If the Minister thinks it will, then there is an obligation on him to put in a provision to prevent that happening. He could do that by repealing the relevant section of the 1939 Act and, if he does not wish to do that, he could put another section into this Bill to prevent that happening. We cannot speculate as to what other forms of emergency power legislation may arise in the future. We will have to wait and see. We express the hope, not with any great confidence, that no more such legislation will arise, but far more onerous Bills could arise in the future than the one we are discussing now, serious as it is.
One of the difficulties about this seven-day or nine-day period—the Minister says he will take steps to ensure it will not be a nine-day period—is the fact that the ordinary prison rules will not presumably apply to people detained because they will not necessarily be detained in a prison. The section says they may be detained at some other convenient place. Whatever that may be I am not too sure. I suppose it could be a small Garda station, or a prison, or some other convenient place. It would, I suppose, be rather illogical if prison rules applied in these places. One is concerned, therefore, that the detainee should have access to legal and medical advice. These would be accessible to him in a prison. His family and relatives should be informed as to his whereabouts. The Minister should amend this Bill to cover that situation. On Committee Stage, if the Bill goes that far, we will certainly introduce amendments to ensure regulations being made allowing for access to legal and medical advice. A person detained for seven, or nine, days should not be any worse off in terms of his rights compared with somebody remanded in custody pending trial. Such a person while in custody is entitled to see his solicitor, every day if he so wishes, and to see the prison doctor, every day if he so wishes. There should also be provision for the immediate notification of the family of the individual detained.
I read the Minister's introductory speech twice last night. It did not take very long. It covers just two pages. It is unfortunate in a matter of great moment like this we should get just two pages from the Minister: "This is what is in the Bill. You can like it or lump it and I do not greatly care whether you like it or lump it because I have a majority of four, five or six, or whatever it is, behind me and we will pass the Bill anyway and I will just sit down now and hear what you have to say and, despite what anyone says here or elsewhere, the Bill will go through." Even though the Bill is so short there are many matters in it that are unusual, indeed unique, matters that have not been seen for 30 years to this very day and one would have expected that these would have been explained and their merits and demerits gone into in much greater detail.
One would have hoped, above all else, that the need for such provisions would have been adequately demonstrated. It has not. It is quite patent it has not. All we had demonstrated in the long recital from the Taoiseach was the number of very serious crimes which have taken place over the last three-and-a-half years. Long as the list is, it was by no means complete. He could have made as long a list again of all kinds of serious problems that have taken place since this Government came to office. The bringing into the building housing the Special Criminal Court of explosives and the use of those explosives by prisoners to blow their way out of the cells was one thing aimed at the administration of justice. The other was the tragic and horrible murder of the British Ambassador and the young lady travelling with him. Having given us the list of crimes, the Taoiseach described them as culminating in these two most serious of all.
It has been made clear by numerous speakers on this side and by some, I think, on the Government side, and not denied by anyone, that if this state of emergency we now enjoy had been in existence two or three months ago neither of these two crimes would have been inhibited, these two crimes which are the justification for this legislation. The existence of a state of emergency would not have inhibited these crimes or prevented them happening. It would not have prevented those things happening because legislation was not relevant to them. What was relevant to them was ordinary police security. Unfortunately, it fell down and fell down very seriously. I am sorry to have to say that but it is undeniable. The primary reason it fell down was because of the unhappiness so rampant in the force today and the foolish way it is being administered at present—the inspections taking place at present about which there are endless complaints.
It is hard to believe that, on the one hand, we have the Government telling us that we have a state of national emergency and at the same time senior officers of the Garda Síochána going around the country reprimanding sergeants and gardaí in country stations because their bicycles are not sufficiently polished and because minute and technical remenants of regulations which might have had some bearing 30 or 40 years ago, but which have none whatever today, are not being complied with. That is a futile exercise and does cause the unhappiness and disaffection which exists today and which, in turn, may well be responsible to quite a degree for the unfortunate breaches of security which have happened over the past year or two.
I have refrained from making the kind of speech the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs made—recriminations about what happened in the past; justifications for what he did in the past; half-hearted apologies for the fact that he has been held up in public as the leading hypocrite in this country. I have not gone into that at all even though I have every justification for doing so.
Before I conclude I want to refer, not to all the goodies that are in Volume 264 of the Official Report and what was said on 29th and 30th November, 1972, and 1st December, 1972, but to what happened in this House on 15th February, 1966. There was an official Labour Party Bill, before the House, supported by all members of the Labour Party which then, happily for the Labour Party, did not contain the present Minister for Posts and Telegraphs but a group of people whom he in that very year described as poltroons, when the entirety of the Labour Party sought to get this House to repeal the Offences Against the State Acts of 1939 and 1940. There was a debate on that Bill in which a number of Labour speakers put forward the necessity for repealing those Acts on the grounds that they were improper, excessive and undesirable and which, in a democratic society, should not exist. It was described as the official view of the Labour Party and ratified at annual party conferences. The then Minister for Justice, now Senator Lenihan, said that the purpose of the Acts was to enable the State, in times of difficulty, to defend itself and its institutions and that it would be unwise to seek to repeal them. There was a division called. The whole Labour Party, as it then existed, voted for the repeal of those two Acts and they were supported by quite a number of Fine Gael Members. I was looking at the list and there are some very interesting people who voted at that time for the repeal of the Offences Against the State Act. One of them must be one of the greatest converts of all time from his views as of 15th February, 1966, the present Minister for Defence, then Deputy Donegan, who was very irked indeed that there should be such disgraceful and onerous laws on the statute book as the Offences Against the State Acts of 1939 and 1940. Another was Deputy Richie Ryan, now Minister for Finance. Another was Deputy James Tully—of course he was in the Labour Party anyway—and yet another was Deputy Clinton, now Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, indeed a fairly representative list of people who now form the greatest law and order government this country, I suppose even Europe, has ever known.
The only remaining thing I want to say in relation to this Bill and the whole package now before us is to contrast, as I did to some extent the other day, the atmosphere that exists here today, existed yesterday and the day before in the House in relation to the debate now taking place, and about which there is disagreement in the House as there was before, with that which existed here in November and December, 1972. I want to contrast the helpful and constructive speeches made here today, yesterday and the day before from these benches with the kind of speeches made by, above all others, the two Ministers who now sit opposite me, the Ministers for Justice and Posts and Telegraphs, one of whom described the Offences Against the State Act, 1972, as a fraud, the other of whom described that Act as something that one would not see even on the statute book of South Africa. If that Act could not even be seen on the statute book of South Africa are there words or expressions in the English language strong enough to describe the Bill we are debating today? I do not think there are. I suppose one could say that, outside of communist countries, South Africa is the most repressive country in the world today. If the 1972 Bill was so bad that it would not even be in the statute book of South Africa, in the statute book of what country could this Bill and the motion we passed last night be placed?
It has been remarked by a number of speakers here that there is no feeling of an emergency in the country at present. So far as security is concerned at any rate there is a very strong feeling that can best be summed up by a headline I saw in one of this morning's newspapers. We owe £889 million in foreign debts. That is certainly an emergency. But there is no feeling of emergency in the sense of present and gripping fear felt by people. I should like to contrast that feeling today, which is best demonstrated by the fact that outside the gates of this House, last night, anyway, and again this morning when I came in, and presumably it is still the same, there was not one person other than a couple of gardaí having a chat and the odd foreign tourist, with the nights of 28th and 29th November, 1972, when there were 6,000 people howling in Molesworth Street, howling to burn this House down? Do you remember on that night when there were 1,000 unarmed gardaí at the front and back of this House? Do you remember on that night when there were 100 armed troops in the roadway between the back of Government Buildings and the side of the new block here waiting to be called in if and when the 1,000 gardaí had to give way under the assaults of the mob which assaulted them continuously for two nights? Do you recall that, at that time, there were Members of Parliament for Northern Ireland egging on that mob? Do you recall that, at that time, there were Members of this House giving every succour and encouragement to that mob? Go out to Molesworth Street today; you will meet three gardaí and they are not even needed. There is the occasional tourist walking up and down, looking in and wondering what the building is.
That is the difference between 1972 when people in this House had to stand up and be counted and when people in this House had to defy a mob 50 yards from the gates who were endeavouring to burn down this House and everyone in it. That was the time when it took courage to deal with the people we hear so roundly condemned by all and sundry today but when I and my fellow members in Government in 1970, 1971 and 1972 deplored the activities of those subversives and condemned them we got very little sympathy in this House.
There was a very different atmosphere in this House then from what is here now and there was a very different atmosphere outside the House. The people who happen to be in Government at this time are very lucky indeed that there are people on this side of the House making the kind of speeches that are being made, suggesting amendments to Bills, trying to help out and trying to preserve some sanity at a time when the only question of a national emergency is not an emergency that can be cured by what we are discussing today. It can only be cured by the resolution of the Government to tackle the real problems and, if they are not prepared to do it, let them get out. They should call an election in order that the people can do what they so patently want to do, namely, to elect a Government who can deal with the problems.
Let me remind the members of the Government that they are not dealing with a national emergency in security at this time. There were people who had to deal with it in November, 1972, and precious little help they got on that occasion to deal with what was a real emergency. We showed we could do it and, on our return to power, not alone can we deal with the real security emergency as we did in those days but we can deal with the even more important economic emergency that is paralysing the country. For the sake of the country that is what we seek above all else to have the opportunity to do very soon.