almost absorbed the social welfare increases. To some degree world prices have influenced the situation. But part of the problem has been created by the increased VAT and the tax increases decided on in the last budget. I criticise the Government and the Minister for Finance on the fiscal policy which to a considerable extent has acted as an encouragement to inflation.

There is another aspect to which I attach considerable importance and it is the reduction in the grants provided by the previous administration for recreational facilities and amenities. Proper playgrounds in urban areas and football pitches are essential to the normal development of young people. Many problems which we find among teenagers arise from lack of amenities such as playgrounds and swimming pools. The capital grant in last year's budget was quite small. I find it impossible to justify the reduction in these grants in this year's budget. Indeed that was the time when serious consideration should have been given to having them increased. Not only the Minister for Finance but also the Taoiseach should look into this matter urgently in an effort to relieve the serious overcrowding problem not only in Dublin but in all cities and towns throughout Ireland.

I should like to begin by drawing attention to some of the remarks offered by Deputy O'Malley this morning. I have not secured that my speech would be delivered at a time when he is not here; neither have I gone out of my way to warn him to be here. I certainly would have liked to see him in the House to hear what I have to say in regard to a few of the charges he made. Their relevance to the Estimate for the Department of the Taoiseach is doubtful but in so far as the entire working of the Government is conventionally brought under review in this debate, I suppose he was in order in speaking his mind, and I hope, therefore, I will be considered equally in order in speaking my mind on the matters to which he saw fit to draw attention.

He spoke in an oblique way about the security performance of this Government and seemed to me to be tying up what he had to say with a remark which he previously had made in a debate earlier this session to the effect that the picketing of courthouses by people with placards, evidently aimed at intimidating jurymen or justices, never could have been dealt with lawfully until the passage of the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Bill which he sponsored here a year ago. That assertion of Deputy O'Malley went unchallenged at the time, I am sorry to say, for the reason that I did not happen to be in the House. Had I been in the House when the Deputy made that assertion I doubt if I would have had enough self-control to avoid contradicting him on the spot in defiance of the rules of order.

If Deputy O'Malley is under the impression, or if his advisers are under the impression that the laws of this country contained no provision for dealing with this situation or were so feeble that this situation had to be tolerated whereby men with placards paraded in front of courthouses with an evidently intimidatory purpose, then Deputy O'Malley and his then advisers, or possibly the advisers whom he now has in his think-tank, would want to do some more homework. It is a legal point and even the humblest, the most inexperienced lawyer, is slow to be dogmatic. There is no such thing as being absolutely right from the word go, or absolutely wrong, and I do not want to make what may seem like a papal pronouncement on the status of picketers outside courthouses, but for my part I do not accept that the law did not contain such power before Deputy O'Malley's Bill, and I would have liked to have seen the last Government exploring the possibilities which were inherent in the law in regard to contempt on indictment.

Deputy O'Malley spoke about contempt, and what he said about it was that he was sorry that judges had not seen fit to employ their powers in regard to people who are immediately outside the doors of courts. It is true that contempt in the face of the court traditionally bears only on an insult offered to the court by somebody inside the door and I think that a judge or a justice would have been on weak ground if he tried to commit for contempt somebody who was parading outside the door of his court. However, there is such a thing as contempt on indictment whereby somebody can be formally arraigned and charged with the criminal offence of contempt of court which amounts to trying to interfere with the courts of justice by dictating its outcome. By that I mean by intimating in an intimidatory way or even in a less than intimidatory way to somebody who is charged with administering justice what he should do.

I believe that the last Government, at any rate until their very last months, were grossly neglectful in this regard and I will not take from Deputy O'Malley the explanation that the law does not contain sufficient power to control this absolutely disgraceful picketing of court houses. I will not take that explanation from him. I am as willing to be ruled wrong on a point of law as any other lawyer and I hope Deputy O'Malley has the same amount of humility. However, I do not want him to be let go uncontradicted in this House on his suggestion that the law of this country was powerless to deal with this kind of blackguardism. I call it that advisedly because I note that the people who complain most bitterly about unusual legal power, about the suspension of usual legal processes, about internment, about special courts, are the very people who are to be seen conducting themselves in such a way as to make the ordinary administration of justice impossible—the very people who organise and instigate protests and agitations about unusual forms of law are the very ones who are identified and who commit and perpetrate the interference of the ordinary courts of justice in the way I have been describing. That is why I call it blackguardism. It is blackguardly on the one hand to prevent or to do your best to prevent a justice or a humble juror from doing his duty and in the next breath to complain if the ordinary processes of the law are suspended and accused persons of a certain kind find themselves charged before a court of a different kind.

Let me remind the House that justice in the forms to which we have been accustomed is largely in accordance with British forms. Let us not forget that. It is not a thing I am particularly proud of. I believe that this country ought to have struck out on its own much further and much faster, but when I hear the like of the various outer wings of what is called republicanism protesting about the ordinary processes of law being suspended, I often ask myself do these people realise that the only processes of law they know of in this country were inherited from the hated oppressor; that the jury system, that habeas corpus, are legacies here of the hated British and that if we had secured our freedom not from the British but from the Turks, or the Russians, or the Germans, or the Italians, or the Swedes, these remedies might very well not be there. These are the ordinary processes of law, we took them over from the British, some of them uncritically, I believe. Some of them might perhaps have been examined to see if they squared with the Irish national genius, about which the Constitution so ponderously speaks, but for better or for worse we have taken them over and they are British institutions.

I have nothing but contempt for somebody who has not got the guts or the honesty to recognise his own parentage or the parentage of the institutions under which he lives. These institutions were taken over by us and they require a certain level of civilisation, a certain level of peace, a certain level of give and take and a certain political climate in order for them to be workable. They become unworkable when people set out to intimidate a witness from giving evidence, to intimidate a juryman—and it does not take much, perhaps to intimidate someone who has got a wife and family to think of and who has no particular political axe to grind—or perhaps even to intimidate a district justice, although I should like to make it clear that I have not heard of a case and do not believe there ever was a case of a member of the Irish Judiciary, by whichever political party he was appointed, having been deflected from his duty. It is blackguardly and disgraceful that this should happen. When it does, the State is entitled to take further powers into its hands in order to deal with the disruption of the ordinary processes of law.

Even before the introduction of the Offences against the State (Amendment) Bill last year the State had powers. My charge against the Government then was, and remains, that they were neglectful in exploring those powers; they did not do their job in searching diligently enough to see how it could be controlled and they allowed the situation to develop so that the people scarcely knew from one month to the next what kind of state they would be living in. I remember this country, as we all do, before the EEC referendum. I was very much committed to the referendum in justice. The Fianna Fáil Party were as well. The reason I was committed to it was that I thought our membership would be some kind of a bulwark for us against savagery. I thought that if we, a small country, were a member of a large group of civilised countries that it would be some kind of defence for us against barbarism. That was the one reason more than any other reason why I favoured the passage of that referendum.

The Labour Party and other groups exercised their clear democratic right in taking a different view and making a different evaluation of the importance of the issue. The Labour Party, like democrats, accepted the people's verdict and are doing their best, as we all are on both sides of the House, to make the best of our membership of this Community, to get what we can from it and to contribute what we can to it. My fear at that time was that if by any chance that referendum were defeated, we would be left high and dry on the shores of Europe at the mercy of the bullies.

I certainly misjudged the outcome very much. I am willing to concede that I misjudged the temper of the people in thinking that that might be the outcome. I felt that the possibility was there and I found it terrifying that if we did not get into the EEC we would be left with a Government who were not fit, able or willing to control the bullies and savages in our midst. My misgivings would have been far less with a different kind of Government. In justice to the better side of Fianna Fáil I must say that if the better end of Fianna Fáil had been in Government and had had a majority independent of their penumbra of part-time gun hookers I would have been perfectly happy too. That was not the case. We were governed by an administration, the leader of which, I must say in his favour, never wished for bloodshed, or did anything which could be thought to lead directly to it and in his heart he wished it to stop. He led a party which I honestly did not think were sufficiently committed to what may be conventionally called law and order, to protect us against the savages, bullies and blackguards.

That all changed, according to Deputy O'Malley. I do not wish to put words in his mouth but he gave the impression that when he got a grip on things it all changed. Although Deputy O'Malley and I do not seem to have a perfect rapport, in the parliamentary sense, of course, I am willing to say that I have a certain regard for the personal guts which he showed at a time when the savages and blackguards were lampooning him, putting up posters about him, threatening him and, for all I know, making his personal and home life a misery. I felt then and I still feel that Deputy O'Malley, the then Taoiseach, the then Minister for Finance and the then Minister for Health were a lonely quartet holding a fort. If one would like to drop back into the language of the imperialistic era, these four Ministers were like European officers in a fort in the desert. The rest of the garrison consisted of very unreliable, local levies who would turn and desert to the nomad insurgents at the first whistle of danger. I am sorry to say that the events of those days do not really validate that perhaps exaggerated comparison. One could search the pages of the Official Report and the daily papers and month in, month out, one would not find a word from the vast majority of Fianna Fáil office-holders which could be construed as trying to give a lead to the people against cruelty, savagery and barbarism.

There were 15 Ministers and seven Parliamentary Secretaries in the last Government. There were 22 Mercedes-cushioned office-holders. Of those 22, I cannot count more than four, or five at the very outside, who ever tried to give the people a lead in this matter. I regard this subject as being far more important than the matters upon which we are being bombarded with letters every day of the week. It is far more important than any issue which this Parliament ever faced or will have to face. There were 16 or 17 office-holders in the last Administration who thought it was good enough to be Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries. They were paid "danger money" and should never have left a Fianna Fáil dinner, a bun fight or a dog's dinner without making it clear where they stood in regard to the rights of this democracy, to there only being one Army and one Dáil and the one form in which violence could be used by this country against our neighbour, whatever one thought of the legitimacy of the neighbour's frontiers, was on the direct order of this House. There were 16 or 17 of these men who did not do that, who felt they could get away without doing it and who would have cheerfully ridden to Belfast on the backs of the Provisionals if that was how things had turned out. They were trying to have things both ways. Like many a man who tried to have things both ways they ended up having nothing. I do not want to sound condescending but I freely admit that there were a few men who tried to keep their heads and shoulders above water. I have no doubt that there were some backbenchers who admired them for it and were willing to stand by them. By and large, we got a rotten example from the last Government. It was an example about which the people trembled because we were coming up to the EEC referendum.

The arguments against joining the EEC, so far as I can judge—I am not an economist and never set out to be one—were strong enough. The Labour Party, made an excellent case for their opposition to membership. Their campaign would have secured more votes and come nearer tipping the balance were it not for the very dubious people who put themselves, uninvited, not onto the Labour Party band wagon but on to the anti-EEC bandwagon. That was a direct consequence.

The fact that people were immune to the concrete and objective arguments of the Labour Party in this matter was a direct consequence of the terror that gripped the country 18 months ago. There was a fear that the whole of this society and civilisation might crumble before our eyes, that the people we saw striding up and down firing shots in the air, the men with the sour faces, with the black berets and dark glasses, would take over this country. We saw no will on the part of the Government to prevent that happening.

I believe that many men and women, if they thought about the issues, might have felt the Labour Party were right, that we should not join the EEC, that there was more to be gained by staying out of it. Many people might have voted the way the Labour Party suggested but instead they voted with Fine Gael and, inferentially, with Fianna Fáil, because they were afraid of what would happen if they did not—not from the Labour Party but from the people Fianna Fáil were unwilling to put down and control.

All this started out from the question of the picketing of the courthouses. In my absence the other day Deputy O'Malley said there were no powers in the law to control such matters before his Bill was introduced. I believe that is untrue; however, I am willing to have it adjudicated and I do not mind if I am shown to be wrong. I suppose if Deputy Andrews were here he would put on a sour face and say I was acting the professor again. I am perfectly willing to be shown wrong about this but I believe there were adequate powers in the law and contempt on indictment was one possible remedy. I believe that would not have exhausted the remedies.

For example, the Offences Against the State Act, 1939—the parent Act— contained powers that were adequate for dealing with this matter. Section 8 of that Act provided it was an offence to interfere with the administration of Government, whether legislative, executive or judicial. That is an offence and has been for the last 34 years. When I was in the other House it was a matter of complaint with me that that section had not been activated.

I charge the previous Government with never having given a second's thought to whether the fellows who were intimidating, or intending to intimidate, justices, jury men and witnesses, might not have been successfully prosecuted for interfering, or attempting to interfere, with the administration of Government in the sense of the 1939 Act. Speaking as a layman and as a citizen, it is obvious that the intention was to prevent the judicial arm of the State from operating, to terrify witnesses and jury men and, if possible, to terrify justices. That was the intention and I charge the previous Government with never having bothered their heads to inquire whether this matter might not have been brought under control in that way.

I mentioned two legal remedies but that does not exhaust the list. I realise the House does not want a lecture and that if I go on about legal remedies it will be thought I am delivering a lecture. However, I do not mind providing other remedies if the occasion arises in the future and I am challenged on the matter. I absolutely reject any suggestion by Deputy O'Malley that there were no powers to prevent the kind of activity I described until his Bill was passed last December. Although the Deputy is a difficult man to deal with, rather like Deputy Andrews, and is a rather prickly plant, I acknowledge he is a law-and-order man and I accept that he himself would not have wished to trifle with the kind of people he was out against. However, I do not accept his allegation, made very categorically, that nothing could have been done about these matters until he had the Bill last December.

Deputy O'Malley saw fit today, when talking about general Government policy and conduct, to mention judicial appointments. Although the report has not yet been printed, I have seen the transcript of his speech. He saw fit to criticise four judicial appointments made by this Government since they took office.

Let me start by giving the Deputy some credit. In the last years of the previous Government they made two judicial appointments to the superior courts; the gentlemen concerned, as Deputy O'Malley rightly pointed out, had been associated with Fine Gael. If Deputy O'Malley had anything to do with the making of the appointments and with the breaking of the system of patronage which existed, I acknowledge it gladly and I compliment him on it. The Deputy boasted there was general pleasure and relief when these appointments were made and I concede that also.

At the same time, while I do not want to appear to be niggling in giving him credit, I must point out that two judges do not make justice and that for the many years a system had been endured in which appointments were made, all from the other side. Some of the appointments could not have deserved the credit or the praise Deputy O'Malley recently gave to the gentlemen appointed by the Government. Judicial appointments were made by the last Government—I cannot in decency name them, nor would I be allowed to—that were not respectable. By that I do not mean the judges or the people concerned are venal, I do not mean they have misconducted themselves since their appointments, but the appointments were made of men who, in the opinion of the legal profession, of those best qualified to size up a judicial appointment, were bad appointments and this must have been known before they were made. They were appointments of men with far closer links with the then ruling party than any described here by Deputy O'Malley in connection with the more recent appointments.

I do not want to appear holier in any way than the rest of the Government I support but I hope, as time goes on, the whole system of patronage will wither and die. If that is what Deputy O'Malley genuinely wants, I shall be with him shoulder to shoulder. I do not believe in the system, whether in judicial appointments or in anything else. However, in talking about the judicial appointments as he did today, the Deputy invites the comments I feel I must make. Until the breakthrough, for which I freely give him credit, the bench had been literally stuffed with Fianna Fáil judges.

Many of the judges—I would say most of them—were at the top of their profession. I also admit that most of them—nearly all of them— have given satisfaction. All of them, and I want to make this quite clear, are absolutely free—and this is very important because I do not want to be misconstrued in regard to anything amounting to a charge—even the most blatently political appointments made by the Fianna Fáil side are completely free of any suspicion of having misbehaved themselves after appointment by reason of partial behaviour towards one side or another in any kind of a case.

I want to make it quite clear that I am making no charge whatever against the conduct of these gentlemen once appointed, but I do say that, with the exception of the breakthrough for which Deputy O'Malley claims credit, and for which I am prepared to give him credit, the appointments made have been solidly Fianna Fáil and some of them were not only Fianna Fáil but discreditable as well, and known to be before the appointments were made, and known to the profession——

Hermann Good or someone like that?

In the ordinary way I thrive on interruptions.

There should be no reference to names, and anything which could be deemed to be a reflection on the Judiciary must not be condoned.

The Parliamentary Secretary is most insulting.

The matter is too important and individual reputations are at stake. I thrive on interruptions in a general way. I do not consider myself as being villified in the way Deputy Andrews does. I do not run to the Chair for protection. I am willing to take on interrupters as they come. I do not want to be confused on this issue. I want to acknowledge and record that every judicial appointment to my knowledge which I have ever heard of since the State was founded has been successful to this extent that the Judiciary, whatever party appointed them, have been impartial and fair and have done their best. I want to acknowledge that frankly. There is more to being a judge than that. There is the question of ability and experience.

On a point of order, is the Parliamentary Secretary implying that appointments made by the previous Administration were not fair?

That is hardly a point of order. Deputy Lemass will be afforded an opportunity of speaking.

Unfortunately not. We have not enough time.

That is rather a pity. It is a matter for the Deputy to get in if he can. The Chair will facilitate him.

Could I point out, through the Chair, to the Deputy that if he had been here in time and had heard what the Parliamentary Secretary was saying he would know that he has not made an attack on any judge, nor intended to.

I was in Deputy Dockrell's company earlier this evening and I think I know exactly what the Parliamentary Secretary is saying or implying.

The Parliamentary Secretary is in possession and I would ask Deputies to desist from interrupting.

At the risk of being repetitious, because I realise that feelings can be hurt about this, I want to say again very briefly that every judge or justice, so far as I know, ever appointed by either side in this State has conducted himself impartially. I want to put on record that I have never heard a tittle of suspicion that any judge or justice has misconducted himself in the sense of showing favour to one side. I have never heard even a whisper of that. I want to put that on record.

I have never heard that even about gentlemen appointed by Fianna Fáil. That is on record but, merely to be fair or do one's best is not enough. One must also have qualifications which, admittedly, are difficult to assess in advance but which every practising lawyer understands and knows about. You must have something up there. You must have experience. You must have tolerance and patience. These are indefinable qualities which I freely admit are not easy to see in a man when he is an advocate but the absence of which can be very quickly seen.

I want to assert distinctly that appointments, not many, but some, were made by the previous Government during their 16 years in office which did not measure up even to the rough criteria I have outlined and which were made on a completely and flagrantly party basis.

The Parliamentary Secretary is being unduly influenced by a column in The Irish Times.

I do not know what Deputy Lemass is talking about. I read the transcript of what Deputy O'Malley said today. I do not know whether Deputy Lemass did or whether he heard him speak. If Deputy O'Malley had not opened his mouth on this subject I would not be holding up the House with this now. He spoke earlier today. He got the coverage. I have paid tribute to him in one way or another here this evening but I am absolutely intent on putting into perspective what he said. I cannot in honesty refute 100 per cent of what he said.

On a point of order, I understood that the custom and the practice here was that you did not criticise any member of the Judiciary. It could be said that Deputy O'Malley was very critical of the manner in which four gentlemen have been appointed. He was very careful to say the four gentlemen were ideal men for the appointments.

The Deputy is making a speech.

The Parliamentary Secretary is reflecting on the personality and the character——

The Deputy may not make a speech in this fashion.

He has not. He was critical of the method of appointment of the individuals concerned. The Deputy did not hear him speak.

I heard him say——

Deputy Tunney arose on a point or order and then proceeded to make a speech. This is disorderly. I have been in the Chair for the past hour and a half and we had a most orderly session without interruptions of any kind until two Deputies arrived within the past few moments. If Deputy Tunney finds it difficult to listen to the Parliamentary Secretary he has a way out and I suggest he might take it. The Parliamentary Secretary is replying to comments made about the appointment of the Judiciary by another speaker earlier in the day. There has been no specific charge. The only name I heard mentioned was mentioned from this side of the House, unfortunately.

Deputy O'Malley drew attention to the fact that one, or maybe two—I have forgotten which —of the Fine Gael appointees had been Fine Gael general election candidates. If I saw fit I could call attention to a very, very well-known judicial name, and a very well-respected and rightly respected one, appointed by the Fianna Fáil Government who had the honour of running as a Fianna Fáil candidate. I will not do that because I do not want to go any further than I have to in putting Deputy O'Malley's words into perspective. If Deputy Tunney will allow me I promise to have regard to his sensitive skin and to make my remarks as little painful as possible. I will not allow Deputy O'Malley to get away with the inference, which will have been well picked up by the papers because he spoke at an advantageous moment of the day, that this Government have done something out of the way in making judicial appointments over the past eight months.

The situation is simply this. If you were to make nothing but Fine Gael and Labour appointments to the Judiciary for the next six years, you still would not have caught up, in fairness, with the people appointed by Fianna Fáil to the bench at the higher or lower level. I accept—and I pay tribute to Deputy O'Malley if he had anything to do with it; I think this is the third time I have said this; I am anxious to give him credit for it because I was very glad to see it myself—that a breakthrough was made by the Fianna Fáil Government. I accept that freely, but it would take not only a breakthrough but going into reverse to even the score. When I say "score" I am not simply thinking in terms of jobs. I am thinking in terms of filling judicial offices like any other offices with the best people available.

The Parliamentary Secretary is trying to justify his own Minister's corrupt practice.

Order Deputy Lemass should desist from interrupting.

I was at the Bar for a few years.

And so was Deputy Lemass.

Not any longer than Deputy Coughlan.

I do not claim to have up-to-date recollections of it. I have not been active there for 12 years or thereabouts. I remember the few years I was there and I remember the appointments made. I remember a place on the bench that became vacant, and the names that were bandied about by my friends, many of them Fianna Fáil supporters—they were not all Fine Gael people trying to make a cheap point at the expense of the other side—as being likely successors, the names bandied about in the coffee rooms and the bar, the names which were in the mouths of the gossips, were never any but Fianna Fáil names. The idea that anybody but a known Fianna Fáil supporter might ever occupy such an office never entered our heads. The idea that anybody but a known Fianna Fáil supporter would ever get on to the Bench never entered our heads and the first break that was made, as I gladly acknowledge, was an appointment that Deputy O'Malley mentioned earlier today. But over the last 16 years a very large number of appointments were made.

It is not now a question simply of evening up the score. If it were simply a question of paying Fianna Fáil back by putting our own people into the jobs I would think that contemptible, if that were all that was in it, but do not forget that there is a backlog of men who, because perhaps of some hereditary blemish could not find it in their hearts to support Fianna Fáil, never could and never will, and these men, with the exception of the two gentlemen mentioned by Deputy O'Malley, never got any consideration for a seat on the Bench. These men are at the top of their profession, have been for years at the top of their profession, and, under any impartial system, would have reached the Bench just as quickly as and more quickly than many appointments that were made on a partisan basis by the last Government.

I do not want now to seem to be trying to have my cake and eat it. I do not want to expose myself to the accusation of being pious or holier-than-thou by any of my own colleagues. I know this is a danger that exists in politics. I remember Deputy Colley being rapped over the knuckles by Deputy Haughey in an oblique way for that a few years ago and I certainly do not want to leave myself in that position.

I do not like a system of pure patronage. I have always been against it. I am on record in various places as being against it. The situation in regard to judicial appointments is that there is such a log jam at the top that, if the Government were to do nothing else but appoint Fine Gael and Labour supporters for the next three, four or five years, it scarcely would have appointed all the men who deserved appointment as soon as the men that were appointed under Fianna Fáil because of their being Fianna Fáil supporters.

In five years' time the Parliamentary Secretary will not be there.

Order. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach.

I will not join in that kind of talk and I will tell the Deputy why. I think it brings on a mí-ádh. It is unlucky to be boasting about what is going to happen. I remember Fianna Fáil after the Cork by-election. I remember having to face in the Seanad debates in the winter of last year the sneers and the jeers from the Fianna Fáil side. We were talking about "under another Government" and the Fianna Fáil Members would all chorus back, like so many hens when they see the oats, "When? When? When?" When was that going to be? It came very soon. That taught me a lesson. Admittedly it was a lesson learned at the expense of Fianna Fáil and not at my own expense. I will not boast about how long this Government are going to last. I make no prophecy about it at all. We could be gone in a month. We could be gone in a year. But my advice to Deputies opposite is do not make any prophecies either. Let us just see what the Irish people will do when the time comes.

Deputy O'Malley said that if only the Irish people had been kind enough to leave himself and his party in power the silly and childish system of patronage would have ended. He called it a silly and childish system. I too can call it that: it is a silly and childish system if it is a system of pure patronage. The incidence of, if you like, the more publicised ones being the appointment of judges is only the tip of the iceberg and every man in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and Labour knows that too. To go no further than the legal profession——

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

Leaving aside the appointment of judges, but not going too far away from it, I will tell the House something about patronage and about how it can operate at another level on the legal scene. The State every year pays out a very large sum, running into over six figures, in fees to barristers for doing the people's work. Now that money under the last Government, with a couple of exceptions, and I acknowledge the exceptions freely and frankly—they were trivial in number and in the amount of money involved—was allocated on a purely party political basis. I remember in my own days in the Bar Library when a by-election came around—I want to make this point if it is of any interest to anyone on the other side of the House: I was not a member of any political party and I had no fixed political convictions; certainly there were things I reacted very strongly against, and they were much the same then as they are now, but I was not committed to any political party in those days—it was observed that when a by-election came around certain members of the Bar Library used go around and whisper in certain ears: "We will expect to see you at certain church gates" and the clearly understood message was that for a token appearance at the church gate and the making of a speech in a by-election, a general election, a presidential election or a referendum campaign, the people's work would flow in in varying quantities to the man concerned. Not the briefs of the Fianna Fáil Party, not the personal litigation of Mr. de Valera, Mr. Lemass, Mr. MacEntee or anybody else, but the people's litigation would be steered into those hands. That was the understanding and that is what happened. When I was there there was less money around and I suppose the Fianna Fáil Government are entitled to both the praise and the blame for the rise in wages and the rise in prices and, in general, for everything having got dearer and dearer, but there was less money around then and a junior counsel making £3,000 to £3,500 a year was considered to be doing very, very well indeed.

I knew junior counsel in those days with wives and families pulling the devil by the tail with £1,000 a year or less, with no pension, with no insurance, with absolutely no way of protecting themselves if they should get sick; their practice just disappeared overnight like snow off a ditch. To these men were held out the glittering prospect of adding 50 per cent, 100 per cent, or, perhaps, 200 per cent, to their income would they but go down to the church gate in Quiltybough and speak for Fianna Fáil.

I know the legal profession is thought to be a crowd of grabbers, crooks, cheats and everything else. You may take it from me that the legal profession, by and large, works very hard for what it makes. There are some men in it who make quite a lot of money. I am out of touch with some but there may be a few people who make £15,000 a year. That compares very poorly, even at that, with certain members of other professions, with certain doctors, engineers, architects, accountants, people of that kind. There may be a couple of barristers at that level of £15,000. There are about 200 in the profession altogether or not far off that, and you can take it that most of these are very far from being rich men. Most of those are by no means in the category that one of the Fianna Fáil think-tanks spoke about recently when he said £10,000 a year was a respectable and legitimate aspiration for an ordinary man. They have to work very hard for their money. A young man with a wife and family might be excused, if he has got no particular political interest, for saying to himself: "All I have to do is go down now to Clonbur next Sunday and make a speech for Fianna Fáil, even though I have no interest in the party. It might be worth another £500 a year for me." That is reducing it, if you like, to absurdity, but that is the absurdity which existed.

The Parliamentary Secretary has a very low opinion of his fellow barristers.

(Interruptions.)

There should be only one speaker at a time.

There is such a thing as taking part in public life out of conviction.

If Deputy Bolton returned to the Dáil we might——

Personal references always beget personal references.

(Interruptions.)

Deputies must not indulge in cross-talk.

I want to tell Deputy Crowley that there has never been a body of men I have been prouder to associate with in my life than the Irish Bar, and if I had two lives I would spend one of them at the Irish Bar.

The Parliamentary Secretary has just said they go down to speak at church gates with no convictions.

(Interruptions.)

If Deputies continue to interrupt, the Deputy in possession is not being allowed to make his contribution. Deputies are being disorderly in constantly interrupting.

There is one side of this to which I have no objection. I think it is right and proper that political parties should get out and try to recruit support. That is as it should be, but look at the other side of it. A man who because of some flaw in his character, because of some hereditary blindness of soul, does not accept that Fianna Fáil is the Army of Destiny, does not believe that there is no alternative to Fianna Fáil, it is very perverse and disgusting of such a man not to accept such a concept. However, if there is such a man who is able to call his soul his own, he is faced with this situation, that for the mere price of a speech at the church gate he can double his income or, perhaps, treble it or, if he is lucky, strike the jackpot like two or three junior counsel have done over the last few years, and earn more from the State alone than the Chief Justice was being paid. A man going home to his wife and family confronted with that situation might be inclined to waver and say: "Does it really matter? Are they not all the same? I might as well go down and make a speech for Fianna Fáil." But there is some little thing inside of him which says: "I am damned if I am going to go along with that crowd." I do not want to use an offensive word about a party which contains many gentlemen, honourable people, but he may not feel that way about it and may say: "I am damned if I am going to sell myself even for another £500, even if it is going to pay the school fees, the rates, the rent, whatever it is."

That is the way a citizen of a free republic, a free Irish republic, ought to think and ought to be encouraged to think. That to me is a man worth having in this country, and that is the man who is left behind here over the years by Fianna Fáil. I have spoken about the Bar which I know something about. I have absolutely no doubt that what I am describing is true in every other profession to which public funds could be applied. If it is true of the Bar, what is there about the professions of architect, engineer, consultant, accountant, or anything else which might make it unlikely?

I will not listen to Deputy O'Malley or anybody else talking about patronage. This country is rotten with it, has been made rotten with it, and if this Government can kill it, it will be its proudest achievement in my eyes. There are people who could have been comfortable, who could have paid off their mortgages, who could have had holidays, who could have lived in nicer houses, given their wives and their children things, which they would not do because they would not sell out. If in the next list circulated to this House by way of a Parliamentary reply, you see, as you will see, a list of people getting State money for State work who, amazingly enough, are not cumann members of Fianna Fáil, are not Fianna Fáil ward healers or hatchetmen, the putters-up or pullers-down of posters, I do not apologise for that. These are men who stuck to their principles. These are men who resisted the temptation openly held out to them by Fianna Fáil and pressed upon them, to come into the service of that party. It is time that these men got a share of that money, because it is not Deputy Crowley's money or Deputy Dowling's money we are talking about it, it is the people's money.

Although I dislike and detest patronage and would like more than any other thing to be able to say of this Government, when it faces the people, that we have begun to put an end to it, I will not apologise if men who were left behind, who endured, in some cases, hardship rather than take the very easy way out of pretending to be Fianna Fáil supporters, now get some recognition. I hope that, when the score is evened, when one side catches up with the other, a system will be arrived at whereby all patronage will disappear. When the time comes when it is reasonable to say the score has been levelled I promise the people opposite will not find me making a sophistical defence for the continuance of patronage.

The Deputy sounds like Thomas Aquinas—"Oh! Lord give me grace, but not just yet."

It is like the Constituencies Bill. We listened to righteous fulminations over the past few days regarding this Bill and how outrageous it is of the Minister for Local Government to make this or that change. If the Minister had left the dog's breakfast which he found in the Department of Local Government when he arrived, in the shape of Deputy Molloy's plans and allowed it to become law—he had to make some change because the Constitution required it, in my view—but suppose he had been able to leave the Boland constituencies as they were, would he not have been thought the greatest baby? Would not everybody have been laughing? The trouble is that the record of this House does not record the smiles. Deputy Dowling opposite has a smile on his face and I know in my heart that he knows that I am talking sense and truth about this and Deputy Crowley is repressing a smile——

The remark I made was that Deputy Molloy has already denied that and called it a lie.

I was here for some of that discussion. Deputy Molloy denied that he had prepared a Bill. The Minister was willing to accept that no Bill had been drawn up but what had been drawn up was an attempt, much like Michael Angelo making sketches before producing the masterpiece. The sketches are nearly worth as much as the masterpiece.

We thought we had a masterpiece but find we have only sketches in the Government.

(Interruptions.)

Deputy Molloy found himself put into office in consequence of a convulsion in the Fianna Fáil Party. He planned a grandiose masterpiece which would plaster the walls of this House, the crucifixion of Fine Gael and Labour. He was preparing sketches toward the execution of this masterpiece. He never produced the masterpiece although he had time to do so and in my view constitutionally ought to have done it, but the sketches remained. We know what it would have looked like if he had gone on to paint the final job.

I think the Minister for Local Government was more than justified in mentioning this matter yesterday. Perhaps there were faults on both sides but he got a very surly time from Deputy Molloy who knows perfectly well that he had riding instructions. If he had not, his party would be guilty of a degree of foolishness which the public would not credit; whatever their other faults they are well able to look after themselves. Deputy Molloy was drawing up some kind of plan and thought he had all the time in the world to do it. As it turned out, he had not, but his sketches, studies towards this masterpiece, showing the obliteration so far as it could be done of Fine Gael and Labour, survive in the Custom House. The Minister for Local Government dug them out and presented them here yesterday and we saw what happened.

When Deputy Crowley talks about Thomas Aquinas, it is a very apposite thing to say because it calls a parallel instantly to mind. The defence I would make and have made in the House for what Deputy Tully is doing —I do not know if the Deputies opposite were present; Deputy Lalor was—is that we must protect ourselves against the consequences of the Boland constituencies which were clearly designed to buy cheap seats for Fianna Fáil. Deputy Desmond is on record I think, and certainly more than one Government Deputy is already on record as saying they would like an impartial fixing of constituencies. I should like that also but until such a thing can be built into the Constitution——

Fianna Fáil would not allow us to bring it in, not even a First Reading.

The Second Stage of the Constituencies Bill has already been disposed of.

I am sorry. The parallel was irresistibly called to mind by the literary reference—I am not sure if it was correct——

It is not correct, but very nearly.

I am afraid it is not, but it is near enough, a couple of hundred years out, but the comparison drawn by Deputy Crowley called it irresistibly to mind. The Minister for Local Government is involved—and I support him—in an operation which is intended to remove from the backs of the two parties in Government the handicap deliberately placed on them, as Deputies opposite know, by Deputy Boland. The people put us into Government this time notwithstanding that handicap. We overcame it. As Deputy Power said, in a good interruption the other evening, we played a blinder but the day of the match was badly chosen, or the coin was badly tossed or whatever way you like to put it. I am not a sportsman but no doubt there are many suitable metaphors. A blinder was played and we overcame the handicap even though we had to play into the wind, a very strong wind set up by Deputy Boland with his Constituencies Bill and we won the election.

Nobody has ever heard me boasting or gloating about winning the election. We could as easily lose one. We might at any time be out and sitting opposite again. I do not believe in boasting. But while that law is there we are still under that handicap, whatever side of the House we are on, and it cannot be left like that. We must redress the balance. Later, we shall see what can be done about a commission. I, for one, do not mind being on record as being in favour of it. Deputy Desmond has said the same thing and so has more than one other Government Deputy. The question of patronage is not so far away from it. I have said I am against it. I am against it; I do not like to see jobs being given simply because people are of a particular colour. I do not like it any more when they are Fine Gael than when they are Fianna Fáil, but the ruthless application of jobbery by Fianna Fáil at every level, down to the humblest roadmen in some counties, over the last half-generation is such that it would take a long time to see that the people whose principles prevented them from going along with that and from signing into the cumann, will at least get a fair crack of the whip. I am willing to defend that and the man who says: "I am not going to join those lousers"—that may be a rude word; I am using it in inverted commas. That might be the point of view of somebody. I am sure that word is used about us. If there is a Fianna Fáil road-mender somewhere to whom it is ever put up that he will get extra employment or an extra couple of weeks doing this or that if he will join the Fine Gael or Labour, I would say to that man: "I will stand by you and in so far as I can make sure that you are not left hungry I shall do it." I do not believe in patronage.

The Parliamentary Secretary must think that everybody is very naïve, that they are going to swallow the line he is giving out.

Everybody who is here knows I am speaking the naked truth.

That all principles are on one side and none on the other?

No, I do not say that. There are people on Deputy Crowley's side who are gentlemen from the tops of their heads to the soles of their feet. There are people on his side who, because of family inheritance or because of strong convictions about, let us say one particular thing—say a strong admiration for the late Mr. Seán Lemass and his pragmatic approach to economics or something like that—joined Fianna Fáil and they had to take the good with the bad.

They swallowed this thing but hated it. I know there are Fianna Fáil people who are decent and honourable and who hate these things. One of the sad things about the civil war, if I may go back that far, is that it tended to separate two people who in many ways were very similar and had a lot in common with each other, and put them in competition with one another and made the tools and weapons of that competition the giving out of jobs and reducing of ordinary people to servitude, because that is what it is, in other words doing with the Irish people exactly what the English did with them. That is my complaint. It is a lament.

We had done away with that. Now it has been reintroduced.

It started a long time before Fianna Fáil got into Government.

I would like to include Deputy Lalor in what I said about decent men on the other side. This being the Christmas season I will put it on record that in my dealings with him since he became Whip I have found him very honourable and very obliging.

For the first time I realise that the Parliamentary Secretary is also a good politician.

They had Santa Claus all the time.

In regard to the question of patronage, it is like Hitler calling himself the best democrat in Europe. Hitler used to roar to crowds massed in the stadium—they usually were not beating each other like the Fianna Fáil crowds at the Ard Fheis for they were usually too well drilled for that: "I am the greatest democrat in Europe". Although I do not want to sink to the level of people who, the other day, threw the word "fascist" across the House, when I hear complaints about patronage coming from the Fianna Fáil side I am reminded, just as Deputy Crowley was reminded of Thomas Aquinas, of Hitler calling himself the greatest democrat in Europe. Fianna Fáil were, and still would be if they were in, the greatest jobbers in Europe. When I say Europe I had better qualify it. There may be parts of Sicily or Calabria or Sardinia in which membership of certain organisations is necessary before you can hope to be——

A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I think you have been more than liberal with the Parliamentary Secretary in allowing him to go as far as Sicily on the Taoiseach's Estimate.

It is about the only place some of their Ministers have not been so far.

I would say one or two of them have been there. You do not learn trick-o'-the-loopery in Ireland.

Could we get back to the Taoiseach's Estimate and would Deputies avoid personal references?

I have done my best to make the point that I am against patronage. I was against it when Fianna Fáil exercised it and I certainly will be against it if it ever becomes apparent that this Government are exercising it for its own sake but I want to make another important point. I have already made it but let me end this part of my speech by summarising it. Over the years large numbers of people in every profession, in every walk of life, have been left behind, have not got their fair share of public money—I do not mean in the shape of hand-outs, I mean employment or mandates of one kind or another which are paid for by public money—simply because they were not supporters of Fianna Fáil.

You will notice, Sir, that I have been making that point for the last 20 minutes or so without once mentioning the magic word "Taca". The fact that I have been able to make this point, I hope forcefully and cogently, without even mentioning Taca is sufficient commentary on the truth of what I am saying. I will not speak about that organisation. It merely institutionalised, it erected into a formal pyramid, complete with Sphinxes, Deputy Blaney at one side and Deputy Haughey at the other, with the cryptic message: "Stay with us boys and we will see you right." That is all I want to say on the question of patronage. I hope I will not have left open to any misconception or misapprehension my absolute repudiation of the remarks Deputy O'Malley saw fit to make today about the judicial appointments. I have made every allowance I can to him for being well-meaning himself. If he was concerned with the breakthrough, with which I am willing to credit him, I compliment him on it but I simply will not take from that side allegations about patronage when we have seen the record of the last 16 years and when we have seen the obverse of it, the people who because of principle, preferred to paddle their own canoes and not go to Fianna Fáil looking for favours and jobs and money and who might, as Fianna Fáil were then predicting, never see the day when their ship would come in. I remember the respected Senator Yeats, now a vocal member of the Fianna Fáil delegation in the European Parliament, saying after the 1969 election he thought that in consequence of the people having shot down the 1968 referendum of Mr. Boland, Fianna Fáil would be in power for 50 years. It puts me in mind again of Hitler: "tausendjaehriges Reich".

Very knowledgeable.

They were hardly in for five months after that. It is like Ozymandias, King of Kings—if we are going to swap literary references —the fellow who had the message: "Look on my work, ye mighty and despair", and all that was left of the statue was a pair of giant stone feet, almost obliterated by the desert sands, nothing else. That is a stern warning against pride in political or any other kind of life. Senator Yeats thought they would be in for 50 years. I make no such assertion about us. I do not think anyone has a lease of any kind of life, human or political. What would this country have looked like after another 50 years of that kind of Government?

Look what it is like after eight months of your Government.

The Taoiseach referred to the question of the reform of Dáil procedure. Before I say anything about that, I want to say something about a matter which is very closely connected with it. Criticisms were thrown across this House in the last month or so about the state of business and people asked why we were not getting on with the business. The record will show that the number of Bills passed by this House since the 1st May, which was the date on which the Dáil first met after the election of the Taoiseach, is about the same as the yearly average for the few years previously. This does not support the contention we have heard from the other side that legislation is not forthcoming. There is a great amount of legislation forthcoming and I am wondering whether our present sitting habits will be adequate to cope with it. I do not wish my remarks to be taken as a news item because I say this in a rhetoric rather than in a serious sense. Some of this legislation is proximate while some of it is more imminent. I am not claiming that we have been all that much faster in regard to legislation as was the position in the previous year and I admit freely that some of the Bills passed, such as the one passed this morning, were non-contentious and many of them, but not as many as Fianna Fáil pretend, were at an advanced stage of preparation when we took office. But it is not true that the legislative programme this year, despite the disruption caused by the change of Government, has been any slower than in previous years.

I noticed two curious aspects of the criticism from the other side in regard to Dáil business. One was that we were filling in time or freewheeling in bringing forward Estimates, et cetera. It is a question of which side one is on or of how well one is pleased to have it both ways. Seventeen Estimates were discussed since this Government took office. Some of these were discussed completely, that is, to the stage where they were passed, while others did not reach that stage and were hanging until yesterday. Last year the number was ten while in the previous year it was 12 and in the year before that the figure was 18. Estimates involve this House approving the allocation of staggering sums of money for the public service. More of those items have been discussed in the Dáil since the change of Government than had been discussed in an average year for some time past. Therefore, I reject, first, the idea that less legislation has gone through this year and, secondly, any idea that there was any sort of freewheeling or of unnecessary stringing out of Estimates. If it is not right that we should discuss Estimates who will be the first person to say so? Is it to be somebody from the Opposition who will will say that we have no business discussing the allocation of, say, £300 million for a Department of State?

Nobody from this side said that.

Either we debate Estimates or we do not debate them.

They must be debated.

Criticism was levelled at us both within the House and outside it in that we were spending too much time on Estimates. That criticism began building up about two months ago but we have not had much of it during the past couple of weeks. Debates on Estimates might be curtailed profitably but who will say that they should be ruled out altogether or that there should be any limit on the amount of time devoted to debating them?

The campaign for the Monaghan by-election was relatively short but it would have been within the power of the Minister for Local Government, had he so chosen, to have fixed the election for a week later than the day on which it was held. I will make the Opposition a present of this and say that the incidence of a by-election during a Dáil session has a decelerating effect on business. The reason for this is clear. Our system of by-elections, whereby they can be held at any time of the year and regardless of whether the Dáil is in session, means that there is pressure on Deputies and workers on all sides to get away to the constituency concerned and to stay there. I need hardly spell this out for the two warriors sitting opposite me because they have been here for longer than I but one learns fast. In the event of a by-election the Government are obliged, in as far as possible, to avoid issues of a contentious nature which might result in a vote. The fact that Deputy Dowling is scribbling away suggests to me that he is man enough to take that point and recognise the veracity of it and that he will not make hay of it as soon as I sit down.

We are the party of reality.

In that case I hope they will realise the way things are now.

The record of by-elections during the past few years will show that the last Government introduced Estimate after Estimate or Second Stages of Bills which they then held over. Knowing that this criticism of us to which I refer was circulating, the newspapers picked it up and had some untrue articles in the papers with such headings as "Taoiseach very worried about state of business"; "Cosgrave raps..." this or that Minister. What is true is that the business here decelerated during the by-election but I am sorry to say that that is part of the system. I am not endeavouring to make a partisan speech. I would hope that we would look clearly at this situation. It is a separate question and one on which I have a very open mind. If there was any co-operation from the other side in relation to it I would be willing to approach it in an open way. On reading this newspaper criticism of us I checked on what had occurred during the 19th Dáil when Fianna Fáil were in control and I found that six by-elections were held during that period—one in Dublin South-West and one each in Kildare and Longford-Westmeath, which were held simultaneously, one in Donegal and one in South County Dublin, which were held simultaneously also, and another in Mid-Cork. Of these six one of the pairs—the Longford-Westmeath and the Kildare by-elections —were held while the Dáil was in recess. The same applied to the Mid-Cork one and in both cases I understand that the writ was moved on the last day of the Dáil session. The others were fought at times when the Dáil was in session. I recall the County Donegal one as being very trying in that the weather conditions were extremely bad and, also, of course, we lost it. The periods of those by-elections were ones in which there was only one vote taken in the Dáil and this was at the conclusion of the then Government's Prices and Incomes Bill which was challenged by the Labour Party. That happened at about the beginning of December, 1970. The Government had to bring back every single one of their available Deputies to fight off that vote. The result of the vote was 70 to 41.

You should keep your troops in order.

The Government had 75 Deputies. There were probably a few who were laid up or who had to hold the fort. They had to bring back every one of the Deputies from Donegal, as well as those from South County Dublin. That must have been a major nuisance. It must have been reckoned to give the Opposition a better chance. That was the only bit of contentious business in the entire period of these two by-elections. That is the way it is always done. If suggestions were forthcoming from the other side as to how that could be avoided I should be glad to have them.

The system here whereby by-elections can take place as soon as they are called ought, perhaps to be amended. I know there is the argument that a constituency cannot be left without representation. It is said that a three or four-seat constituency cannot be left short of one of its Deputies, particularly a three-seat constituency. Weighed against the deceleration in Dáil business I wonder whether this system is a good one.

Two things could be done. We could have legislation which would qualify the constitutional references to by-elections in such a way that they would not be held while the Dáil was in session or within three weeks of the Dáil going into recess, or we could have an understanding between the parties that by-elections would be conducted by the people on the ground and other party members would keep away from them. The latter suggestion is a rather unrealistic one. The people who would be inclined to cheat would be the Opposition. I am not speaking of the present Opposition but of any Opposition. They would be the ones who would be inclined to slip away to help a man by addressing a meeting. If there was a vote they would be the ones to be beaten anyway and it would only be a question of being down by three, four, five or six votes. It might not be easy to arrange for a truce.

It is completely unrealistic to expect politicians not to become involved in by-elections.

I accept the criticism that it seems unrealistic and that it might be hard to work. If Deputy Crowley has a suggestion I will give way to him. I am trying to be constructive. I see a real difficulty here in that the important business of the Estimates, which have to be discussed, has been discussed but other business which might be more important has been left behind in the queue. There is no use denying that. That happened on previous occasions also.

Elections are so fundamental to democracy they cannot be tampered with at the whim of a Chief Whip or anybody else. Elections of any type are fundamental to democracy.

Does it matter all that much if Monaghan is left without a third Deputy, or if Dublin South-West or South County, or Kildare or Longford is left without a Deputy for a few weeks?

It depends on the calibre of the Deputy.

It depends on the chances and the timing and everything else.

That is politics.

Of course it is politics. The Deputy is blowing hot and cold. If that is politics, let us not have bleating about the work of this House. Let us not complain about its being held up.

There was no bleating about the work during the by-election. There was bleating long before the by-election.

There was non-stop bleating.

Not during the by-election. Before the election was called there was bleating.

Once the by-election was called there was non-stop bleating. There were non-stop complaints about the way the House was going. I received complaints over the telephone and in letters and in the House and from my opposite number—with a smile because he knew how much they were worth—to get some real business on. Deputy Crowley knows that is the case. He knows that is what we have to put up with. He cannot have it both ways. Either we have a realistic system of by-elections or we reconcile ourselves to the Dáil slowing down and not doing any serious business when a by-election is on.

The Deputy is talking about two or three weeks at a maximum. Effectively, he is talking about one week before the by-election.

How many weeks have we been in session now?

We are talking about by-elections.

How many weeks have we been in session since the end of October? It must be eight or nine weeks. What fraction of that nine weeks is three weeks? It is a big fraction.

If you are going to start playing about with fractions it depends on the period you take.

This session has been on for eight or nine weeks. You can juggle this as you like. According to the Opposition—and I will not quibble about it—we spent three of the eight or nine weeks doing work which was certainly important—I am not in any way trying to suggest that it was not important—but which would not have mattered an awful lot if it had not been done.

It was not contentious work, but that does not necessarily make it unimportant.

No, it does not. But let us not then have complaints from the other side about the work of the House not being proceeded with. Once the by-election started the complaints came in thick and fast that we were putting in Estimate after Estimate. I accept that the business was ordered somewhat in that way. In doing that, we were merely following the pattern laid down by previous Governments for the reason, as Deputy Crowley knows well, that if the Government are going to have their Deputies at the by-election the work of this House decelerates. For some reason which is traditional, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach seems to have some responsibility for the way the House operates in the short term as well as in the long term. I do not like to see time being spent on unnecessary debate. It is all very well for Deputy Crowley to say that a debate is important and that a certain subject must get a full debate. It is also true that I have not been here very long but I have been here long enough to know the difference between genuine debate and wasting time. While there may be times when the Government are put in the position where they have to protract a debate beyond a certain hour—and I hope the Press or the public listening to this are not going to make a meal out of it because I am only saying what everybody knows or will discover if he takes the trouble to inquire—this seems to have been the practice over the years. A Government may find it convenient to protract business beyond a certain hour.

I remember last July there was great pressure to get the work of the House finished. There was much contentious business particularly the Budget and the Finance Bill. The Second Stage of the Finance Bill was basically merely an introduction to the detailed taxation provisions and other provisions which the Bill contained.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 14th December, 1973.
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